I’m trying to navigate the mind of a censor, but unfortunately, I’m getting a little lost in there.

I stopped by the Handley Regional Library in Winchester, Virginia this weekend, where I picked up about a dozen graphic novels so I could play catch-up on comics I’d missed. One of them was Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals, a collection from four years ago (which shows exactly how much catch-up I desperately need to do).

While reading through the book, I discovered dabs of Wite-Out wherever a character might have said “hell” or “damn” or “christ.” I can’t tell for sure what was deleted in any of the panels, because the Wite-Out has been laid on so thick that I can’t make out the original lettering even when I hold the page up to the light. I guess I’d have to track down an unbowdlerized copy of the book to tell exactly what was being censored.

In any case, check out the first word balloon here for an example of what some library visitor did after he or she was offended:

OK, I get it, anonymous library patron. You never got the memo that comics aren’t just for kids anymore, and you think you’re doing a good deed. You’re not. But even though we disagree, I can almost follow your logic. Where you totally lose me is this—how can you be driven to obliterate numerous words throughout the book and apparently not be bothered by this:

So you think the little kiddies will be warped by a stray “damn” or “hell,” and yet you’re OK with them seeing illustrations of pole dancing, a lap dance, and a boob grab? That sounds like cognitive dissonance to me. How are you motivated to blot one out while letting the other stand?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad that you didn’t apply Wite-Out to entire panels, or, once that proved to be too expensive, take a razor to the volume and slice out the page. But you confuse me. If one is these is offensive to you, isn’t the other?

I just don’t understand you …