Adult Comics

[Fleaman]

If you don't mind manga there's "Eden: It's an Endless World". I highly recommend it. It doesn't shy away from sex, nudity and gore where appropriate. Don't expect fan service, it's not like typical manga. It's got some cyber punk themes too without going really overboard with it.

Oh God, Eden is grim. Seriously never read it all at once. Suicide will follow.

So yeah, here's some manga that might interest you. There are also pictures for the attention-impaired.

Highly Recommended

Eden: Grim-as-fuck near-future-politics post-apocalyptic coming-of-age SF. The SF is of medium hardness: Cyborgs everywhere, but with a utilitarian, military design aesthetic. Definitely not space opera. English version published by Dark Horse.
Eden looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/3j8j45y
Some sex, gore can be uncomfortably graphic.

All of Hiroki Endo's stuff is like Eden by the way: Grim, but not gritty. It's a darkness from the real world. Try out Tanpenshu, which is also carried by Dark Horse.

Vagabond: Historical fiction, based on a book embellishing the life of Miyamoto Musashi. All about a swordsman's true path. Unbelievably manly. The art is jaw-droppingly good and the fight scenes are visceral and well-choreographed. The English volumes are published by Madman Entertainment and can easily be identified on the shelf by their ridiculous girth.
It looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/6bc4d67 (that's a backscratcher)
Contains sex and nudity, and heaps of extremely realistic violence.

Vinland Saga: Historical fiction about VIKINGS. Seriously. Still being updated. The early volumes are full of political throatcutting and features Cnut the Great. Be warned that this story fucking goes places. Heaps and heaps of character development and fantastic artwork. Also, Vikings everywhere. The first thing that happens in this manga is this: http://tinyurl.com/3t35bno
Note that there's no official English release of this series.
Contains Viking violence.

Monster: Mystery/Horror by Urasawa Naoki, a great duke of Mystery/Horror. An idealistic doctor working in Germany hunts for a young boy whose life he saved, and who disappeared after murdering three hospital staff. Urasawa's specialty is letting the reader come to horrific realizations, but he's also capable of sincere drama and tense action. Viz Media releases the volumes in English.
http://tinyurl.com/6ef85et
Sex and violence are present, but have low shock value.

Other works by Urasawa include Pluto, an adapted story from Astroboy. A Europol detective investigates the sequential murders of the world's most powerful robots. SF/Mystery.
http://tinyurl.com/6j2n3w6
20th Century Boys, Mystery/Horror. The strange cult of "the Friend" threatens to dominate Japan. Laden with nostalgia. The author wrote and performed a theme song for it based on Bob Dylan and John Lennon. The song is pretty good. The manga is incredible. You'll probably cry.
http://tinyurl.com/3e5lmus
Billy Bat, Mystery/Supernatural. The original artist of Mickey Mouse must stop his creation from assassinating JFK. I swear that happens. For a Japanese work, rather good at expressing the flavor of this era in the US. Currently being updated, no official English release yet.

Otoyomegatari ("A Bride's Story" in English): More Historical Fiction. Central Asia, early 19th century; a young woman marries a boy eight years her junior and becomes a part of his family. Slice of life, although the subject of Russian expansion has been mentioned here and there in recent chapters. LAVISH artwork, and tons of research into Central Asian cultures. Contains some nudity and hunting.
http://tinyurl.com/3slvv8y
Seriously, every page is like that. The author, Kaoru Mori, is a raving madwoman. I just saw the first volume on the shelf recently, and it's always worth picking up just for her incoherent babbling in the author's note. Sometimes she turns into a bird for some reason.

