Comic book publisher wins battle over nudity in iPad Ulysses

Apple admits censorship mistake and gives go-head to graphic novel of James Joyce's masterpiece - just in time for Bloomsday
Alison Flood,  guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 June 2010

 Above: He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying tritely: – Redheaded women buck like goats." ... An image from Ulysses Seen. Photograph: Throwaway Horse/Robert Berry

Almost 80 years after a judge ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene, allowing it to be sold in the US, the publisher of a comic book version of the seminal novel has won its own small battle against suppression.

Just in time for Bloomsday – today's worldwide celebration of all things Joyce and Ulysses – Apple has decided to allow the nude pictures in Throwaway Horse's graphic novel version of the book to be shown on the iPad. It had previously asked the publisher to edit its free iPad application of the comic, Ulysses Seen, to remove any depictions of nudity.

Throwaway Horse cropped the image of a naked woman to focus on her face, and edited a scene featuring a nude Buck Mulligan. "Apple's policy had been that app developers should not be permitted to use nudity in any of their images, even if it's pixellated or covered by 'fig leaves'. Our comic has a mature rating (no one under 17 understands Joyce's book anyway), but we were still not allowed to show frank nudity," said illustrator Robert Berry.

The team at Throwaway Horse were "shocked" by the request, he said. "I know all the famous stories regarding this novel's battles against censorship, and certainly there are later chapters of the book that intentionally push the boundaries of social decorum, but nothing like that was in my first chapter of the adaptation" – as far as they have currently got with their ongoing project. "I don't think the Apple representative that I first spoke with even knew what Ulysses was," added the publisher's business manager, Chad Rutkowski.

Because they still wanted the comic to be available on the iPad, Throwaway Horse agreed to Apple's request. "We believed that our method for showing and annotating the novel was completely unique to the iPad experience and wanted to be a part of that. So we made a second version of the work to hold up to Apple's guideline while still carrying the original pages on our website," said Berry.

The publisher says it has just been told by Apple "that they made a mistake in establishing guidelines that were too rigid to allow for artistic growth". "[They] seem to be treating nudity and mature content in a 'case specific' manner now," said a delighted Berry, so the complete version of the Ulysses extract is now available for the iPad.
Full report at The Guardian online.

And another on the subject of James Joyce & his masterpiece:
Re:Joyce! A Podcast Exploring the World of James Joyce's Ulysses