Luke Judge

All due apologies to Mr. Grant Morrison, from whom I nicked the above title. In turn, that phrase came out of his notes that constantly writes to himself, or at least pretends to when the documentary camera is turned upon him. Yes, I’m fanboy enough that I went to that panel. But I’m ahead of myself already.

Personally, this was a weird year into which was thrust the annual gathering of the tribes, the nerd prom, all invectives you can possibly imagine that you could possibly hurl at this endeavour. To which a new one was added this year: “Douche prom.” Yes, it’s coarse and crass and unforgivable, but there’s times that you find yourself stepping into a shoe that happens to fit you perfectly. The annexation by Hollywood and Other Distasteful Media Personages of SDCC continues apace. But it’s what comics seem to want, or it’s emblematic of what comic companies are becoming.

I said last year, at my end-of-the-decade wrapup, that the biggest single story of the time was also the biggest story of the year, that being the October Surprise of Marvel being bought out by Disney, followed rapidly by the the long hand of Warners reminding DC that they’re a subsidiary of Warners. And it continues to be so. Only we now get to see that in the after-hours scene surrounding SDCC. Parties purportedly put on to celebrate comic-related properties or comic companies often to seem to remember to invite everyone but the people who created the comics upon whose backs these new properties are borne wealth undreamed.

Or all-too-easily-dreamed and reaped.

I said reaped, dammit.

So yes, SDCC has become more commercial, more spectacle for its own sake, and not only those, but in a lot of ways, a lot more corporate. Not simply in that people are walking around wearing suits (there’s precious few, actually). But it is more regimented, more secured, more risk-free (minus the Constab 2010 incident). Free items are given out more forcefully, with hawkers working far and away from their home bases, exhorting “come on, it’s FREE!” to pass out their comic samplers and onesheets and trifles. Maybe that’s the economy talking. But you’d think that free would be enough of an enticement as it was. Free isn’t what it used to be.

There was a lot more Hollywood this year. More disingenuousness. More shaking and howdying. More glad-handing and youdaman-ing. Or maybe I’m more sensitive to it. There’s a lot of producers high-fiving themselves that the job got done and not a lot of interest in how good the job actually is.

It was the year that Scott Pilgrim tried to overshadow RED FACTION and maybe didn’t quite pull it off. But even so, he’s got a pretty big row to hoe in terms of expectations generated. True, he’s young, he’s fresh, he’s full of energy and all the kids are down with him on the show floor, but will he live up to the expectations that have been built up? I’m not talking about with the fans, but with the producers. They’re a tougher lot to win over, their knives are sharper, but you’ll never hear the producers bellyaching on messageboards before they start snicker-snacking.

I hope SCOTT PILGRIM outdoes everyone’e expectations. Mr. O’Malley and his team are all talented guys who’ve found a nerve, even it doesn’t happen to be my particular one. But then the only news that made me beside myself with happiness was that Michael Zulli (he of PUMA BLUES and SANDMAN and SWEENY TODD fame) will have a new book out in November. That’s the kind of thing that pleases me. Well that and the bomb dropped that there was going to be an ABSOLUTE WE3 with additional pages by Frank Quitely off of Grant Morrison’s script. Oh, and that there was positive motion in the direction of an eventual FLEX MENTALLO collection. Understand that I’m not happy because I’ll finally be able to read it; I’ve had it for years in multiple forms. However, I’m happy that all the millions of new Grant Morrison fans that have been created by FINAL CRISIS and such will finally get to read a deeply personal and engaging work.

Or it may yet along the wayside not unlike SEAGUY, which was announced to have a third episode eventually, mostly written. I might’ve missed some other nuggets from Mr. Morrison’s panel. Though I did stick around for his answer to the “How old is Batman?” question which served as a launching pad for a pretty direct summation of the metaphysics of fiction, all boiling down to “None of it is real so it doesn’t matter.” Other people can quote it directly. Next time I hear a continuity question that covers anything other than a character’s essential nature, I’m gonna direct people there.

Funny, but I was talking with a friend on Saturday, a game designer for one of the big companies, and he more or less said that “Story doesn’t matter in games, but atmosphere does.” I haven’t decided yet if the same applies to serial comics and characters, but there may be some truth to it.

