Saga #12 which hit stores today has been banned by Apple, so no getting it there or on apps like comiXology or the Image app for the iPad and iPhone. You will be able to buy it on the comiXology website (and then probably download it from that purchase). The problem appears to be gay oral sex and the two pages below which shows gay oral sex and that act’s completion.

I read the comic already and that small detail totally over my head. There’s a scene in one of the earlier issues where we see the same character having “doggy style” sex, which I guess is totally ok with Apple. We’re digging to see if we can find an example of straight oral sex being sold.

Writer Brian K. Vaughan has released the following statement on the issue:

As has hopefully been clear from the first page of our first issue, SAGA is a series for the proverbial “mature reader.”  Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps.  This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go.  Fiona and I could always edit the images in question, but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing shit.

Apologies to everyone who reads our series on iPads or iPhones, but here are your alternatives for Wednesday:

1) Head over to you friendly neighborhood comics shop and pick up a physical copy of our issue that you can have and hold forever.

2) While you’re at it, don’t forget to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which helps protect retailers who are brave enough to carry work that some in their communities might consider offensive.  You can find signed copies of Saga at the CBLDF site right now.

3) Download the issue directly through sites like https://comics.imagecomics.com or on your non-Apple smartphone or tablet.

4) If all else fails, you might be able to find SAGA #12 in Apple’s iBookstore, which apparently sometimes allows more adult material to be sold than through its apps.  Crazy, right?

Anyway, special thanks to Eric Stephenson and everyone at Image for supporting our decision, and for always being so supportive of creators.  Sorry again to readers for the inconvenience, but I hope everyone will be able to find an issue that Fiona and I are particularly proud of.  And after you do, please check out PanelSyndicate.com, the new digital comics site I own with artist Marcos Martin, which remains 100% uncensored by corporate overlords.

The questionable material….

I’d like to point out in this same issue this guy explodes in a gruesome manner, which is totally ok:

It’s new comic book day tomorrow, what’s everyone getting?

Around the Tubes

ComicsAlliance – McFarlane Reveals ‘The Walking Dead’ TV Show Series 4 Action Figures – Now I can have my Carl toy get all my other toys killed.

Bleeding Cool – Apple Censors 1500 French Comics From App Store – Hrm.

Around the Tubes Reviews

CBR – Guardians of the Galaxy Infinite Comic #3

CBR – Locke & Key: Omega #4

Flickering Myth – Northlanders Vol. 7: The Icelandic Trilogy

Almost 60 years ago (1954), the United States Senate went about public hearings held by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Much like with video games today, back then comic books were being blamed for delinquency, violence and homosexuality. The hearings were inspired in large part by the book Seduction of the Innocent, by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham.

Over the years, there’s been many questions as to Dr. Wertham’s claims. His books were poorly cited leaving the actual evidence he claimed as proof up for debate. With his papers released in 2010 by the Library Congress, a new article today shows the doctor was full of shit. Not only did he fudge data, he outright lied in his report and study. The article is written by Carol Tilley and published in a recent issue of Information and Culture: A Journal of History.

An article hit today covering the news. As an example Tilley found:

Tilley’s article also cites the case of Dorothy, a 13-year-old whose chronic truancy Wertham ascribed to her admiration for the comic book heroine Sheena and “crime comics,” omitting any mention of other factors listed in her case notes, such as her low intelligence, her reading disability, her gang membership, her sexual activity and her status as a runaway. Wertham also didn’t reveal that he never personally met or observed Dorothy; she was the patient of his associate, Dr. Hilde Mosse.

These hearings are often blamed as to part of the eventual decline of the comic book industry, putting it in a tailspin and shedding a light on it for which it never recovered. Even more important, today entertainment, especially video games are going through the same situation. Image 60 years from now when negative claims are also found out to be utter rubbish, just like this has.

