Those Times When Publishing Isn’t Easy

Two different articles on publishers negotiating material that could be seen by segments of their perceived potential audience as inappropriate material popped up in the last 24 hours. Retailer Chris Butcher writes about his doubts on whether or not to publish J. Bone's "Jett Vector" story in the Free Comic Book Day offering Comic Festival for which he's the driving force. He ended up putting the matter into the hands of Diamond, and their review of the material, and there were no complaints. He apparently has some regrets about having gone this way. The comics business news and analysis site ICv2.com reports that Seven Seas has decided not to publish Kaworu Watashiya's Kodomo no Jikan (which would have gone by the title Nymphet), a comedy about a student making sexual advances upon a teacher, despite previously announced plans and the publisher's recent insistence they have every right to do so.

I don't know that there's anything much to be found that's compelling in the key mechanism of either story, although the nature of the material is going to drive some interest. Given the regrettable, lingering confusion surrounding Free Comic Book Day in terms of what kind of material is desirable or that retailers are likely to make best use of, and the current ambiguous legal landscape in some states, I would imagine being rigorous about questioning your material is a smart, conscientious thing. And deciding not to publish something because the material might be funny in another culture and not your own, or in this case, might be funny in another culture and might seen as super creepy and entirely too reminiscent of recent news stories of teachers raping their students in your own making for a lot of cross people regarding your decision to publish it, well, I kind of understand how a publishing company might say no thanks to that, too. There's no compulsory element to Free Speech issues as I understand them, let alone one that obviates the legitimacy of other concerns. Unless I'm missing something, these articles seem most noteworthy not for the decisions involved but for their transparency.
 
posted 1:06 am PST | Permalink
 

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