FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, June 18, 2012
CONTACT: Acacia O’Connor, Coordinator
Kids’ Right to Read Project
[email protected], (212) 807-6222 x. 108
NEW YORK—The National Coalition Against Censorship, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund joined forces to defend Alan Moore’s Neonomicon (Avatar), which has recently come under challenge in Greenville, SC public libraries.
In the letter to the Greenville Public Library Board of Trustees, the groups warned against the First Amendment implications of removing the book because of an individual’s complaint about its content and urged the library to keep the book on its shelves. Objections were raised by a patron after her teenage daughter checked out the book, which contains adult themes. It was correctly shelved in the adult section of the library and the teenager possessed an adult library card.
“Removing the book because of sexual content not only fails to consider the indisputable value of the book as a whole, but also ignores the library’s obligation to serve all readers, without regards to individual tastes and sensibilities,” the letter states.
The groups called Alan Moore, author of Watchmen and V for Vendetta, “one of the most influential and acclaimed authors in both the graphic novel category and the larger literary culture.” It calls Neonomicon, which is inspired by horror and fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft’s works, an “essential work by an author who is indisputably a master within his field.”