The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was the worst mistake the US military could have made, Al Qaeda’s Super Secret Weapon illustrates. A terrorist leader in the new comic explains that, with the repeal of DADT, sleeper agents will approach select American soldiers with highly unstable sexualities in the shower, which will compromise unit cohesion and military preparedness. “My fellow terrorists,” he says, “we have weaponized the homosexual.”
The hilarious send-up of religious and sexual stereotypes, Republicans, politics and fear of gays in the military is all part of a new comic by David Zelman, produced by Northwest Press, an LGBT comic-book publisher. Unfortunately, it looks like the Apple iBooks distributor doesn’t have a very good sense of humour, as the comic has been rejected for “prohibited explicit or objectionable content.”
“When I got the initial rejection, I immediately wrote to let them know that this isn’t just some stroke book,” Northwest Press’s publisher, Zan Christensen, explains in a press release. “Not to put down porn — there are great publishers and artists putting out great gay porn comics — but this just isn’t that type of book. It’s a clever satire that sends up hypermasculinity, fear of gays in the military, religious and cultural stereotypes . . . while it’s got some explicit content, there’s relatively little considering the length of the book.”
Despite the fact that Christensen appealed the decision, Apple has maintained its rejection. Christensen notes that a previous Northwest Press book released on iBooks has significantly more explicit sexual content. He says the problem probably isn’t that Apple is homophobic, but that the review process is “inconsistent, opaque and often errs on the side of blocking gay content that is no more objectionable than straight content.”
However, if you’re not afraid of the dangerous temptations of homosexuality, you can buy Al Qaeda’s Super Secret Weapon from the publisher or in select comic stores.
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