I’ve only followed this story passively, but then it occurred to me that maybe ten year ago, a guy at work showed me a joke email he’d printed out that depicted Bart Simpson getting blown by one of those two identical twin sisters on the show (I don’t remember their names).

I’ve forgetten what the context of the joke was. It must not have been terribly funny, since I can’t remember it well, but I also know I didn’t go calling the police (or my boss)on this guy. It was just someone’s rendering of cartoon characters, tastless as it might’ve been. It never occurred to me to think of it as kiddie porn. They aren’t real kids!

It’s not the kind of thing I’d want my daughter to see, but I can say that about a lot of things that are out there. So if a kid draws a similar picture of Bart, or any other cartoon characters who are kids, they’re possibly doing something illegal? Hide those notebooks, boys and girls!!

Jeff, I think that you’re making a mistake by lumping Caleb’s characterization of Valerie in particular with reactions to women calling attention to issues in general. Most women who call attention to issues are not cranks. If you read her blog over a period of time, Valerie is. Her blog is choked with reactionary opinions that she frequently appears to modify to suit her needs at the time. I think that Caleb ought to be allowed to call somebody out for the way that they approach issues, female or not.

I’ve also only passively paid any attention to this story, but from what I’ve gleaned, Vinnie’s assessment above is the best, in that there is much gray area in between the two viewpoints. I do enjoy Valerie’s blog, and whether or not I agree with her views, at the very least I can understand where they’re coming from.

As far as the Simpsons drawings, no they’re not real kids, and they’re intended as “fun” but what does it say about our sense of humor when we look at images of two kids, siblings at that, having sex? Is that really funny? Is that entertaining? What value is there in showing two children screwing each other? I’m no prude, but that doesn’t strike me as funny. Or titillating. The only response I have to such images is “WTF?”

Would I call the cops on the guy drawing or reading this stuff? I don’t know, I doubt it. But I would be keeping my eye on him, and probably keeping my kids away.

“Do we really need to send someone to jail over Supergirl’s outrageously large nipples?”

Probably not, but do we need to see a teen girl drawn with such outrageously large nipples? Particularly one who is potentially a role model to other teen girls? Yes, it’s just a drawing of a teen girl, but it’s still a teen girl. Why isn’t in inappropriate to look at, or draw, a teen girl with her panties showing or with large nipples? Why is that supposed to be okay? Doesn’t it make you question what’s going through the artist’s mind? Or to the guy who is drooling over such images? And if nobody is drooling over it, and if nobody is intending to titillate by drawing such images, then why draw them as such?

Now, as far as Lost Girls, I honestly have not read it yet, but my wife owns it (signed by the artist at SDCC ‘06, I believe). From what I understand, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie were setting out to create comic book porn of literary and artistic value. By definition, they were trying to produce something that wasn’t there just to get people horny, but to get them thinking. At least that’s how I understand it. Like I said, I haven’t read it, so I can’t say that they executed their goals well, but if they did, then Lost Girls seems to have more artistic value than Bart getting blown by Lisa.

The Wally Wood drawing of all the Disney characters, while similarly useless, so to speak, doesn’t depict children, as far as I recall. And that’s where the line is in all of these examples for me. Depictions of children having sex. Again, I have to ask, why? What’s the value? Because it’s not funny.
RM.

“do we need to see a teen girl drawn with such outrageously large nipples?”

Yes.

Yes we do.

Maybe not Supergirl, but somewhere.

I’m sorry, did I just say that out loud?

I hate to even have to say this, but my hand has been forced by a couple of people. THEREFORE:

ANY POST that contains ANY SUGGESTION of doing violence toward another person will be deleted.

“ill-conceived”

Possibly.

“poorly-written”

Never.

“I love Marvel, with all my heart, but it sickens me that they’ve given D’Orazio work. Disgusts me.”

Shame. She’s proven herself to be one of the best writers about comics. Whether you agree with what she writes or not, her skill is apparent. Now we get to see if she kind write comics as well.

