Keyword – comics

Dunai, Tamás:

Developmental Disorders

The Foiling of the Graphic Novel Heartstopper in a Comics Studies Perspective

In July 2023, the Government Office of the Capital City Budapest (BFKH) imposed a 12 million forints consumer protection fine on the Líra bookstore network for failing to wrap, as prescribed by law, a young adult graphic novel depicting gay love called Heartstopper. Comics are not the main focus of the discourse on wrapping LGBTQ books in Hungary, yet it is not entirely coincidental that a graphic novel has become the case in point provoking nationwide interest. This paper suggests that this is partly owing to the medial and developmental characteristics of comics as a medium. Medial in that comics is a visual medium and its content is apparent at first sight, so similar attacks have occurred throughout its history, and developmental in that contemporary comics are diverse in terms of genre and content and hence LGBTQ comics have a more marked presence than they did a few decades ago.

Keywords: bookseller, comics, comics publishing, distribution, regulation