Yes, if the comics are legally found to constitute “indecency,” but regulations cannot prevent adults from viewing or buying merely indecent material. For instance, local laws could require stores to place adult comics on high shelves, but localities could not simply ban all adult comics or unduly hassle adults who want them. In numerous cases — such as Butler v. Michigan, Bolger v. Youngs Drug Products Corp., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union and Sable Communications v. FCC — the Supreme Court has overturned bans on merely indecent material, and has ruled that adults must be allowed access to it, even when a few children might improperly be exposed to adult material.

In FCC v. Pacifica, the Supreme Court defined “indecency” as "language (or an image) that describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards … sexual or excretory activities and organs … when there is a reasonable risk that children may be in the audience."

Of course, when there is no reasonable risk that children will be in the audience, or when reasonable precautions keep most children out, indecency law is often a poor justification for censorship. That’s one reason why the Supreme Court has allowed indecent material to appear on the Internet, cable TV, and phone-sex lines, in mailings, in traditional novels and books, and also in pictorial magazines that are kept out of children’s reach.

Further, not all sexual material is patently offensive. Otherwise, stores might have to sell standard encyclopedias and health textbooks from high shelves — and even the Bible might suffer such treatment to prevent children from reading its erotic Song of Solomon without supervision. Indecency law is strongest in regulating non-cable television and radio broadcasts.