Nice article about Alan Moore’s upcoming Lost Girls over at Publishers Weekly. It includes the usual “Aaah! Pornography!” exclamations from retailers:
Cliff Biggers of Dr. No’s Comics and Games in Marietta, Ga. … says that his store “will be cautious and prudent about how we display and market the book. Every store owner has to be careful to make sure that they’re making it available to the intended audience, and not to people thinking that it’s a perfect follow-up to Watchmen or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.”
Because, of course, both the books he mentions are prime family material:
Watchmen features, among other things:
- Brutal beatings, frequently at the hands of one of the “heroes” of the piece;
- Rorschach’s origin as the the neglected son of a prostitute;
- Dogs killed with a meat cleaver and a man burned alive;
- The revelation the sex is better with masks;
- Attempted rape;
- The slaughter of a couple million New Yorkers;
- A giant naked blue man.
And as for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that collection of fine Victorian entertainment?
- Sex between Alan and Mina;
- Rape and brutalization by Mr. Hyde;
- Numerous innocents fried by ray beams
- The molestation of young schoolgirls;
- Beloved children’s icons portrayed as deformed freaks.
Okay, so they’re not all explicit, at least not nearly as explicit as Lost Girls is supposed to be. I could understand if a retailer was worried about someone following Top Ten or Tom Strong to Lost Girls… but most of Moore’s work has been adult-oriented to begin with. Why draw the line just beause this one’s all about sex?
(That’s a rhetorical question, of course.)