A Horrible Precedent

I'm not what you'd call "quick on the uptake" on a lot of stuff, so some of you comic people may know about all this already.

Read the text of the discussion on Texas vs. Castillo, found at A Small Victory, right here.

I just wanted to throw in my two cents, for whatever they're worth.

I agree largely with Small Victory's opinions here, and I want only to underline a couple of points.

Okay, so we're convicting somebody on an obscenity count because a child might pick it up? Even though it's in an area separate from other comics where kids won't have access to them? And the only way the evidence was gathered when the book was sold by an adult to an adult? It's kind of like that Minority Report thing where we punish the crime before it's committed.

I'm quoting Small Victory:

Appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court was the last chance for a reversal of Castillo’s conviction, and the striking down of a dangerous precedent for comics shop owners across the country.

And a dangerous precedent for retailers of any kind of reading material. Where will prosecutors and overzealous puritans draw the line? Apparently, they have come to the conclusion that we are not, as a people, able to decided what is best for us. They have basically ruled that comics as a genre are worthless, and that adults shouldn't be reading them.

Great. Now the majority gets to decide what I read.

And it's a pet peeve of mine whenever the comic medium is denied any form of mature legitimacy....here, the State of Texas (and by proxy, the law of the land) pigeonholes an entire medium once again as a kid's plaything with no place for mature artistic endeavours. Anything that comes out in the medium is automatically a kiddie story.

Hell, there are those within the comic industry that will tell you straight up that they aren't doing enough to get kids to read comics. They all want to play pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh, and the only people reading comics are my age (26 or so) and above, and since there's no new blood coming in to read comics, that's hurting the industry. But that's neither here nor there.

One more thing.

As an added perspective, a friend of mine owns a trade collection of the Demon Beast Invasion series, and he allowed me to take a peek at what's so diabolical.

My take on it? It's weird. It's a weird Japanese Demon story that happens to contain a fair amount nudity and sex-related material. And there are a lot of weird Japanese Demon stories. Apparently, they tell weird Demon stories like we make Michael Bay films.

I will say this about the Demon Beast Invasion series: It's not meant for kids.

What's more, the trade has a big giant warning on the cover "Absolutely Not Meant for Children."

Is it obscene? I don't really think so. But it's all really in the eye of the beholder, ain't it? And it all goes back to that majority decision thing above.

Now, the site is called Big Stupid Tommy, but....

It sounds like Castillo had the stuff separated from the kids, and in both cases it was an adult that bought the offending materials from the comic shop.

Were I a parent, that would be enough to me.

Of course, if my kid were shopping there by himself, I'd stick my head in a few times just to see what this comic shop stuff is all about.

What am I talking about? I'd be the one dragging my kid to the comic store every week.

But then, I wouldn't be depending on the guy at the comic shop to raise my kids, either. That's my job. And it's my job to discuss with the kids what's good and bad, and to monitor their intake of media. Because I'm kinda responsible for their development, and whatnot.

But apparently, that's just me.

Short Update: I would be remiss if I didn't include a link to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. They fight the good fight, especially for a lot of folks as comic book entertainers and sellers who can't afford to defend themselves against the deep pockets of certain groups of a supposed higher moral calibre. I've given in the past, and I'd thought about helping them out in this past month's blogathon...perhaps I will next year.