Musings from Brian J. Noggle

The Most Censored Blogger in America?

Cartoonist Art Spiegelman drew some comic strips that the New Yorker magazine did not accept for publication, and now that he's gotten his time in the bright lights of the television cameras, he's rightfully claiming that he's been censored.

I know how that heavy burden of oppression feels, my friends, because on many occasions, I, too have been censored by the New Yorker, as this revealing photo proves:

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Many times, the boot of Big Publication has stood upon my neck as I have written to express my own precious personal feelings and thoughts, and I have been censored! As a matter of fact, it's not just been the jackboot of Big Publication, but the centipede parade of Big Publication, Medium Publication, Literary and Little Publication, Regional Theatre, Literary Agents, and on occasion, Web zines.

For example, here we see the truncheon marks upon my psyche left by Bostonian brownshirts at the Atlantic Monthly:

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You see, they have so many people to censor that they cannot afford to use a full sheet of paper! Also, the people at 666 Broadway, whose magazine I have sincerely and somewhat bitterly mocked on this very Web log, Harper's, have crushed my first amendment rights, but at least they used a full sheet of paper:

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But it's not just the coastal barons who've silenced my voice. Speer Morgan's thugs at the Missouri Review have deprived me of my government-given right to expression at someone else's expense:

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And here's one from Gardner Dozois at Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Extensive documentat analysis indicates that not only has The Manditor brought me down, but he didn't even sign the letter himself!:

Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Magazine rejection

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And the list goes on and on. Here, a gang-censorship display from Playboy, Pleiades, and Poetry:

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Does that make me the most censored blogger in America? The thickness of the stack might say yes

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However, I think Art Spiegelman might answer, "No! I'm the martyr! Look at me, look AT ME!"

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:33 AM