This also turns towards an interesting moment that came up during the “DC Town Hall Meeting” towards the end of the day on Sunday. Dan DiDio was offering up an argument against Elseworlds titles saying “I don’t want these alternate realities presenting cooler stories than the other eighty comics a month I’m putting out” and he brought up the examples of KINGDOM COME and WATCHMEN, and maybe one other, completely missing the fact that those books are interesting because they’re complete works and not part of an interminable serial. Pretty sure that someone straightened him out on that point, but who knows if it took.

So yes, this was a weird year for SDCC and myself personally. I’m here at San Diego and not back at home where I perhaps ought to be, since I’m staring at a pretty concrete deadline on a big project. At the end of June, I was significantly ahead in terms of finished pages. That’s a damn good thing, since I haven’t had a solid string of work time all July, culminating in the madness that is this annual trip to my once-hometown. If I get home and put out another twenty pages this week, I’ll be just on this side of being behind. But on the bright side, I got word that two projects which had been somewhat up in the air are now landing on the right side of the fence, as it were. More importantly, personal contacts were established/maintained, so perhaps the trip wasn’t a waste after all.

All the same, it would have been nice to have the energy to come back from the show and be able to pound the keys some. Yes, I suppose this is pounding the keys, but this is just blogging, not writing. This is more like typing in the Mailerian sense of the word.

I arrived in San Diego to find it only about thirty degrees cooler than Sacramento, but also about thirty times more humid. It’s hard to remember when this was home, though it wasn’t all that long ago. This is another part of things that make coming to SDCC weird. I go to places I used to, like Tommy’s for a chili burger followed by a trip to Comickaze, but it’s not the same. It’s just not. In that, the furor and hullabaloo of the show floor is welcome, since it’s more the same than it isn’t. There’s some of the same costumes, some of the same superheroes and Captain Kirks, some of the same heroes, even if just for one day.

But Comic Relief wasn’t there, so there I was reminded that Rory isn’t with us still, and now even this part of his legacy isn’t.

Old Con was there, though, as named by a woman wise in this sort of thing. You know Old Con, the banks of comic stores selling (still) overpriced, real collector item comics. They’re still there, and I still paw through the longboxes to marvel over the covers sheathed in plastic like so many Laura Palmers still and blue and lifeless, pretty enough to remind you of what they were in life but still not alive. But I’m not one of those guys who’s going to put down money on those books, not real money anyways. Give me the quarter bins. I’ll buy all kinds of crap for a quarter.

Though I can’t bring myself to stand in line for most of the free comics being offered. Rankly smelling Bronze Age comics, though, still sharp with the smell of pulp acidifying, yeah, I’ll buy all kinds of those. Which is why I was staying away from those bins. I didn’t come down this year to buy a lot of stuff, and mostly I stayed true to that, managing to get away with only a copy of Gail Potocki’s THE UNION OF HOPE AND SADNESS and a few other random trades and something from the Partyka table (which was being shared with Tom Neely, who will indeed destroy you.)

Ms. Potocki’s book is remarkable, and I’m kind of upset with myself that I waited as long as I did to pick it up finally, after having seen it a couple of years ago at Wonder-Con, I think. It’s a darkly gorgeous work, infused with a very quiet power, exploring the axis between memory and knowledge. Heady stuff, but the Century Guild booth always provides a welcome anchor for those like myself wandering the floor.

This year, the layout seems to have been perfected in that if you want comics stuff, it’s easy enough to get to all the comics stuff without going through the movie and television and celebrity stuff, which I more or less decided was the heart of darkness. Albeit a brightly-lit one, pasted over with giant video screens and pumped with absurdly loud and juiced soundtracks and pretty girls handing out free things that I didn’t want in the first place. I’m sure there was a Kurtz there, bald-pated like Brando in APOCALYPSE NOW, bug-eating and heat-drunk, surrounded by a harem of slave Leias, atop a pyramid of properly-boxed toys and custom vinyl figures. I’m just glad I didn’t find him.

So the comics material was easy enough to find, easy enough to stick to without cross-contamination. Though there was still the steady stream of producers and movers and shakers, like great whites in the kelp forest, unseen until you lingered too long for a moment, just a moment. I suppose I should be grateful. Sometimes creators even manage to hit it relatively big with the help of these movers and shakers, but I can’t help but see the contempt that a lot of them walk around, swinging like an absurdly long pachuko pocketwatch.

