Zines Banned in Canada
- Artist/Author/Producer: Kelly Martin's 'zine "Thorn" & Gene's "Hippie Dick"
- Confronting Bodies: Canadian Customs officer
- Dates of action: 1994
- Location: Canadian Border
- Description of the Art Work
- Kerosine Kelly's 'zine is an 8x10 low budget hand-made magazine. She
writes, "Thorn is about not being ashamed of rage. The rage of blame to
name yourself and your place in the fury. It's a lonely place to be,
this. Thorn is a respite from that in this world of hate. Pages to be
among others speaking loudly and in turn through words, photographs,
comix, collage, music and/or a combination of these in order to resist
the temptation to be silent. It's not about silencing others."
- Description of incident
- Of a whole box of 'zines sent together in a box to the 'zine conference
"Spew," in Canada, only "I Heart Amy Carter" made it-a month later.The
"notice of determination" refers to provision 114 of the Customs Tariff
and code 9956 of Schedule VII. Tammy Rae Carlan (who produces the "I
Heart Amy Carter" 'zine) wrote, "Apparently my friend Gene's infamous
and hot hairy fag rag "Hippie Dick" and my friend Kelly's wondrous work
of genius "Thorn" were confiscated for pornographic content. Something
about representation of anal sex and fist fucking. True enough "Hippie
Dick" is an out and about porn zine (which by the way I highly recommend
to anyone into hairy boys) but the idea of censoring this is unabashed
homophobia. But of course that is the premise of these literal/visual
border crossing laws, isn't it-that is to squelch any expression of
anything that is not male-female ministry position procreative sex. And
"Thorn" was censored for one piece of writing (which by the way I wrote]
that was a very short but sweet recounting of some good old fashioned
lesbo sex. And just for the record it wasn't necessarily fist fucking,
three fingers does not a fist make."
- Results of incident
- All three 'zines continue to be produced in the United States.
Source: "I Heart Amy Carter," #3; "Thorn" #5