The mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Crivella, posted a video online saying that he had censored copies of the comic book "Avengers - The Children's Crusade," exhibited at the Book Biennial. "The Rio de Janeiro City Council has ordered the organizers of the Book Biennial to collect this book [Avengers - The Children's Crusade], which features sexual content for minors," Crivella says, and adds that it was not right for children “to have early access to subjects that do not agree with their ages”.  The alleged pornographic content is a kiss between Wiccan and Hulkling, two male superheroes.

The comic shows two boys kissing, fully dressed. This is the image -

That’s a blatant contradiction with the standards applied to other superhero comics that contain not only many heterosexual couples kissing, but also a considerable amount of depictions of weapons and munitions. As books like “Fifth shades of grey” and comics with naked straight couples are still being sold, and those people so bothered about a gay kiss, never complained about.

Well - Booksellers at the Biennial refused to acquiesce to the order from Crivella - and in fact, copies of The Children's Crusade began selling out of stock at the festival. That pushed Crivella to take a more drastic step: sending law enforcement officials into the Biennial to either forcibly censor or confiscate material deemed "inappropriate" or "pornographic."  As a countermeasure to the mayor's aggressive pursuit of censorship, the book Biennial has filed, "a request for a preventive injunction with the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice (...) to ensure the full functioning of the event and the right of exhibitors to commercialize literary works on the most diverse subjects - as foreseen by the Brazilian legislation."

The response.

A Brazilian youtuber, Felipe Neto, posted a video a few hours after the event - and branded the attempted censorship a “sad day for Brazilian democracy,” adding: “Love is not porn. Love should not be censored. It cannot be prohibited for minors. We need to send a message of unity, to show these people there is no way that they will censor LGBT+ content. So I bought all the stock of all the major LGBT-themed books at the festival, and they will all be delivered for free, tomorrow, to those who are there and want a free book.”

In a mischievous act of compliance with the mayor’s demand that LGBT+ books are sold with content warnings, the books come in black bags with a label that says: “This book is inappropriate for backwards, outdated and bigoted people.” And it was a success. Thousands of people lined up to get a free LGBT+ themed book, people brought signs, LGBT flags, and left with a big smile on their faces.

“All ended well!” you thought? Nope.

The court of Rio de Janeiro overturned on Saturday the injunction that prohibited the city to search and collect books at the event. So now, all books that are LGBTQ+ themed are being apprenheded. Those free books that Felipe Neto was giving out, books in black bags and with warnings, can now be collected.

This is not only censorship, this is a direct attack to our democracy and constituiton, an attack to our rights to free speech, diversity, inclusion - and it’s straight up homophobia and the beginning of a dictatorship.

Update 1: All books were given out.