Figure I should mention that the other big property on the show floor, aside from Mr. Pilgrim was THE WALKING DEAD. It wasn’t inescapable, but it wasn’t going to go quietly into the dark night, either. And hey, the show even looks pretty darn good. Though I was more than a little saddened to see that there wasn’t a single piece of Tony Moore’s artwork attached to any of the promotional material. Half of why people started reading the book in those crucial first months was Mr. Moore’s art, and he did plenty of covers as the book picked up steam, but it’d be hard to figure that out from what you’re seeing on the show floor. Still, that long trailer looks solid. But then so did the footage from WATCHMEN that I saw a couple years ago.

I was also struck on Sunday, after having taken the day off on Saturday to sneak out and visit friends in the County Orange and to see INCEPTION, that there was very little in the way of connection to the number one film in the country. That being INCEPTION, which seems a natural for the Comic-Con crowd. But all there’s been has been a couple of props and costumes and the tie-in comic from Udon. Where’s the synergy?

Sure, there’s room to hype things that haven’t come out yet. In that, SDCC has become E3 writ large. E3, for those of you who don’t know, is the premiere gaming show where companies trot out demos and videos and previews of games that are in progress but not out yet. It’s also an incredibly frustrating business, since it’s nothing but previews and videos and press conferences and precious little new actual content. It’s content to make you want content, but not content in and of itself. Sure, there’s plenty of actual comics to buy and take home, but the announcements are more and more just announcements and not things to be taken away other than in the wanting.

Honestly, I’ve kinda lost my patience for that. So I don’t go to a lot of preview panels. About the only one I went to was the Vertigo panel, which is something of a tradition for me, as I’ve managed to go to most of them since the imprint even started some seventeen years or more ago. What did I see there? I saw announcements for a lot of standalone graphic novels (which is nice) and the continuation of a few stalwart monthly titles, but I don’t recall seeing a huge bolstering of the monthly line. Now, I’ll freely admit that I came in a few minutes into things and maybe I just missed it, but I don’t think I did.

Also interesting was a direct statement that all of the characters from the DCU which had once been the purview of Vertigo, SWAMP THING, SANDMAN, HEX, etc, are all reverting to the DCU. Madame Xanadu might be a holdout. Oh, and John Constantine, who is apparently getting married. No, really. But that’s an interesting turn from the way things were just a short while ago. Vertigo is now a home for original properties and genre stories and literary fictions, exclusively. For the moment. It’s like the last stage of the rocket is separating and there’s some tin-can floating going on. Not that it’s directionless, I don’t believe that for a moment.

And it was funny, but the Vertigo presentation was held in a room the same size that the Grant Morrison panel was, only I think Mr. Morrison’s was better attended. Though I suppose he’s got a much larger audience based on the big crossover series and books like BATMAN AND ROBIN. Still, interesting. He’s just as charming and engaging a speaker as he was back in 2003 when I first saw him speak in a room maybe a quarter the size of that one, or less.

As mentioned way above, I did stick around late for the Grant Morrison documentary movie panel, and it looks to be worth the price of admission, at least for a relatively diehard fan like myself. And he certainly looked like he was having fun rolling with the interviewers. Sure, I’d heard a lot of the stories before, some of them firsthand from Mr. Morrison himself, but there were some patches as yet un-illuminated. Oh, and Chris Weston’s reaction to the first page of THE FILTH script that he was illustrating was absolutely priceless and made the trip up worthwhile.

Mostly, though, the show was a mix of catching up with friends (and the first experience of referring to people by their Twitter handles before learning their actual names in real life – weird), trying to talk with editors (something that I’m truly, epically terrible at) and just getting a sampling of what’s out there on the floor. Honestly, though, I was much more interested in making this a social thing. I can buy stuff anytime. I don’t always get a chance to hang out with net-folk in the meatspace. I don’t always get a chance to talk with Pat Mills (which was truly my major geek-out moment of the show) about the genesis of MARSHAL LAW and how Archie Goodwin was likely horrified by what he’d gotten himself into.

