See It Now

One of the strengths of the Internet, but--from a blogger’s perspective--also one of its myriad frustrations, is its changeability. Things appear in the electronic ether, only to have vanished by the time you go looking for them again. As a reference tool, then, the Web couldn’t be less reliable. Blogs such as The Rap Sheet take a chance, when linking to Wikipedia or authors’ personal pages or any other site, that those pages will still be in existence when readers go to look them over for themselves.

This problem now crops up in relation to Graeme Flanagan’s exceptional site collecting and honoring the work of paperback cover artist Robert McGinnis. Bill Crider posts a note this morning that he received from Flanagan, regarding the site’s future:

I regret to say that I have been asked to remove my Robert McGinnis website from the Internet because of claims that the site contains direct links to live porn sites. I am unaware of any such links and no-one has contacted me to say that they have encountered any problems of this nature.

However, as I would never, either intentionally or otherwise, do anything to upset Mr. McGinnis or any other member of his family, I will remove the website 14 days from now, unless this claim can be clearly demonstrated to be false and is accepted as such by the complainant.

The full note can be found here.

Flanagan’s McGinnis resources are phenomenal in their scope, and have been very useful to us here on many occasions. We’re sorry to see the site disappear, if indeed it does. Sorrier still that the cause for its demise should be some dubious claim of pornographic connections. Never once have we been directed to a porn site through Flanagan’s pages, nor would we ever expect to be. His subject, McGinnis, is an illustrator of remarkable talent, with a particular skill for rendering beautiful women in seductive or revealing poses on book jackets. But that’s art, not porn--even if some flush-faced prigs can’t begin to recognize the difference.

We dearly hope that Flanagan can resolve this dispute without shutting down his site. In the meantime, go there now to look over the wealth of Robert McGinnis book covers he has collected. You’ll be doing yourself a favor.