Mark Frauenfelder, a complete, total, and utter bore who posts on Boing Boing, noted last week an article about a Manga book that was removed from the shelves of the San Bernardino County public library because it had depictions of animal sex in it. Numerous news outlets noted this, but of course Boing Boing in their obsession to point out how bad the big bad government is, wrote the following:

The 2004 trade paperback, written by Paul Gravett and published by Harper Design, is a history of Japanese comics, and includes, in several chapters, discussion of adult comics that depict sex and violence. The violence was apparently not an issue, nor was the fact that the reproductions of panels that feature sexual situations were, as far as we could tell, all R-rated and treated in a serious, scholarly way. Postmus’ statement and the local newspaper coverage made much of the fact that the book contains “sex with animals,” but we couldn’t find it; we must not have looked as hard.

Apparently, you snarky ass, you didn’t look as hard. A reader submitted the following overnight:

“The offending picture was on page 144, a picture of a fairy having sex with a squirrel. The original image was from Bondage Fairies.

“What probably got the book pulled was the fact that it was shelved as a Young Adult book, despite a Library Journal article mentioning the numerous pictures of sex and gore. It’s a great book, but it needs to be shelved as an adult book.”

Guess you didn’t look as hard, Mark. Give credit where it’s due, folks. They were big enough to admit they f’ed up, but that still doesn’t excuse the boorish nature of Mark’s original post. Oh, and just for the record, the book is only 176 pages long, meaning Mark probably never even got through the whole book.

Either that, or he just wasn’t looking as hard.

Oh, and he may want to apologize for calling Bill Postmus a jerk for having it removed. I won’t expect that, though, as Boing Boing has a habit of printing corrections but not one of actually apologizing. I wrote this to Mark in the hopes of encouraging such actions:

Mark,

So… Now that you’ve admitted your mistake (which apparently involved reading the whole book you dismissed as “not obscene,”) you think you’ll be airing a public apology for calling Bill Postmus a jerk for doing the right thing…

You know… Seeing as you were wrong and all…

I know you wrote a correction, but an apology wouldn’t kill you either.

Vinny

Don’t worry. I’m not dumb enough to hold my breath waiting for that one.

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