‘Saga’ Digital Comic Drawing Attention Over Gay Sex Flap

Brian K. Vaugh’s Sagadigital comic has gotten a ton of attention for the digital copy of issue #12 over the last few days. That particular issue features some apparent gay sex by a number of its characters.

The issue was first reportedly banned by Apple from its online store, and that story was relatively believable because Apple has been known to have a fairly quick ban hammer.

Apple is notorious for banning applications and publications that it finds offensive or controversial, but this particular episode seemed to have just been banned because gay sex was involved.

There was quite a bit of backlash that Apple was making a political statement rather than a business decision. Comixology has now stepped forward and taken the blame for the comic not showing up on the digital store shelves.

ComiXology CEO David Steinberger issued a statement in which he said, “based on our understanding of those [Apple] policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today.”

He went on to say that, after he was contacted by Apple, he realized that his company had made an error. It appears that it has been put right and that the digital comic is now available across all platforms yet again.

This whole incident seems to bring to light the issues of our day. Brian K. Vaughn has long used his newest digital comic as a way to challenge the status quo on a number of issues.

One of the covers of this comic features a character who is seemingly bathed in blood. That comic was never considered to be pulled from digital store shelves.

It also seems likely that the digital comic application will be taking their lead from Apple more closely in the future.

Has this controversy made you any more likely to go out and read Brian K. Vaughn’s Saga series?