Too many people I saw too briefly or not at all, which is probably my big regret of the show. There were too many “I’ll catch up with you later” moments and not enough sitting down and talking about the ripples and undercurrents of the show. Sure, there was some of that here and there, of the lunchtime parade where people come and go from the table like anthropomorphs coming and going from a mad tea party. I barely had an opportunity to congratulate friend John Layman (and his partner in crime, Rob Guillroy) on their Eisner for CHEW. Hell, I didn’t even see Tom Spurgeon once. I guess he was actually out there doing the work, where I was treating the thing like a gigantic house party, working my way from one end to the other with a red Solo cup filled with foamy beer and trying not to step into anything too sticky.

But I never took the hustling aspect of this work too terrifically seriously. Primarily because I’m not very good at it, and I’d rather spend my time on the work itself. I’m not very good in bars, crowded or otherwise. Can’t write in bars. Would rather be writing. Wapner. Yes. Can’t miss Wapner.

Sorry, RAIN MAN moment. Crowds sometimes do that to me. I’m much better in small groups or with crowds that I can’t see. Like right now for instance. I’ve been told that this is a career shortcoming. No, really. And I suppose it’s no less true than in other businesses I’ve been in, like animation. Personal networking in animation did a lot to get one jobs.

Oh, but I’m digressing. Though I’m not, since a large part of why people go to conventions is to get connected to get work. But I’d just rather do the work. I know. It’s not about what I want, but what people want out of me. Then I get tangled up in this, which is one of the reasons why the run-up to the show is not unlike the day before finals, angst-drenched and uneasy-making. Can’t really help that, just how I ended up being wired, and rewiring is not a trivial process.

But you probably want to hear about the craziness on the floor or how Dan DiDio, who’d rumoredly been very low-key the earlier days was in full Vince MacMahon mode on Sunday at the DC Town Hall Meeting. Which he was. I actually enjoyed coming to these in the past, since they were very low-key operations where people got together and chatted about what DC was doing, how it might be done better, comics in general.

I suspect it had something to do with the addition of Jim Lee, who, sure, is co-publisher of DC, but he’s also still a superstar artist and artists will always fill a room if they’re superstars. So my read on the vibe in here was that it was all very much the DC faithful, regular comic store visitors who really don’t want to see much changed up.

If you’re listening, misters Lee or DiDio, here goes. I have an iPad. I’ve downloaded a handful of titles, mostly free ones or books that I already own and are classics. I haven’t bought any of DC’s new comics because I really don’t like what I’m seeing out there with the exception of BATMAN AND ROBIN and maybe ACTION or SECRET SIX. I already have BATMAN AND ROBIN in singles and there’s no compulsion to buy the digital copies. I bought both ALL-STAR SUPERMAN #1 and BATMAN: YEAR 1 #1 because those are both gold standard superhero comics and I want to have something to show people.

If you have something worth reading, I’ll pay two bucks for it. I don’t care about page turning and holding the physical object in my hand. I don’t think the comic book has any tangible advantage any more, since I can lay out a comic book flat. Gatefold and double page spreads are a non-issue and I wish you’d stop bringing that up as a reason not to adapt to the realities of digital comics. Gatefolds are so rare as to be nearly meaningless. Most double-page spreads are served just fine by turning the damn thing on its side.

Some of the archival material looks very nice, but at two dollars an issue is simply too expensive. Bundle runs. Aggressively cross-market. Build up your readership but most of all, show some patience. You both admitted that its three weeks into things. This a long haul paradigm shift thing. And if you don’t grapple with it successfully, someone else will. But cleaving to the old way of things simply because it’s the old way of doing things isn’t a winning proposition.

Oh, and the guy who said there should be done-in-one adventures of your three marquee characters (and at least one other character to be showcased a month) is absolutely essential. Bring back single-issue stories and consider it a cost of doing business. I’d almost say that you need to listen to Jim Shooter’s advice and remember that every comic is potentially someone’s first comic. It can’t all be six-or-twelve-issue arcs and work.

If you’re insisting on selling line-wide stories, then I can’t help you. I think that’s a crazy-making proposition and will ultimately break the back of your readership at four dollars a chapterlet. Selling the entire line, or even a majority of it at a time is a huge endeavour, but it also limits the choices that you’re going to have in terms of stories and genres. There can’t just be one set of genre tropes and get a wider range of readers. I know, DC does superheroes, but they could do so much more.

SDCC is still a great show, though for the first year I felt like there just wasn’t enough time. I still missed people, still missed opportunities to linger at booths. But then trying to do it all is probably a crazy borderline suicidal business. But what a way to go.

