Yesterday, word spread rapidly through the comic book world,that Apple had banned its digital release of Image Comics’ ‘Saga’ #12 due to a graphic sex scene between two male characters. Outraged readers pointed out that prior issues featured graphic male-female sex scenes were released with no fanfare problems, and fans accused Apple of censorship based on sexual orientation. Today, new information has surfaced that this was apparently not the case.
David Steinberger, the CEO of Comixology, the most popular comic book app on iTunes, issued a statement taking responsibility for the withholding of the issue:
In the last 24 hours there has been a lot of chatter about Apple banning Saga #12 from our Comics App on the Apple App Store due to depictions of gay sex. This is simply not true, and we’d like to clarify. As a partner of Apple, we have an obligation to respect its policies for apps and the books offered in apps. Based on our understanding of those policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today.
We did not interpret the content in question as involving any particular sexual orientation, and frankly that would have been a completely irrelevant consideration under any circumstance.
Given this, it should be clear that Apple did not reject Saga #12.”
So apparently, Comixology felt the issue did not fit the requirements for content. Steinberger also stated that after discussions with Apple, Comixology will be releasing ‘Saga’ #12 shortly.
What do you think? Are you a digital comic reader? Will you be checking out ‘Saga’ #12 when Comixology makes it available? Leave a comment below.
