Censorship is bad, mmkay?

[bluefall]

On a more positive note, while digging through my "things to post" folder I found these fun little pages from Liberty Comics, a 2008 special that Image put out to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (a nonprofit dedicated to protecting comics creators from censorship and legal abuse). A number of big-name creators contributed stories of varying lengths and quality; these are my favorites.




First we have a cute little relatively apolitical story by Darwyn Cooke and Dave Stewart, called "The Deadly Book," narrated by a guy who steals a rare book from his grandfather.



He plans to sell it on eBay, but curiosity runs deep in the monkey brain so he takes a look at the thing first.



There's also the noir-y depressing "No One Rides for Free", by Brubaker and Phillips. A reporter in the middle of a story gets assaulted on the roof during his cigarette break.





On a more hopeful note, there's this little one page story by J Bone.



And finally, just for the lulz, here's Mignola's contribution.

Comments

[blackruzsa]

Loved the last line to the second one. "They all had integrity".
It's something I wish people had around here.

Also, "It kills you with it's shittiness" is wrong grammar. Should be "its".

[arilou_skiff]

I know it's nitpcking, but I always get annoyed by the misuse of the term "censorship".

Censorship is having someone (a censor, named after the roman official) looking through a work *before* publication and judging if it should be banned or not (and possibly making edits)

Making someone legally responsible for something *after* publication is not censorship.

[bluefall]

.....yeeess, and....?

[psychopathicus_rex]

While I would like to believe that the 'Cobukan' one is indeed more hopeful, there's a disturbing subtext there that I can't quite unsee. Those people do realize that, while, yes, Cobukan does look rather dashing in that sash, by changing the position of the gag from the mouth to the waist, he is effectively, er, 'silencing' another part of the body...?

[darkblade]

Then what's the guy tying it around his head in the last panel saying?

[psychopathicus_rex]

'Silence the brain', maybe? Actually, the impression I got from that was that he wasn't tying it on, he was slipping it off his head from where it'd been covering his mouth.

[badficwriter]

Language is not dead and static. Meaning changes over time.

[badficwriter]

I'd agree, but I suspect the true theme was absurdity.

[bluefall]

I'm just not seeing the relevance either way. If someone in a position of power and authority is trying to keep you from publishing or distributing your work due to its content, the CBLDF will help you. If your work has been published and distributed and you get into shit over its content, the CBLDF will help you. Under no definition of censorship are they not concerned with censorship. Their mandate is the protection of free speech, and thus all methods by which free speech is curtailed are of interest to them and those creators who support them.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Quite possibly, but I still can't help seein' what I'm seein'.

[arilou_skiff]

Not a semantic issue: There are legal impliations to the term.

[espanolbot]

Hm, the funny thing is that I think that Hellboy was marketed as Heckboy in some towns in the South when the first movie came out. Whether that's true or just one of those "Hurr hurr hurr, people from America's southern states are stoopid" things, I don't know.

[icon_uk]

By "here" I hope you don't mean s_d?

[icon_uk]

Out of curiosity, what is it called when it happens after publication?

[icon_uk]

The dangerous book one does rather remind me of this

I like the Brubaker one particularly.

[blackruzsa]

Naw. Here as in my country :/ I'd describe it as third world, but those connotations are unfounded assumptions.

Basically it wouldn't matter what kind of leaders we have until a good dictator seizes power from all of them.

[greenmask]

The gut?

No more stomach rumbles for you, Gokuban!

[peur-evol.blogspot.com]

Not true. Both Hellboy movies had the same titles throughout the country.
And free speech in the southern states works both ways. There's a statue near the Hermitage outside Nashville that people have been trying to get removed for years for it's allegedly racist connotations.

http://www.blueshoenashville.com/history.html

[psychopathicus_rex]

A little lower than that...

[janegray]

I'm not sure I get the Brubaker one. The big menacing guy is basically saying "I hope you are corruptible because if you aren't I'll have to kill you", right?