With recent tragedies on everyone’s minds, some people are looking for a cause and culprit other than the shooters and perpetrators of the Aurora and Sandy Hook tragedies. Unfortunately some are blaming media, including video games, for violent behavior in individuals. We know this isn’t the case; banning or regulating media content even more won’t solve the issue.

As if a repeat of a television show we’ve seen before, there’s talk of more hearings and federally funded studies. Christopher J. Ferguson, the chair of the Texas A&M International University’s department of psychology and communication, among others including federally funded studies, have shown there’s no link between violent video games and real world violence like mass shooting, bullying or youth aggression. There’s no need for more federal studies, when there’s been federal studies completed. Past research has been mixed, at best, and often weakened by substantial methodological flaws.

The facts also back up no connection. While video game sales have increased, according to the FBI’s own statistics, violent crime has been steadily decreasing. In 2011, violent crimes nationwide decreased 3.8% from 2010. Since 2002, it’s decreased 15.5%. This is all during the time when games like Call of Duty and Halo have dominated sales.

At the same time, federal courts – including the Supreme Court – have routinely held that government regulation of media, including video games, is unconstitutional.  Funding more studies – or passing laws that then get fought out in courts – costs taxpayers millions of dollars. That’s money better spent on treating the mentally ill or shoring up and improving background checks for weapons purchases.

We’ve seen these same conversations before. In the 1950s comic books were blamed for truancy, violence and homosexuality in youth. This lead to hearings in the United States Senate. We look back on this piece of history and laugh out how ludicrous this claim was then. It’s just as ludicrous today when the conversation turns to video games and their affects.

Act Now!

The Entertainment Consumers Association has put together an easy to send email that will send a message to your Representative in the House, two Senators and President Obama. It takes less than a minute to do and adding your voice to reiterate that entertainment does NOT cause violence might help the focus turn to factors that actually do.

There’s no easy solution to prevent violence like these events. But focusing on the wrong things isn’t the answer. Make your voice heard today.

Full Disclosure: Brett Schenker is a consultant for the ECA

David Axe and Tim Hamilton‘s latest work, Army of God, has gotten the attention of the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The entity has confiscated the majority of an advance payment to Hamilton, claiming that they were laundering the money for onward transfer to a terrorist organization.

The graphic novel is a non-fiction telling of Joseph Kony’s activities in the Congo. The graphic novel, written by journalist Axe, was originally serialized on the Website Cartoon Movement, and is being published next year by Public Affairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.

Earlier in December the money was seized when Hamilton’s agent attempted to wire the advance payment for extra chapters that the artist illustrated for the graphic collection. When Hamilton’s agent contacted the bank to find out more, he was told that the party holding the funds was the federal wire fraud unit, which suspected that the creators were laundering funds for a terrorist organization.

The federal banking authority, which monitors every wire, foreign and domestic, apparently seized the funds due to the title of the book, which threw up a red flag.

At the time of the press release about this issue, the funds have not been released to Hamilton or his agent despite the involvement of lawyers. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has also been contacted and apprised of the situation.

The book itself is listed with Amazon and in Public Affairs’ online catalog.

Here’s the solicit text of the book:

It started with a visit from spirits. In 1991, Joseph Kony, the leader of a Ugandan rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, claimed that spiritual beings had come to him, instructing him to lead brutal raids against civilians supporting the Ugandan government. In the decades since, wars have been waged to supplant him, yet for all the horror and condemnation his brutality has aroused around the world, Joseph Kony still survives. In ARMY OF GOD, war correspondent David Axe collaborates with illustrator Tim Hamilton to create the first-ever graphic account of the global phenomenon surrounding Kony, from the chaos he has left behind to the long campaign to defeat him for good.

David Axe is a freelance reporter based in Columbia, South Carolina. Since 2005 he has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Chad, Congo and other conflict zones, for Wired, the BBC, Salon, Esquire, C-SPAN, Voice of America and many others. David is the author of War Fix, War is Boring, and, most recently, The Accidental Candidate.