“Like I said, I haven’t read it, so I can’t say that they executed their goals well, but if they did, then Lost Girls seems to have more artistic value than Bart getting blown by Lisa.”

So if what you draw is good, you don’t go to jail, but if it’s not good, you do? No. Freedom of speech should not be variable depending on one person’s view of quality, surely?

If owning drawn child porn makes one do things to real children, then shouldn’t owning violent pictures, words, and games make one do violent things? (You played Hanged Man, you must be jailed because you will hang someone!)

RM, you said “From what I understand, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie were setting out to create comic book porn of literary and artistic value.”
What if the creater of the Simpson porn wasn’t trying the same thing? Or maybe “Lost Girls” really is straight porn with no literary value.
What is art? Who decides what is art and what is vulgar? What if two people have different opinions?

If the people who look at fictional child pornography are jailed, shouldn’t people who play video games where they beat up fictional men and women be jailed, also? Both are forms of entertainment. Both are against the law, when happening to “real” people.

Jen, what IS the difference between the two situations? I’m not condoning either, mind you. Looking at underage porn of fictional characters is screwed up in my mind, but is it really something to go to jail for?

Wait, so am I supposed to go to jail or therapy for buying Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby? Is Jeff Ayers, the guy whose store sold it to me? Dan Nadel, the guy whose company published it? Takashi Nemoto, the guy who wrote and drew it? I don’t know the name of the woman running the register when I made the actual purchase, but she definitely helped out too, with the whole money take/comic give thing. Which one of us is the bigger pervert/psychic child molester? ‘Cuz I laughed at it. Totally did. Thought it was funny. Totally did. Gross, sure. But funny, yes sir.

Actually, now that I think about it, I would rather hang out in group therapy/jail with people who think that an illustration of gross black comedy isn’t harming anybody then sit around free with people who can’t make the distinction. I mean, if we’re going to split everybody into two groups, and one of those groups operates from a place where their personal taste determines the line with which all art should be measured, and rule-breakers get chucked out of society into some kind of imprisonment/nuthouse–well, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what kind of world those sorts of people can come up with.

“next people will be jailed for things they write on blogs, and then things they write in their diaries” [Emphasis added]

Already happened. Brian Dalton of Columbus, OH, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for child pornography which was written in his personal diary but never distributed to anyone else. The ACLU later got the decision reversed and the charges dropped, but it is still chilling that private thoughts can be made criminal. (Dalton also received mere probation for possessing pornographic photos of real children. Make sense of that.)

“Shame. She’s proven herself to be one of the best writers about comics. Whether you agree with what she writes or not, her skill is apparent. Now we get to see if she kind write comics as well.”

Maybe they’ll even be as good as Vamptopia.

Calling D’Orazio a “crank on the Internet” and a “crackpot” is one of the most childish shots I’ve ever seen on the Internet. That’s the best you can do, Newsarama? If we ever need evidence on the decline of editorial content on the big N, this is it.

When I think of Valerie, I think of the person who writes one of the best blogs on comics. I wholly disagree with her position on illustrated child porn and the role that the CBLDF should take on this matter (Rich Johnston pretty much sums up my opinion), but I respect the thought she put into her position.

As for Friends of Lulu and Melinda Gibble, Lost Girls was a commercial success. I don’t think Ms. Gibble needs the help of FOL to promote the book. And any PR hit that FOL takes from D’Orazio’s positon on this issue is mitigated by the positive work she’s done to promote the organization.

And how is D’Orazio’s complaints about Didio any more unprofessional than, say, Mark Waid’s complaints about his different stints at Marvel and DC (while now acting as EIC for a competing comic book company)? Why does Waid get a pass and D’Orazio doesn’t? Is it because Waid’s “one of us”, a fanboy at heart? Because he’s written good comics? Or is it because Waid complained about decisions about the content of the comics while D’Orazio talked about the less sexy issues of losing health coverage? I’m not calling Waid unprofessional. In fact, I hold a high opinion of Waid, just as I hold a high opinion of D’Orazio.

