"This new legislation could be used for the wrong reason and if used incorrectly thousands of people could become criminals overnight."

Insert "who watches the watchmen?" reference here:

This week Parliament will discuss a new Bill which will make it a criminal offence to possess cartoons depicting certain forms of child abuse. If the Coroners and Justice Bill remains unaltered it will make it illegal to own any picture of children participating in sexual activities, or present whilst sexual activity took place.

The Ministry of Justice claims that the Bill is needed to clamp down on the growing quantity of hardcore paedophilic cartoon porn available on the internet, particularly from Japan. But critics of the legislation say the current definitions are so sweeping that it risks stifling mainstream artistic expression as well as turning thousands of law abiding comic book fans into potential sex offenders….

There are even fears that Watchmen, one of the industry's most critically acclaimed graphic novels, could risk being banned because one of the main superheroes sees his mother having sex when he is a young child.

Rest at The Independent. Reason on Watchmen here, here, and here. On Watchmen scribe Alan Moore's erotic comic Lost Girls here.

[Via Neil Gaiman, who notes, "I wish I could take UK government claims that obviously they know what the law says but it won't be used that way seriously."]