One of the problems with censorship is that what we can imagine is usually far worse than what’s actually being censored, something which I realized while reading the next graphic novel to be bowdlerized by at patron at my local library. I already told you about what he or she did to Wonder Woman. What was done to the Justice Society of America is even more amusing.

The latest collection to get the Wite-Out treatment is JSA: The Liberty Files, which is a bit ironic, don’t you think? A book with the word “liberty” in the title being censored?

As before, the book is filled with numerous instances of what I assume to be words such as “hell” or “damn” or “Christ” being obscured. But what this censor doesn’t seem to realize is what happens in the mind of a reader when facing such blanks, or as in the case of the page on display, replacements, such as the kind encountered when watching movies which, as the euphemism goes, have been edited for television.

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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:

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Perhaps this is a completely inappropriate entry, but I couldn’t help but think that the recent tragedy at Wal-Mart could have been avoided if only those holiday shoppers at the Green Acres Mall had paid attention to those one-page public service ads which used to run “in cooperation with the National Social Welfare Assembly” in the pages of DC Comics.

Those ads were hokey, but I loved them anyway. Here’s a panel from “How Are Your Shopping Manners?” which could have changed the tenor of the day had it only been digested by them decades ago when they were impressionable youths.

You can check out the complete ad here, smurched from Booksteve’s Library.

I’m fairly certain that this was penciled by Carmine Infantino, and less certain that it was inked by Joe Giella … but I’m sure that one of you will show up eventually with the actual credits.

I guess I should apologize now …

With no apologies to Mark Englblom, and him’s horrible, unfun Comic Coverage site, me pass along the awful “Unhappy Bizarro Thanksgiving!” wishes which him first served up last year.

Me could not have said it worser me self!

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Does anyone have a copy of the 1982 Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide at hand, and if so, can you do me the favor of looking up the value of a copy of Superman #1 back then?

I just started reading The Swap, by Antony Moore, a galley of which Anne Groell was kind enough to slip me back at Comic-Con. The novel’s conceit sounded cool—a guy who regrets trading away a comic book as a kid feels that his wretched life would be made right again if only he could get it back as an adult. It was published in the UK in 2007, and the film rights have already been snapped up by Columbia Pictures.

I’ve only just started the book, which I’m enjoying so far, but I must admit that I was taken aback when I learned on the first page that the comic book in question was Superman #1. I can’t remember exactly what copies of that first issue were going for in 1982, but I would guess in the $7,500-$15,000 range. Anyone out there have the facts? (more…)

As with my Thursday Comic-Con wanderings, my moment-to-moment doings Friday were so mundane and “taking care of business” that they’re surely of interest only to me and to my boss. After miles of hiking the floor, though, I did have to sit eventually before my feet burst into flame, and I chose to do it at a bit of programming in the late afternoon titled “That ’70s Panel.”

Whether you’re interested in Comic-Con or not, a few comments made there from the stage should be of interest to creators of any kind. The panel featured moderator Mark Evanier interrogating Jim Starlin, Joe Staton, Mike Grell, Mike Barr (who was given an Inkpot Award mid-panel), Bernie Wrightson, and Len Wein.

I have some history with the first and last of those men, in that I had the misfortune of following Jim Starlin as writer on Captain Marvel after his tremendously popular run on that book, and Len Wein was the Marvel Comics editor-in-chief who gave me a shot at writing the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins Page (save for Stan’s Soapbox, of course), among other things. (more…)

The latest installment of Scott Shaw’s Oddball Comics focuses on the May, 1960 issue of My Greatest Adventure, one of DC’s anthology comic books of science-fiction shorts.

Included in the issue are such stories as “We Were Ruled By The Emperor-Beast,” “I Fought The Sonar Creatures,” “I Became A Human Space Ship,” and more, featuring bizarre invading aliens, an atomic transmutator that converts sounds into colors and force, and a tunnel through the center of the Earth that manages to ignore the existence of the planet’s molten core.

In other words, really bad science fiction. And yet also somehow quite lovable. In fact, much of yesterday’s bad science fiction has become strangely lovable. (more…)