Caitlin McCabe

With the recent rejection of the collected edition of the comic series Fearful Hunter from the Apple store, it looks like comic publisher Northwest Press has become another victim of Apple’s vague content policies. As Apple has become a major digital platform for comics, there has been ongoing controversy surrounding what Apple perceives as “appropriate” content for its digital shelves — specifically when it comes to the depiction of homosexuality. From the confusing initial non-release of Image’s Saga #12 to the outright removal of Sex Criminals from the iOS app, Apple has a right to establish their own content policies to reject any content that they determine to be inappropriate, but the enforcement of those policies has been inconsistent at best. Northwest Press — a publisher best known for their large and varied collection of queer comics, many of which have received critical acclaim and awards — is no stranger, though, to Apple’s policies or their inconsistency when it comes to when and how they enforce them. In the early days of Northwest Press’ entry into the digital marketplace, Apple rejected their illustrated adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest for its depictions of male nudity. As Matt […]

In the upcoming Winter 2014 issue of Index on Censorship magazine, political cartoonist Martin Rowson interviewed long-time free speech advocate and CBLDF Advisory Board Co-Chair Neil Gaiman on issues of censorship, comics as a gutter medium, and how graphic novels and literature are still thriving by shocking the mainstream today. With entertaining stories of their own personal experiences with censorship, death threats, and general public outrage over their works, Gaiman and Rowson reassure us that comics are definitely still alive and well and are continuing to impact the societies in which they are consumed. As Gaiman points out in a podcast of the interview, “As long as people are getting upset, a medium is not dead.” In the interview, Gaiman vocally celebrates the mainstream perception that comics are a “gutter medium.” Unlike other artistic forms, comics’ blended visual nature warrants a unique outlier position between high literature and low-brow mediums that inspires people from all walks of life to think, engage in discussion on particular issues, and converse about the world around them. “Comics get power from being a gutter medium,” Gaiman says, and it is this power which has allowed comics to become both a serious point of social […]

Indian River school board member, pastor, and would-be censor Shaun Fink and responded to the National Collation Against Censorship’s recently issued a letter about his demand for a censored health curriculum that would exclude discussions of homosexuality, HIV, STIs, and contraception in the most ironic way possible: He claims NCAC is trying to censor him. The letter to Superintendent Susan Bunting, which CBLDF signed alongside NCAC, the ACLU of Delaware, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, ABFFE, ALA-OIF, PEN America, and SCBWI, outlines the dangers of caving to Fink’s censorious demands: To deny students such information because of anyone’s religious or other personal belief-based objections would raise serious First Amendment concerns and, in turn, compromise our public education system and potentially expose students to unnecessary and significant health risks. During a committee meeting on Tuesday, December 2, Bunting presented the letter to Fink, who calmly responded that he thought it “ironic” that the NCAC, in fighting to prevent censorship of the curriculum based on personal, moral, or religious beliefs, was in turn “attempting to censor people of faith.” As Rachel Pacella of DelmarvaNow reports, Fink sees the letter as nothing more than a “scare letter” being used to intimidate the […]

In late October, the Gilbert Arizona Public School’s governing board voted to have two pages from a widely used honors biology textbook removed on the grounds that its discussion of contraception and common birth control methods violated Arizona law. The state law being cited is 15-115: Preference for childbirth and adoption; allowable presentation. Signed by Governor Jan Brewer two years ago, the law enumerates the ways that schools should teach and emphasize childbirth and adoption options over abortion and pregnancy prevention. As the law states: In view of the state’s strong interest in promoting childbirth and adoption over elective abortion, no school district or charter school in this state may allow any presentation during instructional time or furnish any materials to pupils as part of any instruction that does not give preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion. Since early January, members of the Gilbert school board and Superintendent Christina Kishimoto began receiving comments from groups, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, regarding the biology textbook, Campbell Biology: Concepts and Connections 7th Edition. Their concern was that the book’s subsection “27.8 Contraception can prevent unwanted pregnancy” was in direct violation of Arizona law […]

Before there were unified groups dedicated to protecting creators’ rights and their freedom of speech and expression, there was the underground comix movement. In response to the 1954 Senate Subcommittee hearings, which ruled comics to be garishly colored, morally devoid pulps spreading delinquency and degeneracy across America, a unique group of creators banded together and openly (and rudely) waged a full-on war against the Comics Code and the blatant censorship, suppression, and moral policing plaguing the comic book industry of the day. One of the most significant publications to come out of this movement, R. Crumb’s Zap Comix, showcased a wide array of works by the most prolific and stylistically diverse artists at the time. Originally published in San Francisco in 1968, Zap was a space where cartoonists collaborated to produce free-form narratives about literally whatever they wanted. From the psychedelic, mind-tripping works of surfer Rick Griffin to the sexually charged and violent satirical vignettes of S. Clay Wilson, Zap was a creative space where young, passionate artists could express their innermost (and often perverse) thoughts while exercising their counterculture political and social views completely unrestrained. Using entrepreneurial and social networks that they themselves established, these creators controlled the printers […]