Library Yanks “Obscene” Manga Guide

MangaBlog, one of the best resources for news about the conquest of American pop culture by Japanese comic books, has been following the story of a Victorville, CA, library caught up in controversy when a local teen discovered “porn” in some of the illustrations to Paul Gravett’s Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics, a near-scholarly (but which I mean to say that it isn’t deathly dull, not that it isn’t intellectually rigorous) reference book the covers the history of manga from 1945 to the present day.

At first, library officials invoked their constitutional freedom to organize their collections as they see fit, leaving the job of determining what under-18s can and can’t see to their parents, but following the initial press coverage, a district supervisor ordered the book removed from circulation.

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