Manga Work Pulled from Libraries

By Calvin Reid -- Publishers Weekly, 4/24/2006

Prompted by a single complaint, the San Bernardino, Calif., county board of supervisors has ordered the removal of all 13 copies of Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comicsfrom county libraries. The reference work is by Paul Gravett, a U.K. journalist, curator and comics expert who has written on comics for an international array of publications and organized museum exhibitions about comics in Britain and France. The book was published in 2004 by Collins Design.

Svetlana Mintcheva, director of the arts program at the National Coalition Against Censorship, said that a 16-year-old boy checked out the book from the Victorville, Calif., public library and then told his mother about several images in the book that involved sexual activity among cartoon characters. The parent complained to the County Board of Supervisors, who then ordered all copies of the book removed.

The controversy is perplexing, Mintcheva explained, because the book was properly shelved in the adult section (with comics works) and even the county librarian agreed that the book has clear educational value. "It's the equivalent of removing an encyclopedia because it has a chapter on sex," Mintcheva said.

Contacted by PW, San Bernardino county library director Ed Kieczykowski praised the book, calling it a "well written" and "definitive" work, while defending his actions to remove it. He noted that it was the "first book ever pulled" from the SBCL system and acknowledged that the book had been checked out 125 times before it generated a complaint. While he said that he could not "defend the book" because of the illustrations, Kieczykowski also made it clear that he was ordered to remove the book after a review by county supervisors. A local newspaper has criticized the removal, calling it censorship, he said, but only public outcry could force the library to reinstate the book. "If we get a complaint, we have to take action," he said. "I don't have an easy answer for this."

Mintcheva said the NCAC is collaborating with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the American Library Association to create a brochure offering guidelines for librarians to build comics and graphic novel collections and to deal with censorship issues. The brochure is almost complete, she said, and will include illustrations by top comics artists like Phoebe Gloeckner, whose A Child's Life and Other Stories has been censored by some libraries.