Kaoru Mori also wrote Emma: A Victorian Romance, which is also psychotically researched slice-of-life period drama, and which is also extremely good. Some nudity, no sex, very little violence. Personally, my favorites are her smaller slice-of-life vignettes, like in Shirley Madison and Emma Bangahein, but they might be a little cute for some people. BAD people.
http://tinyurl.com/3hynjxs

Also Consider

Berserk: Putting it here because it was recommended, but I'm not sure if I would recommend it for you. It's kind of like Miller - so gritty it dips into exploitation. It's dark, low fantasy about a Conan-inspired brute who kills demons. It's fairly close to Warhammer in style; it even has actual Chaos Gods. However, it also has seriously fantastic character arcs and Guts is a great protagonist. It is extremely good, but the first volume can come off as kind of sophomoric and the art takes a while to find its legs. Still being updated, published by Dark Horse.
http://tinyurl.com/3qhn6d3

Gunslinger Girl: On the cover - Little girls with guns. In practice it's mostly counterterrorism in Italy. The girls-with-guns aspect is played for drama and moral ambiguity. So you know, the book predates the standardization of moe tropes pervasive in current anime/manga. The original anime covers the first few volumes and is VERY good. Don't read it online; the official translation benefits immensely from background research.

Battle Angel Alita: A product of the gritty, superviolent cyberpunk anime of the early 90s. I kind of miss it sometimes. Full to the gills with cyborgs and dystopia. Strong characterization to boot. Extremely violent. Contains an awesome mad scientist.

BLAME!: A cyberpunk story I've heard described as a "beautiful void". An agent explores a sprawling megastructure, occasionally getting his ass kicked by Giger-inspired machines with human heads. The story is exceedingly colorless, but it's sort of part of the appeal. Mainly an art book full of maddening architecture and awesome cyborgs.
http://tinyurl.com/3o8un3w

Hellsing: Hasn't been brought up yet, but it inevitably will be, so I'll say a bit about it. Shounen violence story with Count Dracula and Nazi vampires. It's lots of fun (and also complete and fully released in English), but is not "mature comics" by any stretch of imagination.

Not Recommended

Battle Royale: 100% exploitation. Honestly I don't see what's so good about it.

Elfin Lied: Also hasn't been mentioned yet, but it always is when people go asking for mature mango. Anime is good, manga is total shit. Do not read this book.

 

[xochiquetzal]

you could try tracking down a copy of lost girls but it's super expensive

and if all eles fails you could give johnny the homicidal maniac a try

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

First, Lost Girls is not illegal to own in the US. It can be hard to find in comic book stores, but you can buy it on Amazon. There are ways in which it might be of slightly gray legality, but you'd never be prosecuted for it, the laws would never hold up in court, and a lot of the naive descriptions of US obscenity law here are woefully misinformed.

Please explain how I'm wrong and where you're getting your information. I actually don't mind getting schooled on this issue, but I need specifics.

As far as I know, they passed a law saying anything drawn or rendered with kids in it having sex is illegal. That means until that law is repealed or struck down, Lost Girls is illegal. The fact that Amazon is still selling it just means they're not enforcing it to that degree-- yet. If I'm wrong, please explain how.

I agree that it's a bad law, but I don't understand your claim that it's not prosecutable. The entire point of passing a law with this wording was to *make* it prosecutable. Right? Agree or disagree. Explain why.

The PROTECT Act essentially extends existing obscenity law. Judges don't just decide whether it's obscene or not, materials have to meet the Miller test for obscenity, which is historically very, very hard to do. The community standards requirement is always extremely difficult to prove in just about any case and, in this case, given that it's considered one of the more important and interesting works in the medium, it would be virtually impossible to prosecute someone over it thanks to the literary and artistic merit prong of the test.

Since it is extremely unlikely to meet the requirements of the Miller test, it is not obscene and consequently not illegal to the extend that you can ever talk about an action being legal or illegal in the context of obscenity law.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Wait huh? That's not really fair, not wanting pornography is just me saying I want something more than masturbatory material, no sex for the sake of sex. No having sex to defeat your enemy or fighting that magically disintegrates clothes etc. There is a difference between adult and pornography. Misfits (bbc tv show) has plenty of sex but never descends to pornography. I dunno if you're a troll just trying to get my goat but I think it should be said that I never said 'omg no in panel sex!' I just said I didn't want something that was just sex and nudity and lets see how many boobs we can fit in panel.

