![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
It’s Banned Book Week in the US again, in which we celebrate freedom of speech by commemorating all the people who try to take it away from us.
I’ve written before about the importance of Banned Book Week at a time when books are easily available outside of libraries (where book banning is usually attempted). You can read that here if yr so inclined.
Meanwhile, I thought it was interesting that Banned Book Week reportedly has a special focus on graphic novels this year – which may be because Jeff Smith’s Bone made the Top 10 Challenged Books of 2013. (Also, the Captain Underpants series – which evidently counts as a graphic novel – has topped the list for two years in a row.)
One reason this interests me is because some people would argue that comics should be more subject to restrictions than books – especially in school libraries – because books are mainly words, see, whereas comics are pictures. It’s one thing to describe sex and violence – it’s another to show it. So it’s okay to ban graphic novels to protect the children. QED.
Something like that.
As you might imagine, I don’t really agree with that. For a start, well-written words can plant images in yr head more powerful and disturbing than any picture/drawing/painting. There are scenes in American Psycho that are extremely nasty. A graphic novel version wouldn’t necessarily be any worse (though I suppose it depends on the artist, of course – and here is where you may make yr Rob Liefield jokes now).
Second of all, the point isn’t whether a particular book or graphic novel is unsuitable for kids – it’s who gets to make that decision. And I’ve always believed that authority belongs to (1) the librarians who decide what to put on the shelves, and (2) parents. It does not belong to some nervous busybody out to make sure no one else gets to make that decision for themselves.
Anyway, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has put together its own list of graphic novels that run afoul of self-appointed library censors. It’s an interesting list – some are predictable (Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, Maurice Sendak), some not so much (J. Michael Straczynski!).
Also, Alan Moore shows up a lot more than you’d think.
Keep on reading,
This is dF
I’ve written before about the importance of Banned Book Week at a time when books are easily available outside of libraries (where book banning is usually attempted). You can read that here if yr so inclined.
Meanwhile, I thought it was interesting that Banned Book Week reportedly has a special focus on graphic novels this year – which may be because Jeff Smith’s Bone made the Top 10 Challenged Books of 2013. (Also, the Captain Underpants series – which evidently counts as a graphic novel – has topped the list for two years in a row.)
One reason this interests me is because some people would argue that comics should be more subject to restrictions than books – especially in school libraries – because books are mainly words, see, whereas comics are pictures. It’s one thing to describe sex and violence – it’s another to show it. So it’s okay to ban graphic novels to protect the children. QED.
Something like that.
As you might imagine, I don’t really agree with that. For a start, well-written words can plant images in yr head more powerful and disturbing than any picture/drawing/painting. There are scenes in American Psycho that are extremely nasty. A graphic novel version wouldn’t necessarily be any worse (though I suppose it depends on the artist, of course – and here is where you may make yr Rob Liefield jokes now).
Second of all, the point isn’t whether a particular book or graphic novel is unsuitable for kids – it’s who gets to make that decision. And I’ve always believed that authority belongs to (1) the librarians who decide what to put on the shelves, and (2) parents. It does not belong to some nervous busybody out to make sure no one else gets to make that decision for themselves.
Anyway, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has put together its own list of graphic novels that run afoul of self-appointed library censors. It’s an interesting list – some are predictable (Art Spiegelman, Frank Miller, Maurice Sendak), some not so much (J. Michael Straczynski!).
Also, Alan Moore shows up a lot more than you’d think.
Keep on reading,
This is dF
