The "Satan's Sodomy Baby" "Controversy"
Eric Powell 'revealed' on July 5, 2006, in the introduction to The Goon Issue #18, that the issue was originally going to be "Satan's Sodomy Baby". That story was allegedly held back due to complaints of a woman called 'Margaret Snodgrass,' a fictitious person created by Powell to generate buzz about this 'controversial' issue. Powell wrote, "For various reasons I've decided to hold off on putting that story out." He states that the story is incredibly graphic and he had considered placing a label reading “NOT FOR MINORS" on it. He wrote that Dark Horse, while supporting both him and the issue completely, feared public backlash from its publication, but would eventually put out the issue. Word of the comic's release was allegedly leaked, leading to a threat of a boycott by the fictitious Snodgrass. According to Powell, "a grass-roots movement was started to try to keep retailers from carrying it by a right-wing Bible thumper in Alabama named 'Margaret Snodgrass'. She claimed that the comic was morally reprehensible and contacted local area retailers telling them that even allowing the comic to be stocked on their shelves could lead to their ever-lasting damnation. Some listened to her and threatened to stop carrying The Goon altogether because of this single issue."
Eventually, a release date was set as May 16 with the title changed to "Satan's $@#%* Baby" and carrying a disclaimer. The inside cover, however, maintained the original title "Satan's Sodomy Baby," along with the original cover art. Four pages of the book reprinted several fan letters in support of the struggle against Snodgrass.
There has never been any evidence of a real boycott, no retailers have ever spoken out on the issue, and there is no evidence of Mrs. Snodgrass' existence other than a MySpace page created around the time of Powell's initial announcement and abandoned immediately after the Sodomy issue was released.
In September 2010 on Twitter, Eric Powell confirmed that a sequel to Satan's Sodomy Baby was in the works. It will be called SSB2 to avoid the same issues with the title of the first story.
Read more about this topic: The Goon
Famous quotes containing the words satan, sodomy, baby and/or controversy:
“When I reach the shades at last it will no doubt astonish Satan to discover, on thumbing my dossier, that I was a member of the Y.M.C.A.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)
“I see not much difference between ourselves & the Turks, save that we have foreskins and they none, that they have long dresses and we short, and that we talk much and they little. In England the vices in fashion are whoring & drinking, in Turkey, sodomy and smoking.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The cohort that made up the population boom is now grown up; many are in fact middle- aged. They are one reason for the enormous current interest in such topics as child rearing and families. The articulate and highly educated children of the baby boom form a huge, literate market for books on various issues in parenting and child rearing, and, as time goes on, adult development, divorce, midlife crisis, old age, and of course, death.”
—Joseph Featherstone (20th century)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)