Imaginary twitter stream will follow some other time. I’ve got to get to work on something that actually, y’know, pays. If you were missing the flavor of my previous reports, you might look for some of it there.

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Anticipated as a potential savior of the comics industry, distribution of digital comics through Apple’s iPhone and iPad is proving not to be the magic bullet many had hoped for. Format issues, pricing concerns, and censorship of content are hindering many creators, particularly those making lesbian and gay comics, from taking full advantage of this new outlet for their work.

For years, print runs of single issue comics books have declined, with some popular titles now at a mere 10% of their early-90s peaks. Many creators have turned to the web to distribute their work, but only a handful have been able to earn enough revenue through advertising to make a living at it. Full comic books are being widely distributed on the Web, but primarily as unauthorized scans, bundled and given away for free on file sharing sites.

The success of Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch—with their built-in audience of tens of millions of users who can buy apps, music and other media using a stored credit card—was exciting to many in the comic book industry. Now publishers, or even ambitious individual creators, could create a standalone application for their comic or comics series and sell it through the App Store, and get a generous 70% cut of each sale, and there was decent, unobtrusive copy-protection to discourage piracy.

The announcement of the iPad, Apple’s near-comic-book-sized tablet computer, seemed to seal the deal; comics apps from ComiXology, Marvel and IDW were available on launch day, and judging from the quality of the free comics that Marvel made available, it seemed that this would be the next big thing for comics, and help drive up public interest in the medium.

One of the iPad’s primary selling points is its capability as an e-book reader, with an iBooks reader app that doubles as a store. Apple announced the same revenue split for books as for its App Store, with publishers getting 70% of each sale. With such a large share of each sale, and no printing costs, digital distribution through iBooks is very enticing for comic book publishers, especially small ones without the funds to finance big print runs and get low per-unit costs.

But Apple chose ePub as the format for books sold through iBooks; the format is not designed to support fully illustrated projects like art books and comic books, and presents them with large white margins on each page. There are only a handful of graphic novels available in the iBooks store; most have been modified to show a few panels per page to avoid shrinking the content excessively.

There are alternatives to trying to shoehorn a graphic novel into an ePub file; a handful of apps are available that specifically sell comics, in a variety of proprietary formats specifically designed to accommodate them.

“We have roughly 1,000 comics in our catalog right now,” said Michael Murphey of iVerse Comics, “and the vast majority of them would be considered ‘indie’ by direct market comic book standards. I would say almost 75% of the catalog.”

Unfortunately, the sales terms through stores like iVerse are not nearly as favorable to publishers as selling directly through Apple; in order to be a viable business, the comics apps need to take a cut of each sale in addition to Apple’s 30% share. So even though operating expenses are much lower (no retail space rental, no physical storage costs, no unsold inventory cutting into profits, etc) the comics portals end up charging publishers the same 50% that brick-and-mortar comics stores do.

Many of the comics apps are devoted to a single publisher’s books, presumably so the publishers can maintain the stores themselves and keep the full 70% of each sale.

Even if a creator happened to have the technical proficiency to write her own comics app, going from iBooks to a boutique comics app is hardly ideal for a small publisher or self-published creator. You have no opportunity to reach readers unless they specifically look for comic books; you don’t benefit from the browsing and search traffic on the larger store and your books won’t appear in searches.

But even if a creator or small publisher persevered and created and successfully promoted his own comics app, there is the last, and possibly most significant, hurdle to overcome: Apple censorship.

Long before the iPad launched, Apple made news by cracking down on all applications in their App Store that featured sexually suggestive content. The iPhone App Store was already free of nudity and explicit sexual content, but now anything that even suggested sex was forbidden.

“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable,” explained Apple Senior Vice-President Phil Schiller, “as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see.”

The initial wave of deletions removed not only apps that featured bikini-clad women salaciously “washing” your iPhone screen, but also titles such as swimsuit store app “Simply Beach,” due to its pictures of bathing-suit-clad women. Apps by Playboy and Sports Illustrated, however, were left alone. When asked about the Sports Illustrated decision, Apple Senior Vice-President Phil Schiller explained.

“The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” Schiller said.

The decision was widely criticized as offering leniency to larger players who delivered Apple more revenue. Since the rejection was entirely at Apple’s discretion, there was no way to protest except in the media. After media attention to the ban of the “Simply Beach” app, it was resubmitted as a “Rated 17+” app and welcomed back onto the App Store.

