Back in December, when Tumblr launched its ill-advised crusade against female-presenting nipples in an effort to make its site … PG-13 … I expressed my disapproval of the policy while still proceeding on the assumption that my own work would be unaffected. As some who have taken a look at the Tumblr page may have noticed, this proved optimistic and numerous pages of various comic stories that I wrote have been flagged as inappropriate and pulled down.
Now, I haven’t had the time or motivation to go through and figure out what exactly about these comics was offensive, let alone dispute the finding. I assume it’s the artistic depiction of violence, although compared to, say, a screen-shot from Saving Private Ryan, or from Die Hard, or a Robert Capa photo, the level of violence in this comic, and the extent to which it’s graphically portrayed, is pretty tame. There certainly aren’t any boobs, though now I apparently have no incentive NOT to draw them.
I suppose I should be outraged, but honestly I would make this comic whether Tumblr let me distribute it with their platform or not, and I’m honestly a little proud at having made something that some suit found offensive. Or, a computer program written by some suit, which is basically the same thing. I think the lesson here about the dangers of corporate censorship and lowest-common-denominator prudishness is obvious enough without me expounding on it further.