In Julian’s Lounge: Notes from the Lounge, Julian comments on comic books and obscenity:
You’ve probably already heard of Jesus Castillo (interviewed here): He’s the man who was recently denied an appeal by the Supremes after being convicted of selling a clearly marked adult comic book… to an adult. The key argument, apparently bought by jurors who knew nothing about contemporary comic book markets, was that all comics are inherently for kids.Now, if you’re reading this, you probably already know how preposterous that is, that there’s a huge number of titles obviously geared for adults — and not just in the “adult toys” and “adult films” sense of “adult.”
But it’s actually worse than that. See, it occured to me that, not only are comics not entirely for kids, but I almost never see people younger than 18 or so in comic shops at all. And upon checking, it proves that, lo and behold, the average age of a comic book reader is 24. So not only was the Texas DA wrong in general to tell the jury that “Comic books, traditionally what we think of, are for kids,” he wasn’t even right on average. If you’re in Texas, tell your governor that he’s the last hope for a hapless clerk who’s already paid $4,000 and is currently on probation for selling adult material to an adult cop. And send a (polite) email to the politician, Mary Poss, who’s responsible for this particular case of entrapment.
I think he assumes too much when he says, “You’ve probably already heard of Jesus Castillo,” and he treats an average like a median (are half of comic-book buyers over 24?), but he makes a good point: how is an “adult” comic obscene when an “adult” magazine isn’t?