Yet More Common Sense(orship)

By Regie Rigby

Woah boy!

Hello again my foolish friends! Once again you find me riding around Fool Central on my favourite Hobby Horse – the wicked steed of Censorship.

Had it not been for the victory of Jimmy Corrigan in the Guardian First Book Prize, this would have been last week’s column. This week it’s slightly less topical, but fortunately my remit doesn’t actually demand that I keep up to date with current events (one reason why you hardly ever see my byline over in Silver Bulletins any more) so just cast your minds back a week and pretend you travelled in time or something…

cue those Dr Who stylee time travel effects we used last time I took you all back in time…

Now, having travelled through time, I need you to shift yourselves through space (unless you happen to be reading this in the public library of Hull, Quebec – in which case stay exactly where you are…)

The good people of Hull seem to be feeling pretty happy with themselves at the moment, for they have struck a blow for freedom and equality! No longer will the women of that fair city be degraded by sordid and offensive images when they visit the library! Decent upstanding people in this part of Quebec can breath easy once more because “comics which degrade women” are now strictly under the counter material.

To be honest, I’m both outraged and indifferent to this.

See, this is clearly censorship and as such is without question hateful in my sight.

But since I happen to agree that there are comics out there (and they know who they are) that degrade not only women, but also the adolescents who read them there is a part of me that can’t quite bring itself to care. Hell, there’s a bit of me that’s pleased. At least in one corner of the workd there is a place I can go knowing that I won’t have badly proportioned women in tight and revealing clothes rammed down my throat.

(Not that such things happen to me anyway, you understand – I speak metaphorically…)

Regular readers will know my opinion if the standard “T ‘n’ A” fayre to be found in many comics. You know that I don’t read this stuff, so the removal of such material from library shelves doesn’t affect me. Particularly when the library in question is in Canada – a country I have never even visited.

So, why should I care? Why should you care for that matter, unless you happen to live in Quebec?

Well, basically you should care because eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. I don’t like the soft core T ‘n’ A comics I have seen. Does that mean nobody else is entitled to see them and judge for themselves? In any case, who gets to decide which comics are degrading to women? Or to any other group?

Are all representations of women behaving in a sexually aggressive way degrading to women? If so, has the library taken the complete works of Jilly Cooper off the shelves? If all comics which portray women in scanty clothing and pseudo sexual or S&M situations are degrading how come so many women read and enjoy stuff like Vampirella?

Perhaps it’s good?

Perhaps they like it?

And if they like it, how can it be degrading to them?

Of course, just because some women like it that doesn’t mean that some other women won’t feel degraded by it. That’s because all people are different.

Which means that we have another one of those dichotomies that I love so much. If some people (and actually there’s no reason why men shouldn’t feel degraded by this kind of stuff) are negatively affected by contact with these comics, then the removal of the comics from a public space would be a good thing.

But if some other people get pleasure and satisfaction from the same material, what right do the first group have to keep it from them?

Don’t forget, we’re not talking about actual porn here (which is a whole other discussion), just pen and ink drawings in a certain style. Besides, this is about much more than comics which may or may not be regarded as offensive by one particular group. See, this sort of thing has happened before.

The details are hazy, and I’m telling you this form memory, so if anyone can fill in a few blanks please feel free to let me know.

You may remember the Falklands Conflict between Britain and Argentina. Many political commentators have suggested that the wave of British patriotism which followed was the only reason that a certain Mrs M. Thatcher won the second general election of her career.

So the publication of a graphic novel based on the conflict called The little Tin Pot General and the Old Iron Woman by cartoonist Raymond Briggs didn’t go down very well. It was in poor taste, many raved. “Our brave lads deserved more respect” some carped. Many libraries refused to carry it on the grounds that it was offensive.

I haven’t ever managed to put my hands on a copy, so I don’t know what it’s like (except to say that I have never read a Briggs book that I didn’t enjoy) but that’s pretty much irrelevant here. We’re talking about freedom of speech issues, surely? Briggs was using his work to make a political statement, and had he done it in any other medium such suppression would be met by outraged howls of protest – and rightly so.

Briggs had another nasty brush with libraries a few years later when he published the excellent When the Wind Blows - a book about nuclear war, and the impossibility of survival. (The book was later filmed.) This was a sensitive story about a nuclear attack, and it’s aftermath. The reader watches two ordinary people trying to comprehend what has happened to them as they slowly lose the fight for survival.

It’s a work of genius, but I know that for a while at least it was removed from the shelves of libraries in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield because it was “too disturbing”. Too disturbing for whom? True, the book was available in request, but how are you supposed to request something if you don’t know it’s there to be requested?

The logic behind such decisions is depressingly familiar. In all the examples cited, including (so far as I understand) the recent case in Hull, one of the main reasons given for the censorship is child protection.

Putting aside the argument about whether children need protecting from literature in the first place (which as an English Teacher I’m prepared to have with all comers, but not here because it would take too long) I would have to take issue with the premise that Comics = Children.

They don’t.

Of course, if you’re reading this, you probably know that. So why does nobody else?

I hate to bang on constantly about this, but I don’t see that I have any choice – this is the major issue which threatens the survival of the entire comic book industry. We need to break that link. Ironically that means we need to publish less of the sort of stuff that seems to have upset the good people of Hull – but more of the sort of stuff that Raymond Briggs produced and upset the libraries in Sheffield.

So let’s make sure that if we upset people in future, we do it for the right reasons.

DAN DeCARLO – R.I.P.

It is with great sadness that I dedicate this edition of Fool Britannia to the great Dan DeCarlo, who I understand died earlier today (19.12.2001.)

Mr DeCarlo was responsible for the look of Archie comics, creating both Josie, of Josie and the Pussycats, and Sabrina The Teenage Witch. For many people, he quite simply was Archie comics, although relations between Archie and himself had soured in recent years.

We would like to send our heartfelt condolences to Mr DeCarlo’s family, friends and colleagues. Comics are poorer for his loss.

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