Although the headline may sound as unlikely as “New York crack down on pretzel carts” or “Iowa crack down on corn dogs”, it turns out sexy manga had inadvertantly been bundled with more wholesome fare at the Bangkok International Book Fair, and had to be removed when parents complained:

Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon Wattanasiritham went to the booth of Rung Wattana Panich, which sells a variety of used books at cheap prices, and found hundreds of translated Japanese cartoon books with pornographic images inside, many showing the characters having sex.

Members of the Foundation of Family Networks lodged a complaint with the deputy prime minister when they met him at the Family Day event.

They said they were shocked to find their children reading porn comics bought from the national book fair.

Pranee Chaloeyjitratham, 49, said her 18-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter had bought dozens of the used comic books on Wednesday. They sold for 10 baht each, and customers buying 10 books would get one free. All the books were wrapped in plastic.

“At first I thought they were just common cartoon books until I saw my children engrossed in reading them for the whole day,” said Mrs Panee.

That last sentence conjures an image of ample subject matter for the collected works of some future Thai Joe Matt — except he would have a cool name like Paiboon Rungthanapaiboon.