Pultizer-Prize-winning political cartoonist Mark Fiore had his political cartoon app rejected by Apple not due to sexually suggestive material, but due to “defamatory” content: lampooning President Obama and others in political cartoons. The ensuing widespread media criticism led to Apple reversing its decision quickly.

“Fiore’s app will be in the store shortly. That was a mistake,” Apple’s Steve Jobs said of the matter. “However, we do believe we have a moral responsibility to keep porn off the iPhone. Folks who want porn can buy and [sic] Android phone.”

These stricter guidelines apparently cover not just App Store submissions, but anything sold though any app.

Digital magazine store Zinio, like all content suppliers for iPhone and iPad, agreed to Apple’s “Regional Content Review” for all items sold through their app. This means that all “in-app purchasable” content must be approved by Apple to be acceptable to the broad U.S. population (the United States is one “region”) or it will block it.

The more obvious targets for censorship in the Zinio store included Playboy and Penthouse magazines, but Vogue France was also rejected because it features artistic and occasional use of nudity. Vogue France is also not stocked at Wal-Mart stores for the same reason.

Stories have surfaced about comic books being blocked as well. In February, Stephen Lindsay, the creator of Jesus Hates Zombies, discovered that a link to buy his book through the ComiXology app had stopped working. A ComiXology rep explained in a tweet that Apple “deemed it inappropriate according to their SDK guidelines” and they were forced to remove it.

“Here’s the thing,” said Lindsay. “Jesus Hates Zombies doesn’t involve any sex whatsoever. None. It has violence and swearing, but that’s because it’s a mature readers horror comedy. But the violence isn’t even intense. And being a black and white comic, there’s zero red blood, which means any gore is dramatically cut down.”

Rejection of comics from distribution by Apple is less like being banned from Wal-Mart and more like being rejected from Diamond’s PREVIEWS catalog. Even if other outlets exist, Apple has the single largest digital media distribution system for portable devices today. While there are numerous “stores” through which to purchase comics for an iPhone or iPad, if Apple doesn’t like your book, you’re blocked from all of them.

“Jesus Hates Zombies is one of the top downloaded comics on the Android market, through Robot Comics,” says Lindsay. “and I’m sure it would do just as well, if not better, through iPhone and iPad Apps.”

Apple’s iTunes store allows music to be rated “Explicit”, films to be MPAA rated, and TV to be rated by the TV Parental Guidelines, but there is currently no way for someone with a book or magazine to provide a content guideline.

“There is a parental control system that allows you to rate apps based on the content just like movies, music, or anything else,” Murphey said, “In our store, iVerse Comics, since we have material that is 17+ we have to rate the entire app that way so that a parent knows what is being downloaded. We have no problem with that. That’s why we have [separate] apps like ‘Archie Comics,’ and offshoots from our publishing partners at IDW like ‘Transformers’, ‘Star Trek’ and so forth. We’ll have more of that kind of stuff in the future too—we don’t want a kid looking for Archie books to run into a ‘mature’ comic anymore than Apple does.”

According to Murphey, iVerse almost never gets submissions of books that they have to reject because they’re worried about running afoul of Apple’s guidelines.

“Apple has actually been much more loose about this than people seem to realize,” Murphey said. “Ever since they included the parental controls, things have been pretty smooth going. Just look at Kick-Ass as an example—Apple is giving equal time to comics as it does to R rated movies in its iTunes store now. Apple has to mark every thing we sell as ‘approved’. So they had to do that with Kick-Ass just like all our other titles.”

Kick-Ass is a comic from Marvel Comics’ ICON imprint that is famously ultra-violent, and which was recently made into a feature film. The preview images from the book show that it clearly contains graphic language, situations and nudity. Not only is the book available for purchase through iVerse with Apple’s approval, it does not appear to have been censored at all.

When asked if it would be fair to say that any comics with content that would fit in an R-rated movie (violence, brief nudity without explicit sex) would fit into Apple’s guidelines, Murphey agreed.

“Apple has those exact things that you mentioned listed as part of their guidelines—you can check those things off, and the book will be rated appropriately. The only area that Apple is really saying ‘no’ to, from our experience at least, is pornography, or things that come very close to being pornography.”

