MANGA COURT CASE

Towards the end of March, according to the latest information to come across the rolltop here at the Rancid Raves Intergalactic Wurlitzer, Christopher Handley, a 38-year-old Iowa comics collector, goes to court, charged with possession of obscene manga. If convicted, Handley could face 20 years in prison. The law Handley is charged with breaking, Section 504 of the PROTECT Act, designed to stop trafficking in child pornography, is a highly questionable matter itself. A district court has already declared parts of it unconstitutional.

As a nation, we have a decidedly confused attitude about sex and obscenity. Our bewilderment is probably rooted in a misbegotten sense of morality fostered by our Puritanical religious heritage, which successfully proclaimed, without a basis in any fact about human nature, that sex is bad or nasty or wrong, somehow, which leads, inevitably, to the sort of confusion Butch Hancock, a songwriter, discovered as a boy growing up in Texas: “Sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth, and you should save it for someone you love.” Our attitudes are decidedly contradictory, as Hustler publisher Larry Flynt memorably points out: “Murder is a crime; writing about it isn’t. Sex is not a crime, but writing about it is. Why?"

If the PROTECT Act were not in itself a sufficient flouting of American ideals, the way Christopher Handley was brought to so-called justice adds insult to injury by mocking the rule of law. The Postal Inspector opened a package from Japan to discover seven Japanese comic books. After picking up the package, Handley was followed to his home, where agents from the Postal Inspector's office, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Special Agents from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and officers from the Glenwood Police Department seized Handley's collection of over 1,200 manga books or publications; and hundreds of DVDs, VHS tapes, laser disks; seven computers, and other documents. Though Handley's collection was comprised of hundreds of comics covering a wide spectrum of manga, the government is prosecuting images appearing in a small handful.”

I realize that the Postal Service can inspect letters and packages, but how, in this case, did the Postal Inspector determine, without, apparently, opening the package, that it needed to be opened and inspected? Just because it came from Japan? Or had the Postal Service been secretly stalking Handley for weeks, months — years?

"Handley's case is deeply troubling, because the government is prosecuting a private collector for possession of art," says Charles Brownstein, executive director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. "In the past, CBLDF has had to defend the First Amendment rights of retailers and artists, but never before have we experienced the Federal Government attempting to strip a citizen of his freedom because he owned comic books. We will bring our best resources to bear in aiding Mr. Handley's counsel as they defend his freedom and the First Amendment rights of every art-loving citizen in this country."

There are ways to protest such idiocies. One of the ways in the comics community is to come to the aid of Handley and others being persecuted in this country’s misguided passion for rectitude by donating to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund either via its website, cbldf.org, or by sending a check to 271 Madison Avenue, Suite 1400, New York, NY 10016.

A long discussion of Handley’s case and the issues it arouses can be found at www.RCHarvey.com, Opus 239, which is one of our Rare Open Access issues.

Comments

[Anon]

Is it really worth it to defend a guy who has comic books about prepubescent children having sex?