I think it hurts the case for mature adult media when we say that there is a point at which sexual content is unacceptable. You may not want to consume certain media, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist or that it's inherently bad or lesser ("descending to the level of fetishistic pornography"). Setting aside the fact that there are some great, tremendously thoughtful pieces of media that involve using sex to defeat your enemy, gratuitous nudity, etc., why is something put together entirely for pleasure inherently bad? I see this as part of that strangely puritanical view that audience pleasure should never be an acceptable goal on its own and that anything with that goal in mind is pandering to some cheap, base level.

In short, I don't really have a problem with people who don't want that sort of thing, but I think it seems silly to denigrate something on the basis of its intent to produce pleasure and I think it hurts the case for more thoughtful depictions of sexuality by giving detractors a means of attacking them (once something has to be thoughtful to be more acceptable, you can simply argue that it isn't thoughtful enough to balance out the sexual content, and it rapidly gets pretty dumb).

 

[synobal]

Wait huh? That's not really fair, not wanting pornography is just me saying I want something more than masturbatory material, no sex for the sake of sex. No having sex to defeat your enemy or fighting that magically disintegrates clothes etc. There is a difference between adult and pornography. Misfits (bbc tv show) has plenty of sex but never descends to pornography. I dunno if you're a troll just trying to get my goat but I think it should be said that I never said 'omg no in panel sex!' I just said I didn't want something that was just sex and nudity and lets see how many boobs we can fit in panel.

I think it hurts the case for mature adult media when we say that there is a point at which sexual content is unacceptable. You may not want to consume certain media, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist or that it's inherently bad or lesser ("descending to the level of fetishistic pornography"). Setting aside the fact that there are some great, tremendously thoughtful pieces of media that involve using sex to defeat your enemy, gratuitous nudity, etc., why is something put together entirely for pleasure inherently bad? I see this as part of that strangely puritanical view that audience pleasure should never be an acceptable goal on its own and that anything with that goal in mind is pandering to some cheap, base level.

In short, I don't really have a problem with people who don't want that sort of thing, but I think it seems silly to denigrate something on the basis of its intent to produce pleasure and I think it hurts the case for more thoughtful depictions of sexuality by giving detractors a means of attacking them (once something has to be thoughtful to be more acceptable, you can simply argue that it isn't thoughtful enough to balance out the sexual content, and it rapidly gets pretty dumb).

I never said it was bad nor did imply it should be censored or destroyed. I never said it became unacceptable either. I just said it wasn't something I was looking for, if I want hentai I go to the Hentai foundry or some place similar. What I am looking for is mature themes that aren't censored as to be acceptable for teens and such. I'm sorry if using the word descending bothers you but it's just a turn of phrase and was the smoothest way to convey what I was looking for. Sure if I wanted to be 'exactly' correct I could of used a few more sentences to validate fetish and pornographic comics but I really didn't feel the need nor did I think I was going to be bothered by someone who did.

If you've got something you need to get on a Soap Box about that's fine but don't use me or this thread to do so.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Wait huh? That's not really fair, not wanting pornography is just me saying I want something more than masturbatory material, no sex for the sake of sex. No having sex to defeat your enemy or fighting that magically disintegrates clothes etc. There is a difference between adult and pornography. Misfits (bbc tv show) has plenty of sex but never descends to pornography. I dunno if you're a troll just trying to get my goat but I think it should be said that I never said 'omg no in panel sex!' I just said I didn't want something that was just sex and nudity and lets see how many boobs we can fit in panel.

I think it hurts the case for mature adult media when we say that there is a point at which sexual content is unacceptable. You may not want to consume certain media, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist or that it's inherently bad or lesser ("descending to the level of fetishistic pornography"). Setting aside the fact that there are some great, tremendously thoughtful pieces of media that involve using sex to defeat your enemy, gratuitous nudity, etc., why is something put together entirely for pleasure inherently bad? I see this as part of that strangely puritanical view that audience pleasure should never be an acceptable goal on its own and that anything with that goal in mind is pandering to some cheap, base level.

In short, I don't really have a problem with people who don't want that sort of thing, but I think it seems silly to denigrate something on the basis of its intent to produce pleasure and I think it hurts the case for more thoughtful depictions of sexuality by giving detractors a means of attacking them (once something has to be thoughtful to be more acceptable, you can simply argue that it isn't thoughtful enough to balance out the sexual content, and it rapidly gets pretty dumb).

