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Black Dossier

Libraries | The library board in Jessamine County, Kentucky, heard public comment last night about acquisition and borrowing policies and the recent firings of two employees who kept a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier out of circulation. The hourlong meeting was marked by shouting, crying and the presentation of petitions, including one that called for the removal of two books and two DVDs -- Black Dossier among them -- from county library shelves. No action was taken by the board. [Lexington Herald-Leader]

Awards | A controversy emerged just a day before the National Book Awards ceremony as author/blogger Janice Harayda suggested that Kathi Appelt, a judge in the Young People''s category, should recuse herself because finalist David Small had illustrated her novel. In her response Appelt was cryptic, at best, saying that as committee deliberations are private, "I or any other judge might well have excused ourselves from voting on any particular book, if conflict of interest were an issue.” In the end, Small's celebrated graphic memoir Stiches didn't win last night; Phillip Hoose's Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice did. [ArtsBeat, Jacket Copy]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | There's still more follow-up to the removal this week of Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from two middle-school libraries in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Teachers still have access to the anthology -- it depicts language and sexual reference that at least one parent found objectionable -- and may use it in class.

An editorial in the Argus Leader calls the school board's decision "a reasonable approach that balances the need to provide suitable guidance for kids when dealing with sensitive topics without falling prey to censorship." CBS affiliate KELO, meanwhile, continues its coverage of the story with a look at how books are selected for libraries. Tom Spurgeon also has reaction from two of the anthology's contributors. [Argus Leader, KELOLAND.com]

Creators | Jeet Heer digs up writings by a young Dave Sim expressing, in no uncertain terms, his disdain for the work of Jack Kirby. [Comics Comics]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Stuck in the Middle

Libraries | There is, of course, follow-up on the decision by the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to remove the anthology Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from middle-school libraries. Local CBS affiliate KELO reports on the reactions of parents and highlights some of the better-known challenged and banned books.

As we noted yesterday, teachers will still have access to the 2007 collection of stories about life as a teen-ager (by such contributors as Gabrielle Bell, Daniel Clowes, Joe Matt and Dash Shaw). That's because, in the words of School Board President Kent Alberty, "There is value in the book. One of the subjects addressed is bullying, something the district is very interested in making sure is handled appropriately, and the book does address that." [KELOLAND.com]

Publishing | Japan's NHK television network reports that publishing giant Shueisha, a co-owner of Viz Media, plans to develop plans to sell manga via mobile phones in the United States beginning in spring 2010. [Anime News Network]

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School board pulls Stuck in the Middle from library shelves [Updated]

Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age

The school board in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Monday voted to remove the anthology Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from middle-school libraries.

The move, spurred by a parent's complaint that the graphic novel contained foul language, sexual references and depictions of teen smoking, reportedly marks the first time in at least eight years a book has been removed from the student collection. Teachers will continue to have access to the graphic novel, and (curiously?) may use it in class.

According to the Argus Leader, the board's decision came after a unanimous recommendation from a review committee composed of two teachers, two parents and an assistant principal.

A 2007 anthology published by Penguin's Viking Children imprint, Stuck in the Middle was edited by Ariel Schrag and contains contributions by Gabrielle Bell, Daniel Clowes, Joe Matt, Dash Shaw, Lauren Weinstein and others.

As the book's  title suggests, the stories focus on the highs and lows of life in seventh and eighth grade, from first loves to first zits. It was selected by the New York Public Library as one of its 2008 Books for the Teen Age.

The committee questioned whether middle-school students possess the maturity to see beyond the "objectionable language" in two or three of the stories and be able to glean a positive message.

