2000 AD Online Forum

Just remembered this the other day when I was reading something about censorship.

I was in Gosh, the comic book store in London opposite the museum, back in the early 90's.  I had a couple of comics in my hand and was browsing through to find something new to read when 3 or 4 people came in and started confiscating stuff off the shelves.

We are not talking anything rude or lude, they were taking all sorts, with the women in charge directing them to take this, that, and the other.  I remember them taking things like 'From Hell' and possibly Hellblazer, but there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason for their selection process.  

I never did find out for sure what they were doing, but I think it may have been something to do with a complaint from locals regarding the nature of some of the books sold.

Does anyone remember anything about this or did you hear about anything similar?  I think it happened in a couple of places around this time.

Anyway, it took the wind out of me sails at the time, and got me most p1ssed off too.

M.

Wasn't their some controversy over the iussue of from hell which showed the death and dismemberment of Mary Kelly?

Good grief !! i'd love to know more, this is a draconian outrage !....

mind you,( irrelevant tale popps into head) there was a few years back & i was in a invernesses equivalent to the mall, the then EB store had a window display for i think it was resident evil, which featured dummy limbs severed heads & fake gore, i'm sure the lads who did it had a hoot however... now i am not mrs censorship, but this appauled me as it was only 2 doors down from early learning centre & totts were roaming the vicinity, it was too irresponsibly in yur face.

what people dismember in the privacy of their own games console is not my business.

Wasn't their some controversy over the iussue of from hell which showed the death and dismemberment of Mary Kelly?

Certainly in Oz.

Link: http://www.eddiecampbellcomics.com/ban.html

 Teh most shocking thing i ever saw in a comic shop was a polite and helpful member of staff. Truly a shock compared to usual service.
 There was a chief constable of IIRC Manchester called Anderton who sent the obscene squad to seize comics, he was a born again loon and had a big spat with IIRC again Savoy Books. There was a worrying trend in the early ninties for this sort of action and I imagine the above example was part of thatby either customs or the local force.

Hmm... I did a quick web search, and though I found lots of refernces to "controversy" surrounding From Hell Issue 10 I can't find anything about it actually being pulled from shelves. (Theres plenty about the graphic novel being banned in australia though).

The timeframe would have beeen right though, and it's such a shocking and gruesome comic that I wouldn't be surprised if it prompted evangelical christians or rogue local government officials to raid Gosh!

There was a breif fuss about a comic called "lord horror" in the early 90s, but I think that was a small press comic and not widely distributed.

Lord Horror was the Savoy title Anderton did his nut over. Apparently very unpleasant but not exactly aimed at kids.

I've re-read my posting and it doesn't give justice to how I felt at the time.  I was so furious and shocked that I was almost fixed to the spot.  It was probably just as well, because if I'd started I would probably have lost it and ended up taken away along with the comics.

And I believe the goons were from Customs.

James 'I allegedly want to put missile launchers on police helicopters' Anderton was particulary pissed at Savoy becuase in one of the comics, 'Lord Horror' I think, a caricature of Anderton has a long diatriabe of hatred against jews. Strange thing was this speach was exactly the same as real speach Anderton had made with the word 'gay' replaced with 'jew'

And the writer ended up doing time in jail for it

Lord Horror was revolting, and so were the spin-offs. But I don't believe in banning stuff.

 He was barking. I'ld be genuinely interested to see how no one noticed this on his rise to the top.

Lord Horror was pretty interesting and avant-garde, but also pretty pretentious and with some highly stylised but untimately poor and undisciplined art.

The character of Lord Horror was loosely based on William 'Lord Haw Haw' Joyce, the Anglo-Irish Nazi sympathiser who used to broadcast the 'Germany calling' radio propaganda to Britain during the war.  

Other real-life characters turned up in the comics quite a lot - for instance, I seem to remember James Joyce in it, as Lord Haw Haw's half-brother.

It was pretty graphic stuff - lots of very explicit violence and pornographic level sex content in it - and the Nazi element in it sometimes made for some uncomfortable reading.

As Arthur says, certainly not for kids, but it still didn't necessarily desrve attempts to ban it or prosecute its publishers.

I remember a mate showing me his Lord Horror's (inc. the one with the James 'Appleton' interview) at the time. Never really took an interest, though. Way too arty and amateurish (e.g. lots of photocopies in the art), and the vileness seemed to outweigh the satire quite a lot. A big turn off all round.

>>vileness seemed to outweigh the satire quite a lot. A big turn off all round.

Yeah, I'd pretty much agree with that.  I never could work up the enthusiasm to get all righteously indignant on its behalf on issues of creative freedom and right of expression when it ran into legal/censorship problems.

I recall stories about shops being raided by Customs in Comics International at the time,and I'm fairly sure Gosh were involved in a lengthy battle to get their stock back from Customs after it was cleared.
I remember those stories because I was in a comic shop (which doesn't exist anymore),when a Policeman
came in in uniform,and the bloke who ran the shop said to his mate"fuck! we're being raided",and the copper went over to him and said"have you got any Frank Frazetta artbooks mate? "
those old C.I.s are in the cupboard,I'll see what I can dig up,or their website might have an archive,I dont frequent it much.

I forgot to say,this is all nothing compared to the case of Jesus Castillo,who is fighting to stay out of jail by appealing his obscenity convictions to the supreme court of Texas.
His crime? he works in a comic shop in Dallas,and he sold Legend of THe Overfiend,a manga demon porno comic to an undercover cop in a police sting operation.This was set up because a similar comic had been sold to the chairman of the local P.T.A. who wasnt impressed.
Jesus has been charged with promoting obscenity,and faces 6 months in prison and financial ruin,for selling comics,however dubious,to an adult.In a country where hardcore pornography is legal.
If anyone can see the logic in any of that let me know,because I fucking can't : )

One of them most shocking things I ever saw on the shelves was early in 1976 just after JAWS hit the cinemas here in the UK, I simply had anything JAWS related (I still do) and my folks bought me a tie in movie magazine and there I encountered my first images of a real shark attack vitim (Legendary diver Rodney Fox), shocking stuff for an 11 year old back then, but no doubt tame for much of today's youth.

Ed

Whoa!! Hook-Jaw vs. Superman!!

 Doesn't Overfiend have school girls being raped by demons? I'm not a big proponent of censorship as a rule but certain things do go beyond the pale.
 It's a complicated debate and it's very hard to know where to draw a line. But I'm pretty much wit the Film Classifiers on what is acceptable as entertainment and what isn't they seem to have the balance about right now.
 

"Whoa!! Hook-Jaw vs. Superman!!"

Hookjaw would win

i once saw a A FEMALE.
now that was shocking. not pulling some chap out , actaully browsing though the comics and purchasing things.

was the most shocking thing i have ever seen in a comc shop.

I re-read Chapter Ten of From Hell yesterday - yeah it's pretty gross, but (as both Campbell & Moore have said) it shows what *happened*.

Okay, so the exact order of the mutilations isn't necessarily accurate (and the hallucinations experienced by 'Saucy Jack'), but the end result was factual - yes: he cut off her breasts.  Should they have pretended this didn't happen?
The chapter is definitely not a jolly-thrill kind of violence (See Moore's DR & Quinch if you want that!) but depicting a criminally insane serial murderer at work, in a very responsible mannor (IMO).

I wouldnt go as far to say Overfiend is "manga demon porno", because cartoon demons having sex isnt what Id consider arousing. Shocking maybe. Bad taste definately. But not porn.

legend of the overfiend seen a very very very very very very cut version of it on sci fi a couple of months ago and even the very very ect cut version was quite erm...i can't really find a word to describe it