Free Comics

I’m interrupting our regular daily dose of comics chit-chat to share with you all a Press Release we recently received from independent publisher Northwest Press.

Usually I do nothing more than mouth off about things which annoy or baffle me – and the situation described here does both to an extreme degree – but at this time of ever-increasing global stupidity, greed, venality and bigotry, the contradictory actions of an powerful commercial entity increasingly dominant in how we read comics and get informed – let alone how we view and learn about each other – just cried out for a stronger response.

Please read the Press Release carefully and if the issues described call out to you, download the free graphic novel and respond according to your conscience and feelings.

I’m trusting you all to be reasonable. You have every right to disagree in part or in total, but are not entitled to make the issue about you.

I’ve left in the company contact details too, in case you want to contact Northwest directly, and ask you all to act responsibly and not to abuse the gesture.

Normal trivialities will resume here tomorrow. Now go get your free forbidden book…

Apple blocks Hard to Swallow; publisher releases free version

June 13, 2016—Northwest Press submitted their new book HARD TO SWALLOW to Apple’s iBooks two weeks ago, with the intention of having a day-and-date release to coincide with the paperback edition that will be in comic book stores this month.

Unfortunately, Apple rejected the book—as they have the publisher’s past two releases aimed at adults only—for having “prohibited explicit or objectionable content”. The publisher has now decided to offer a censored version of the book for free, to shine a spotlight on what it sees as Apple’s ongoing campaign against sex in art.

In the days before the iPad debuted, Apple repeatedly rejected comic books and apps with gay content—some of which were very tame and included no nudity—and was accused of following a double standard when compared to heterosexual content. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously defended the platform’s restrictions on sexual content by saying Apple provided his customers “freedom from porn”.

Northwest Press Publisher Charles “Zan” Christensen, then a board member with the nonprofit LGBT comics advocacy organization Prism Comics, took them to task publicly for this in an online article.

in 2011, when the iBooks store was opened up to comics content from indie publishers, Northwest Press submitted its very first release, Jon Macy’s Teleny and Camille (which at that time was the most explicitly sexual book they had published). Apple accepted it, and accepted every subsequent release for about two years.

In Fall of 2013, Apple changed its submission process; they added a new “Explicit Content?” checkbox to their iTunes Producer software, which is used to submit titles to iBooks. The first book Northwest Press submitted to Apple since that change was Al-Qaeda’s Super Secret Weapon, a gay, erotic, political satire of the War on Terror. This book contained far less sexual content than Teleny, so the publisher was perplexed when the book was rejected. Despite following up and protesting the rejection, Apple’s decision stood.

This happened again when Jon Macy finished the final chapter of his fantasy epic Fearful Hunter, and Northwest Press submitted the collected edition to iBooks. Apple rejected it.

“I pointed out that issues 1-3 were already available for sale on iBooks,” says Christensen. “But they did not budge. Fearful Hunter is apparently like ‘gay Voltron‘; fine in individual pieces, but way more formidable when assembled.”

Now that Hard to Swallow has been rejected as well, the publisher feels that Apple will continue to reject any graphic novel that includes sexual content.

“This is not censorship, per se,” says Christensen. “Apple is not the US government, and they can make their own decisions about what to include or not. But the waters are muddied by the fact that Apple’s devices behave a lot more like a distribution platform than a standalone bookstore, with independent publishers using iPhones and iPads as a means to distribute their work. When Apple blocks material on content grounds—blocking it from being sold in any app installed on a customer’s device, by the way—they are effectively banning the book from being sold on any of Apple’s over a billion active devices.”

“Think of it like this,” continues Christensen, “It’s like the company that makes your television preventing you from buying a spicy movie on pay-per-view.”

To make a point about what Apple’s behavior, Northwest Press has created a special version of Hard to Swallow, which readers can download for free. They refer to it as the “apple version”, because all of the sexual content and nudity has been censored with pictures of apples.

“This is the version of Hard to Swallow that’s acceptable to Apple,” says Christensen. “This is what you get when Apple dictates what you’re allowed to buy.”

The publisher has included an introduction to the special edition, penned by Christensen, as well as several Internet links: one is to an iBooks feedback form where the publisher urges you to share your feelings about content restrictions—”respectfully but firmly”—with Apple. The second is a link to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, who work to protect comic book creators from censorship and legal threats. The third is a link to Northwest Press’ entire catalog on ComiXology, including the two previous books which Apple has rejected.

“Download Hard to Swallow: Apple Version,” says Christensen. “If you enjoy it, but can’t help but feel that something is missing, I hope you’ll let Apple know that you don’t need their opinion on what’s appropriate reading material for you.” # # #

Northwest Press is an independent comics publisher that has been producing quality comics exploring the LGBT experience since 2010. Their full catalog of books can be ordered directly and new books can be ordered through Diamond Comic Distributors.