In a statement provided to the Argus Leader Schrag said, in part:

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Google

Legal | Google and a group of authors and publishers have until Friday to revise a proposed settlement over the Internet giant's plans to make millions of out-of-print books available online. They originally were given a deadline of Nov. 9. DC Comics is among the parties that objected to the terms of the agreement -- -- $125 million and a registry to identify and compensate copyright holders -- arguing that it violates international copyright law. [Bloomberg News, Media Decoder]

Legal | The sentencing of Christopher Handley, the 39-year-old Iowa man who in May pleaded guilty to possessing manga depicting children in sexual situations, is scheduled for Jan. 25. He faces up to 15 years in prison, a maximum fine of $250,000 and three years of supervised release. [ICv2.com]

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Library worker's battle with Black Dossier began a year ago

Black Dossier -- The Absolute Edition

More than a month after two Kentucky public-library employees were fired after refusing to allow a child to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, details surrounding their dismissal finally are emerging.

In a lengthy article in the Lexington Herald-Leader, we learn the story didn't begin on Sept. 22, when Jessamine County Library circulation-desk attendants Beth Bovaire and Sharon Cook decided the graphic novel was inappropriate for the 11-year-old girl who had reserved it.

Instead, events date back almost a year, when the 57-year-old Cook, appalled that children had access to the Alan Moore-Kevin O'Neill book, challenged its inclusion in the graphic-novel section, which apparently is tantalizingly close to Young Adult Fiction. When that didn't work, she checked the book out of the library -- and kept renewing it, effectively removing it from circulation, until Sept. 21. That's when Cook tried to renew Black Dossier again, only to discover the computer wouldn't permit her to do so because the book had been placed on hold ... by a child, no less.

According to reporter Amy Wilson, on Sept. 22 Cook spoke to two of her colleagues about the problem, and Beth Boisvert, a part-time employee, decided to remove the hold, prohibiting the child from checking out the book. The next day, Cook and Boisvert were fired.

Cook still has the library's copy of Black Dossier, and is being charged 10 cents a day in late fees.

Wilson's article includes plenty of background on the library's policies, and Cook's efforts to challenge the book according procedure, which required her to, y'know, actually read it: "People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head."

Cook and Boisvert contend the graphic novel amounts to pornography, and that the library could be committing a felony by making it available to minors. They want the citizens of Jessamine County -- "we are a conservative community," Boisvert says -- to determine whether Black Dossier, and presumably other works, meet community standards for obscenity, and to decide what books their children have access to.

In short, they want county taxpayers to select what appears on library shelves, and where.

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The Book of Genesis Illustrated

Sales charts | R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated climbs seven spots to No. 2 in its second month on BookScan's list of top-selling adult graphic novels in bookstores. It's bested, as most are, by the latest volume of Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto. But it's another story on USA Today's bestseller chart, where Crumb's book drops 49 places in its second week to No. 129. [ICv2.com, USA Today]

Passings | Tom Spurgeon, NPR's Mark Memmott and Ina Jaffe, and Michael Cieply of The New York Times have obituaries for Comic-Con co-founder Shel Dorf, who passed away on Nov. 3 at the age of 76.

Libraries | The Yoshihiro Yonezawa Memorial Library of Manga and Subculture opened over the weekend at Meiji University's Surugadai campus in Tokyo. Users can become one-day members of the library, where they can have access to about half of the 140,000 manga for about $1.10 per copy. The books can't be removed from the library. [The Japan Times]

Internet | Tom Spurgeon points out that the review blog Guttergeek will move to the expanded TCJ.com, joining a stable of hosted blogs that will include The Hooded Utilitarian. [Guttergeek]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Marvel

Business | Marvel Entertainment's third-quarter profits plunged 60 percent because of a steep decline in film revenue and licensing sales for the period. The publishing division declined 6 percent, or $2 million, compared to the third quarter of 2008, which the company attributes to a drop in custom publishing offset by an increase in book-market revenue. [Bloomberg, Marvel.com]

Publishing | The list of nominees for the Young Adult Library Services Association's annual Great Graphic Novels for Teens is, as usual, diverse, with titles ranging from R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis Illustrated and Jamaica Dyer's Weird Fishes to Naoki Urasawa's Pluto and Mark Millar and Tommy Lee Edwards' 1985.

The nominations, divided into categories for fiction and nonfiction, are led by Marvel with 15 titles, DC Comics and its imprints with 13, Viz Media with 12 (but for 18 volumes), Dark Horse with eight and Del Rey and Yen Press with six each.