I never said it was bad nor did imply it should be censored or destroyed. I never said it became unacceptable either. I just said it wasn't something I was looking for, if I want hentai I go to the Hentai foundry or some place similar. What I am looking for is mature themes that aren't censored as to be acceptable for teens and such. I'm sorry if using the word descending bothers you but it's just a turn of phrase and was the smoothest way to convey what I was looking for. Sure if I wanted to be 'exactly' correct I could of used a few more sentences to validate fetish and pornographic comics but I really didn't feel the need nor did I think I was going to be bothered by someone who did.

If you've got something you need to get on a Soap Box about that's fine but don't use me or this thread to do so.

(1) I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. Even so, I think using a "turn of phrase" like that is still damaging to efforts to support the very kind of media you're looking for and it provided a nice example of something that is I think very relevant in discussions of how hard mature comics can be to find and one of the reasons why.
(2) The "it would be too hard to not say it in that way" defence is almost universally pretty poor. Is it really so impossible to put it as "Are there any comics out there that aren't afraid of adult themes? As well as situations? I'm not looking for pornography." I'll give you that it's a phrase, but that doesn't mean it's somehow devoid of content. It is without doubt a phrase that expresses some level of derision toward its object.
(3) You are in no way obligated to respond to me or even to read what I write. However, nor am I obligated to abide by what you would rather I discuss on an internet forum or to avoid quoting you because your post brings up a topic I'd like to comment on. I'm sorry if you felt like I was bothering you, I was merely trying to make a point related to something you said - it wasn't intended to be an attack specifically on you, but rather on what I see as a relevant problematic view shared by many, many people that contributes to the problem under discussion.
(4) I'm sorry for sowing dissention within your personal thread kingdom. I'll go away now. Have a nice day.

 

[StarCecil]

Well, assuming you don't mean straight up porn...

I understand Marvel's MAX imprint is all adult-oriented. I can't speak for it all, but PunisherMAX under Garth Ennis was very adult and had the Punisher killing various horrid criminals in a variety of graphic ways. One story arc in particular stands out: the Punisher targets a ring of sex traffickers, brutally eviscerating one to interrogate him.

Some nudity, sexual themes, language, graphic violence and a thoughtful look at the Punisher and his psyche.

 

[DoctorFrankenStein]

Darn! I thought this thread was going to be about Japanese adult comics. ;D
I'm a yaoi doujinshi addict.

I'm 'that girl', you know; the one that's learning Japanese so she can read the stuff she bought on Ebay. ;]

Captcha-

success latest

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

If you don't mind manga there's "Eden: It's an Endless World". I highly recommend it. It doesn't shy away from sex, nudity and gore where appropriate. Don't expect fan service, it's not like typical manga. It's got some cyber punk themes too without going really overboard with it.

Oh God, Eden is grim. Seriously never read it all at once. Suicide will follow.

So yeah, here's some manga that might interest you. There are also pictures for the attention-impaired.

Highly Recommended

Eden: Grim-as-fuck near-future-politics post-apocalyptic coming-of-age SF. The SF is of medium hardness: Cyborgs everywhere, but with a utilitarian, military design aesthetic. Definitely not space opera. English version published by Dark Horse.
Eden looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/3j8j45y
Some sex, gore can be uncomfortably graphic.

All of Hiroki Endo's stuff is like Eden by the way: Grim, but not gritty. It's a darkness from the real world. Try out Tanpenshu, which is also carried by Dark Horse.

Vagabond: Historical fiction, based on a book embellishing the life of Miyamoto Musashi. All about a swordsman's true path. Unbelievably manly. The art is jaw-droppingly good and the fight scenes are visceral and well-choreographed. The English volumes are published by Madman Entertainment and can easily be identified on the shelf by their ridiculous girth.
It looks like this: http://tinyurl.com/6bc4d67 (that's a backscratcher)
Contains sex and nudity, and heaps of extremely realistic violence.