D’Orazio is a very good, thought-provoking writer about comics, the culture around comics, and the businesses that create comics. Vinnie and Mozzocco may disagree on that, but then again, I’ve yet to see any evidence that either is a better writer.

This is a misleading statement. Any regular reader of Valerie d’Orazio’s blog could tell you that all comments being subject to review before being posted has been the normal state of affairs at her blog for months. The policy most certainly did not begin on Sunday.

KB—you misread that sentence. There were 125 posts “as of Sunday morning.” The semi-colon’s there to denote the beginning of another sentence, explaining that D’Orazio pre-reads comments before posting them. I suppose I could have worded that better.

That’s the best you can do, Newsarama? If we ever need evidence on the decline of editorial content on the big N, this is it.

Just to be clear: I wrote and posted that. There are a lot of folks at Newsarama with a lot of differing opinions, and not everyone at Blog@ or at Newsarama.com necessarily shares everyone else’s views. I only speak for Newsarama in general in so much as I was asked to contribute to this blog, and haven’t been asked to leave yet.

I don’t think Ms. Gibble needs the help of FOL to promote the book.

No, but neither does Ms. Gebbieneed to be called a sicko whose work should be banned and criminalized either. It’s not D’Orazio’s opinions that I found interesting about the situation as much as the fact that a person who’s leading an organization dedicated to supporting the work of women in comics was actively calling on at least one of ‘em to be sent to the slammer.

I’ve yet to see any evidence that either is a better writer.

Well I suppose there’s no accounting for taste, is there? Or perhaps you’ve never read my writing “about comics, the culture around comics and the businesses that create comics?” Feel free to click on my byline up there and bring up all my posts here, or visit my blog; there’s a couple of years worth of posts on those subjects there.

I’m rather proud of my writing, and I know enough about writing to recognize bad writing. D’Orazio’s posts the last week or so aren’t her best work.

I believe the personal attacks on Valerie are uncalled for. I am one of the people who have disagreed with her and tried to debate her on this issue. Her primary reaction appears to be emotional, (I mean it’s the freaking Simpsons) but her response also appears to be based upon some level of personal experience, so cut her some slack. She is not a crackpot by any stretch of the imagination.

Also, she did not introduce Lost Girls into the topic. That work was brought up in the talkbacks first.

Two quick things:

“If you’re actually proud of calling someone a “crank” and a “crackpot” just for stating views you don’t agree with, then so be it.”

The “crackpot” was a hyperbolic headline as used in newspapers and tabs daily, in line with his others in the larger piece. I find it ironic that people on the internet (esp in comics - Spider-Man: Threat or Menace?) failed to catch the hyperbole…

“And yes, it’s valid to criticize Newsarama for posting your rant on the front page of its website”

Sure, it would be, if we did. Blog@ has always had an area where the latest stories were highlighted, but this portion of this story was not singled out in any way on the front page, other than the script picked it up because it was in the line up in the Blog@ portion of the site.

“The personal attacks on Valerie are inappropriate. They reflect an all too common reaction to women who call attention to issues relating to gender discrimination and sexual norms–marginalizing them as irrational, crazy cranks.”

And nobody’s ever done that to Dave Sim.

The semi-colon’s there to denote the beginning of another sentence, explaining that D’Orazio pre-reads comments before posting them. I suppose I could have worded that better.

But you also pre-read comments before posting them, right? I’m not sure what you mean by pointing that out, but I also don’t understand why you feel the need to call Val names and make derogatory comments about her personally just because she doesn’t agree with you when it comes to virtual child porn.

I don’t think you realize how this looks to those on the outside looking in. Instead of discussing the facts, you’re trying to win a debate and change people’s opinions by calling the other person a bunch of names. Good luck with that.

