Saga #12 Banned by Apple, why?

UPDATE: More information came out today (4/10/2013) revealing that Apple had not banned this book as we had been led to believe – read more –> Eating “Apple” Flavored Crow

Today as I checked my Twitter feed it was hard to miss that there was something about Saga #12, which comes out on 4/10/2013, that Apple didn’t like resulting in it being banned. Yes, you read that correctly, Apple is banning a comic book.

Well this peaked my curiosity. What could be so terrible that Apple felt the need to do this? If you knew nothing about the uproar or the ban and you read the comic you might never even notice what so offended Apple. It took me three searches through the comic to find the “offending” material. Two tiny, maybe “postage stamp sized”, images portraying gay sex. Yes, again you read that correctly as well. These were not prominent large panel images but tiny images that, even knowing that they existed somewhere in the book I had to look very carefully to find. Are they offensive? Not to me, maybe somebody else would find them offensive but then they should simply select other reading material and not attempt to censor what others can read.

I haven’t had time to read Saga since the first issue or two and this issue reminded me what I was missing. It is a fun book for the mature (read ADULT) reader. One that if I didn’t have a constant backlog of books to read both for pleasure and reviews I would gladly be reading. The art is fun, the premise interesting and story well written.

This book is not targeted at children or teens, but at adults. One more reason that Apple banning this issue confuses me. Saga never claimed to be a book for anybody but mature/adult readers.

Story by: Brian K. Vaughan
Art By: Fiona Staples
Price: $2.99
Diamond ID: FEB130461
On Sale: April 10, 2013
Series: Saga

On Image Comics Tumblr today was the following post, which includes how you can still read Saga #12 digitally:

A Statement on Apple’s Banning of Saga #12 from Brian K. Vaughn

For immediate release:As has hopefully been clear from the first page of our first issue, SAGA is a series for the proverbial “mature reader.” Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps. This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go. Fiona and I could always edit the images in question, but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing shit.

Apologies to everyone who reads our series on iPads or iPhones, but here are your alternatives for Wednesday:

1) Head over to you friendly neighborhood comics shop and pick up a physical copy of our issue that you can have and hold forever.

2) While you’re at it, don’t forget to support the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which helps protect retailers who are brave enough to carry work that some in their communities might consider offensive. You can find signed copies of Saga at the CBLDF site right now.

3) Download the issue directly through sites like https://comics.imagecomics.com or on your non-Apple smartphone or tablet.

4) If all else fails, you might be able to find SAGA #12 in Apple’s iBookstore, which apparently sometimes allows more adult material to be sold than through its apps. Crazy, right?

Anyway, special thanks to Eric Stephenson and everyone at Image for supporting our decision, and for always being so supportive of creators. Sorry again to readers for the inconvenience, but I hope everyone will be able to find an issue that Fiona and I are particularly proud of. And after you do, please check out PanelSyndicate.com, the new digital comics site I own with artist Marcos Martin, which remains 100% uncensored by corporate overlords.

Your pal,
Brian

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Image Comics adds: If you download the file, you can then sync it to your iOS device.