Due to it being a quiet news week thus far, I decided it might be fun to discuss a little ruckus that's been brewing in Lexington, Kentucky. Two library workers became obsessed with Alan Moore, and not in the way familiar to those who found him via Swamp Thing or Watchmen. It seems the Jessamine County library got a copy of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume IV: Black Dossier as many self-respecting libraries have. Employees Sharon Cook and Beth Boisvert saw it (it's not clear how) and decided it was unfit for public consumption.
After challenging its shelf place and failing, they debated "spilling tea on it" before taking the less destructive measure of checking the book out. Ms. Cook kept it out of circulation for an entire year until one library patron said "Holy crap, my library has Volume IV! I shall check it out immediately!" and put it on hold. Using her employee privileges, Cook discovered the Moore fan was an 11-year-old girl (way to go!) and took matters into her own hands. She took the patron's hold off. When their censorship was discovered, they were fired, but have subsequently earned a lot of support all over the world. One Flickr stream even has "the naughty pages" up for your perusal with the stern question of whether or not children should be allowed to see such things. One of the pages is headlining this column, with a stupid joke from me.
I find the story hilarious for all the wrong reasons, mainly because Cook is still carrying the book around (at an overdue fine of ten cents a day), with all the nudity and objectionable bits obscured by Post-It notes. She was forced to read it in order to challenge the library's possession of it. "People prayed over me while I was reading it because I did not want those images in my head," she says. That Moore and his metafiction!
I'm unclear as to how it was Black Dossier over all other books that caught their disapproving eye, and not Watchmen. (The movie launched a million nervous giggles, I can't imagine the book hasn't.) Cook and Boisvert seem quite familiar with their graphic novel section, which they describe as being full of "exaggerated comic books" like Spider-Man and X-Men, so I suspect they combed it for other degenerate works and didn't even find a V for Vendetta. What a shame! (For Jessamine County, I mean, not for smut hunting employees.)
Yet, why should a store wrap Frank Miller in plastic? No one hides the Romance shelves from young eyes, and every preteen has memories of discovering the Photography section of their library. (In my prudish school, we had to make do with the Reproduction entry in the encyclopedia.) When I worked at Barnes and Noble -- in Kid's, crazily enough -- one of the teenagers' favorite pranks was to leave all the sex manuals open in the middle of the department. I would rather they see Preacher or Y: The Last Man. I can explain Jesse and Tulip easier than I can explain the Kama Sutra. (It's the physics.)
But the truth is that kids aren't drawn to the sex guides and the Fabio shelves as easily as they are to the graphic novel section, which beckons brightly with Iron Man, Wolverine, and Batman. Even the "kid-friendly" heroes have been known to get frisky, and while it's not explicit (Wolverine and Tyger Tyger were just having a slumber party!), the adult audience keeps upping the rating a bit. Even if they don't understand the teases, it's only a few finger skips from The Essential Iron Man to Garth Ennis, and I feel a little guilty about that. In fact, I discussed something similar last year when I wondered if the dark and gritty adaptations weren't cheating the younger set.
Now, I don't believe in censorship and I certainly don't agree that a library or bookstore should replace parental guidance. But let's face it, we're going to see a lot more hand-wringing, Post-It notes, and threats of banned books as the movie adaptations continue, and the Marvel and DC brands become even more popular. I suspect we'll have a frenzy like that which surrounded the Harry Potter books, with churches asking you to bring in your Moore, Miller, and Ennis. I hope not, because it's crazy and illiterate, but rational thinking isn't a hallmark of protest.
Instead, I hope bookstores and libraries smarten up, and just shelve the graphic novels with the rest of the world's literature. It's long past time to remove its "graphic" stigma anyway, and I see no reason why Watchmen, From Hell, The Dark Knight Returns, Y: The Last Man, Laika and Preacher shouldn't be shelved with the rest of their letters and genres. Put them in Sci-Fi, put them in Fiction, put them wherever a picture-happy kid isn't going to pick them up very easily. Keep a comics section if you must, but stock it full of those Spider-Man collections that aren't going to burn out some impressionable retinas. In fact, what I would like to see is Marvel put together big, fat collections of their kid-friendly material (and they have plenty where heroes aren't getting friendly) just to stock in the Kid's Section so that no comic hungry kid needs to wander very far. Just think of all the boys and girls who might be introduced to a very marketable character by finding a big, attractive shelf of flashy books within their reach. Why, these are the characters from the movies! They have books associated with them. Amazing! And it's only fair. This is a genre and a market that's being dominated more and more by adults, and I maintain that you won't have a future audience if you keep every superhero away from them. You've got to give them something while honoring the mature writers and artists of the field.
Look, I don't think two heated library workers are really the sign of a watershed movement. But I do find it troubling to already see so many who side with them, and who are being introduced to this genre not by its positive elements but by a few racy panels. The vocal minority can carry a shocking amount of weight with the media, and I could see a lot of wacky Dungeons & Dragons myths sparking up around the genre. A lot of kids who normally could have read Batman without a parent objecting might find it whisked out of their hands thanks to a shrieking media. Moods run hotter thanks to the saturation of misinformation.
So, put Watchmen in the Ms, and give the kids the bright stuff. Don't put Sin City on an "At the Movies!" endcap where picture-heavy content equals a G rating. Save the graphic novels from permanent residence in an employee's bookbag, and from meeting death by hot tea. Metafiction and deconstruction deserves so much better.
*And much thanks to their tireless diligence of all things comic related that led me to the story
1. Great article. Glad to someone in the mainstream addressing this issue. As a manga fan, this comics-are-only-for-kids attitude really grind my gears. Of course, we Americans have had that idea pounded into our heads for the past several decades so it's hard to get around. (The Japanese never got that memo.) It's about time people got the message that graphic novels should be considered on par with literary novels. And yes, we should keep the "mature" stuff away from the kids. My local Waldenbooks has a sign on the manga section suggesting parental guidance but that's about it. They have mostly teen rated stuff but surprisingly there's some gay romance (some of it explicit, some not) that usually come shrink wrapped but I've often come across many of those titles with the wrapping removed. I shudder to think what may happen if an unsuspecting parent were to come across it.
Surprised to hear about the librarians' attitude though. Many librarians are anti-censorship. Course I guess it's different in more conservative areas.
Posted at 10:51PM on Nov 10th 2009 by rinsmith