Vinland Saga: Historical fiction about VIKINGS. Seriously. Still being updated. The early volumes are full of political throatcutting and features Cnut the Great. Be warned that this story fucking goes places. Heaps and heaps of character development and fantastic artwork. Also, Vikings everywhere. The first thing that happens in this manga is this: http://tinyurl.com/3t35bno
Note that there's no official English release of this series.
Contains Viking violence.

Monster: Mystery/Horror by Urasawa Naoki, a great duke of Mystery/Horror. An idealistic doctor working in Germany hunts for a young boy whose life he saved, and who disappeared after murdering three hospital staff. Urasawa's specialty is letting the reader come to horrific realizations, but he's also capable of sincere drama and tense action. Viz Media releases the volumes in English.
http://tinyurl.com/6ef85et
Sex and violence are present, but have low shock value.

Other works by Urasawa include Pluto, an adapted story from Astroboy. A Europol detective investigates the sequential murders of the world's most powerful robots. SF/Mystery.
http://tinyurl.com/6j2n3w6
20th Century Boys, Mystery/Horror. The strange cult of "the Friend" threatens to dominate Japan. Laden with nostalgia. The author wrote and performed a theme song for it based on Bob Dylan and John Lennon. The song is pretty good. The manga is incredible. You'll probably cry.
http://tinyurl.com/3e5lmus
Billy Bat, Mystery/Supernatural. The original artist of Mickey Mouse must stop his creation from assassinating JFK. I swear that happens. For a Japanese work, rather good at expressing the flavor of this era in the US. Currently being updated, no official English release yet.

Otoyomegatari ("A Bride's Story" in English): More Historical Fiction. Central Asia, early 19th century; a young woman marries a boy eight years her junior and becomes a part of his family. Slice of life, although the subject of Russian expansion has been mentioned here and there in recent chapters. LAVISH artwork, and tons of research into Central Asian cultures. Contains some nudity and hunting.
http://tinyurl.com/3slvv8y
Seriously, every page is like that. The author, Kaoru Mori, is a raving madwoman. I just saw the first volume on the shelf recently, and it's always worth picking up just for her incoherent babbling in the author's note. Sometimes she turns into a bird for some reason.

Kaoru Mori also wrote Emma: A Victorian Romance, which is also psychotically researched slice-of-life period drama, and which is also extremely good. Some nudity, no sex, very little violence. Personally, my favorites are her smaller slice-of-life vignettes, like in Shirley Madison and Emma Bangahein, but they might be a little cute for some people. BAD people.
http://tinyurl.com/3hynjxs

Also Consider

Berserk: Putting it here because it was recommended, but I'm not sure if I would recommend it for you. It's kind of like Miller - so gritty it dips into exploitation. It's dark, low fantasy about a Conan-inspired brute who kills demons. It's fairly close to Warhammer in style; it even has actual Chaos Gods. However, it also has seriously fantastic character arcs and Guts is a great protagonist. It is extremely good, but the first volume can come off as kind of sophomoric and the art takes a while to find its legs. Still being updated, published by Dark Horse.
http://tinyurl.com/3qhn6d3

Gunslinger Girl: On the cover - Little girls with guns. In practice it's mostly counterterrorism in Italy. The girls-with-guns aspect is played for drama and moral ambiguity. So you know, the book predates the standardization of moe tropes pervasive in current anime/manga. The original anime covers the first few volumes and is VERY good. Don't read it online; the official translation benefits immensely from background research.

Battle Angel Alita: A product of the gritty, superviolent cyberpunk anime of the early 90s. I kind of miss it sometimes. Full to the gills with cyborgs and dystopia. Strong characterization to boot. Extremely violent. Contains an awesome mad scientist.

BLAME!: A cyberpunk story I've heard described as a "beautiful void". An agent explores a sprawling megastructure, occasionally getting his ass kicked by Giger-inspired machines with human heads. The story is exceedingly colorless, but it's sort of part of the appeal. Mainly an art book full of maddening architecture and awesome cyborgs.
http://tinyurl.com/3o8un3w

Hellsing: Hasn't been brought up yet, but it inevitably will be, so I'll say a bit about it. Shounen violence story with Count Dracula and Nazi vampires. It's lots of fun (and also complete and fully released in English), but is not "mature comics" by any stretch of imagination.

