That tends to be how it works, generally speaking. Anyway, some lengthy Hitch-related items to be found these days.

The first is a debate between Hitchens and anti-war writer Tariq Ali, hosted by Democracy Now! (home of an article entitled “Resisting occupation from Northern Ireland to Iraq”–yeah, if there’s one thing the IRA and Fedayeen are all about, it’s democracy!). Ali is too deeply invested in making people who set off bombs that kill their countrymen a dozen at a time into junior George Washingtons to acknowledge that Hitch is kicking the shit out of him, but it’s still a trouncing worth reading. When Ali implies that the “resistance” will eventually be pushing for elections, it seems that Hitchens can barely stop himself from laughing.

Also worth reading is a long two-part interview with Hitch at FrontPage Magazine. The first part focuses on the Iraq War and Hitch’s falling-out with his former fellow travelers on the Left. I like how he sticks it to his traditional-conservative interlouctor for supporting all sorts of heinous shit in the name of anti-Communism during the Cold War, while still finding time to decimate the usual bromides that ersatz liberals and Leftists have been offering up in support of the most retrograde, openly fascist forces on Earth.

The second part focuses on the Israel/Palestine situation. Hitchens puts a worthwhile emphasis on the Sharon administration’s intransigence, but though he’s quick to lambaste the “Islamic nihilists” who blow themselves up and are excused by the Left with the ridiculous claim that they’re trying to bring about a two-state solution, he fails to address that this plague of Islamic nihilism now infects a sizeable majority of the Palestinian populace. In other words, I could have used a little less emphasis on what a bad idea the founding of Israel was and more on what a bad idea Palestinian society as it stands now is. Still, Hitchens’s ability to condemn theocratic hardliners on both sides of the divide is refreshing, and indeed nearly singular among all the voices currently embroiled in this debate. (Both halves of the interview are full of fabulous quotes, and since I don’t want to abuse my blockquote tags, you’ll just have to go and discover them yourselves.)

Hitchens’s writing is characterized with an intolerance for injustice so palpable you can practically wear it as body armor. Go and read. (Links courtesy of The Christopher Hitchens Web.)

Bruce Baugh has written the finest review of Frank Miller & Lynn Varley’s wildly controversial Batman miniseries The Dark Knight Strikes Again I’ve ever read. And he loves the book–but maybe not in the way you’re thinking.

I’ve begun to notice that this graphic novel’s defenders, in the process of explaining why it’s a great book, may be doing more harm than good. DKSA proponents tend to emphasize Miller & Varley’s iconoclasm toward the realist-superhero trend, a trendw which began with the “grim ‘n’ gritty” “revisionist” superhero tales of the mid-80s (notably Watchmen and Miller & Varley’s own The Dark Knight Returns) before transmogrifying into the retro-tinged reverence of works by Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, and Alex Ross. DKSA, these proponents say, is basically the anti-realist manifesto, pegging superheroes as over-the-top and even ridiculous, and revelling in it. It is to the superhero comics of the post-Marvels industry what the Ramones were to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and anyone who doesn’t like the book (here comes the dreaded phrase) Doesn’t Get The Joke.

The thing is, it’s not that these proponents are wrong–I think they’ve latched on to an important aspect of DKSA, and I myself have made statements supporting these interpretations (probably not the “ridiculous” bit, but, y’know, most of the rest) from time to time, because I think that stuff is indeed present in the text. But this is not the only important aspect of the book. Moreover, saying of a book’s detractors that they don’t get the joke leads too easily to a retort of “I get it; it’s just not funny.” Take a look at Christopher Butcher’s review of the book:

“I gotta say, I really enjoyed THE DARK NIGHT STRIKES AGAIN…but that

The mystery of the Comics Journal’s phantom coverage of Bill Jemas’s ouster and CrossGen’s near-collapse has been solved for me by various correspondents: the Jemas story received a four-graf treatment in the Journal’s recent Fort Thunder-centric issue (also known as the one with the ad for “THE FIRST EXPLOSIVE ISSUES OF RAKAN AND AYA” on the back). CrossGen’s situation, meanwhile, got a paragraph (necessarily truncated, it would seem, since little of the real blockbuster information was available when the issue in question went to press) in that same issue, with a reference to earlier reporting on the company in issue #255. Both appear under the catch-all title “Breaking News.”

