The Controversial Comic*

A Story by Abishai100

A landmark case in the 'City of Brotherly Love' involving a rather 'controversial' comic-strip (available in social domain) has impact on the discourse surrounding modern-media dragons.

A symbolic legal case in Philadelphia, inspired by The Devil's Own (Alan J. Pakula). Enjoy,

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A special case came up in the dockets of the legendary/iconic Philadelphia courthouse involving the circulation of a very controversial comics-strip depicting the 'romance' and 'sentiment' behind the rogue forces of the IRA ('Irish Republican Army') in sectarian and economically 'troubled' Belfast, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom).

Now, Philadelphia, the 'City of Brotherly Love' in the United States, had become synonymous with great schools (Penn St., Temple, Villanova, UPenn) and student-life and the street-sportsmanship fashion(s) reflecting a great college-athletics spirit and fanfare, so it'd become a place of great populism media and traffic symbolism (and where the Declaration of Independence was signed during the time of the American revolution).

It's also where the arguably greatest men's college basketball game was ever played, the 1992 Regional Final (March Madness) square-off against Duke and Kentucky, resulting in a heart-stopping buzzer-beater game-winner in Overtime, which brought the Philadelphia Spectrum to state of dogmatic 'frenzy' for media-broadcast era American college sports.

The defense-lawyer in this case is a civil-liberties/free-speech smart-mouth named Amlan Satan (aka, 'Storm-Shadow') who's defending the author of the comic strip, an affable Northern Ireland artist named Esha. Satan wanted to defend Esha's 'IRA comics-strip' as simply/basically a liberal folk-representation of the poverty-driven angst between the Irish-Catholic minority population living alongside the British-Protestant majority population (descended from generations of English colonial settlers!) as a socioeconomics-conditions disparity enduring 'under-class' with problems of youth-unemployment and black-market piracy scars.

SATAN (Lawyer, Philadelphia): Your honor(s), this case involves expression of street-angst by poverty and political detriments.

The artist/writer who generated the comics-illustration depicting rogue-IRA men holding a stunned British off-duty policeman (accused of brutality in work) walking home from a British pub in Belfast with his Protestant girlfriend in a predominantly Catholic part of the area. The artist/writer, Esha, lived in the suburbs of New Jersey (Haddonfield!), neighboring Philadelphia. Her comics-strip was identified by a disgruntled British-Protestant empathizer living in South Jersey who submitted the now-controversial 'IRA-graphic' to a legal office in neighboring Philadelphia, which made Esha's life in Haddonfield suddenly grey.

ESHA: What can you help me, counselor, in regards to my Catholic-rights to open expressions of political realism in Belfast?
SATAN: What we're doing is creating a magazine-photojournalism 'tactic' to present the case as simply photo-democracy!

The prosecution-team for the symbolic/landmark case, which would impact the course of discourse regarding Philadelphia's advocacy of 'claimed-pluralism' comics through the lens of controversy-subject free-speech intellectualism (in the city which boasted great law schools including UPenn's Carey Law School), was a smart UPenn graduate named Shirley Temple.

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TEMPLE: Your honor(s), this case suggests that the 'gates' of hell may be opened for any 'grudge' expressed in public domain.

SATAN: Don't deny, your honor, that there's public/published voice for poverty-linked sectarian woes in Belfast.

TEMPLE: We can't use 'unemployment' woes as a general 'catch-call' pardon for all forms of terrorism/crime in Europe.

SATAN: This case goes to the education/media available for the young folks (students!) of Belfast with access to comics!

TEMPLE: What're we telling these same 'youth' of Belfast regarding Philadelphia's (America) advocacy of controversy?
SATAN: In fact, your honor, in this age of media/publicity, the circulation of 'controversy' reflects free-speech inquiry rights.

TEMPLE: We're not using this already-publicized 'hot-case' to martyrize journalists, your honor(s).

SATAN: Why not; why not use the 'modern media pulpit' of accessible journalism to promote curiosity among the youth?

JUDGE (Verdict): We find this 'special' case can serve as a 'basic' precedent/landmark for the advocacy of media for the promotion of free-speech dialogue in Philadelphia (America), as long as there's a supervision 'by-line' complementing such circulation securing the public-domain notion that all matters of political controversy published for social-access can be regarded as an investigation-opportunity in a case-by-case procedure and that this particular case involving the Haddonfield artist/writer (Esha) suggests further review(s) of media/publicity age controversies do or can at least (indeed) create free-speech dialogue surrounding open-talks about the 'nature' and 'quality' of political complication democracy, as (indeed) reflected in modern media/arts/entertainment/consumerism in the United States.