They’re Pretty Graphic, Those Novels
Are Canadians Still Living Under the Shadow of Comics Crime?
Of the 357 graphic novels challenged for removal from Canadian libraries in 2025, only ten are still in those libraries today.
As reported by the Canadian Library Challenges Database (CLCD), last year had the highest record of library challenges in Canada, with a total of 468 requests for the removal of materials. Overwhelmingly, these requests came not from library patrons or from public interest groups, but from one particular provincial government. According to the CLCD, a whopping 97% of materials removed from Canadian libraries last year were graphic novels. All of the purged comics were aimed at teens or young adults, and all but one were sanctioned under Alberta’s Ministerial Order 34 — the predecessor to Bill 28.
Zealous censorship of comics is nothing new. Canadian legislators have a long and embarrassing history demonizing and criminalizing comics. The distribution of ‘crime comics’ was a criminal offence in Canada from 1949 until 2018. The moral panic around the crime and violence in comic books began in earnest in the 1940s, coming to a head in 1948. In November of 1948, two boys accidentally shot and killed a British Colombian man while playing. As the boys were veracious comic book fans, the accidental death of the man was blamed on their leisure reading. Member of Parliament Davie Fulton spearheaded a ban on the sale of “crime comics”, for all his hard work when legislation was passed in 1949, it was entitled “Fulton’s Bill.”
Fulton’s Bill criminalized the dissemination of comics that were entirely focused on crime or criminal activity. Under literal compliance, anyone who shared or sold a particularly violent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man could face a significant fine or imprisonment.
When the law was finally repealed in 2018, it had been mostly viewed as a curiosity. However, while the law was still on the books, it was used to target Calgary retailer Comics Legends. In 1987, the R.C.M.P. seized 192 comic books from the retailer. The owner, manager, and an employee were charged with circulating obscene publications and faced potential jail sentences of up to two years. While no one ended up facing jail time, Comics Legends was convicted of distributing ‘crime comics’ and forced to pay a fine of $3000, which was later reduced. While mostly memory holed, Comics Legends’ conviction is a disconcerting piece of legislative history: a time in Canadian history that I hope we never return to, yet I fear we are.
As of 2026 there are no laws that directly criminalize comics; however, Alberta’s Ministerial Order 34 and Bill 28 function in the spirit of Fulton’s Bill. Working together, the laws reduce children and teens’ access to comics.
Ministerial Order 34 supersedes Ministerial Order 30, which was issued by Alberta’s Minister of Education in May of 2025. The previous order would have banned literary materials that illustrate or describe an action of a sexual nature. To comply with the initial ministerial order, classics such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale would have to be removed from school libraries and the curriculum. After scathing criticism, including from Atwood herself, the order was rewritten to ensure that classics could stay in school libraries.
Order 34 focuses on visual depictions of potentially explicit materials. The order states that it only bans materials that contain images that are distinctly sexual in nature. Noting that materials regarding puberty, pregnancy, and romantic feeling may not be banned. This being said, determining when a depiction is inherently sexual is highly complex. The wording of order 34 feigns precision while allowing for sweeping bans.
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For example, Blue Exorcist Vol. 6 was removed from K-12 schools in Fort Vermilion, Alberta, for an illustration showing a teenage boy blushing while imagining his crush in a bathing suit. Without context, the panel can appear lascivious.
Worse still, when read incorrectly, the dialog at the top of page 6 appears:
Shima: C’mon, man! We’ll share!
Rin: I’ll pass… um… the girls!
However, when read in the correct order — and in the larger context of the book — the scene is inoffensive. Two teenage boys, Shima and Rin, talk about inviting their respective crushes, Izumo and Moriyama, to the pool. Rin blushes as he imagines Moriyama in a bikini, then sulks when he remembers that they are currently arguing.
A censor looking for obscene drawings may not know that manga is read right to left. Thus, censors may pull innocuous materials due to cultural misunderstandings.