(News editor Mike Dean has since written a longer article on the current status of the CrossGen affair, which you can find excerpted here. It includes a clever bit pointing out that CrossGen is attempting to have it both ways by touting their comic-book line to comic-book readers by saying it’s not superheroes, while touting the potential of their comic-book line to be made into lucrative movie properties to non-comic-book readers in the movie biz by pointing to the grosses of superhero films; this is offset a bit, unfortunately, by Dean repeating the silly “we don’t publish superheroes” party line unchallenged. Listen, they’re in crazy outfits and have extraordinary powers. You do the math. That these books can be referred to with a straight face as non-superhero says a lot more about the narrowness of the “mainstream” than the broadness of CrossGen.)

I apologize once again for having overlooked these articles–well, mentions–when putting together my list of major stories on which News Watch appears to have dropped the ball. But I’m not going to back down from asserting that the ball has, in fact, been dropped. These stories were huge, but together they took up half a page: to give you an idea of context, the upper half was dedicated to a Doonesbury strip about Howard Dean flash mobs. And this was after fully 28 pages of con reports, obituaries, and bad-girl shenanigans. The priorities this suggests are, well, interesting.

And while we’re on the subject, the Jemas coverage characterized his reign at Marvel by focusing almost exclusively on the bravado and publicity stunts–in other words, the most easily noticed aspects of Jemas/Quesada “New Marvel”–and steered completely clear of meatier changes made by the pair: the new emphasis on hiring highly-regarded writers rather than relying on flashy art; the relative creative freedom (for the big-name creators, anyway) that lasted until Jemas’s last months at the company, at which point he seems to have decided he could write every book in the line himself through a heavy editorial hand; and the long, strange trip of Jemas’s abortive Epic line from anything-goes bastion of creator ownership for tyros and superstars alike to a single rigorously edited, intentionally stillborn Marvel superhero anthology. News Watch’s speculation on reasons for Jemas’s departure is just that–speculation; no mention is made of Jemas’s rivalry with Marvel West Coast honcho Avi Arad, his mutual antipathy society with retailers, or the pre-ouster dressing-down he received at the hands of Ike Perlmutter (ostensibly spurred by fan outrage at the firing of Fantastic Four creative team Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, and/or a well-timed letter of complaint by retailer Matt Hawes that mentioned everything from Marvel’s controversial no-overprint policy to what’s seen amongst fanboys as a New Marvel-wide disdain for superheroes).

My point: Covered properly, this wouldn’t be a story one would have to rack one’s brain to remember.

(Still no word on the whereabouts of manga, by the way.)

This Leftist critique of Leftist opposition to Gulf War II has been wending its way through the Internet for a while now. And for good reason: It’s correct.

“Whatever other crimes it committed or covered up in the twentieth century, the Left could be relied upon to fight fascism. A regime that launched genocidal extermination campaigns against impure minorities would be recognised for what it was and denounced.

Not the least of the casualties of the Iraq war is the death of anti-fascism. Patriots could oppose Bush and Blair by saying that it wasn’t in Britain’s interests to follow America. Liberals could put the UN first and insist that the United States proved its claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the court of world opinion. Adherents to both perspectives were free to tell fascism’s victims, ‘We’re sorry to leave you under a tyranny and realise that many more of you will die, but that’s your problem.’

The Left, which has been formally committed to the Enlightenment ideal of universal freedom for two centuries, couldn’t bring itself to be as honest. Instead millions abandoned their comrades in Iraq and engaged in mass evasion….For the first time in its history the Left has nothing to say to the victims of fascism.”

Traditionally I was more of a “liberal” than a “Leftist,” because even at my wildest I always recognized Marxism and Communism for the dehumanizing shams that they are; and even as a liberal I always believed international institutions to be means to a just and free world, not ends in themselves; but basically, there you have it.

How can I be a part of any movement that mobilizes to defend fascism? How can anybody?

Jim Henley on the problem with democracy. Seriously.

Democracy as a concept is useless if, the second a given populace is given the vote, they use it to strip away the inalienable rights of others. As Jim points out, hawks tend to forget to point this out when espousing democracy to the Muslim world; “liberals,” such as they are today, tend to mention it only by way of saying things like “fuck you, Shrub, when the Iraqis elect ayatollahs you’ll steal their election too, and where’s freedom then? BUSH LIED!”

Tyranny of the majority is not democracy.

I’ve started to realize that as much as I’ve been enjoying both my Tolkienblogging and the responses I’ve gotten to it, it’s become an obstacle to my Tolkienreading, which obviously remains my top priority. I’ve begun thinking things like, “oh, I’d like to read some more tonight, but I’ve got to write about what I’ve read since last time first. And I don’t have the energy to write.” So I end up neither reading nor writing, and that’s no fun for anybody.

