I’m more amused than annoyed, honest.
So last week, I listed a number of underground comix on the eBay. Well, relisted, actually, as they’re all undergrounds I’d tried to sell on eBay before but had no luck moving them. Anyway, I figured I’d give ’em another try, at lower opening bids, and see what happened.
I listed 23 underground comix. By the next day, eBay had cancelled six of those auctions, and the notification e-mail I was sent told me they were cancelled because they were Mature Audience items listed in the general auction area.
Now, my problem isn’t with the fact that someone at eBay felt these auctions were inappropriate outside of eBay’s Mature Audiences section. I can understand their concern, even though, as I said, I’ve listed these specific undergrounds (and many others) in the past with no problems. But, if someone at eBay says they don’t want this adult material listed along with Superman and Spider-Man, well, I can’t really blame them. I got away with it for quite a while, so it was just a matter of time before someone said “Hey, now.” However, eBay may want to police the undergrounds category a little more closely if they think it’s that big of an issue.
My real problem is why they cancelled those specific six underground auctions, and left the other seventeen untouched. The auctions they cancelled:
Armageddon #2 & #3 (nudity on the covers…okay, you got me)
Adventures of the Little Green Dinosaur #1 & #2 (some explicit material inside, though you couldn’t tell it from the covers)
Clowns by Dave Geiser (don’t remember if there’s anything overtly “mature” in this comic or not)
Edward’s Heave (British underground – c’mon, who at eBay has even heard of this comic?)
Included in the auctions that were allowed to continue were Tales from the Sphinx #2 (with very explicitly detailed sex scenes), Yellow Dog #21 (generally something filthy going on in any given issue of this series), and others that were just as “mature,” if not more so, than the titles in the auctions eBay canceled.
There’s no rhyme or reason to it…one Geiser book was canceled, another was left up, for example. Presumably another eBay user was browsing the auction listings, spotted some of our auction listings, and just complained about the ones they saw. And, thankfully, didn’t click on the “seller’s other items” link.
Or, “Mike thought cynically,” someone wanted to list the same items, and didn’t want the competition.
At any rate, I was pretty annoyed, particularly since there are plenty of other comic book auctions going on right now that are far worse than anything I listed. For example, a search on eBay reveals listings for the underground comic The Life and Loves of Cleopatra, one of the most sexually explicit undergrounds ever published. And I found several listings for Barry Blair’s naughty book Leather & Lace, Tim Vigil’s porn-gore book Faust, a boatload of Verotik books, and…hell, just type in “nude” in eBay’s search box and see what pops up…er, so to speak. And, c’mon, Crying Freeman? We used to half-jokingly call this “Naked People Stabbing Each Other Monthly.”
And I just found a listing for the Eros Comics’ trade paperback collection of Meet the Lovejoys. I can keep this up all day (“…said the bishop to the actress”).
Yeah, I know…”Big Company in Inconsistent Enforcement of Own Policies Shocker.” Not news in the slightest, I realize. Just a tad aggravating when it happens to you, y’know?
Well, this has happened to me once before…I had a number of Blackthorne Press reprints of the Axa comic strip (where the female lead is frequently topless) that got yanked by eBay for being too naughty to be listed beside family friendly books like Chronicles of Wormwood and Black Kiss.
I just relisted ‘n’ sold them later.
In other news:
- I’ve been wanting to do the gag in yesterday’s post for a long, long time…but had no Care Bears comics to scan from. Not until this collection came in.
I swear, we don’t purchase collections just so I have stuff to scan for the site. BUT THEY HELP.
- I’ve been using the Project Wonderful ads in my sidebar for a little while now, and they’ve been working out quite nicely. A big thank you to my advertisers, and a big thank you to my readers who have been good enough to click on those ads and make my advertisers feel loved.
I’ve even put together my own Project Wonderful ad which, as I write this, is currently up at pal Dorian’s site though, at least, the rest of Wednesday (unless I’m outbid…when it goes down I’ll link to a local copy of the ad image — EDIT: I’ve been outbid, so here’s the ad). Now, I really wasn’t doing it for the advertising…Dor and I tend to have a pretty good overlap of readers anyway. Mostly, I just did it to annoy Dorian, by getting my goofy mug on his site. Plus, I like the sheer obnoxiousness of my ad.
But now I’m considering actually buying ads on other sites specifically to get more eyeballs here. I better figure out how to condense my site down to a 117×30 pixel image….
- Here’s a new site with an interesting premise. At Not Blog X (good name!), a certain G. Kendall plans to answer the question “Were X-Men comics in the 1990s as bad as you think?” He starts with a solid and fair overview of X-Force #1, and continues with that series’ second issue and X-Factor #71. Only three entries so far, but I hope to see more.
- Mag ‘n’ H at Comic Treadmill just put up post in tribute of Spider-Man parade balloons…including a link to an online petition to get the Spidey balloon back in the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.
I didn’t even realize Spidey was out of the parade. No one tells me anything.
