After Brian K. Vaughan stated that Apple was the one that banned Saga #12 due to explicit content, Comixology CEO David Steinberger revealed today that it was infact a misstep on Comixology's end. In a blog post on the company's blog, he posted:
To our customers -
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.
After hearing from Apple this morning, we can say that our interpretation of its policies was mistaken. You’ll be glad to know that Saga #12 will be available on our App Store app soon.
We apologize to Saga creator Brian K. Vaughn and Image Comics for any confusion this may have caused.
All the best,
David Steinberger CEO and co-founder
From this statement, it seems Comixology never even submitted the issue for approval, assuming that its content would be rejected -- though it's odd a statement wouldn't have been released yesterday to avoid all of the controversy, especially after Comixology themselves tweeted about the news:
Concerned Citizens, we WILL have #SAGA12 available for purchase at comixology.com. Once purchased, you can sync it to your app!
— comiXology (@comiXology) April 9, 2013
Regardless of which company was responsible for Saga not being available, it still begs the question of seemingly arbitrary censorship decisions being made, prohibiting readers from getting their content however they choose. In any case, the issue seems to have been resolved and Saga #12 will, in fact, become available for purchase through Comixology's iOS app.
Original story follows:
It's not the first time this has happened and it probably won't be the last, but following up Apple's ban of Image Comics' Sex #1 on Comixology's iOS app, Apple is now prohibiting sale of Saga #12. Why? According to writer Brian K. Vaughan, for two "postage stamp-sized" depictions of gay sex.
From BKV's press release:
Annoying press release thing: APPLE vs. SAGA #12
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 s**t.
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
So, you can buy Saga #12 through the Comixology web store and then sync it to your iPad/iPhone (or buy it through a non-Apple device), or you can purchase it on Apple's own iBookstore, which has a different set of guidelines.
Though graphic material is indeed prohibited as per Apple's guidelines, as Vaughan points out, Saga and other titles have done far worse than what's shown in Saga #12. Let alone the amount of extreme violence that's found in most mature-readers comics.
Joey is a Senior Editor at IGN and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. If he could, he'd run away to live amongst wild cats for the rest of his days.
Source : ign[dot]com
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