I’ll probably be talking about the new film, and may even be occasionally submitting thoughts about the books (mostly musings on why this or that was or was not included in the movie versions, I think; there’s a lot of non-movie stuff that deserves some exposure!). But I don’t think I’ll be going chapter by chapter anymore. Look, I love you guys, but I sure do love reading these books as well.

He may have had an illegitimate child, but clearly it was Strom Thurmond who was the bastard. Andrew Sullivan ponders a man who fought tooth and nail to keep racial discrimination as the law of the land, yet clearly had no problem exploiting underage employees of his for sexual pleasure regardless of their race. The revelation of Thurmond’s fathering a child with a black woman makes him even more loathsome in my eyes, if that’s possible; to him, black people may not have been good enough to go to the same schools or eat at the same counters or drink from the same water fountains and probably even to vote, if that were possible, but they were good enough to fuck and then discard.

Strom Thurmond was scum, and it’s to this country’s everlasting shame that he remained in its highest legislative body until the 21st Century. And I feel much the same when I hear the noxious Klansman Robert Byrd’s latest pronouncements against our efforts to defeat fascism, particularly odious considering he spent his formative years espousing the American brand.

In responding to my piece on the Comics Journal’s News Watch section, Dirk Deppey notes that despite what I had alleged, News Watch had in fact covered the CrossGen and Bill Jemas meltdowns. I must have over-relied on simply looking at the tables of contents for recent issues as listed on TCJ.com to jog my memory of News Watch’s coverage, because I didn’t remember reading anything about Jemas’s ouster (still don’t, actually–can anyone point that issue out? Perhaps I missed it), and I thought the magazine’s CrossGen piece was written before the big changes in the company’s business model had been made. But my apologies for the inaccuracies–hardly a good example to be setting when you’re taking a news organization to task for similar offenses!

Yes, they are. Christopher Butcher lays it all out for us.

As I always say, if you think there aren’t a ton of good comics coming out all the time, you’re not paying attention. (Butcher lists some of them, as does Alan David Doane (twice!), as have I.) For all the kvetching and complaining and raging against the dying of the light that I do, I never lose sight of the fact that there’s a lot of truly amazing work out there, and I’ve been fortunate enough to read it. It may be tempting to give up on the industry, but never, ever let that make you want to give up on the art form.

THE RETURN OF THE KING COMES OUT TODAY

HOLY CRAP

I’ve now seen a few commercials for Ben Affleck’s new action movie directed by John Woo, Paycheck. In a post-Kill Bill world, isn’t there something insulting, if not borderline offensive, about having Uma Thurman play the traditional semi-tough female second-banana role? Particularly when the first banana is The Asshole from Fashionable Male?

One of the near-countless great things about Kill Bill was/is how the fact that Thurman’s character is a woman is not commented upon in the usual ways. No male character snickers about the idea of a woman thinking she could defeat him, then gets his comeuppance, and aren’t we feminist, blah blah blah. It’s taken for granted that the Bride, and her many female opponents, are brilliant warriors. Her femininity is an issue–she is called the Bride, after all, and she’s attempting to avenge the death of her unborn child; in so doing she attempts to spare several young female characters (Vernita’s daughter, Go-Go Yubari) any pain–but never is it set up as a potentially detrimental attribute to be overcome. As a matter of fact, during her conversation with Vernita, the Bride makes a point of saying that her former mentor and current would-be murderer, Bill, would never qualify a description of her prowess by saying she was the best of her gender. Even the baddest of the bad guys in the film’s world sees her for her abilities first, and for her gender as an afterthought.

Meanwhile, you can just tell from the commercials that in Paycheck, we’re all supposed to sit around and be impressed when Uma does something macho, as though this compensates for her womanhood, not flows from it naturally. Boo. Hiss.

“It’s too late to save Corner Comics, of course, but what about the next retailer to face a similar situation?”

—Dirk Deppey

“I don’t know who’s in the right here, the comics shop or the IRS, but when the government wins in their demand for books of any kind to be destroyed, members of a democracy ought to be goddamn alarmed.“

—Alan David Doane

“Whoever’s fault this latest mishap is, it really is a shame for all these comic books to be destroyed, and for the industry to most likely lose one more comic shop.”

—Shawn Fumo

“…Corner Comics became another front in the IRS’s never-ending war against cash-based accounting….Publications will be destroyed because of this. Stories shredded. Pleasure reduced. Accrue that, why don’t you?”

