The section, titled "Indie Rock Universe," is designed to look like doodling in a student's spiral-bound notebook, with drawings of planets made to look like animals and characters. It features Camel's name and logo.

Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania filed suits. Maryland and Connecticut said in statements that the states of California and Washington also planned to file suit.

These states are of course suing the tobacco company not because of its blatant (and pathetic) attempt to look down with the indie nation, but because of "an outright ban on the use of any cartoon in tobacco advertising," the same reason the company had to retire that dude in the picture above, who haunted my dreams as a child and turned me into the Camel-smoking reprobate I am today. RJ Reynolds is claiming ignorance and blaming the cutesy, lawbreaking design on Rolling Stone, because we're sure no one at the company took a look at a very expensive ad campaign before it went to press. So far Rolling Stone seems to be off the legal hook.

States Sue Reynolds Over Magazine Cigarette Ad [Reuters]

cleanlungsmaura: Please state for the record how much you smoke.
JessCamel: I smoke about a pack every two days, sometimes more.
cleanlungsmaura: So have you seen the Camel pull-out, featuring such indie rock luminaries as Parts and Labor?
JessCamel: My brand and one of my favorite albums of the year, together at last.
cleanlungsmaura: Do you find this pairing shocking at all, even though rock clubs have become cigarette-free zones? Is this a way for the tobacco companies to remind people that rock stars sometimes smoke?
JessCamel: I don't find it shocking at all, given the large clusters of people you see congregating outside of shows to get in as many cigarettes as they can between bands, even in sub-zero temperatures. I would probably guess that the demo going to indie rock shows still has a large number of smokers in it, though I wouldn't want to hazard a guess at their numbers compared to other subcultures.
cleanlungsmaura: Well, would you generally think it's larger or smaller than, say, the demo that goes to jam band shows?
JessCamel: Larger, at a total guess based on general lifestyle observations.
cleanlungsmaura: So why do you think people are getting all up in arms about this pairing?
JessCamel: Well because smoking is fucking gross and deadly to be blunt about it. I mean that's why I'm disgusted by cigarette advertising even as I'm equally irritated (less as a smoker and more as a human who watches TV) by shit like those smug-ass "truth" ads. And smoking is inextricably tied up with big business, which is an automatic liberal/armchair indie culture leftist no-no even if you roll your own pretentious all-natural tobacco smokes. And because there's always been something of a whole grain aspect to indie rock culture stemming from the side that came out of progressive, Olympia-style indie that stood in something of an opposition to the romantically self-destructive hard rock side that valued things like smoking yourself into an iron lung as you pickled your innards with cheap booze and listened to loud pigfuck noize. I'm sure the rise of NPR adult alternative has something to do with it too, as hipster parents listening to Sufjan as they prepare their organic meals are not particularly happy with the bands they love being associated with an unhealthy lifestyle choice.
JessCamel: Also it's something to do in a slow news cycle. Which is probably the biggest part, sadly.
cleanlungsmaura: Do you think that big splashy spreads sponsored by alcohol companies will get the same scrutiny?
JessCamel: No.
cleanlungsmaura: Why?
JessCamel: They would certainly get a level of scrutiny, but people don't reserve the same "you're killing yourself and others" ire for alcohol, unless we're talking about drunk driving. Alcohol just hasn't been demonized as much as cigarettes have over the last few decades. And rightly so.
cleanlungsmaura: So do you think this is going to be the last gasp for music-tobacco promotions? I'm trying to rack my brain for the last time I saw a video where someone smoked a cigarette (as opposed to an expensive cigar) and I can't even think of one.
JessCamel: Oh I doubt it's the last gasp. Those cigarette companies are almost adorably tricky, you know? They will find a workaround.
cleanlungsmaura: Care to pie-in-the-sky a workaround?
JessCamel: I mean its probably not the last gasp, but the gasps keep getting shorter and more shallow. You know?
cleanlungsmaura: Ha ha.
JessCamel: Also, you should probably put in something about how I'm going to quit smoking again (I swear) because the coughing when i work out is getting kinda counterproductive.

Antismoking Activist Calls Rolling Stone Insert 'One Great Big Cigarette Ad' [NYT]