You also seem to think that the fact that she is the president of Friends of Lulu is somehow germane to this discussion. I haven’t heard anyone question why Friends of Lulu would want Val to lead them, as you hypothesized. I didn’t know better, I would almost think you were attempting to put her presidency with Friends of Lulu into some kind of jeopardy. I can’t believe this is the case. The idea that you would try to punish Val because of something she said seems too ridiculous to be true. This whole debate on virtual child porn is supposed to be a free speech issue, right?

while I can appreciate what you said, I don’t know that there’s any “titilation” over images of Bart Simpson and other cartoon “children” in sexually explicit drawings. Namely, I don’t think it’s the fact that Bart, Lisa, and the identical twins are meant to be children that’s the issue. It’s some people’s idea of having “fun” with familiar characters.

Maybe there’s similar renderings of Homer and Marge out there too? I dunno, and I don’t really care to either. None of it “floats my boat,” but the guy who showed me the gag drawing ten years ago was a friendly, good natured guy and good parent too. I don’t even remember what, exactly, the joke was about but I’m pretty certain this guy wasn’t harboring some ill intent towards actual children.

It’s not the same thing at all, but as an example of something similar I’ve been to a lot of Grateful Dead (and other “jam band”) concerts in my time. In the parking lots you’d see a lot of bootleg T-shirts that would have Simpsons, Sesame Street and other characters (even Calvin and Hobbes!) smoking joints or doing bong hits.

I don’t know if there are kiddie drug laws that are akin to kiddie porn laws, and I was never interested in having a shirt showing Bart or Elmo getting stoned, but I don’t know of anyone ever getting arrested for wearing such a shirt. It make you more of a target for law enforcement (including fashion police), but it was never evidence of someone dealing drugs to kids.

Joe wrote:

He is NOT saying D’Orazio started monitoring the statements on Sunday.
Clear?

I was merely wondering why a blogger who employs comment moderation feels the need to point out that another blogger also employs comment moderation. I didn’t infer that he was implying she only started comment moderation on Sunday. If I thought that, I would have said that.

I think everyone understands that the number of comments is bound to go up.

This is just lame. The attack on Ms. D’Orazio is cushioned with links about Geo-Force and Pokemon ahead of it…”Let’s talk about kiddie porn, but first let’s bring up a popular children’s franchise…”

You gotta be kidding me.

You know what, I feel sorry for Val. She seems to be embracing her “new found martyr status”. People disagreed with her opinions (a popular internet passtime), but I don’t think anyone was calling for her free speech to be curtailed, as she is now claiming. She stated her position, and commentors disagreed and stated why. Name calling is an unfortunate occurence on the interwebs, but Val seems to be certain that folks are out to get her. Well Val, if you’re reading this, I just want to say, that I strongly disagree with you, but I would never think of having you censored. Free speech extends to all of us. I personally think that this debate has drawn to a close. Val would rather be a martyr for cartoon kids than actually debate. She would rather talk down to her detractors, ignore their arguements, or move the goal posts. And you know what, it’s her blog and she can play poor me all she wants. I don’t want to play her game anymore though. At this point no one is getting anywhere with this discussion.

Shaun raises an interesting point. How far does the “kiddie porn” status go? Does just showing genitalia constitute as kiddie porn? Do they have to be involved in a sexual act? Does the sexual act have to be physically shown instead of heavily implied? Cause I can think of several seasons of South Park I shouldn’t be able to own if so (the episode where Ben Affleck dates Cartman’s hand, Jennifer Lopez, comes to mind). Will Comedy Central and Cartoon Network get fined for showing South Park and Shin Chan (many many instances of child genitalia shown) respectively?
I mean honestly, I find child beauty pageants more disturbing than Simpsons porn.

I read Valerie’s blog a lot. She’s speaking from a place of pain - that’s obvious from her own postings, not my two-bit psychoanalysis. So I get that she sees this stuff and it pushes her buttons. That’s fair. She also has a successful blog and an ability to express thoughts and feelings with which to speak her mind. Also fair, that’s the power the Internet has given us. No problem so far.

