A couple of weeks ago I made a post about "Reform and Void" in IDW’s Mickey Mouse #3 (#312). The main story in that issue was "The Mysterious Crystal Ball". I don’t really find the story that interesting so I didn’t say anything about it. But now it got to my attention that the story was censored, and I did a comparison to the original print to find out exactly what was changed. The censorship is all about the use of guns, which is understandable. But the way it was done didn’t make much sense to me…
So, what has been changed?
It seems seeing a gun being fired and flying bullets is bad, but a crook with bad aim holding a gun is okey.
Derringer what? Let's just point at him. Again, flying bullets; not ok. The sound of a gun being fired; ok.
The hero should not use a gun, but a baton is fine. Note that the car went from bulletproof to impenetrable.
But crooks pointing guns at hostages, no need to censor that.
Wait.. where did the baton go? Well, I guess it’s okay for the hero having a gun if he doesn’t point it at anyone. So nothing to censor here.
If he do point it at someone though, then his hand needs to twisted a bit.
Or the gun changed to a finger.
Or the hand just chopped off.
Interesting post! I thought Disney comics were the most harmless material ever. It seems to me that with this censorship they want to sell comics to little babies. That is totally wrong, the themes of Mickey comics specially are police related, action, guns, etc. I wonder if someone EVER complained about violence in Mickey Mouse comics
ReplyDeleteIt`s a very interesting post, I got to say, that third to last panel make me chuckle, the way they redrawn the detective's hand to make the gun point downward looks painful! Wouldn't be easier to erase the gun anyway?
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