Tim Hamilton is a Brooklyn artist who has produced illustrations for The New York Times, Cicada magazine, DC comics, Marvel comics, Mad magazine, Nickelodeon magazine, and Lifetime. He adapted Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 into a graphic novel, which was nominated for an Eisner award.

To say this is an overstretch by the federal government is an understatement. It violates first amendment speech as well as interferes with the journalistic process. I’m not even sure how one would connect these dots to begin with.

Graphic journalist Matt Bors, who edited the graphic novel offers:

OFAC hasn’t responded to my request for comment yet, but their answering machine urged me to visit the U.S. Treasury’s website. Comics wouldn’t be a great way to fund terrorism. They don’t pay very well. But now we know no one fighting terrorism knows how to use Google, which sure makes me feel safe.

The weekend is almost here and I plan on reading a hell of a lot of comics, you?

Around the Blogs:

CBLDF – Facebook Removes Israeli Artist’s Cartoons – Censorship of any sort is unacceptable.

CBC – Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 depicted in graphic novel “Bloody Saturday” – Could be a cool read.

Around the Tubes Reviews:

MTV Geek – Before Watchmen: Comedian #1

CBR – Saga #4

Complex – Review: “Saga” Once Again Proves That It’s The Best Comic Book Series You’re Not Reading

It’s new comic book day, what’s everyone getting?

Around the Blogs:

Bleeding Cool – A Very Gay Orbital Party For Astonishing X-Men #51 – Awesome to see.

CBLDF – Artistic Censorship Continues to Plague Post-Revolutionary Tunisia – Sad to see.

MTV Geek – ‘Before Watchmen: Comedian’ Rewrites History In Controversial First Issue…But Did It Go Too Far? – Very bad taste.

Around the Tubes Reviews:

CBR – Avengers Vs. X-Men: Infinite #6

Think about the children!  A South Carolina library has pulled two copies of Alan Moore‘s Neonomicon from it’s shelves pending a review after a parent complained their child checked it out and it contained pornographic pictures.  The book was in the “adult section” of the library but children over the age of 13 can check out items from that section with a parent’s permission.  The mother even looked at the book before her kid checked it out.  From a CBS 7 article:

It looked like a child’s book.  I flipped through it, and thought it was ok for her to check out.

Right there, I think you lose your right to complain.  The mother continues:

“I really think if they’re going to carry this type of material there needs to be a rating on it,”  Gaske says.  “There’s ratings on movies, music, video games.  My daughter cannot go to the video game store and get a mature video game without me there.”

And right there, her argument goes out the window, because as she admits, she was there, she was present, she did ok her daughter checking out the book.

The library has defended the book saying they’ve never had a rating system and it’s up to the parent to decide what’s appropriate for their children.  For now two books have been pulled pending a review.  The mother has filed a complaint.

In early May, a panel of five Tunisian judges Thursday convicted TV magnate Nabil Karoui of “disturbing public order” and “threatening public morals” by broadcasting the French animated movie Persepolis, based on the acclaimed graphic novel Marjane Satrapi.  Karoui was fined $1,600 while two members of his staff were each fined $800.  Prosecutors and lawyers representing Islamist groups felt they should be sentenced up to five years and a few even called for the death penalty.

The verdict was posted on a courtroom wall and the judges felt the case had brought out many to argue over the limits of free speech in a fledgling democracy just 15 months after a revolution.  Some felt the decision was a sign that the country would still limit speech that devout Muslims consider offensive and showed boundaries for the freedom of the press.

The U.S. ambassador to Tunisia, Gordon Gray, issued a statement condemning the decision.

I am concerned and disappointed by this conviction for Nessma television’s broadcast of an animated film previously approved for distribution by the Tunisian government.  His conviction raises serious concerns about tolerance and freedom of expression in the new Tunisia.

Interestingly enough before the revolution, the Tunisian government had issued a certification approving Persepolis for showing in the country.  Clerics felt the movie insulted Muslim values because it shows the face of God during a scene where he talks to the main character in the movie.