—Jim Henley

“If you know of ANY shop (comic or not) that is using the cash-based method of accounting, warn them….Switch to accrued, or risk having the IRS go after you because they know you don’t have enough money to fight back. And say one last farewell to the boxes of comics (over 100 boxes all told) about to go under the shredder. Curse the taxman for picking on those that can’t fight back (may the spirits of the shredded superheroes haunt him forever… heh).”

—Tegan Gjovaag

“Good Lord, but it’s dull on the world of comics today. Can’t someone start a fight about comic covers or something?”

—Graeme McMillan

Good priorities there, Graeme.

(UPDATE: Laura Gjovaag’s reporting on Corner Comics may now be found at this page.)

One thing the Corner Comics fiasco has thrown into stark relief is how good a writer and journalist is Dirk Deppey. His reporting may be tempered with editorial content, sure, but so was Upton Sinclair’s, and in terms of online comics journalism Deppey simply can’t be touched. The sad thing is that the same can be said of print comics journalism.

My comments about the lackluster performance of Comics Journal’s print news division have been seconded by Jim Henley and (strongly) Alan David Doane. Meanwhile, Bill Sherman has done the legwork on comparing today’s News Watch to previous incarnations of the section. In other words, now is a good time to explore what’s wrong with this ostensibly vital part of the preeminent English-language comics magazine. In broad strokes:

1) It doesn’t cover the most important stories, the stories really worth covering–stories that are, in fact, ripe for the covering, as Journalista, Rich Johnston’s Lying in the Gutters (yes, that’s right–some of it may be gossip, but some if it is as close to investigative reporting as the comics industry gets), and other blogs and sites prove week in and week out. The neglect of the bookstore manga explosion–easily the biggest comics-related story of 2003–is indictment enough, but add to that the failure of News Watch to cover (as I listed yesterday) the failure of the Direct Market to capitalize on the huge manga audience, the New Marvel Renaissance, the subsequent ouster of Bill Jemas, the coincident disintegration of the company’s (presumably) final attempt at creator ownership with Epic Comics, the moves made by new Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley, the degree to which those moves are a response to negative consequences of the high public profile previously maintained by Jemas & Joe Quesada (eg. the removal of Princess Diana from Milligan & Allred’s X-Statix), editorial cartoonists regularly being prosecuted/persecuted in Muslim countries, the Michigan adult-publication censorship legislation, the increasing presence of anti-Semitic imagery in Western editorial cartoons (or increasing amount of accusations of same, if you prefer), CrossGen’s restructuring and layoffs, the falling out between Bulldog Comics and DC, the role that Bulldog may have played in DC’s large number of sold-out comics, the rise of Dan DiDio at DC, altcomix graphic novels (like Blankets) being pushed out of the DM, superhero graphic novels being pushed out of the bookstores… and the list goes on, I’m sure. The fact that the Journal has in its employ a writer who chronicles these stories in-depth on a daily basis actually makes News Watch’s deficiencies look worse, not better.

2) “Fine,” you say. “So the Journal isn’t CNN. It’s not supposed to be! It’s a rabble-rousing, muckraking, (dare I say it?) activist publication, designed to promote intelligent aesthetics and moral business practices in the comics industry. They can’t cover everything, nor should they; they should report on stories that help illustrate and promote this noble agenda.” Okay, let’s pretend for a moment that I’ll cede you the point that advocates needn’t be reasonably comprehensive in terms of the stories they cover. As it stands now, News Watch doesn’t cover everything, or even most things, but the point is that it doesn’t compensate for this (let alone complement it) with a coherent position of advocacy, beyond uncontroversial common-sense stuff like “people should get paid on time for the work they do.” Which is not to say that the industry isn’t deficient in the uncontroversial common-sense stuff department–one need look no further than the financial records of most major creators to confirm that–just that the news wing of the only comics publication that matters should be setting the bar for coverage a little bit higher.

Not to keep using Dirk Deppey against his mother publication, but Dirk has been a passionate, tireless advocate on a variety of issues–from the need for intelligent retailership to the need for discerning consumers to defending small businesses against the depredations of overweening government agencies to calling the PR flacks of mainstream companies on their bullshit to raising awareness of the egregious abuse of cartoonists’ civil liberties in countries across the globe. That he’s been able to do so while covering nearly all the comics news that’s fit to print should come as a surprise to no one; indeed, how could he be such a comprehensive, consistent, and convincing advocate without doing so?