But to start to throw around the “child porn” label in this debate is inaccurate at best and irresponsible at worst, as people do listen to her and she has used her forum in part to promote and represent the works of others. Lulu and Marvel are the examples that come to mind. It’s up to them to determine how much they care about something like this, if it’s even on their collective radar. I’d be surprised if the former cared much at all, but I’m willing to bet the latter will have a word or two on the subject.

So let me get this straight…

Val never called Melinda Gebbie a “sicko whose work should be illegal”, but it’s okay for the author of the article to say so.

Matt Brady says, “Hey- Blog@Newsarama really doesn’t show up on the front page of the site, even though it does.”

Also, we’re allowed to call Val a “crackpot” and a “crank” because it’s hyperbole… Of course, the “crank” line didn’t occur in the headline, so apparently it’s okay to pass exaggeration in the content of the article.

I stand by my original statement- this is strong evidence of the decline of editorial content on Newsarama. This article was a hack job, pure and simple. I would have loved to have seen logical arguments against D’Orazio’s stand on illustrated child porn. But it’s hard to believe any article of value on the subject is going to come from Caleb Mozzocco and Newsarama.

But you also pre-read comments before posting them, right?

No, I don’t. Someone does at Blog@, and I’m not sure about Newsarama proper. This isn’t my joint; I just contribute the posts with my name on them.

the need to call Val names and make derogatory comments about her personally just because she doesn’t agree with you when it comes to virtual child porn.

I’m not and I don’t. I don’t care what she thinks about virtual child pornography any more than I care about who her favorite superhero is. I think it seems weird, as I said in the article and since in the comments, that the head of a comics advocacy group would use those opinions to de-advocate.

I didn’t know better, I would almost think you were attempting to put her presidency with Friends of Lulu into some kind of jeopardy

Well, you know better. I’m not part of Friends of Lulu and I don’t much care who’s in charge of it. It seems noteworthy–a link and a couple paragraphs on it noteworthy–that the president of…look, I’ve already said that like six time already, haven’t I?

This is just lame. The attack on Ms. D’Orazio is cushioned with links about Geo-Force and Pokemon ahead of it…”Let’s talk about kiddie porn, but first let’s bring up a popular children’s franchise…”

I generally try to put these in more or less chronological order, with the longest one going last, which is why they’re ordered the way they are. I suppose this could have been its own post, but I didn’t want to focus a whole post on the subject. In retrospect, it’s apparently much more interesting to readers than Geo-Force and the 99.

Oh and i like Geo-Force, the redesign is cool, atleast they got rid of the goofy green ‘GF’, and Meltzer has made him a great character.

Interesting that people are using the word “attack.”

BTW, It’s a shame a story on The 99 was mixed in with the obscenity stuff. The 99 is a nice, reality-base approach as to what Muslims like myself actually are, normal people.

Just something that bothers me : Valerie isn’t allowed to criticize a work by a woman? Because she was a high-profile comic artist? That’s silly.

I applaud Valerie’s willingness to take a stand against the toxic, libertine group-think that characterizes sites like this. Quibbling over whether exploitive imagery of children is “only pencil lines” avoids the real question of why some tolerate (or even encourage) adults who marinade in this kind of twisted filth. Though the “mere drawings” don’t literally hurt an actual child, they serve to wear down the “moral firewall” of our society towards this predatory mindset, causing people to set up these very sorts of insane rationalizations.

There was a time when most adults agreed that the protection of children was one of our top concerns as a civilized society…but that’s obviously no longer the case. Now we argue over which types of exploitative imagery are “real” enough to worry about….as pedophiles and their apologists continue to crank this garbage out at a record pace and wrapping themselves in their buffoonish understanding of the First Amendment.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Val seemed to think creating/distributing/possessing child porn should be illegal and is a sign of ill mental health. I don’t have an exact quote, but that’s what I got out of her side of the argument. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie created a pornographic graphic novel involving pedophilia and incest.

Simple logic would dictate that she is saying that their work should be illegal, and they’re probably both sick in the head.