As the province of Alberta did not provide school boards with a list of explicit materials, it is up to individual districts to determine what books should be removed from library shelves. Depending on which district a child goes to school in, students will have differing access to free literary materials. Additionally, Order 34 applies to the whole of the school environment. Books banned by the order cannot be used as supplementary readings or be housed in classroom libraries.
On May 13th the Albertan legislator passed Bill 28, an amendment to the Libraries Act that grants Minister of Municipal Affairs Dan Williams authority over “management, administration or operation” of every public library in the province. Under the law, materials deemed by the government as “explicit” must be segregated and made unavailable for self-directed browsing. Bill 28 bans library patrons under 16 from accessing materials containing a visual depiction of a sexual act without parental permission. The law relies on the same faulty language used by Ministerial Order 34 to determine what materials should be censored.
Libraries have until January 1st to comply with the new regulations. Librarians with little time and money are forced to censor books, magazines, periodicals, comics, manga, graphic novels, movies, TV shows, and video games. It is up for individual library boards to decide how to separate these materials from the general collection. Concurrently, they will have to determine how to verify a patron’s age. As Bill 28 includes e-resources, boards will have to figure out how to apply age restrictions across research databases, e-book & audiobook platforms, and streamers.
Undoubtedly, children’s access to information and reading materials will vary from branch to branch. Some libraries may have the funds and labour force to carefully implement this new law; most do not. Albertan libraries are already struggling, and the province will not be providing any funds to ensure the proper execution of Bill 28. The costs associated with Bill 28 — building new partitions, issuing new library cards, etc. — may result in reduced services or even forced library closures.
In 2025 the graphic novel version of Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale was challenged by eight Canadian school library systems. A Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel was removed from all but one of the library systems — the only one located outside of Alberta. That same year, 1984: The Graphic Novel was removed from eight Albertan school library systems. Danielle Smith ensured that prose versions of classic novels were not removed. However, graphic novel versions of those same books are banned from school libraries and class readings.
When a library patron loses access to a graphic novel adaptation, the solution seems simple: just read the original book. But this argument ignores that comics and graphic novels can be transformative for neurodivergent readers. Illustrated versions of prose novels give disabled readers access to a text that they couldn’t otherwise decipher.
A graphic novel adaptation is similar to any other form of translation. When a translator translates a novel, they must work in harmony with the author to ensure the voice of the creator is still audible. They must guarantee that the mood and plot of a novel do not change, even as the text does. When an illustrator adapts a novel, they are translating the text into art. By doing so, they are allowing for a greater audience to view the work. No significant changes were made to the story of A Handmaid’s Tale or 1984; they were just made more accessible.
Graphic novels are, for lack of a better word, no more graphic than a non-illustrated book. They simply make the themes and content of a work more obvious. The unique format of graphic novels means that they can be easy targets for book challenges. Taboo materials are easier to spot when looking at a picture than they are when looking at a thousand words. Pictures can be taken out of context and used as evidence in the campaign to exclude comics from libraries. As seen with The Blue Exorcist Vol. 6, a single panel, just one drawing out of a thousand, can render an entire work obscene.
It has been a year since Ministerial Order 34 forced hundreds of graphic novels out of Albertan schools. In only three months Bill 28 will come into full effect. Currently, Albertan librarians are faced with the horrible task of determining which books teens and children can freely access. As books are weeded from library collections based on circulation data, graphic novels don’t have to be outright banned to be removed from the public library. If a book is hidden for long enough that it can be quietly discarded.
Bill 28 uses the same language weaponized by Order 34 to keep comics out of children’s hands to ensure that ultimately all library patrons will lose access to them. Librarians who champion comics and graphic novels find themselves on the frontlines, fighting against censorship — now and always. Any fight to keep literature in the hand of children, no matter the form, is a fight against children’s literacy.
Comic censorship should be kept where it belongs! In the past!