The final selections, chosen by an 11-person committee, will be presented in mid-January at the American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting in Boston. [YALSA]

Publishing | Marvel has hired Bon Alimagno, editorial director of Harris Publications, as its editorial talent coordinator, replacing Chris Allo, who left the company in September. [Bleeding Cool]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Libraries | In the wake of the recent firings of two Kentucky library employees -- circulation desk attendants, not librarians -- who refused to allow an 11-year-old to check out a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the crew of Good Comics for Kids discusses who should decide what children may read. [Good Comics for Kids]

Publishing | Simon Jones questions why Japanese publisher launched its long-anticipated U.S. division with a reprint of the first volume of Ghost in the Shell that's flipped and missing pages that Dark Horse had restored: "What’s your master plan, Kodansha? Why was it necessary to take this license away from Dark Horse, if you’re not doing a different treatment of the book? It couldn’t have been because you felt Dark Horse wasn’t promoting the property, because I haven’t seen any marketing efforts from you.  I can’t even find your URL in this book." [Icarus Publishing]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

American Booksellers Association

Retailing | The American Booksellers Association has asked the Department of Justice to investigate the online price war being waged by Wal-Mart, Amazon and Target. The trade group says that by selling advance-order hardcovers at deep discounts the three retail giants are engaging in "illegal predatory pricing" and making it impossible for smaller stores to compete.

Ron Catapano of Ron's Comic World in Mount Holly, New Jersey, asserts that direct-market retailers face a similar scenario: "I hope the comic publishers are paying attention. When the Watchmen movie came out and Amazon was selling the Watchmen trade paperback for less than I could get the book from Diamond Comic Distributors (including shipping cost), I complained and nobody cared. For most discounters, these books are not a significant part of their business, they are just something to make a few extra dollars on." [ICv2.com]

ChuChu

Publishing | Japanese publishing giant Shogakukan plans to close three of its magazines, including the shojo manga monthly ChuChu. The magazine debuted in December 2005 with a print run of 180,000, but more recently sales have hovered around 50,000 copies. [Anime News Network]

Libraries | The New Jersey State Library has awarded $3,000 grants to 14 libraries to help them establish and expand graphic-novel collections. The State Library also conducted workshops about developing collections, and furnished librarians with "a core graphic novel bibliography" to help them with their purchases. [NJ.com]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Libraries | Two library employees in Nicholasville, Kentucky, were fired last month after they refused to allow an 11-year-old girl to check out The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which they dubbed pornographic. However, the policy of the Jessamine County Library states it's the responsibility of parents to decide what's appropriate for their child to read.

The fired employees, Beth Bovaire and Sharon Cook, stand behind their decision, asserting that the award-winning comic by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill contains lewd pictures that are inappropriate for children.

"If you give children pornography, a child, a 12 year old, can not understand and process the same way a 30 year old can," Cook told a local television news station. [WTVQ, WTVQ]

Tokyo International Manga Library

Libraries | A private university in Tokyo hopes to promote the serious study of manga by opening a library stocked with 2 million comics, anime drawings, video games and other artifacts. If everything goes as planned, the Tokyo International Manga Library would open on the campus of Meiji University in 2015. [AFP]

Publishing | Even after the closing last year of Virgin Comics, upbeat profiles of the Indian comics industry continue to appear regularly. But here Gaurav Jain, head of the Mumbai-based Illusion Interactive Animation, offers a more dismal assessment of the scene in India: "While competition has arrived, the local industry continues to live in its shell, churning out visually unappealing and terribly written local content with little or no film and television possibilities. One of the most widely read labels offers sanitized, vanilla retellings of Indian mythology and historical figures with visuals inspired from the works of Raja Ravi Verma. Derivative art work and bland writing, leads to visual fatigue." [The Wall Street Journal]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Alaska flag

Legal | Alaska legislators are considering introducing a bill that would expand the state's child-pornography laws to include cartoons and computer-generated images (anime is mentioned specifically in the article).

