Comic book publisher wins battle over nudity in iPad Ulysses

 

"He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying tritely: – Redheaded women buck like goats." ... An image from Ulysses Seen. Photograph: Throwaway Horse/Robert Berry

Almost 80 years after a judge ruled that James Joyce's Ulysses was not obscene, allowing it to be sold in the US, the publisher of a comic book version of the seminal novel has won its own small battle against suppression.

Just in time for Bloomsday – today's worldwide celebration of all things Joyce and Ulysses – Apple has decided to allow the nude pictures in Throwaway Horse's graphic novel version of the book to be shown on the iPad. It had previously asked the publisher to edit its free iPad application of the comic, Ulysses Seen, to remove any depictions of nudity.

Throwaway Horse cropped the image of a naked woman to focus on her face, and edited a scene featuring a nude Buck Mulligan. "Apple's policy had been that app developers should not be permitted to use nudity in any of their images, even if it's pixellated or covered by 'fig leaves'. Our comic has a mature rating (no one under 17 understands Joyce's book anyway), but we were still not allowed to show frank nudity," said illustrator Robert Berry.

The team at Throwaway Horse were "shocked" by the request, he said. "I know all the famous stories regarding this novel's battles against censorship, and certainly there are later chapters of the book that intentionally push the boundaries of social decorum, but nothing like that was in my first chapter of the adaptation" – as far as they have currently got with their ongoing project. "I don't think the Apple representative that I first spoke with even knew what Ulysses was," added the publisher's business manager, Chad Rutkowski.

Because they still wanted the comic to be available on the iPad, Throwaway Horse agreed to Apple's request. "We believed that our method for showing and annotating the novel was completely unique to the iPad experience and wanted to be a part of that. So we made a second version of the work to hold up to Apple's guideline while still carrying the original pages on our website," said Berry.

The publisher says it has just been told by Apple "that they made a mistake in establishing guidelines that were too rigid to allow for artistic growth". "[They] seem to be treating nudity and mature content in a 'case specific' manner now," said a delighted Berry, so the complete version of the Ulysses extract is now available for the iPad.

"That's certainly better than the previous method and means that a lot of good new material can be showcased through the iPad," said Berry. "I think it's a great delivery method for all kinds of authors and artists to explore and be seen in, not the bookshelf of a Walmart that the old guidelines turned it into."

"We made a mistake," Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told the Washington Post, adding that when the comic's art was brought to Apple's attention, it "called the developers and offered them the opportunity to resubmit". "[Ulysses is] now in the store with the original panel drawings," she said.

The Ulysses Seen project "was dreamed up on a bet in an Irish pub and more than a few pints of Guinness" four years ago, after Berry attended a Bloomsday reading and began to believe that a comic "was the only medium that could faithfully adapt Joyce's novel". "Only comics have the plasticity of time and weight of visual symbols needed to make it work and comics, unlike film or theatre or audio books, are a reading experience in the same way that a novel is. People can dive in or stop at a point and still be carried back into that kind of experience," he said.

Rutkowski agreed. "We are concerned that fundamental works of literature are going to go ignored by millennials unless you give them a way in," he said. "Reading Ulysses or Paradise Lost or the Inferno requires text interrupted by footnotes or resort to companion guides that ruin focusing on the work itself. We've brought all of the resources you need for comprehension of the work under one roof, and really think we've created an immersive experience."

Alison Flood @'The Guardian'