PETER Pan is known to generations of children as the boy who never grew up.
But his sweetheart Wendy is depicted in a series of adult situations in a hugely controversial new adaptation of JM Barrie's classic tale.
In the extremely graphic graphic-novel Lost Girls, Pan's demure companion is shown in a serious of erotic
trysts.
The illustrated adult book, which depicts Tinkerbell being raped and Wendy being spied on by paedophile peeping toms, has provoked children's campaigners and devotees of the original Barrie fable to demand it be taken off the shelves.
But the author, Alan Moore – who inspired the Hollywood films V For Vendetta and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen – insists he is taking a legitimate stance against censorship.
In 1929, Angus-born Barrie bequeathed all rights of his Peter Pan books to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.
This allowed hospital chiefs to prevent the X-rated tome, which has already been published in the US, from being distributed in the UK and the EU. But the copyright expired on January 1, as more than 70 years had passed since the author's death, leaving the hospital helpless to stop Lost Girls, written by Moore and illustrated by his wife Melinda Gebbie, being sold across Britain and continental Europe.
The 112-page hardback, described as the "Kama Sutra of comics", is being distributed by American firm Top Shelf Productions. Its website states: "From January 1, Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie's Lost Girls will finally be released in the UK and EU. Get your order in now as the limited supply will likely disappear within a few weeks."
As well as featuring Wendy Darling the book also depicts the "sexual awakening" of Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from the Wizard Of Oz.
It states: "For more than a century Alice, Wendy and Dorothy have been our guides though Wonderland, Neverland and the Land of Oz of our childhoods.
"Now, like us, these three lost girls have grown up and are ready to guide us again, this time through the realms of our sexual awakening and fulfilment.
"Through their familiar fairytales they share their most intimate revelations of desire.
"Lost Girls is a work of breathtaking scope that challenges the very notion of art fettered by convention."
In the book Wendy is shown meeting Peter Pan and the Lost Boys in a park for sexual encounters.
An adolescent Alice is depicted being molested by an adult abuser, while Dorothy is pictured in compromising situations with a trio of Kansas farm-hands.
Sandra Affleck, a historian who leads Barrie themed tours in his hometown of Kirriemuir, was appalled by the idea of a pornographic Peter Pan.
She said: "This book sounds horrific. It is the complete antithesis of what Barrie thought and put on paper.
"Barrie's work is all about the magic of childhood and this new book is a pollution of that.
"I would support any measures which would stop it appearing on shelves."
Barrie enthusiast and Conservative Kirriemuir councillor Ian Mackintosh added: "I am appalled by the idea of the innocence of the original Peter Pan story being sullied by a seedy work like this."
Charity Children 1st claimed a change in the law was needed to allow Lost Girls and similar works to be made illegal.
A spokeswoman said: "Non-photographic depictions of child sexual abuse, whether cartoons or drawings, may fuel inappropriate feelings towards children and young people and be used to groom children.
"The Westminster Government has recently consulted on whether non-photographic depictions of child sex abuse should be banned, and as a charity dedicated to protecting children, we support this move."
Moore said he was prepared for a backlash against the explicit depictions of underage sex, but felt it was unjustified. He said: "These are not children. They are depictions of children.
"There are two instances of non-consensual sex in Lost Girls.
"They both more or less happen off camera and are both treated with sufficient gravity.
"We (Moore and Gebbie] believe in the absolute freedom of the human imagination as long as you can remember what's real and what's fiction.
"The only people that seem to have a problem distinguishing between reality and fantasy are psychopaths and magistrates."
The veteran graphic novelist stressed the book, set in 1914, was pro-sex but strongly anti-war. "I have been turning on my television and seeing pictures of actual, non-fictional children with their arms blown off," he said.
"When you are confronted with that kind of vision on the six o'clock news it makes all these arguments about what is permissible to depict in fiction completely laughable.
"If we can get so upset about lines on paper, but somehow cannot get upset about real flesh and blood then what kind of society are we?"
Despite its controversial themes, Lost Girls has proved to be a critical and commercial success in the US, selling 30,000 copies.
It was named as one of the top 25 best books of the year by New York-based newspaper The Village Voice and the conservative US Today praised its "intelligent writing, intricate plotlines and gorgeous Victorian-style art".
Great Ormond Street Hospital confirmed that its copyright over Peter Pan lapsed from midnight on December 31, but declined to comment on Moore's book.
The full article contains 896 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
