The offending squiggle.
  • The offending squiggle.
Robot 6 informs us that an iPad version of a webcomic that adapts Ulysses into comic book form has been censored by Apple:

Apple has strict guidelines and a rating system to prevent "adult content." Their highest mature content rating is 17+, which doesn't seem to be a problem since no one reads Ulysses at sixteen anyway. But their guidelines also mean no nudity whatsoever. Which is something we never planned for.

Joyce's novel is pretty explicit in its language and themes, so much so that in 1932 it won one of the most important court decisions about censorship in American history. While the first chapter of the book, the one now at iTunes, doesn't contain "offensive language" our comic does have frank nudity. Something we figured we might have to pixelate or cover with "fig leaves". But Apple's policy prohibits even that. So we were forced to either scrap the idea of moving to the tablet with Apple or re-design our pages.

Instead, they've cropped some of the images for the iPad app (go to Robot 6 for an example) and included links to the Ulysses Seen website for the uncensored content.

Dear Apple: This is getting ridiculous.