UPDATE: Comixology says it, not Apple, was responsible for blocking an issue of the Saga comic that contained images of gay sex. Story here.
ALISON FLOOD | The Guardian
New edition of Saga comic cannot be sold through iOS apps, prompting fury from authors. Read this story on the Guardian here.
New edition of Saga comic cannot be sold through iOS apps, prompting fury from authors
Two “postage stamp-sized images of gay sex” have led Apple to ban an acclaimed new comic by Brian K Vaughan, the award-winning author has announced.
Vaughan, who has won multiple prizes from the comic book industry for his work on series including Ex Machina and Y: The Last Man, has issued a statement condemning Apple’s treatment of the latest issue of Saga. Pitched by its publisher Image Comics as “for mature readers”, the science fiction series follows the adventures of new parents Marko and Alana as they struggle to raise their child during a never-ending galactic war. Out this week, the new issue features two small images of gay sex – or, as Locke and Key author Joe Hill described them, “an image of a man with a TV set for a head, and a picture on that TV set of a man giving a blow job” – which can be seen on the Comic Book Resources website..
“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,” said Vaughan in a statement on his publisher’s website.
“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 [Staples, the comic’s artist] 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.”
The ban is being vehemently protested by the books industry. Hill called it “bullshit”, while Neuromancer author William Gibson described the move as “homophobic adult comic-banning embarrassment”, adding on Twitter: “What a sad place for such a supposedly smart firm to find itself, in 2013.”
“This is shitty and wrong and Apple’s AppStore needs to get out of the censorship business. I don’t need help figuring out what is and isn’t appropriate for me to read; I’m capable of doing that myself. Thanks, though,” wrote Hill on his blog. “Let’s also note that this is all about the sex in question being of the gay variety. There’s plenty of similar heterosexual content schmeered all over the app store and the iTunes music store … But this microscopic image of a dude giving a blow? Apple ain’t having it. And they’ve decided you aren’t either.”
Charlie Jane Anders at science fiction site io9 said that most issues of Saga featured “some intense stuff, including straight sex, bloody violence, and childbirth. There are bare breasts, surreal images, and things like child prostitution. And despite some mental images that might freak you out a bit, that’s why Saga is such a great and popular comic – it depicts a future that feels real”.
“If you have to choose between Saga’s gritty, insane view of the future and Apple’s sterile, mindless version – and Apple is making you choose – pick Saga’s, every time. It’s the version that feels like one you could actually live in,” wrote Anders.
Vaughan suggested readers either visit their “friendly neighbourhood comics shop” to pick up a physical copy of the issue instead – it is out today – or download it directly through sites such as Image Comics, or to non-Apple devices. “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?” he said.
The comic is, however, not currently available through the iBookstore, and Apple has not responded to a request for comment.
Last year, Apple starred out the title of Naomi Wolf’s Vagina, while Salwa Al Neimi’s erotic novel The Proof of the Honey was pulled from the Apple store because it featured a naked bottom on the cover.
It is now on sale in the store after publisher Europa Editions kicked up a fuss. And in 2010, a comic book version of Ulysses was ruled to be too racy for Apple – but the company later changed its mind about allowing a naked Buck Mulligan to be shown in an iPad application, and the complete version of Ulysses Seen is also now available.
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