At last, the story of the censorship of Space Squid can be told.
So there we were, doing the standard last-minute struggle to get Space Squid ready by the announced release date. It had been a little more than six months since the last issue, and yet I hadn’t finalized the illustrators and the actual table of contents.
Which was pretty much normal.
The very day of going to print, returning Space Squid illustrator Chris Waltrip, the guy I turn to at the last minute to get the stuff done, came through for us with an illustration for K.C. Shaw’s racy alien porno story "Comparative Anatomy." (For some reason we have two stories this issue that deal directly with the subject of porn. Actually, that’s not that surprising for us.)
Waltrip’s illustration included a giant alien space penis.
"Huh," we thought. "That’s indeed a giant alien space penis."
And then we ran it.
Only after I had printed out four hundred copies did I remember that we live in Texas, a state with particularly flexible obscenity laws.
I pointed this out to everyone, and we all reacted with varying degrees of panic. Chris Waltrip was like, "Shit! I could get arrested!"
So we did another version with the giant alien space penis stretching off the side of the page, and yet another version with a sponsored censorship bar.
Yep, that’s the kind of zine Space Squid is. We’re always looking for ways to monetize our ad space.
The point is, if you’re one of the people who got a Space Squid with the anatomically correct illustration for "Comparative Anatomy," then you’ve got a potentially valuable rarity in your hands.
So please don’t get us arrested.
Next: The scientifical analysis of our zombie simulation (and the gorey mutilated pig head photos!) from the Issue Seven release party at Frugal Media!
Also, we get criticized for being insensitive! Finally!