3) Even when it does advance its ersatz “agenda,” it’s usually done in the context of thinly-veiled schadenfreude over the legal misfortunes of people that the writers and editors of the magazine didn’t like to begin with–Jim Warren, Stan Lee, and so forth. Even if you feel that, say, Stan Lee

Is politeness a sign of high-level civilization? Kennyb wonders.

Buck up, genocidal dictators of the world! The heirarchy of the Roman Catholic Church will always have your back!

What the hell is going on here? Amid the (well-deserved) attention being paid to the political future of Iraq, Afghanistan has busied itself with creating a thoroughly theocratic constitution. While nominally democratic, what good does that do anyone when religious (and given that the religion in question is Islam, sexual) discrimination is built right into the country’s founding document? My hope is that U.S. involvement in the country, even if it’s just in Kabul and wherever else the troops happen to be at the time, will prevent the kind of egregious abuse this has the potential for fomenting, but clearly it would be best to head this off at the (Khyber) pass. Actually, that’s putting it mildly: It would be an affront to the Afghans and Americans who’ve sacrificed so much blood and treasure to topple the Taliban and oust their murdering cohorts in al Qaeda to do anything but prevent the return of theocratic intolerance.

It seems as though we’ve learned, at long last, that it’s pointless to replace one autocrat with another. When will we learn that it’s equally pointless to replace dictatorship with theocracy, particularly when, as is the case throughout the Muslim world, the relationship between the two is symbiotic?

Listen, all I want in this world is someone who’s left of Bush on social issues and right of Bush on the war.

(Link courtesy of Josh Cohen.)

Move over, Nigeria: There’s a new center for scam spam in town! (Say, maybe this was what Saddam was importing from Africa all along!)

Date: 12/15/2003 15:53:38 GMT

From: abuahmedd@netscape.net

To: [me]

Subject: THANK YOU

Dear Friend

My name is ABU AHMED, a merchant and arm dealer in Baghdad Iraq.

I have urgent and very confidential business proposition for you. I got your contact from my private search for a reliable and trusted foreign partner.

That any action you take is geared towards rendering humanitarian assistance to a man who is in distress with his family

Before the war between the United States coalitions forces and our former stupid President (Stupid Captured President Saddam Hussein) who dose not have consciences for his country and any member of his family. Captured stupid president Hussein gave me $55,000.000.00 (fifty five million United States dollars) to import Ammunitions from other countries to fight war.

I realized that my entire life is in danger, even if I fulfill the promise or not; I decided to navigate the funds and forget my investment behind in Iraq to run with my family to seek asylum in Dubai (U.E.A).

I deposited the money contained in 2 trunk boxes in a security/finance company as artifacts to avoid prying eyes and I traveled back to Iraq to lie to Bastard Saddam Hussein that the Ammunitions will be delivered within 21 days. Then I move to Dubai with my family to start with our asylum process.

I am contacting you to assist me in getting this fund and also helping me investing this fund in your country. So that you will help my family and I in getting back our normal life’s of standard of living and join you in your country. Due to my family and I do not have any travel documents, because of our asylum status in Dubai. And I can not go back to my country, because the stupid Saddam has a lot of loyalties that is looking for me.

All you need do is to fly down to claim the 2 Boxes from the Security Company and open a bank account through which the money will be lodged before transfer into your nominated Bank account.

I am willing to compensate you with 20% of the total sum for your assistance and

want to let you understand that the future of me and family depends solely on

this money. In this transaction confidentiality is very essential for us to achieve our goal. It is important that you maintain utmost good faith and trust. You must also not circumvent the transaction in any way. In conclusion, all the necessary documentation as regards to the deposit will be given to you to secure the deposit, and be rest assured that this transaction is 100% risk free.

Thanks while I await your urgent response.

Best Regards.

MR. ABU AHMED

* Between this and a certain scene in the upcoming Return of the King, by the end of the week the term “spider-hole” will have entered into the parlance of our times with a vengeance, no?

* It’s fascinating to see how while in hiding Saddam abadoned the Mustachioed Dictator’s Club for the Beared Dictator’s Club. Once in the company of Hitler, Stalin, Mugabe, Petain, Musharraf, and Franco, he’s now hanging around (metaphorically) with the likes of Khoemeini, Lenin, Omar, Arafat, and Castro. And now that I look at it again, doesn’t it seem like the hair on the top of his head is thinning a bit? Maybe he’ll join the combover club with Mao and Mussolini soon!

* I’m certainly glad not to find myself in the position where I have to explain why I opposed the course of action that allowed this to happen.

