Um, did I miss the book burning? At SBC, Barb Lien-Cooper champions friend Mark Millar's The Unfunnies in a somewhat puzzling column titled "Why The Unfunnies Has a Right to Exist." I realize there were mixed reactions to the first issue of the series, with some critics declaring it brilliant while others thought it was sophomoric and "shocking" for shocking's sake. But was there some movement to have the comic banned or to have the creators jailed? Did I miss a memo, or the mob of torch-wielding villagers? Here's Lien-Cooper:

"You don't have to agree with me. You have every right to hate and condemn The Unfunnies for its subject matter. America is the marketplace of ideas, after all. But, I hope that you can at least understand the comic as an exercise of authorial free speech and the right of the creator to write his or her own comic his or her own way. There's been a wave of conservatism in comics in this post-Preacher age. Mark Millar's work got caught in the chilling effect back when DC had problems with parts of The Authority. Since then, Mark's been even more insistent about having the authorial power to tell his stories without undue tampering. If you find no other reason for saying The Unfunnies has merit, at least try and understand why the work exists. Comics need to live free or die as an artistic medium. Only creator freedom can do that. Therefore, I applaud Avatar for having the guts to support creator freedom by publishing works like The Unfunnies that are seen as too controversial for other comic book companies to publish."