More details on Handley’s manga
May 30th, 2009
Wired picks up on the Christopher Handley story and adds some new details. According to the article, the package intercepted by customs officials included seven manga with images of minors having sex, and “one book included depictions of bestiality, according to stipulations in Handley’s plea deal.” Manga expert Frenchy Lunning said the books were Lolicon, so we aren’t talking about isolated images within a single book here, we’re talking about entire volumes.
Context is everything in this case, and I think manga readers will breathe a sigh of relief when they learn that the prosecution relies on books that were entirely loli, rather than isolated images in some other type of manga, although I’m not sure legally it should make a difference, because the charges rest on individual images.
Equally important to the perception of the case is the fact that Handley didn’t have a lot of dirty books:
“He was a prolific collector,” says the lawyer. “He did not focus on this type of manga. He collected everything that was out there that he could get his hands on. I think this makes a huge difference.”
In other words, he’s not a creepy guy. I understand why his lawyer would argue that, but I’m not sure why the content of the other books in his collection would affect the legality of the drawings in question. Either a drawing is obscene or it isn’t, regardless of what’s around it. Furthermore, the Wired article leads with this:
Handley’s guilty plea makes him the first to be convicted under that law for possessing cartoon art, without any evidence that he also collected or viewed genuine child pornography.
Again, this makes him more sympathetic but shouldn’t affect the central question of whether the state can outlaw possession of a drawn image.
Meanwhile, Matt Thorn clarifies that he is not under a formal gag order but removed his correspondence on the case from his blog as a courtesy to the parties involved. He is also not so clear about what exactly Handley is being prosecuted for, but he clarifies the central issue rather nicely:
But regardless of whether the manga in question are the kind of thing any manga collecter would have on her shelf or are explicitly pornographic, as long as the material passes the Miller Test (as even the most explicit legal pornography evidently does), the material should be protected by the First Amendment.
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