10 Weirdest Controversies Surrounding Comics
6. Subliminal Messaging In Super Diaper Baby
When you think of banned books, what usually springs to mind? Titles like The Great Gatsby, Lolita, and The Satanic Verses; those great works of provocative fiction that speak truth to power. You probably don't think of Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey's purposely silly children's book series about a half-naked superhero. And yet, the Captain Underpants books are some of the most frequently challenged of the 21st century, with many schools banning them outright from their libraries.
Aside from the series being built on gross-out potty humour, many teachers dislike that the books encourage children to question oppressive authority figures. Others object to the fact that one of the main characters, Harold Hutchins, is gay. Pilkey grew proud knowing that his books were causing such a stir, and decided to lean into it.
In The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, a spin-off graphic novel, Pilkey makes his mission statement clear. The comic uses a technique called Flip-O-Rama, a sort-of mini flip-book that makes the pictures move during action scenes. However, on one of the Flip-O-Rama's boring-looking instruction pages, the following message is hidden:
"You know, since nobody reads these pages, we figured they'd be a good place to insert subliminal messages: Think for yourself. Question authority. Read banned books! Kids have the same constitutional rights as grown-ups!!! Don't forget to boycott standardized testing!!!"
Despite this, Super Diaper Baby is still not recognised as the Catcher in the Rye of its generation. For shame.