Publishers are constantly deciding what they will and will not provide the public. Is it censorship every time they do so? Are they a secret nanny state making decisions as to what is best for us and what we can or cannot handle, or are they looking at the bottom line? Are they obligated to provide us with everything we stamp our feet and demand, no matter how small a group we are? Is "Song of the South" going to please more customers than it is going to offend? Does Disney owe it to us to give us something so many find slanted and unfair? "We want happy smiling slaves! We want happy smiling slaves!" Come on, everyone! Join in with Eric. "Tar Baby! Tar Baby! Tar Baby!!"

I get that you want to decide the issue of suitability for yourself, Eric, but the rest of us aren't obligated to provide you with that. Disney doesn't have to tick off an entire segment of the population so you can decide that maybe it just wasn't your cup of tea after all. (See also: Definitions of "entitlement.")

Ideally, yes, everything ever done would be available to everyone everywhere and what is offensive would fall away due to disinterest and its own inherent failings. That's not how it is, however. So long as profits are associated with the production of intellectual properties, some will remain on view while others do not based on decisions made by executives and accountants. No one is nannying you and keeping the bad stuff away so it doesn't hurt you. If they thought it would sell and be worth the pain in the ass of selling it, they likely would. 

Even then, however, there would still be the question of whether the film is something they themselves feel good about distributing today. You claim Disney is making black people sad by withholding a beloved cultural treasure from them? And know this to be true because, well, your friend told you, so it must be. I don't know. I can see a reason for it to be out there and it even finding audiences among different segments of the population, not just the racists sitting back and saying, "See..? Just like I told you... That's just how those people are..." 

Are there enough people who want it to justify a re-issue? I don't think so. If you do, there are European copies available through different distributors, and those VHS tapes are still floating around. Rather than insisting Disney deliver it to your hand, you could try going out and finding it yourself.

As for The Monster Society being comics' first big epic? You're apt to be disappointed. It was a serialized story taking place over many issues, true, with story developments along the way, but really not different in tone or structure from the rest of the Captain Marvel output of the time. You're likely to find more that seems "epic" in the Sub-Mariner/ Human Torch battles of a few years earlier; subsea armies attacking New York and the like. 

The Monster Society was not reprinted in the Archives, by the way. As pointed out earlier by someone else, the Archives weirdly focused on the character's earliest days, before the humor and general approach were set. As such, they're scratchy, hyperkinetic action one-offs, no different than most Golden Age stuff. Being unspectacular and generally lacking in charm, readers didn't go for them and the line stopped. A few Marvel Family volumes were put out and represent what was to come a good deal better, but the Monster Society was still a ways off in the publishing order. 

The volume that people talk about was put out by an independent distributor, the American Nostalgia Library, back in 1989. It does not feature Captain Marvel in the name or on the book jacket. It had a small print run and is pricey today, no question about it. The reason it was possible for the publisher to do it was because many of Fawcett's copyrights were left unprotected after the company went out of business. No one owns those stories, and so... and this point has been made before, but bears repeating... you can find the entirety of the Monster Society story right now, this very minute, on line. You can go there directly and read the whole thing. 

Comic's first, long-running serialized story. Right there. Right now. No one is standing between you and it. It's not some shady bootleg you can't tell your family about. The copyrights are lapsed. Go. Enjoy.

While you're there, look around for the stories where, as a sales boosting stunt, Billy went to different cities and met their mayors and representatives. Check out the ones where Billy and Steamboat visit his family in the South and get involved in voodoo. Really. Those are legally available as well at this time. Will they always be? Probably not. Laws change or we wouldn't need lawmakers. (Technically, we don't need lawmakers except for those newest areas of technology and such that crop up. Nonetheless, our society is rotten with 'em.) So don't dawdle or the Nanny State will come an' getcha! Boo!! 

" As pointed out earlier by someone else, the Archives weirdly focused on the character's earliest days, before the humor and general approach were set. As such, they're scratchy, hyperkinetic action one-offs, no different than most Golden Age stuff. Being unspectacular and generally lacking in charm, readers didn't go for them and the line stopped."

The need to reprint in chronological order drives me insane! I bought the second volume of the Flash Gordon newspaper strips by Dan Barry and the scholarly introduction kind of rubbished some of the stories in the book but signposted the good stuff that lay ahead. If people don't like the lesser material in this volume, what makes you think they are going to buy the next volume?

I applaud Marvel's approach to the Epic reprint line. We could debate whether or not they are reprinting the stories in the order we'd like them to, but I'm assuming (always a dangerous thing to do) they are trying to reprint some of the best (or better) eras first to build an audience.

And yes, I am one of those frustrated by the Shazam archives and wish they'd started with the 50's material ...

_______________

Seriously?  Perhaps it wasn't clear, but I haven't seen "Song."  And I haven't read "Monster Society."  But don't let the facts keep Brian Hague from labeling someone a racist.

Except I didn't. In calling for a reissue of "Song of the South," you're literally asking for them to put out the Uncle Remus story of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar-Baby. It's one of the most infamous stories in the film. Br'er Fox crafts a figure out of turpentine and tar in which Br'er Rabbit becomes trapped. 

This is one of the stories you're asking, Tar-Baby title and all, to be put back on store shelves and into the living rooms of America. How can you not know what's in this thing you think needs to be re-released? It takes no time anymore to look this stuff up.

I'm hoping that I'm not on your "ignore" list. I did not call you a racist, Eric. I mocked what it was you were calling for.

You're still the fellow I'd most want to hang out with from the forum*, even if we shouldn't discuss politics the whole time we're out and about. If nothing else, I really, really want to see your model collection. Man alive, that has got to be amazing... :-) 

But once again, I can't stress this enough. It's not censorship and no one here is owed the book from DC. The material is available online anyway. No one is keeping anyone here from reading it.

No publisher to my knowledge has picked up Michael Fliescher's "Chasing Hairy: A Novel of Sexual Terror" and kept it in print since its initial printing in the 70's. The story of two guys who meet and bond over their mutual hatred of women, the book culminates in their torture, rape, murder, and burning of a young woman they pick up in a bar. 

Is corporate America united in censoring the work, or is it just that no one wants to publish the stupid thing? 

There are no panic buttons being pushed here. It was a bad business call that DC has stepped away from. But hey, by all means, write to tell them they owe you that book. You want that thing delivered to you straightaway. And tell them to send a pizza along with it. As much as they've caused everyone over this, they owe you that as well.

And the races being depicted within, well, damn it, they owe you something as well, don't they? They owe you their tolerance of your curiosity towards the ugly caricatures of them that book contains. They owe you their understanding and a certain level of decorum. They all need to step back and allow themselves to be shown in any manner that amuses you, because hey, no one means anyone any harm here, right? They should suck it up and accept the fresh publication of these insulting, racist portrayals because of... well, history and stuff. 

Damn it, everybody owes you something, don't they?

Seriously, Greg, I do hope our friendship, on-line and tenuous though it may be, survives all of this. You say it would be a different matter entirely if it were a present-day book? Publishing it again would make it a present-day book. It would be on store shelves today. See how that works?

* Don't tell Robbie. 

We're not going to guard against repeating history, in this case the publication of ugly and offensive material, by repeating history. We're not going stop the perpetuation of stereotypes by perpetuating stereotypes. You want a trigger phrase? We're not going to stop evil by reprinting and reselling evil.

BTW, one bookcase? Forget it. We're not hanging out.