Wakan Unwanted unwanted for iPhone

You may have heard this through other channels already: We have been collaborating with the company Oxicomics to have Wakan Unwanted adapted for the iPhone. Issues 0, 1 and 2 are done and look great, but Apple has not approved the applications for their AppStore, saying they find the series “extremely racist”.

Seth and I are – of course – staunch anti-racists. We are surprised and upset that our work can be labelled as representing the opposite of our own views, and the opposite of the intention behind the series.

Apple’s reason for refusing the app has caused considerable head-scratching and incredulity among the Wakan readers I have spoken to.

Apple has not elaborated on exactly why they find the series racist, so for now we are left to speculate.

Wakan Unwanted deals with an African American protagonist in an alternate universe Old West. Our hero confronts a lot of racism in the stories, including some language that most people (myself included) would find disgustingly objectionable in real life.

But labeling a series as racist on the grounds that its hero confronts racism seems extremely odd, to say the least.

We strongly believe that the folks over at Apple are misreading Wakan Unwanted. We have sent them some more background materials as well as an outline of where the story is going. Hopefully, this will clear things up.

I will keep you posted on developments.

In the meantime, I recommend that you iPhone users check out Oxicomics’ brilliant app. Just search for “Oxicomics” in the AppStore, and you will be treated to some excellent comics by Kim Holm, Flu Hartberg, InkaLill, Tore Knutsen and many others.

- Lars