Artist: Paul Gravett
Year: 2006
Date of Action: April 2006
Region: North America
Location: Victorville, California
Subject: Nudity
Medium: Literature, Textbook
Confronting Bodies: San Bernardino District Supervisor Bill Postmus
Description of Artwork: The book chronicled the history of Japanese manga, from World War II to the present day. It included a section on hentai, or erotic manga, which included artistic depictions of sexual acts.
The Incident: 13 copies of the book were in place in San Bernardino county when one of them was taken out by Matt Jones, a 16-year-old boy. When Jones told his mother, Cynthia Jones, about the erotic art section of the book, she wrote a letter to the county library system asking that the book be removed. A story was featured about the incident in local newspapers the Desert Dispatch and the Daily Press, and the next day San Bernardino District Supervisor Bill Postmus ordered that the book be removed from all branches of the county's library system.
Results of Incident: Barstow College placed copies of the book on display following the incident, in protest against the move. The book is still not available in the San Bernardino libraries, although there is a link on the library's website where it is made available for purchase.
Source:
LA Area College to Display Banned Manga Book posted on 2006-05-04
Suburban LA County Pulls Manga Textbook posted on 2006-04-14
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Censorpedia is a crowdsourced online database of censorship cases within the arts and in culture. It is aimed at those researching censorship, at activists working for freedom of expression and at artists and other cultural producers whose expression has been subject to censorship or attempted censorship.
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