Will you be prosecuted for owning comic books?
Excuses aside, I am trying to take this blog off its unprecedented hiatus. I have been working and schooling and homeworking, but I have been keeping up with arts news.
And here’s the latest horror.
A man had been charged with possession of child pornography. But get this, he owns NOTHING OF THE SORT- unless you account for his manga collection. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund suddenly found itself in a very weird position of having to defend this man and his books. Neil Gaiman had something to say about this.
I can see the how quick one can slip down this slope, but I feel there is much good in manga, yaoi or otherwise- and to start prosecuting tons of honestly normal people for owning such books is wrong. I don’t own any manga myself, but I feel absolutely strongly about other people being charged for such ownership. Maybe tomorrow they’ll come for me for owning Sandman by Neil Gaiman or even Jane Eyre (because she wasn’t 18 when Mr. Rochester spied her).
I can only hope Christopher Handley will be defended well.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
OMG! That is absolutely insane! It is one thing to possess child pornography, in which actual children were at some point harmed to make it, but it’s another to arrest someone for possessing a drawing of a child in a sexual situation(I’m sorry, but you can’t arrest people for what goes on in their heads, or the fetishes they may have that are outisde their control…as long as no people are actually hurt), and you DEFINITELY can’t arrest someone for possessing manga that is drawn in a certain style and isn’t child pornography at all!
This is insane, and completely against the bill of rights. I read the article quickly so forgive me if this is in there, but I’m not 100% clear on how they found this stuff anyway? Did they have a warrant? And if they did, why? Not that it changes anything, but was there a reason for them looking through his stuff?
December 4th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
From here: http://www.cbldf.org/pr/archives/000372.shtml
“Mr. Handley’s case began in May 2006 when he received an express mail package from Japan that contained seven Japanese comic books. That package was intercepted by the Postal Inspector, who applied for a search warrant after determining that the package contained cartoon images of objectionable content. Unaware that his materials were searched, Handley drove away from the post office and was followed by various law enforcement officers, who pulled him over and followed him to his home. Once there, agents from the Postal Inspector’s office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley’s collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley’s collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.”
Insane, right? And it’s insane because a lot of manga isn’t about children at all, it’s just that androgenynous way of drawing women AND men.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
yeah, it’s crazy and deeply upsetting. I keep thinking that there is something we’re missing, bc this just can’t be.
February 16th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
[...] the post I wrote about the guy who was caught with manga (aka alleged porn for a pedophile)? Well, that [...]