So while Val didn’t specifically say “Melinda Gebbie is a sicko” it follows from her other statements. Unless of course Ms. Gebbie gets special consideration in her depiction of child porn of course.

>>>JR wrote:

I don’t, people were going to call her out on her bullshit sooner or later. You can’t go around calling comic pros (Alex Ross) Pedophiles.<<<

Valerie never called Ross a pedophile.

But why is okay for *you* to falsely accuse someone, and not her?

@ Rich J. - “No, no, I think they claim that they may well be obscene, disgusting and vile. And when that comes to free speech, that is totally irrelevant. If you only defend free speech that is not offensive to you… well, then, what’s the point?”

Alas, once again, one of my comments was deemed spam (I’m assuming it’s based on length - insert comment about being “too big” here) on Blog@, so I’ve posted it in Talk@ under the “CBLDF’s Handley case sees possible precedent ” thread.

In it I attempt to clarify my position, and comment on some of the arguments some of the CBLDF supporters use that (I believe) undermine the argument.

i don’t know val. but she’s pretty clearly got a personal perspective on the issue, and a personal reaction to it. damned if i know why that’s such a tough pill for people who’re championing a much more outré expression of personal liberty to swallow.

there’s big fat disconnect there somewhere. it’s like saying that you love animals so much that you’ll shoot my dog if his barking keeps the baby squirrels in my backyard awake at night.

organize a petition to the australian parliament, if you want to. support the CBLDF, by all means. hang some naked simpsons up with your christmas lights, and let your own convictions shine forth thataway, if you want to bring the issue to the attention of your local nine o’clock news team.

but for god’s sake, give val a break. give the pillory a rest. if you think her take on things is unbalanced, well, hey: think about it. this kind of confrontationalism isn’t likely to help her reach any kind of subjective/objective equilibrium in regard to the issue.

’tis the season to chill out and be nice.

“This was shameful”

Which part? The people lambasting Val, the ones coming out in support of child porn, or the guy trying to create the new Pokemon? We need details, or we can’t agree of disagree with you properly.

Mr. Mozzocco, no offense, but you’re an ass. Not because of your opinions, but the way you went about expressing your disagree with Valerie D’Orazio’s blog posts about illustrated child pornography. It’s her opinion — you don’t like it, say so, but don’t insult her for expressing herself through her personal blog. As popular and discussed, that’s what it is, and she’s hardly a crackpot for speaking her mind. Newsarama, on the other hand, is a comic book news site that I’d hope would refrain from personal attacks when discussing such a sensitive and heated subject. Even if it comes from the blog section, it’s terribly unprofessional.

You’re the one at fault here, and I suggest you apologize before this debacle goes any further. And please use your head when you’re going to write about something equally controversial and divided an issue.

And should you find it necessary to reply to this message, please don’t waste time on my opening line — if you felt insulted or hurt, I apologize.

Have a good day.

I think whoever said the goal posts keep moving is spot on. Originally her point was that illustrated child porn should be illegal, then it became her point that illustrated child porn can be harmful. I agree with the latter, I absolutely do not agree with the former. I understand her point, but I resent that I’m not allowed to disagree with her original point without being accused of championing porn or being called names. Her initial response was positive but the posts after that were an unproductive temper tantrum that tells me that her readers aren’t allowed to have differing opinions.

This part was the last straw for me -
“It’s free speech — but only for some. Those who do not fit in with the “program” do not get the benefit of free speech or respect. Those people must be thrown out of their jobs, ostracized, and attacked.” Isn’t that exactly what she wants for those who view illustrated child porn? She wants free speech, but only for some. She lost me as a reader. I can respect her if she has unpopular opinions and always have, I can’t respect a hypocrite.

KB—you misread that sentence. There were 125 posts “as of Sunday morning.” The semi-colon’s there to denote the beginning of another sentence, explaining that D’Orazio pre-reads comments before posting them. I suppose I could have worded that better.

*****************

Probably both some misreading on my part and awkward sentence structure on yours. No worries on that part.