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that cartoons depicting minors in sexually explicit situations are legal because real children are not involved. Congress responded the following year by expanding obscenity laws to include digital images and cartoons. In June, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of Dwight Whorley, a Virginia man sentenced to 20 years in prison in part for possessing child pornography. However, the Justice Department also prosecuted him under the PROTECT Act for receiving cartoon (manga/anime) images via email depicting the sexual abuse of children. Whorley's conviction was the first under the 2003 statute that was not based on photographs of children.

Simon Jones has commentary. [Anchorage Daily News, Icarus Publishing]

Creators | Todd Klein reports that longtime letterer Joe Rosen has passed away. He was 88. Rosen began his career at Harvey Comics, and later worked on countless titles for Marvel and DC Comics, including The Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, Fantastic Four and Power Pack. [Todd's Blog]

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Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Dragon Ball, Vol. 3

Manga | Wicomico County Public Library in Maryland is conducting an "internal reconsideration" of Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball after the popular series was removed from a combined elementary/middle school library last week due to depictions of nudity and sexual situations. The public library has pulled the manga while it decides in what section the T-rated series should be shelved. [The Daily Times]

Publishing | Deb Aoki gets more details from Viz Media Senior Editor Eric Searleman about the publisher's relaunched original comics initiative, which began accepting submissions last week: "We're hoping to publish a wide range of comics by a diverse group of creators. A lot of people are expecting Viz Media to publish manga (or comics that look like manga) but we don't plan on limiting ourselves, in any way. It doesn't matter to us if you draw like Tite Kubo or Darwyn Cooke. If you've got an awesome idea for a comic book, we want to see it." Simon Jones provides commentary. [About.com, Icarus Publishing]

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Last chance to get your votes in

The Secret Science Alliance

David Welsh reminds us that October is the last month to nominate a title for the Young Adult Library Services Association’s 2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list.

The list of nominations -- which you can read here -- so far includes titles like Alan's War, Stitches and Secret Invasion. You can nominate the book of your choice here. Books must have been published this year, or have a copyright date between September and December of 2009.

My personal pick? The Secret Science Alliance by Eleanor Davis.

Even Banned Books Week has its detractors (surprise?)

Fun Home

I wasn't sure what I was going to write about Banned Books Week until I read this somewhat-maddening column in The Wall Street Journal that paints the American Library Association as a well-funded, reactionary bully attempting to silence "a few unorganized, law-abiding parents."

Yes, those awful, awful librarians!

The opinion piece, by Mitchell Muncy of the Institute for American Values, goes on to characterize citizens who challenge books as underdog patriots "petitioning the government for a redress of grievances" -- granted, a poem by challenged YA author Ellen Hopkins provided the fuel -- while librarians hand down "hidden verdicts" as they stigmatize any who dare oppose them (presumably while rolling, Uncle Scrooge-style, in a money-filled room).

Oh, and then there's the whole table-turning moment, when Muncy asks who's actually the censor: the mean librarian or the ordinary citizen. Hey, it's to be expected. You don't win sympathy, or rouse the faithful, by portraying yourself as Goliath (no matter what your cause is).

What really irked me, though, is this part: Without a hint of irony, Muncy tsk-tsks the ALA's use of "loose language," then asserts that books aren't truly banned in this country because if you can't find a title at the local library or bookstore, you can always track it down elsewhere: "Not even the most committed civil libertarian demands that every book be immediately available everywhere on request — though in the age of Amazon that's nearly the case."

If I were playing Muncy's game, I might portray him as a big-city elitist with little appreciation for the child whose small town may not have a Borders, and whose family budget may not permit participation in "the age of Amazon." For that kid and others, the forced removal of a book from the local library is, truly, a banning.

More outrageous still is the implication that the wishes of the complaining party take precedence -- hey, let everybody else be inconvenienced -- and that having a book pulled from the shelf is an acceptable alternative to monitoring what your child is reading and explaining why a title might not by appropriate for that child.

Banned Books Week continues through Saturday. Celebrate by going to your local library and checking out a title on the ALA's frequently challenged books list. While you're there, donate some books, and thank a librarian.