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buggerySo, I've been reading Judd Winick's maxiseries Caper. You haven't heard of it? Or, you have heard of it but haven't been reading it?
You will. It's a damned good book, which had me hooked before I was halfway through the first issue.
But I digress.
I haven't cut for spoilers on this post because I'm not spoiling anything by discussing what had me saying "what the fuck?!" out loud when I read the most recent issue (#11 of 12) last night. Hopefully the mature topic won't offend anyone either. Because it's the mature content, the labeling of the comic as containing such, and the subsequent handling of said content inside the book, that I'm feeling the need to rant about.
Caper has been, from the very beginning, a clearly not-for-kids book. Yes, the violence and references to sex have been decidedly inappropriate for littl'uns. If Judd has been holding back to spare any squeamish readers, it hasn't been showing.
Until issue #11.
In which, when a naked man runs out of a building, and in the following panel stands cringing and (wholly ineffectually) trying to cover himself, you can see his bare genitals flapping about. Or... you sort of can. They appear to have been digitally obscured, as if I'm reading the comic through the lens of The Jerry Springer Show or COPS.
Which frankly, DC, I didn't think I was. And it's not like naked penis has never been shown in a DC "mature readers" title before -- hell, they were letting Mike Grell get away with it during his run on Green Arrow decades ago. (Well, it was the 80s, if not quite 20 years before present.) This is the twenty-first century. This is a mature readers title. This is a medium where naked women are not infrequently shown even in titles not designated "for mature readers," and in which there's entirely too much "camel toe" in some titles that bear the stamp of Comics Code approval.
I suspect that it was Judd's original intention, and probably artist Tom Fowler's as well, to show that swinging appendage in all its profound lack of glory. Which would mean somebody at DC editorial decided even their mature readers couldn't handle it. This is hardly the first time in recent months I've been frustrated by bewildering decisions on a DC editor's part that have diminished my enjoyment of a comic I read, but it is the first one that comes down to a matter of censorship as much as of respect (or lack thereof) for the fans.
Caper set its tone early: gory, blunt, no holds barred. (And dramatic and funny as hell.) The coy obscuring of one small area in two panels of Caper #11 interrupted that tone, threw me right out of the story I had been so divertingly immersed in, and will echo jangling through the remainder of the series -- as well as hang over any subsequent "mature readers" titles DC puts out.
Shame on you, DC.
You will. It's a damned good book, which had me hooked before I was halfway through the first issue.
But I digress.
I haven't cut for spoilers on this post because I'm not spoiling anything by discussing what had me saying "what the fuck?!" out loud when I read the most recent issue (#11 of 12) last night. Hopefully the mature topic won't offend anyone either. Because it's the mature content, the labeling of the comic as containing such, and the subsequent handling of said content inside the book, that I'm feeling the need to rant about.
Caper has been, from the very beginning, a clearly not-for-kids book. Yes, the violence and references to sex have been decidedly inappropriate for littl'uns. If Judd has been holding back to spare any squeamish readers, it hasn't been showing.
Until issue #11.
In which, when a naked man runs out of a building, and in the following panel stands cringing and (wholly ineffectually) trying to cover himself, you can see his bare genitals flapping about. Or... you sort of can. They appear to have been digitally obscured, as if I'm reading the comic through the lens of The Jerry Springer Show or COPS.
Which frankly, DC, I didn't think I was. And it's not like naked penis has never been shown in a DC "mature readers" title before -- hell, they were letting Mike Grell get away with it during his run on Green Arrow decades ago. (Well, it was the 80s, if not quite 20 years before present.) This is the twenty-first century. This is a mature readers title. This is a medium where naked women are not infrequently shown even in titles not designated "for mature readers," and in which there's entirely too much "camel toe" in some titles that bear the stamp of Comics Code approval.
I suspect that it was Judd's original intention, and probably artist Tom Fowler's as well, to show that swinging appendage in all its profound lack of glory. Which would mean somebody at DC editorial decided even their mature readers couldn't handle it. This is hardly the first time in recent months I've been frustrated by bewildering decisions on a DC editor's part that have diminished my enjoyment of a comic I read, but it is the first one that comes down to a matter of censorship as much as of respect (or lack thereof) for the fans.
Caper set its tone early: gory, blunt, no holds barred. (And dramatic and funny as hell.) The coy obscuring of one small area in two panels of Caper #11 interrupted that tone, threw me right out of the story I had been so divertingly immersed in, and will echo jangling through the remainder of the series -- as well as hang over any subsequent "mature readers" titles DC puts out.
Shame on you, DC.
