Update: Comixology revealed that it had in fact self-censored and Apple put it right. I write about this in a new post that also talks about how Apple’s silence regarding the press isn’t helping matters these days.

Issue 12 of mature comic Saga has been banned by Apple. It will not be for sale in Comixology’s iOS app, and will have to be purchased elsewhere. This is a minor inconvenience (not least given Comixology’s lack of on-device subscriptions), but the decision’s already being slammed as another example of overt Apple censorship, and some kind of proof that Apple will destroy the comics industry.

Rarely for me, I’m not sure what to think about this. Although I have the first trade of Saga, I’d not read the current issue on hearing about the story. To that end, I wasn’t sure exactly what Apple had a problem with, bar various websites reporting on “explicit gay sex”, and co-creator Brian K. Vaughan countering that this was actually “two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex”. Vaughan added:

This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go. Fiona and I could always edit the images in question, but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing s**t.

Vaughan also pointed out:

If all else fails, you might be able to find SAGA #12 in Apple’s iBookstore, which apparently sometimes allows more adult material to be sold than through its apps. Crazy, right?

Sort of. Although that does look like hypocrisy, and Apple does need to figure out a way to enable adult/mature content in the App Store, Tap! deputy editor Matthew Bolton pointed out the following on Twitter:

Apple declines to directly sell comic showing three penises ejaculating on someone’s face in a store currently being criticised for making it too easy for kids to buy anything. It continues to have no problem with you buying this content another way. Can’t feel outraged, sorry.

And this is the problem. People are outraged about issues relating to children using IAP and having access to content they shouldn’t via the App Store. Then they’re outraged by Apple performing any censorship on the App Store. Apple can’t really win. (And, no, multiple accounts wouldn’t be the solution, unless you really believe we wouldn’t then see a slew of the exact same stories but from parents who’d ‘forgotten’ to switch accounts before giving their iOS device to a child.)

The (not safe for work) preview of Saga 12 on CBR shows what all the fuss was about, involving two frames of gay sex on a robot character’s TV head. It’s really a bit ‘blink and you’ll miss it’, and having now seen it, I’d say Vaughan definitely has a point; in earlier episodes I’ve read (that are still available via the iOS Comixology app), depictions of sex were certainly a lot more obvious—although Apple might argue you never saw ejaculate. Others might then point out plenty of comics ‘approved’ by Apple show countless people getting blown to pieces in a shower of blood, and so banning a couple of tiny frames of man-on-man action (or men-on-man in the second) in an age-rated adult comic (17+) seems on the crazy side. (But, again, would a parental lock make any odds? People assume comics are for kids, and so I can imagine the Daily Mail screeching: “Horror as child sees penis in children’s comic on Apple iPad set to children’s account, WHY WON’T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?”)

So I’m more confused about this than anything and not really outraged, other than being outraged about not knowing what to be outraged about.

I hate you, Apple.

UPDATE: As Alex Hern notes on Twitter:

My big problem with it is the homophobic element. If Apple treated gay and straight sex the same, they’d just be prudish.

He links to another Saga (NSFW) image that’s, if anything, more explicit than the banned ones, and I now think Apple got this one wrong. This all rather smacks of Apple’s “we’ll know it when we see it” attitude to what’s allowed and what isn’t, but any suggestion of homophobia is hugely disappointing and also quite strange coming from a company that has strongly supported gay rights. That all said, perhaps if this were all pointed out to Apple, it’d just remove the issue including that second linked frame too.

Twitter user ‘superluminescence’ counters:

Apple’s policy seems pretty clearly equivalent to “what would get on TV”. Those images aren’t exactly grey area.

To some extent, that’s true, but then the image Hern linked to also wouldn’t be acceptable on television.