Not Recommended

Battle Royale: 100% exploitation. Honestly I don't see what's so good about it.

Elfin Lied: Also hasn't been mentioned yet, but it always is when people go asking for mature mango. Anime is good, manga is total shit. Do not read this book.

Thank you for this list, and more importantly, thank you for the links; this is stuff that isn't available on the more mainstream scanlation sites. Also, Berserk is still ongoing? That series is old enough that it had a game for the Dreamcast.

 

[thebigcheese]

Seriously surprised, no ones mentioned elfen lied. Just finished reading the manga, if you can stomach gore its a highly recommended read, got some very interesting insights on the whole nature vs nurture debate and the human tendency for prejudice.

 

[Wr3kluz]

I'd say try Warren Ellis' Preacher, or Desolation Jones. They don't really pull any punches. Another bet would be Brain K Vaughan's Y the last man, and Ex Machina.

I work at a library and really trying to pull the best graphic novels/comics into our collection. Hardest part is trying to make an actual section for the more adult ones because there aren't many that don't cross the border of pornography to fill up a shelf. Can't put it in regular fiction because they'll get overlooked, and can't put it into the teens because I don't want that conversation with an upset parent.

Gonna pay close attention to this thread because I could use suggestions as well.

I think you are referring to Garth Ennis' Preacher... but you are right. THAT book isnt afraid to approach any subject!

Uggh I get Ennis and Ellis mixed up. Sorry, but yes I'm sorry I didn't mention Sandman either. Hell should even put in 1602 by Gaiman as well. Not really that adult, but its good enough for any level of reader. Gaiman can write gold.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics? In the first collection you have evil supervillain Doctor Destiny doing...terrible things in a diner. The second collection (Dollhouse) features a serial killer convention where the guest of honour is a living nightmare with fanged mouths instead of eyes. Need I go on?

If I had my way you would be the only user in this thread not being instantly banned right now. It's absolutely shameful that in a topic such as this I have to sift through more than two pages before someone finally mentions Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

Props to those mentioning Y: The Last Man but you should still be shot if The Sandman isn't muttered in the same breath.

I was the first person the mention Sandman? Seriously? I brought it up after I didn't see it when skimming the first page, but I was seriously the first?

 

[galdon2004]

Well, there is Exiern, it's mostly a violent webcomic, but women's clothing seems to be made of tissue paper for all the length of time it tends to last before getting blasted to shreds.

Literally one times someone bumped into another character in a hurry and caused her cloths to explode off of her. (That scene mostly was played for laughs as an exaggeration of how often clothing ends up getting ripped apart)

 

[chickenlord]

there are a ton of "adult" comics... and not porno, the comic industry isnt just super heroes, there are dramas, horrors, all different kinds of stories... one example of an adult comic that isnt porno but still has nudity and adult subjects is watchmen dude... errybody knows watchmen! and theres nudity(not just blue penis) and violence and political issues, and moral choices, and everything that is considered "adult", and that was writen in the 80s, if you look not just in the superhero section you'll find a lot of adult comics cause... those are the only people that read comics anymore pretty much!

 

[WarpZone]

First, Lost Girls is not illegal to own in the US. It can be hard to find in comic book stores, but you can buy it on Amazon. There are ways in which it might be of slightly gray legality, but you'd never be prosecuted for it, the laws would never hold up in court, and a lot of the naive descriptions of US obscenity law here are woefully misinformed.

Please explain how I'm wrong and where you're getting your information. I actually don't mind getting schooled on this issue, but I need specifics.

As far as I know, they passed a law saying anything drawn or rendered with kids in it having sex is illegal. That means until that law is repealed or struck down, Lost Girls is illegal. The fact that Amazon is still selling it just means they're not enforcing it to that degree-- yet. If I'm wrong, please explain how.

I agree that it's a bad law, but I don't understand your claim that it's not prosecutable. The entire point of passing a law with this wording was to *make* it prosecutable. Right? Agree or disagree. Explain why.

