Comic Books are for Kids

According to some judges, comic books are just for kids (link via Tom Tomorrow):

The story: Jesus Castillo worked in a Texas comic book store. He was busted for selling an erotic comic to an undercover officer. These facts have not been disputed: Castillo is an adult. The cop was an adult. The comic was displayed in a separate Adults Only section of the store. The cop was under no compulsion from Castillo to acquire that particular comic. (An excellent, appropriately disgusted recap, comes from Franklin Harris’ Pulp Culture column. I cannot recommend this article highly enough.)

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund provided expert witnesses to attest to the artistic and literary qualities of the comic in question. The DA told the jury that none of that mattered, because comic books have “always” been for children and the “adult” comic was therefore obscene by definition. The jury bought the argument and convicted, the trial judge let it stand and, last week, the US Supreme Court declined to review the case.

This is seriosuly twisted. This guy has been found guilty of obscenity because this DA, jury, and judge were too goddamn stupid to realize what they were talking about. Even if comic books were traditionally for children (which anyone who’s read a Tijuana Bible would know is bullshit), just because a medium is primarily geared towards one genre doesn’t mean that the medium is limited in any way. To say something like “comic books have always been for children” is like saying “TV shows have always been crappy sitcoms”. Like any other artistic medium (ie. literature, film, popular music, painting, etc.), comics have the ability to encompass any range of adult themes. I dare the DA in that case to read It’s a Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken, From Hell, Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth, Ghost World, or The Great Big Book of Tomorrow and tell me that comic books are just for kids.


posted by greg on August 13, 2003 @ 4:49 pm

8 comments

  1. hell, most mainstream books have had stretches or miniseries where the writing was aimed at mature audiences. Check out almost anything Frank Miller did with Batman or The Punisher, for example. The Dark Knight Returns has more depth than pretty much any mainstream movie released this summer.

    BTW, I myself just recently posted on this and a political cartoon that took a similar line with video games.

    Comment by JoeF — August 13, 2003 @ 5:02 pm

  2. doh, borked the link. Try this

    Comment by JoeF — August 13, 2003 @ 5:03 pm

  3. there was a recent case also where a woman was sewing a public library because she found a copy of “ghost world” in the children’s book section. unfortunately, it was the fault of some idiotic librarian who thought that a comic (which they obviously never read) would of course go in the kids section. anyway…

    this whole thing is bullshit. as a comic artist i’m really pissed off about it.

    Comment by tom — August 13, 2003 @ 6:10 pm

  4. Jimmy Corrigan was probably one of the best books I’ve read in the last 10 years.

    Comment by j — August 14, 2003 @ 9:13 am

  5. It defies logic. What I want to know is, why the hell didn’t the man’s lawyers call the publishers or authors in for the defense? Wouldn’t they have been able to make a case that the comics were intended only for adults? Wouldn’t these people have been able to make a strong case for the idea of comics as adult literature?

    Of course, that doesn’t mean anything when you have people who are told that the comic was written for adults, and kept in the adult section, sold from one adult to another, and still accept a statement as ridiculous as “Comics have always been for kids, and that means this is for kids too”.

    I’ve said it many times before, but if we don’t’ start paying attention, we’re going to miss out on what just might be the greatest threat our country has ever faced – the ascent of Right wing fundamentalist Christianity as a political force in this country. This is just one more in a series of assaults on democracy by those bible toting fascists.

    Also, fuck Texas. It’s a really horrible place.

    Comment by Ross Angeles — August 14, 2003 @ 9:25 am

  6. Ross, I’m more worried about stupid parents scapegoating the various entertainment industries for their own inability to teach their kids right from wrong.

    Comment by JoeF — August 14, 2003 @ 9:38 am

  7. You’ve got a point about Parental irresponsibility. It’s tiresome to hear these people scream about the dangers Our Children ™ may be facing, while basically ruining our entire civilization in the process.

    I’d think they’d be more concerned about the world their children will inhabit once they grow up, rather than harping on what their children may or may not see while growing up.

    Comment by Ross Angeles — August 14, 2003 @ 10:52 am

  8. Most of the “facts” listed in the “appropriately disgusted” recap are demonstrably false, as the author who wrote it, Mr. Harris, has since (to his credit) acknowledged.

    Spreading hysterical misinformation about this case doesn’t help anyone. The sky isn’t falling.

    http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/2003/08/im_very_close_t.html

    Comment by Beldar — August 18, 2003 @ 5:54 pm

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