(UPDATE: Laura Gjovaag’s reporting on Corner Comics may now be found at this page.)

Dirk Deppey blogs the bloody bejesus out of the Corner Comics incident. Boldly going where few comics journalists have the patience to go, Dirk sorts through years of tax law to determine whether or not the shop’s owner, Paige Gifford, was in fact doing something wrong by not having paid taxes on her backstock. The answer? No, probably not. It’s a question of two different types of accounting, one of which the IRS, though it doesn’t have any strict rules against it, is no fan of. This confusing, dispiriting dispute between a small business owner and the government is the result.

Dirk chronicles an even more troubling aspect of the situation, though: The reactions of some of Gifford’s fellow retailers, which ranged from amused indifference to outright rooting for the IRS. Apparently some of this sentiment stems from the retailers’ erroneous belief that Gifford was, in fact, breaking the law; but still, that members of a group purporting to represent the interests of Direct Market retailers as a whole were so ready to jump all over a colleague who was in a position to lose thousands and thousands of dollars in cash or in merchandise, if not her whole store, is deeply troubling. I couldn’t help but feel that the retailers in question are happy with the little corner of the world they’ve carved out for themselves, and anything outside of it is greeted with suspicion if not contempt. Provides some context for the abject failure of the Direct Market (or at least the segment of it making these kinds of statements) to properly market and sell anything but supercomics, doesn’t it?

Fortunately, the Comics Journal is around to be a tireless investigator and advocate when it comes to the big stories and issues facing comics today. Well, I mean, the Comics Journal’s website is, that’s for certain. But I’m sure the magazine itself covers the important news in its News Watch section with the same dilligence and brio that Dirk does it on Journalista. Let’s see… bad-girl artists plagiarizing each other… Jim Warren’s legal troubles… Stan Lee getting sued by a stripper… some stuff about the Spider-Man movie…

Hmmm, I don’t see anything about the manga explosion in bookstores, the failure of the DM to cash in on same, the New Marvel Renaissance, the subsequent ouster of Bill Jemas, the coincident disintegration of the company’s (presumably) final attempt at creator ownership with Epic Comics, the moves made by new Marvel Publisher Dan Buckley, the degree to which those moves are a response to negative consequences of the high public profile previously maintained by Jemas & Joe Quesada (eg. the removal of Princess Diana from Milligan & Allred’s X-Statix), editorial cartoonists regularly being prosecuted/persecuted in Muslim countries, the Michigan adult-publication censorship decision, the increasing presence of anti-Semitic imagery in Western editorial cartoons (or increasing amount of accusations of same, if you prefer), CrossGen’s restructuring and layoffs, the rise of Dan DiDio at DC, altcomix graphic novels (like Blankets) being pushed out of the DM, superhero graphic novels being pushed out of the bookstores…

But I’m sure they’re in there. Somewhere.

It’s been brought to my attention by multiple sources that even if “virtual kiddie porn” as “defined” by recent attempts at anti-porn legislation is no longer a concern due to the intervention of the Supreme Court, the less extreme but still serious charge of obscenity can be levelled. Tokyopop doesn’t necessarily have to worry about ending up like Gary Glitter, but if an ambitious district attorney in a Southern state gets ahold of Battle Royale #3, they’re still likely to be in trouble. And the penalties can be astoundingly severe: Let’s all pause to remember Mike Diana, convicted of obscenity and ordered to be subject to random searches of his property to ensure that he’s no longer drawing anything.

It’s situations like this that make you wonder about the wisdom of allowing for “community standards” to decide important civil-liberties questions. The argument has been made, somewhat convincingly, that the ability for states and other, smaller jurisdictions to decide for themselves on issues such as gay marriage is ultimately good, because it permits for advancements in localized areas even if the country at large isn’t ready for it. This way, we can avoid forcing the issue down unwilling communities’ throats, which might only cause them to pass stringent measures against that advancement. On the other hand, look at the civil rights movement of the 1960s: The federal government took matters into its own hands because the “community standard” in Southern states was simply unacceptable, states’ rights be damned. The unwilligness of SCOTUS to rule substantively on what constitutes obscene speech or art is probably a good thing if you live in New York or San Francisco, but not so great if you live in Smalltown U.S.A.; their decision would likely but a damper on some products available in liberal communities, but open up a great deal more freedom for conservative ones. It’s a genuine quandary, and one which comics, already an interstitial, neither-here-nor-there medium in terms of publicly viewed artistic merit, will be tangled up with for some time to come.