The PROTECT Act essentially extends existing obscenity law. Judges don't just decide whether it's obscene or not, materials have to meet the Miller test for obscenity, which is historically very, very hard to do. The community standards requirement is always extremely difficult to prove in just about any case and, in this case, given that it's considered one of the more important and interesting works in the medium, it would be virtually impossible to prosecute someone over it thanks to the literary and artistic merit prong of the test.

Since it is extremely unlikely to meet the requirements of the Miller test, it is not obscene and consequently not illegal to the extend that you can ever talk about an action being legal or illegal in the context of obscenity law.

I thought the whole point of the PROTECT Act was to circumvent the Miller Test by allowing federal prosecutors to declare what is and isn't illegal. Either way, though, when the prosecutor has a choice of jurisdictions, the Miller Test isn't difficult to beat. Just hold the trial in a Florida retirement community and there you go, instant conviction. Like you said, it's been upheld one time out of two attempts.

I just want American comic book fans to know what they're up against.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors#United_States
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_the_United_States#Further_developments
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comic_Book_Legal_Defense_Fund

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

First, Lost Girls is not illegal to own in the US. It can be hard to find in comic book stores, but you can buy it on Amazon. There are ways in which it might be of slightly gray legality, but you'd never be prosecuted for it, the laws would never hold up in court, and a lot of the naive descriptions of US obscenity law here are woefully misinformed.

Please explain how I'm wrong and where you're getting your information. I actually don't mind getting schooled on this issue, but I need specifics.

As far as I know, they passed a law saying anything drawn or rendered with kids in it having sex is illegal. That means until that law is repealed or struck down, Lost Girls is illegal. The fact that Amazon is still selling it just means they're not enforcing it to that degree-- yet. If I'm wrong, please explain how.

I agree that it's a bad law, but I don't understand your claim that it's not prosecutable. The entire point of passing a law with this wording was to *make* it prosecutable. Right? Agree or disagree. Explain why.

The PROTECT Act essentially extends existing obscenity law. Judges don't just decide whether it's obscene or not, materials have to meet the Miller test for obscenity, which is historically very, very hard to do. The community standards requirement is always extremely difficult to prove in just about any case and, in this case, given that it's considered one of the more important and interesting works in the medium, it would be virtually impossible to prosecute someone over it thanks to the literary and artistic merit prong of the test.

Since it is extremely unlikely to meet the requirements of the Miller test, it is not obscene and consequently not illegal to the extend that you can ever talk about an action being legal or illegal in the context of obscenity law.

I thought the whole point of the PROTECT Act was to circumvent the Miller Test by allowing federal prosecutors to declare what is and isn't illegal. Either way, though, when the prosecutor has a choice of jurisdictions, the Miller Test isn't difficult to beat. Just hold the trial in a Florida retirement community and there you go, instant conviction. Like you said, it's been upheld one time out of two attempts.

I just want American comic book fans to know what they're up against.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Legal_status_of_cartoon_pornography_depicting_minors#United_States
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Child_pornography_laws_in_the_United_States#Further_developments
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comic_Book_Legal_Defense_Fund

The community requirements involve the community in which the potential indecency occurs. Prosecutors cannot choose which community this is. The only time this gets hazy is in cases involving the internet, and in most of those cases they then interpret community to refer to the internet as a whole and, given the reputation of the internet, you can imagine how hard that makes it to prove that the content would be objectionable to the average community member. That or they just throw their hands in the air and say "there's no reasonable way you can show that this is objectionable to the community since you don't even know what community to look at, so please go away and stop bothering the court".

I wasn't saying that obscenity laws are upheld often, I was saying that they typically have abyssmal chances. The only reason the statistics are even as high as they are (quite low) is that no one bothers bringing the cases anymore except in the most extreme situations.

Obscenity law is actually one of the very few places where the US legal system does a pretty good job. The precedent is overwhelmingly in favour of conservative (not in the ideological sense) judgments with judges consistently stating that it's more important to protect free speech than to punish obscenity.

