A Russian publisher has removed a chapter of a Deadpool comic book collection over what state-linked experts said was “Nazi propaganda.”
The Komilfo publishing house announced last week that award-winning graphic novelist David Lapham’s “Deadpool Max” would be released in Russia without a volume on the superhero’s battle against a neo-Nazi.
“The book didn’t pass the expertise of [...] specialists, since certain aspects of the plot violated Russian laws,” the publisher wrote on its Russian social media page Wednesday.
Without removing Volume 3, originally released in February 2011, Komilfo and its parent company Eksmo argued that printers would refuse to print the entire collection.
In comments to the Kommersant business daily, Komilfo’s chief editor Roman Dmitrovsky cited a psychologist certified with Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor in assessing that book three of Deadpool Max violated Nazi propaganda laws.
“The expert acknowledged that the villain’s image is a caricature and the work is a satire, but said that the Holocaust, Nazism and racism cannot be the subjects of satire and humor,” Dmitrovsky was quoted as saying Tuesday.
The graphic novel’s censorship follows high-profile scandals in Russia last year, including the withdrawal of a screening license for Armando Iannucci’s black comedy “The Death of Stalin.”
