Richard Neal, the owner of Dallas's Zeus Comics, is refusing to stock a new installment in the Adventures of Superman because it was written by an outspoken homophobe.
Orson Scott Card is a board member for the antigay National Organization for Marriage and a frequent author of screeds against gay people. DC Comics' choice to recruit him as one of the authors of the new Superman series has infuriated many graphic novel fans, but DC is standing by Card.
Neal, meanwhile, will not stock Card's contribution. He released the following statement on Facebook:
"Zeus Comics will not be carrying the print edition of writer Orson Scott Card's Superman. Card sits on the board of the National Organization of Marriage which fights against marriage equality. His essays advocate the destruction of my relationship, that I am born of rape or abuse and that I am equated with pedophilia. These themes appear in his fiction as well. It is shocking DC Comics would hire him to write Superman, a character whose ideals represent all of us. If you replaced the word 'homosexuals' in his essays with the words 'women' or 'Jews,' he would not be hired. But I'm not sure why its still okay to 'have an opinion' about gays? This is about equality."