To be completely honest, though, I think the rest of the sentiments you expressed are about 95% utter crapola. “Your mileage may vary.”

I think it is a very relevant topic considering how easily you can run into this type of imagery online. It used to be difficult to do very many searches on DeviantART without running into several fan pics of cartoon characters getting it on or any number of implied sexual situations (they’ve cracked down on this thankfully). I’ve not seen the Simpsons cartoon in question but I don’t think it’s technically child porn. It’s highly inappropriate and begs questions as to what possible purpose it could serve, but I don’t think it’s the same as actual children being exploited for porn.

I do also think Valerie is a thoughtful, talented, and opinionated writer, but I don’t see anything productive in attacking her over taking a stance on this highly debatable moral issue. And if you think she is out of line as “the president of one comic industry non-profit group… openly opposing another comic industry non-profit group”, then how does it rank when a newbie blogger representing one of the oldest and most viewed comic news sites on the web goes about writing hit pieces on said leaders in the industry? Sorry, but if you start calling people “cranks” you are in just as deep as anyone else.

@Rob Staeger:
I see Valheads don’t use logic and support my assertion that there’s something mentally wrong with them, especially if they’re supporting falsely accusing somebody of being a pedo.

One of the things that’s never brought up when this topic is discussed is photorealistic, anatomically correct, virtual child pornography. That’s the problem. Is it OK to produce, own, or pleasure yourself to images of children that look so real they’re practically photos?

No actual kids were harmed in their creation, but do they perpetuate harm?

And I pose this question not as bait for an argument, but because I have no idea. I think it’s the real question in the discussion, not, “Should I go to jail for seeing Starfire naked even though she’s 14?!?!?!??”

I’m stunned by the amount of negative spin that’s been put on D’Orazio comments. Nowhere in her comments does she say, for example, that people should go to jail for owning an issue of “Lost Girls”. (Talk about reaching for victimhood status!) For people who wish to deal in reality, we DO live in a world with standards, standards that change over time and across eras. Why’s it so terrible to want a discussion on what constitutes The Line, and what sort of comic art crosses that Line? Why’s it so terrible to be offended by comic art that sexualizes children?

D’Orazio isn’t asking for government to police the industry. She’s asking for the industry to *police itself*, a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. That all the Juror #3s in the crowd are up in a tizzy speaks more to them that it does to D’Orazio’s comments.

“You’re right David, she just characterized it as sick, deranged, contributing to sexual violence, beyond the pale, and entirely appropriate to criminalize.”

What, she’s not entitled to her opinion on the issue? You certainly feel more than entitled to yours. As she wrote in her initial posting, the industry would be well served to decide on “what is or is not legal to view and download…” She’s made her preferences clear; she says, for example, that she doesn’t like image X, i.e.: “I don’t care for the Mary Marvel image…” because she feels it sexualizes a teen character. No one’s arguing this, and there’s nothing wrong with this line of thought.

But saying that something is wrong is not the same as saying something ought to be outlawed. Nowhere does she argue that the Mary Marvel images should be made illegal. Nowhere does she say it should be a crime to publish such images. In fact, in NONE of her posts has she called for criminalizing *anything*. The claims trying to create linkage between her arguments against sexualized images of young women and actual advocacy of law is weak at best, and utterly dishonest at worst.

“But saying that something is wrong is not the same as saying something ought to be outlawed”

Except she has? Multiple times. And decried those who would defend people who have been jailed for the creation or ownership of explicit cartoons. She’s been rather upfront about wanting to see the material censored by law.

“Except she has? Multiple times.”

No, she *hasn’t*. She’s called for the industry to re-examine its stand on sexualizing young women, and she’s called for child pornographers to go to prison. She has NOT, as so many have implied here, called for people who draw the “barely legal” Mary Marvel images to go to prison. Why is this so difficult for people?

“Do we really have to get out the pitchforks and torches and give her the Nightcrawler experience?”

Peter and his friends have dibs on being the victim.