{"id":16810,"date":"2009-01-05T07:56:32","date_gmt":"2009-01-05T12:56:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=16810"},"modified":"2014-12-11T11:50:28","modified_gmt":"2014-12-11T16:50:28","slug":"someones-censoring-comics-at-my-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/05\/someones-censoring-comics-at-my-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Someone’s censoring comics at my library"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to navigate the mind of a censor, but unfortunately, I’m getting a little lost in there.<\/p>\n

I stopped by the Handley Regional Library in Winchester, Virginia<\/a> 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<\/i><\/a>, a collection from four years ago (which shows exactly how much catch-up I desperately need to do).<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n

\"LibraryCensor1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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<\/i> 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<\/i>:<\/p>\n

\"LibraryCensor2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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? <\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

I just don’t understand you …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,46],"class_list":["post-16810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics","tag-dc-comics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16810"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16815,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16810\/revisions\/16815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}