This whole thread reminds me of the whole Epix debacle in Sweden in the mid- to late 80s.
Comic strips has been published in Sweden at least since the end of the 19th century (it depends a bit on how strictly you define ‘comic’) but through all its Swedish history it has been quite non-controversial.
In many European countries the art of drawn comics was later (in the 60s and the 70s mostly I would think) used to express many views and topics, while in Sweden it was still something funny you read in the newspaper and something you bought for your kids. Many Swedish kids growing up in the 60s and the 70s will remember their
Donald Duck or
The Phantom magazine, the bar of Marabou chocolate and the ‘Sockerdricka’ soda they got on Saturdays. Sure, grown ups read comics too and there
were comics more directed to adults than to kids, such as Spy-, and criminal comics, Westerns and the like, but they were never more controversial than that a 40 year old dad couldn’t share his
Agent X9 and
Western collection with his 13 year old kid. Reading comics as an adult was considered a bit of a guilty pleasure anyway, the consensus being that all in all, comics are mostly for kids.
I am sure there was an underground comic movement in Sweden as well, and I saw some erotic comics in men’s magazines, but I know very little, or nothing at all, of it really. It never reached into the mainstream in any case.
But then a German immigrant by the name of Horst Schröder decided to stir up the Swedish comic market a little. In 1984 he started two comic magazines called
Epix and
Pox. They contained mainly European comics of all genres imaginable, and the variation and mix of genres in the same magazine was in itself a new thing. Epix though tried to be a bit more mainstream, while Pox went the whole way and contained comics that were very controversial, extreme and offensive (according to many). Epix still had the rather absurd and extremely graphic Spanish comic
Anarcoma which had an openly gay and transsexual theme. Something virtually unheard of before in Sweden. Here was now a whole new world of comics for my country. New genres, new artists, new topics, never before published here in the Swedish language.
For me personally it was a virtual goldmine. I am forever grateful to Herr Schröder for showing me in such young years that all this existed. Epix and Pox was not only interesting to read for the broad variety of genres, artists and topics, but also because Schröder himself wrote long articles in the magazines. Articles about politic, culture and censorship. I haven’t re-read his articles now in many years, and maybe I would disagree on many things now if I did. But my point is that those articles taught a 15, 16 year old girl a lot of things, not least to think for herself, form her own opinions, research them as best she could and try to argue for them. Yes, comic magazines actually were a big part of what formed me into a skeptic.
Not everyone thought the same thing about them as I did though. As I said, Epix and Pox contained many genres. Humor – often sinister or crude, politics, erotica, horror, underground, absurdity and surreal, realism, SF and Fantasy, adventure and so on. Soon some of these genres got their own magazines, such as the Swedish version of
Metal Hurlant. But what all of these genres had in common were that they were distinctly aimed at an adult audience. They could
not be shared with your kids! The Swedish market never quite got this. In the grocery stores, the drugstores and the supermarkets they kept putting Epix where they thought comics books should be, among the kid's stuff, and there was outcry after outcry, angry newspaper articles and demands for complete removal of this abomination, from upset parents and the like. Even when the stores learnt where the magazines belonged they never quite reached the adult buyers who didn’t really got the concept. I suspect that Epix and Pox was mostly bought by rebellious teenagers who thought it was cool to buy a magazine that shocked the adult world. (I was one of them I guess
)
Schröder fought to keep his publishing company alive, lamenting the disinterest of the Swedes, and warned against the censorship that some groups demanded. Today Epix, tomorrow… who knows what? He warned. In 1989, Bo Bertilsson of
Folkaktionen mot pornografi, Malmöavdelningen (Roughly:
The People’s Action Group Against Pornography, The Malmö Division) reported one particular issue of Pox to the police, and there actually was a trial about the comics in that issue of Pox. It is somewhat ironic, I think, that one of the prosecuted comics was an illustrated text from the Bible, namely
Judges, Chapter 19. This chapter is one of the cruellest and violent ones in the Holy Bible, and the comic simply illustrated the actual text, taken directly from the Bible. Well, the Bible wasn’t prosecuted, but Pox
was. Naturally it was acquitted, but that it was prosecuted at all says something about how controversial these comics were thought to be back then, and the magazines were doomed anyway. I guess the time wasn’t ready for them? I think Epix and Pox stopped being published in the early 90s, but, I do think Epix Publishing is still alive today, in some form.
Yup, here it is! Epix Förlag is still alive and well… not
well, but still fighting for survival on the Internet.
http://www.epix.se/catalog/
Well. In the early 90s I had a period where I was unemployed and to still have something to do I attended a course arranged by the local unemployment agency. It was a totally meaningless course really; a kindergarten for adults, a way to keep the unemployment statistic low, but at least it would mean something to do, so I went there. One day in class comics for grown ups and Epix came up as a discussion topic, and influenced by Schröder and his ideas about the absolute importance of free speech and no censorship, as well as my own love for this magazine and its offspring, I argued
for adult comics, and for Epix, and for controversial art, comics and literature on the whole. I have seldom felt so alone in arguing for something. Not one of the others (there were about 10 of us) agreed with me. “Sure free speech is nice and all, but think of the children!” This was their only argument really, and an argument that I didn’t stand a chance against. No matter how I tried to argue that I was all for keeping kids away from any adult themed media. No matter that I pointed out that they don’t demand that the TV should be outlawed because of a few adult-oriented shows, and so on and so on… What ever I said, it was only: “But don’t you care about the children?” And that was it. No arguments could top that. After that I was rather disliked as the person who thinks kids should get to read comics full of violent and sexual things. Which I, of course, do
not think at all!
Oops, didn’t mean for this to turn into an essay
- one could argue against americans...
). The point is that people latch onto one level of analysis (usually the "social") without ever considering other forms of evidence. A sign of the times I guess.
