Tabloids have confirmed that Apple did not ban the sales of SAGA comics and it was only a miscommunication between the writer and the company.

News about Apple inserting itself in the world of publishing censorship made headlines April 11. However, this news has turned out to be totally incorrect. Reports suggested that Apple had banned the sales of SAGA comics, a popular adult comic written by Brian K. Vaughan due to some images that portrayed gay sex. What gave rise to this news is a statement released by Vaughan stating that Apple had banned the sale of SAGA #12.

"Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow's SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps," Vaughan said in a statement posted at Image.

However, it turned out to be that Apple had nothing to do with the ban, the comic's distributor app did - though apparently only to pre-empt the Apple ban it anticipated.

"As a partner of Apple, we have an obligation to respect its policies for apps and the books offered in apps. Based on our understanding of those policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today," ComiXology CEO David Steinberger, blogged yesterday afternoon.

"Given this, it should be clear that Apple did not reject Saga #12," he emphasized.

The comic, which anyone could still purchase on ComiXology's web site and then sync to an iOS device, was restored to the in-app catalog yesterday.

"We did not interpret the content in question as involving any particular sexual orientation, and frankly that would have been a completely irrelevant consideration under any circumstance," Steinberger wrote.