Edit: I think the part you're thinking of is the bit about CG child pornography. The relevant part: "such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct". If they aren't indistinguishable, they have to meet the Miller test, so you're in the clear with comics.

Edit the second: For people who follow Gaiman, which I just realised might be where this is coming from, he was mistaken about the logic used to convict Handley generalising to something like Lost Girls.

 

[WarpZone]

Edit: I think the part you're thinking of is the bit about CG child pornography. The relevant part: "such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct". If they aren't indistinguishable, they have to meet the Miller test, so you're in the clear with comics.

That only applies to CG images? I thought it was drawn comics too. Yes it was the "or appears virtually indistinguishable from" that bothered me. Basically that's saying if a federal prosecutor doesn't like a particular book or artist, all he has to do is say the words "this appears virtually indistinguishable from child pornography" just to get the book banned. Or I guess website if it only applies to computer images.

Wouldn't it still affect digital versions of comics? (Which are gradually gaining traction within the western comic book industry, probably in response to the popularity of webcomics and the phenomenon of webcomic views leading to book sales down the line.) What about the fact that a lot of print comics get scanned into a computer for colorization? In theory, could they raid, say, Dark Horse, and say "these all look underage, you're all under arrest?"

I don't expect any of the above situations to happen any time soon, I'm just concerned that they're possible under law. It's the principle of the thing. If they arrested some guy who was sitting in his own home minding his own business, just because of his comic book collection, and they got a conviction, why would they stop there? Why wouldn't they arrest everyone who has adult comic books in their collection? If the law applies to his comics, it applies to everyone else's comics, too. If they have a problem with hentai, why wouldn't they also have a problem with a comic like Lost Girls?

Do you have a quote or a link on Edit the Second?

(I just noticed synobal's comment and your apology above. Do you wanna move this discussion to its own thread? Sorry for cluttering up your thread, synobal. I still feel it's relevant to any discussion of adult comics, but the scope of it seems to have snowballed with each post. Legal issues will do that. Oy.)

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Edit: I think the part you're thinking of is the bit about CG child pornography. The relevant part: "such visual depiction is a computer image or computer-generated image that is, or appears virtually indistinguishable from that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct". If they aren't indistinguishable, they have to meet the Miller test, so you're in the clear with comics.

That only applies to CG images? I thought it was drawn comics too. Yes it was the "or appears virtually indistinguishable from" that bothered me. Basically that's saying if a federal prosecutor doesn't like a particular book or artist, all he has to do is say the words "this appears virtually indistinguishable from child pornography" just to get the book banned. Or I guess website if it only applies to computer images.

Wouldn't it still affect digital versions of comics? (Which are gradually gaining traction within the western comic book industry, probably in response to the popularity of webcomics and the phenomenon of webcomic views leading to book sales down the line.) What about the fact that a lot of print comics get scanned into a computer for colorization? In theory, could they raid, say, Dark Horse, and say "these all look underage, you're all under arrest?"

I don't expect any of the above situations to happen any time soon, I'm just concerned that they're possible under law. It's the principle of the thing. If they arrested some guy who was sitting in his own home minding his own business, just because of his comic book collection, and they got a conviction, why would they stop there? Why wouldn't they arrest everyone who has adult comic books in their collection? If the law applies to his comics, it applies to everyone else's comics, too. If they have a problem with hentai, why wouldn't they also have a problem with a comic like Lost Girls?

Do you have a quote or a link on Edit the Second?

(I just noticed synobal's comment and your apology above. Do you wanna move this discussion to its own thread? Sorry for cluttering up your thread, synobal. I still feel it's relevant to any discussion of adult comics, but the scope of it seems to have snowballed with each post. Legal issues will do that. Oy.)

PMing.

 

[chaosyoshimage]

Well, I read The Authority: Relentless which is the first TPB of The Authority, a sort of extreme Justice League, it was pretty good and definitely adult.

 

[InfectedStar]

Sadly, you're not going to find it outside of porno, mainly because if someone tried to slip a harmless nip or two into a mainstream comic they'd be sued to hell.

Not true, nudity in Kick-Ass.