“People seem to think that Apple is slamming our hands down every day saying ‘No — we shall oppress this material— you are not permitted to do anything that we do not deem to be family friendly’… and that’s not what’s happening at all,” Murphey continued. “Apple has not censored what we publish in a way that we feel has been terribly oppressive. When things first started in 2008, before they had the parental controls in effect, they were much more strict about what could and couldn’t be allowed in the store. Now things are much better.”

When asked if iVerse adopts Apple’s guidelines for all books they carry, or if they might offer Apple-rejected titles on Android devices, for instance, Murphey indicated that the rules are the same for both.

“If we felt like there was a book that really should get published but wasn’t able to because of guideline restrictions,” Murphey said, “Sure we’d offer it on Android—but keep in mind Android has the same ‘R’ rated restrictions as Apple does if you want to be in the Android Marketplace. So far, that hasn’t happened.”

“My problem with Apple banning [Jesus Hates Zombies] is simply this,” says Lindsay. “They allow the Marvel book Kick-Ass. How in God’s name is my book worse than Kick-Ass when it comes to content? The simple answer, it’s not. But because Kick-Ass is a Marvel book, it gets a pass.”

The experience of smaller publishers producing books with LGBT characters and situations also seems hard to reconcile with Murphey’s assessment of Apple’s guidelines.

Tom Bouden’s adaptation of The Importance of Being Earnest was rejected as an iPad app for the App Store, again due to “materials that may be considered obscene, pornographic, or defamatory.” A handful of sexually suggestive images depicting men, some extremely mild, were specifically flagged as problematic in the 80-page graphic novel.

“The app was rated 17+ from the beginning but that didn’t seem to make a difference,” said Peter Bonte, the publisher. Bonte resubmitted the app, this time with large black boxes almost completely covering the “offending” panels, but the app was rejected again; perhaps to avoid calling attention to its restrictions, Apple did not allow black censor bars to appear in content.

Apple eventually changed their policy and allowed the censored version of the book to appear in the App Store, and the publisher posted the censored pages on a website so that users can see them and judge for themselves whether the content should be blocked.

Yaoi Press packaged their graphic novel Zesty for submission to the App Store with the assistance of digital provider Fika Publishing. Yaoi usually contains sexual situations, often graphic, between men, but Zesty was described by publisher Yamila Abraham as unlike other Yaoi they publish.

“Zesty is not yaoi as many people define it,” said Abraham. “There are no sex scenes. It’s kisses and comedy.”

Due to a warning by the provider that Apple was “strict,” some content was changed while the project was being reformatted for the iPhone, in anticipation of potential Apple objections. For example, in one panel, a character described his sexual orientation by saying, “I’m strictly dickly!” This was changed to “Don’t get burnt, girls. I’m flaming!”

The book was rejected without explanation.

“I’m not as hopeful about the iPad as I was this morning,” said Abraham in an article about Manga on the iPad for About.com. “The iTunes store just rejected Zesty, our tamest graphic novel, without citing a reason. We thought this could be a bright spot for us, akin to our sales on Amazon Kindle, but we’re very discouraged right now.”

“Our partner for distribution via iTunes, Fika Publishing, would not continue to work with us after Zesty was rejected,” said Abraham. “If our young adult title was too extreme then it is doubtful any of our titles would be acceptable. We have snuck onto Apple platforms through the Kindle app.”

A search on Amazon’s Kindle Store for Yaoi Press titles yields a wide range of prose and graphic novels, all of which can be purchased and synced to an iPad or iPhone. Kindle purchases do not happen “in-app”, and are not required to be reviewed and approved by Apple. Amazon appears to have no content restrictions with regard to sexual content; even explicit sexual material appears to be fair game for Kindle books.

Bonte submitted The Importance of Being Earnest to Amazon for distribution as well.

“Amazon doesn’t seem to have a problem with the story,” Bonte said. “They accepted it for digital distribution. The problem with Amazon is that they take 70% and Apple only 30%, plus the platform is absolutely not usable for comics. Very low quality, they actively degrade the images, different screen sizes, not in color and Amazon charges $3 extra for non US sales even when bought via Wi-Fi.”

Comics pages are reduced in size and float in the center of a virtual “book” page with a wide margin around them. Enlarging pages to show detail is an inelegant process that interrupts the flow of reading the book. Image quality can be very poor.

