OK, time for some of you to put your voices to good use. The Comic Book Alliance is currently running a petition against a bill going through the house of lords, detailed in this following article:

Extract of inthenews article:

Comic artists to appeal against censorship
Thursday, 26 Mar 2009 11:33

Comic artists to fight law which could criminalise legitimate fans

Comic book artists are to fight a law which bans depictions of children in sexual situations, saying it could criminalise legitimate artists and fans.

The law was buried deep in the coroners and justice bill, which passed through the Commons earlier this week, and is now on its way to the Lords.

Media attention was focused on the clauses relating to secret coroners inquests - which was passed - but several other clauses related to crime and justice were also in the fine print of the bill.

The law was originally laid out following consultation with children's groups and the entertainment industry, although, as GM Jordan points out in a comment piece for politics.co.uk today, comic professionals were not invited to contribute to the process.

The Ministry of Justice was concerned that digitally manipulated photographs of children could provide a loophole for paedophiles from the law banning possession of child abuse photographs.

The government also had an eye on the increasingly extreme animated pornography - called Hentai - originating in Japan. This sometimes includes scenes of child abuse, but would have not been illegal under previous laws.

But a growing coalition of artists are increasingly concerned about the effect the law will have on artistic expression.

Critics have pointed to the comic The Lost Girls, written by infamous comic creator Alan Moore – the mind behind current blockbuster movie Watchmen.

The comic, a piece of erotic fiction envisaging the sexual awakening of three famous fairy tale characters – Alice from Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan.

The women meet in their 30s but certain pages deal with their experiences in their late teens. Despite the girls in the book being above the age of consent, the law defines child as anyone under 18.

Oppenents of the bill argue that if it is followed through, those who had bought the comic would be automatically criminalised by having it in their possession.

A group called the Comic Book Alliance has formed to challenge the law. Its founding members include Moore's daughter, Leah.

Several high-profile comic creators have joined the campaign, including Bryan Talbot and Neil Gaiman, writer of Stardust, which was recently turned into a Hollywood film starring Robert De Niro, and The Sandman series.

But the activists are concerned not enough fellow professionals will join the campaign for fear of appearing sympathetic to paedophile animation.

The Ministry of Justice said the comic community's concerns are unfounded.

"It is not our intention to criminalise the legal entertainment industry, the art industry or pornographic cartoons," a spokesperson said.

"The proposed offence has been carefully constructed to target the material which causes most concern and is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Images will have to meet certain conditions to be considered illegal."

And in a comment piece for politics.co.uk today, NSPCC policy advisor Dr Zoe Hilton said drawings of child abuse serve to legitimise abuse.



If you're interested in supporting the petition, please go here:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Protect-Comics/

Your voice does count.

Signed.

hmmm interesting what this guy says.... possibly an extreme scenario but he has a point that it does sound a tad wishy woshy. I don't particularly like the idea of the stats being trashed by for example everyone who bought a copy of "Welcome to the NHK". Kinda amusing to think that Forbidden Planet might get raided and have half (or more probably) of their manga section confiscated. The world could live without FB of course but what about Waterstones...

Incidentally this isn't the same guy who I met in London who wrote 60 years of manga. Different Spelling.

QUOTE:
"The proposed offence has been carefully constructed to target the material which causes most concern and is at the extreme end of the spectrum. Images will have to meet certain conditions to be considered illegal."

More of the same old flim-flam. anyone with the sense to avoid becoming a New Labour minister can see that the definitions are over-broad. Yet again. they do this time after time and just say "trust us not to misuse the power we are taking". Do you trust them?

A detailed reading of the bill will show anyone with a modicum of knowledge about comics, and Manga in particular, that this will endanger very many already existing and widely owned Manga and Anime. In effect this law will create thousands of criminals, correction; sex offenders, out of perfectly innocent men and women. Some twit, showed an idiot minister a few Hentai images and persuaded them that this was about children. So the outraged fools, not knowing any better, nor caring to find out, decide "something must be done".

The police will have a field day, children and adults will be prosecuted wholesale and the sex offenders register will become bloated and irrelevant. Lives will be wrecked, families torn apart and marriages broken, but hey, that's snall price to pay if some minister can smile self-righteously to themselves and bask in the knowledge that they did "something"."

For info, I noticed Helen McCarthy's name on the list. It did amuse me though that to sign up you need to submit full details. Certainly a good way to put people off.

At the end of the day its daft to feel self concious about objecting. I have a friend I know who's busy collecting the full set of Ranma mangas. There's a fair wack of nudidy in Ranma and the characters are specifically identified to be under 18 (ie children by the law). I don't particularly want her to have to bin them all if the law gets passed...