Not since Amazon removed digital copies of "1984" from people's Kindles while they slept has there been such a hilarious episode in the ongoing slapstick farce "Let's See What Happens When Corporations Become Publishers."

Apple has censored a "Ulysses" comic book app -- just in time for "Bloomsday" -- because of a picture of Buck Mulligan's stately, plump cartoon penis.


Man, his penis is not even erect, nor penetrating some kind of rosy bum or willing lass. It is "Grandpa penis!" Or "jiggly lookaway locker room penis!"

Our old show fliers are much more offensive, and we used to put these up in public coffee shops:

Because this is "introspective clown penis," this is much more terrifying -- yet you really couldn't call this porn

The comic is called "Ulysses Seen" and is a comic book adaptation by Rob Berry and Josh Levitas of the first chapter of James Joyce's "Ulysess," a book which was first banned for publication in the United States like a hundred goddamn years ago.

Sarah Weinman got the scoop writing for "Daily Finance":

"While the first chapter of the book, the one now at iTunes, doesn't contain 'offensive language,' our comic does have frank nudity. Something we figured we might have to pixelate or cover with 'fig leaves,'" Berry told the comics blog Robot 6. "But Apple's policy prohibits even that. So we were forced to either scrap the idea of moving to the tablet with Apple or re-design our pages."

Conventional publishers published books that they liked and were ready to defend. The new, digital corporate publishers go for volume and want to put out the most innocuous, anodyne, and digestible products possible.

WHY IS APPLE SO AFRAID OF THE EROTIC POSSIBILITIES OF MULTITOUCH? WHAT DO THEY KNOW THAT WE DON'T KNOW?



Posted by miracle on Sun, 13 Jun 2010 23:37:39 -0500 -- permanent link