Bonte has not been discouraged from pursuing Apple’s devices as a market for comics.

“It is the best bookreading device on the market and will only grow,” Bonte said. “I’m sure it will get better if we expose these practices to a bigger public, that seems to work sometimes. The big problem for now is the random nature; I can see the problem with ‘boob-apps’ on the iphone but genuine literature and art is the victim of this.”

“iTunes and the iPad will most certainly conquer the digital book market,” Bonte said, “so it’s very important they don’t censor it too much. I hope they loosen up.”

Recently, Steve Jobs has been personally answering some questions emailed to him, and his responses have ended up in the news. In one recent, heated exchange, Ryan Tate from Gawker Media took Jobs to task on recent changes to the developer agreement for iPhone/iPad development, and about Apple’s ban on any adult content on their devices.

“If Dylan was 20 today,” Tate wrote, “how would he feel about your company? Would he think the iPad had the faintest thing to do with ‘revolution’? Revolutions are about freedom.”

“Yep, freedom from programs that steal your private data,” Jobs responded. “Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom. The times they are a changin’, and some traditional PC folks feel like their world is slipping away. It is.”

Apple was contacted for comment about their content review policies, but they did not respond.

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A new exhibition – “Del cdice al libro electrnico” (‘From the codex to the e-book’) opens today in the National Library Museum in Madrid.

The exhibition traces the history and evolution of books from their earliest formats to today’s electronic versions.

From today until October 3rd, visitors to the National Library will be able to take a trip through time, seeing all the different formats the culture of the written word has adopted over the years, with as much importance being given to small innovations as to great technological advances.

In the ‘Sala de Musas’, manuscripts written by Pedro Caldern de la Barca and Francisco de Quevedo, typewriters, early personal computers and comics will be on show.

Visitors will also have the chance to see the famous ‘Libro de Ester’, a rolled manuscript stored in a silver cylinder (pictured), which will only be on show for the first month because of conservation issues.

In a press release, a spokesperson for the National Library explained that this collection brings together the origins of the reading and the writing, as well as looking at some of the consequences of its spread amongst the population: mass literacy, the digital age and globalisation.

“Del cdice al libro electrnico” is free to the general public and guided tours are also available free of charge.  The exhibition will be accompanied by a series of conferences and workshops on the history of books and digital literature. 

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Trade paperbacks are, perhaps, among the most popular books sold today. Since they are often sold at a lower cost than hazrd cover books, they are often available at a wider variety of stores.

Many book collectors also acquire several trade paperbacks from the same author, and they have become widely sought after. But just what is a trade paperback?

A trade paperback book is characterized by its shape, which is much like that of a hardcover. This sets it apart from a mass market paperback, which is usually proportioned so that it is smaller in size, but thicker in height.

A trade paperback, or (TPB), is sometimes called to as a trade paper edition, and can refer to any book that is bound with a heavy paper cover that is generally cheaper to bind than a hardcover book.

This is still cheaper to bind than a mass market paperback, but this is to be expected since mass market paperbacks are usually produced and sold rather cheaply in a number of stores including supermarkets and some convenient stores.

Traditionally, trade paperbacks were printed as special editions of a book, and were promoted as such at the time of release. Many of these special editions are now collectable items, and some are very difficult to find.

More recently, however, trade paperbacks are replacing regular paperbacks once the hardcover edition has been released. This is especially the case with many literary titles. Generally, pocket-sized paperbacks are now used only for popular and genre fiction.

For writers who are being published for the first time, a trade paperback may be the sole format of the release of their first book. This can help writers because the cost of producing this edition is cheaper than it would be to release a hardcover edition from an unknown writer.

In the comic book genre, trade paperbacks are usually used to print several editions of a comic series, usually an important story line or the entire series itself.

Many trade paperbacks are now sold on the Internet, which is especially important for avid book collectors who are looking for that rare edition that is long out-of-print. Here, both companies and individuals can sell these popular products, and it gives those seeking a specific title or edition the opportunity to obtain more extensive buying information.

Though trade paperbacks are now produced more frequently than they once were, they haven’t lost their novelty or popularity with fans and collectors alike. So, if you are looking for that book that is less expensive than a hardcover, but more expensive than a mass market paperback, a trade paperback may be the answer.

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