When it comes to online comics, apparently sex really does sell.
That’s what happened when Red Handed Studios creator Kyle Hurlbut got an unexpected e-mail from Apple. His online comics series — Fallen Justice — was ready to launch its second issue, after getting a decent following on his 9-and-older first issue.
So imagine his surprise when he got an e-mail from Apple saying that the second issue could not run with the 9+ rating, due to two panels with some sexually charged content — in this case, the character Dyna-girl laying in bed with protagonist Justice Theta, clearly topless.
“I felt this rush of guilt like our mom had caught you,” Hurlbut said. “And then they included a zip file with those two panels and I opened it up and said I guess, okay, I didn’t even think about it.”
But before you cry censorship — despite the comic being delayed by three days as Hurlbut made a few concessions, such as with a violent panel of a character’s head literally exploding, the 12-and-older comic surged in sales. Hurlbut said that the sales difference between Fallen Justice #1 and Fallen Justice #2 was about a 175 percent increase.
“I’m not faulting Apple really — it shows they really are looking at this stuff and they had to dig into the panels and find the things that were questionable, and that was really impressive,” Hurlbut said. “Had they made the comics stick to 9-and-older, I would have been off the outskirts, but since they’ve put in this ratings system, now it goes to the right level.”
Hurlbut says he isn’t quite sure what brought this on — it could have been the book’s weekend release, which kept it on the Featured Downloads list a bit longer, but he says some of it could be attributed to the older rating, which would alert 20- and 30-something readers that it isn’t a “baby” comic.
“It’s weird, because [the second issue] doesn’t make a whole lot of sense without Final Justice #1,” he said. “I’ve kinda tried to draw the line and not do an R-rated comic and every time I talk with my partners about it, they think I’m crazy. The target audience is 30-year-olds with iPhones, not kids, and a lot of them like sex and violence to some level, I guess.”
Fallen Justice #1 is currently free on the iTunes store — Fallen Justice #2 will remain free through the end of this Saturday.
August 20th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Wow. My name just appeared on Newsarama. Now, just waiting for the interview request… (subtlety isn’t my strong suit.)
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
Ah Controversy! Kyle’s actually the owner and founder of Graphics Lab 2 and has partnered up with Red Handed Studios for the iPhone release. Fallen Justice was created and lettered by Cary Kelley (me) written by Cary and Steven Forbes, Drawn and inked by Harold Edge, and colored by Ross Hughes. So go see what all the fuss is about and check out the book on your iPhone!