Newsgroup: it.arti.fumetti
Titolo: I turbamenti dei doganieri: FROM HELL proibito in Australia.

Ciao a tutti!
Evidentemente ai doganieri fanno il test di intelligenza prima di
assumerli...
-   -   -   -   -   -   -
On the very day that a major article on Eddie Campbell and his success
with From Hell appeared in a national broadsheet, Diamond Comics
Distributors alerted him that Australian Customs had barred the book
from further importation. As Campbell investigated the situation, the
real gravity became quickly apparent.
In March 2000, a copy of Kitchen Sink Press' From Hell #7 (containing
Chapter 10 of the serialised novel) was seized from a Diamond shipment
intended for Perth comic shop Quality Comics. Customs dispatched the
volume to the Office of Film & Literature Classifications, who handed
down a ruling on October 3 that it contravenes Regulation 4(1A)(a) of
the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations.
The first effect of the ruling was felt, again, by Perth's Quality
Comics. Two copies of the Eddie Campbell Comics collected From Hell were
seized on Friday, October 20. A representative of the shop immediately
alerted Diamond, astounded and alarmed:
"Apparently one page shows breasts being cut off a dead body - and this
is considered to be excessive violence!
We here at Quality Comics feel that the Customs officers have made an
error in judgment. We want to pursue the matter further. If we allow
this book to be taken how long will it be until Sandman & Preacher are
taken?"
Australian Customs actually have taken offence to both Sandman and
especially Preacher in the past; for several months in 1998, all weekly
shipments to several East Coast comics retailers were detained for up to
weeks at a time, as those titles were under review. In that instance,
the qualms appeared to be resolved within Customs, and shipments
eventually resumed normal treatment, whether or not they contained
Preacher or Sandman.
But this has gone further, with 'The best of all tailors', chapter 10 of
From Hell, being officially ruled a banned book. On October 23, Eddie
Campbell spoke to both the original customs officer who took offence to
the scene of the breast being removed - which, we note, is not only a
matter of established historical fact, but is presented in Moore &
Campbell's fiction within the context of an autopsy conducted by a
doctor - but also to her superior.
"I was passed up to her 'superior' . I heard him say 'I don't want to
speak to them' in the background while she was getting him," states
Campbell.
"He went to great lengths to explain to me that since #7 was contained
within the bigger book then it too was contraband, which seemed to me
like a statment of the bleedin' obvious but I thought it wise not to
start my campaign by interrupting him.
"I told him that the book was highly regarded in America and England,
and was currently in print in six foreign languages. He replied 'I don't
care what goes on in the rest of the world, this is Australia.'
"And I'm sure he speaks on behalf of a great number."
As it took eight months for the initial ruling to be handed down,
Campbell holds no hope of being able to have the situation resolved at
appeal in any less time than that - and with the film version of the
novel being released locally in just seven months, he has only one
glimmer of hope; the fact that the ban only currently applies to
importation.
"This is not to say that a later restriction applying to manufacture and
sale within the country might not be imposed but my guess is that it
would be unlikely," continues Campbell. Observing that the problem has
sprung from a single objection in the most isolated city on earth, far
from the cultural centres of Australia, he also commented that "I don't
think anybody who passed judgement upon the book thought for a moment
that it actually originated in Australia. The Officers seemed a little
taken aback when the author and publisher phoned from within the
country."
Putting aside Eddie's wry comment that "the irony, of course, is that I
can buy the book in any country except the one I've been living in for
the past 14 years," we can perhaps draw some small comfort from the fact
that the book's problems with Customs have advanced culturally in the
last decade. The last time officers seized copies of an installment - in
England, 1992 - it was for showing sex. At least now they're objecting
to violence...
-
Per altre informazioni, 
www.eddiecampbellcomics.com
--
Ciao, 
/\/\oreno

is considered to be excessive violence!
Pensa te! Allora "l'Immortale", in cui un un uomo affetta un seno ad
una prostituta ancora viva, oltretutto dopo averle amputato una gamba,
come verrebbe giudicato? :\
-- 
Son Gohan, a.k.a. Massimo Sabbadini
Segretario delle B.T. e Comandante Sez. Nord-Est
Evangelist Project - The Fourteenth, Zeruel
Email: 
sesa...@tin.it
 - ICQ 14270380
Home Page: 
http://members.xoom.it/SonGohan