It hasn’t been a great week in terms of comics and cartoons in the public sphere. Here’s just a couple of the stories that have really popped out at me:
- Tom Richmond reports on his blog about his politicial caricature app for the iPhone, which had a really great twist to it — it had contact information for all 540 senators and representatives in Washington, D.C. Which Apple promptly deep-sixed. No, it’s not like he’s out drawing Bill Clinton in his underwear, or George Bush pulling an NPH in the backwoods of Texas — he pretty much just drew (tame) caricatures.
From the man himself:
This is truly ridiculous. These caricatures aren’t mean or very exaggerated. They are simple, fun cartoon likenesses of the politicians and the purpose of the app is a informational database. There is no editorial commentary involved at all.
This is the very reason that Apple as a company should be taken to task over its ludicrous and inconsistent app approval policies. Clearly this app does not “ridicule public figures” and is violating nothing, but Apple has decided the world must be protected from the insidious subversiveness this would force upon the public and the brutal, heinous ridicule that my cruel, cruel caricatures would subject these politicians to.
- Meanwhile, the Sioux Falls, SD school board voted to remove Stuck in the Middle: Seventeen Comics from an Unpleasant Age from its libraries. The problem? “There were two or three of the snapshots where the scenes were a little more edgy, if you will,” said Ann Smith, the district’s library services coordinator, to the Argus Leader.
What frustrates me about this sort of thing is that (in my humblest of opinions), kids need to be challenged in their readings. This is how we’re going to have not just educated comic readers, but educated people, period. Are swear words and references to sex uncouth? Possibly. Is it going to warp children’s minds forever if they hear about it? I doubt it — even if parents don’t care enough to engage their children over what they are reading. “It seemed that the book was more of an adult’s reflection on their middle school experience,” said one of the school committee members. Ya think?
November 11th, 2009 at 11:47 am
The Apple thing is just stupid.
The Sioux Falls issue is a little more troublesome. On one hand you’re right, children should be challenged. On the other hand, that’s just OUR opinions. The middle school has a responsibility not just to its students, but its students’ parents. And there’s a whole generation of parents out there who are trying to raise their kids in a bubble. They believe that protecting their children from any “bad” influence is the way to go. So when parents start complaining to the school about books or curricula, school administrators and teachers have to listen, or they lose their jobs. And from knowing a number of teachers and administrators, I know that it’s a very small community, and when you get fired for something like this, you’re basically blackballed.
So it’s a real Catch-22 (to reference another banned book): either yank the book and do a disservice to the kids in your school, or don’t yank the book and lose your job.
May 18th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
This is cool,lucy