Tandra Page 1075, January 17, 2010

Created on 01/17/2010

by Hanther

I have to confess, I don’t know if mainstream ink on paper comics pamphlets still have a Comics Code seal in the upper right corner of the cover or if that is something that has passed into history along with high button shoes and buggy whips. I’ll have to take a look next time I am at a store that still sells comics. Problem is, I don’t know off the top of my head of a local store selling comics on paper. Last I checked, the local Wal-mart, who sold comics at one time, no longer have the little pamphlets in sight. The local Kroger grocery had them once, but that was years ago. I can drive two hours to the nearest major city. That’s four hours round trip. I can then check out a comics shop to see about the little code seal but that would mean I waste half a day minimum just to satisfy my curiosity and, frankly, I’m not that curious!

Whatever, back when comics publications displayed that little seal and the Comics Code Authority carried some clout, the Tandra page this week would not have past muster. It was specifically forbidden that kidnapping should be portrayed in comics. As comics writer Roy Thomas once pointed out, that prohibition didn’t prevent the publication of tales of kidnapping. The prohibition only meant a kidnapping was called something else. So much for censorship, self imposed or otherwise.

Still, I don’t remember coming across that many tales in Superman of Lois being taken into captivity by force. Publishers tended to shy away from such sensitive subject matter, even to the point they did not mention kidnapping for the purpose of condemning such anti-social behavior.

Which brings us back to this week’s Tandra Page titled “Shaikha Kidnapped”.

Over the first thirty something years of creating Tandra, I mostly did not have women (or men, for that matter) kidnapped. There were an abundance of other topics to explore and my problem has always been finding the space to write the story ideas that come into my head, not how to find and develop an idea for the next adventure. So, was it not impossible to continue new Tandra adventures without involving characters in controversial topics such as kidnapping, most especially the kidnapping of children.

Certainly it is well within my abilities to write on other topics, but the ideology of Kaliste is centered upon the use of young women as objects of sexual gratification, as is the real world ideology that inspired it. If I plan to continue to write tales that condemn the real world ideology for its contemptible treatment of women, I can hardly justify avoiding the depiction if the ideology’s depravity. Such avoidance would be similar to insisting Nazis did some bad things while avoiding pointing out one of the worst of their crimes was the systemic extermination of Jews.

So, Shaikha is kidnapped and I will portray whatever is required to make her peril real. On the other hand, those who expect to get their jollies by drooling over pornographic drawings of the child being sexually ravaged are destined for major disappointment. Those with an explicit taste for pedophilia shall have to look elsewhere on the net to get their jollies!

May the sun always shine on your parade!

Next Week; “When No Means Yes”

Tandra...more than escapist fantasy, it’s a revolution!

Hanther

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