On-demand printer Docucopies has refused to print copies of The Yaoi Coloring Book citing “nudity” in the illustrations. A spokesperson for the printer told Yaoi Press’ Yamila Abraham: “There are a number of pages that I find disturbing and do not want to put our employee’s in the same position (by) printing this book for you.” ICv2 caught up with Yaoi Press’ Abraham, who explained what happened and how Yaoi Press was going to proceed.
Is this a printer that you normally use to print your books?
No, this is a printer we print doujinshi and art prints with. Anything that we saddle stitch. Our book printer is Patterson printing in
Has this printer printed any of your books in the past?
They printed My Dream a Winter Demon doujinshi.
Does The Yaoi Coloring Book have an age rating on it?
The coloring book was only going to be sold at our convention booths where we do not allow browsing by anyone who looks under 16. I did not put a warning on the cover of this version because we were hand-selling this first 120 piece test-market run of coloring books. It was specifically being printed for Anime Expo and Otakon. It did not have a UPC code or ISBN for wider distribution yet. Once we reached that stage with this new experimental novelty item we were going to put our standard 'Mature Readers' warning on the cover.
Do you think the Handley Case had anything to do with the printer’s decision not to print your book?
I doubt this tremendously. In the phone conversation the woman Lynn said to me, "It looks like porn to us." There was never a mention of underage characters. I may be too used to Asian art to see them as young-looking anymore. I don't think any of the images look like children.
Do you plan to have the book published elsewhere?
We found a local
