Bad Apple: Apple Refuses To Sell Sex Criminals #2

There are times when I resign myself to the idea that digital comics are the future. Sure, I love my weekly visit to my local comic store, where they know me by name and ask me if I’m interested in any IDW Artist’s Editions or DC Absolute hardcovers because the kids need braces and they can’t show up at the orthodontist’s office in an American car like a common wino, but only a fool would think that, on an infinite timeline, comics can resist digital delivery where music, movies and print books couldn’t.

But every time I think that relying on digital comic companies wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, something happens to remind me that a dude in an actual place who knows his customers is still the way to go for me in a way that some mindless Web server will never be.

Most recent case in point? Apple has just informed Image Comics and Matt Fraction that they’ve rejected the second issue of Sex Criminals from the Apple version of the Comixology app due to “content that many audiences would find objectionable.”

Which is in start contrast to the policies at my local comic store, where they would not only sell me tentacle hentai if I could give him a Diamond code for it, but would sell me an octopus if the money was right.

Here’s the story, straight from Fraction:

So let’s start here: if you generally get your comics via Comixology on the iPad or iPhone or iWhatever, you can still get the book. According to Fraction it’s available through the iBooks store (I can’t confirm; you will see me dead before you see an Apple product in my hands), and you can get it direct from the Image Comics Website in formats that should be readable on damn near any device. Further, you can also get the book direct from the Comixology Website.

And the obvious secondary question is: will this affect anyone’s ability to obtain the book digitally on a PC or an Android device like a decent, upstanding, non-hipster / Apple Zombie type of person (it wasn’t my secondary question; I have the book on paper, the way God intended comics to be read)? Nope.

Look: it would be easy to scream “censorship!” at this news, but that’s really not the case. Apple is a private company, and they can sell – or not sell – any damn thing they want. But it does close out one pretty huge avenue for potential sales for the book… and gives a good reason to give some serious consideration as to whether you want to support a platform that so cavalierly decides to spike a comic by a couple of the biggest creators currently working just because some parents just hand their kids iPads without paying any attention to what the kids are doing with them. Because it’s not like any parent could see the title “Sex Criminals” and misconstrue the intended audience.

But Sex Criminals co-creator Chip Zdarsky probably has the best plan on how to deal with the whole situation: