Steve Bissette and the Front Line of the Comics Wars
on March 18th, 2010You will not want to miss PART 5 and PART 6 of Steve Bissette’s fascinating series on the comic book industry wars of the 1980′s. I get an extra special mention in PART 6.
I wrote in my last post that most of the major problems I had with censorship and harassment were due to no more than a handful of people who spent years trying to get my books banned, and writing finger-wagging letters about my personal behavior.
Because a couple of these people were peripherally involved in the industry, they had the ear of retailers and distributors – and even a few pros – for awhile, before their rampant nuttery drove even the most credulous support away. Not before they had cost me thousands in legal fees, countless hours of time, and gotten my work expunged from some comic shops.
One seriously disturbed individual who has a small list of publishing credits, spent well over a decade on a personal campaign to get me to “clean up” my “act” (his words). These are excerpts of some of his letters to me. He sent far more disturbing letters over time, and expanded his crusade to sending letters to other pros, comic shops, distributors, a number of comics industry magazines, my editors, my lawyers, and my family in an effort to correct my behavior.
One publisher, Starblaze, with whom I was involved in an acrimonious class action suit, had an entire file of letters from this lunatic. Their lawyer was dopey enough to bring a one- inch thick chronicle of the weird to the deposition. They were going to use this campaign of creep in the case as evidence of my bad character.
To their credit, they dropped the idea before things got very far.
And after all that, he then spent years sending me his resume demanding that I hire him. When I did not, he attempted to have me prosecuted via the EEOC citing, religious, age, and sex discrimination as grounds.
In the end, he was involuntarily committed to an institution, but eventually released. His efforts to have my books banned dried up when I went to Image Comics in 1996, but he continued to harass me for years after.
This is a small excerpt from the letters he sent beginning sometime in the early 1980′s.
The really scary thing about this guy was just how long he got away with it. Many people considered him credible. All because he claimed his campaign was to protect children’s delicate little psyches.
Wasted hours, and money, and pictures I’ll never create, all because I drew two guys holding hands in a comic book, and a minor flash of skin between consenting adult cartoon characters. Some drooling stalker used this front of SAVE THE CHILDREN concern to force my attention.
For the record, Corrine is not based on me.
The more I ignored him, the wilder his efforts to have my books thrown out of comic shops. And people listened to this guy for years.
It also goes without saying he bought everything I did.
I’ve never met the guy.
My computer ate my first response. Maybe a good thing, because my observations about the mind behind that letter kind of creeped me out.
The gist of my comments was that it seems to me that he isn’t so much trying to protect young minds from your work, but rather (if this makes any sense) to protect YOU and your work from all the wrong-headed (in his mind) choices you were making. There’s rather a sense of ownership in the voice — that Colleen and her work ought to be all sterling virginal silver on a pedestal, and that Colleen’s own actions and choices are messing with and tarnishing it all.
Creepy. And you had to deal with years of stuff from this guy? You have all my sympathy.
You are absolutely right.
This creep exploited the content of comic debate for his own twisted purposes. He was able to get the ear of retailers, distributors and other pros in this effort.
While mansplaining my proper place in the world, he took advantage of the inherent sexism of the industry to attack me and harass me, and to try to deprive me of my right to make a living in it.
Do any of these censorship advocates sound reasonable to you?
In my experience, they are all nuts.
But I’m the dangerous one, what with drawing graphic hand-holding and cuddling and all.
Can we say obsessed? He liked you A-L-O-T. He must have thought you were talking to him in ADS like it was all about him – stalker.
Oh and thanks again for the stuff!
“Non-marital contact sports”? I guess this person never watched the NFL, NHL, NBA, etc. etc. Those football players better be married! Beware March Madness!
At first, the reference to “implied pillowing” made me think said person was referring to the term used in Japanese literature during the Heian Period (The Tale of Genji, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon) that referred to people sleeping together — lovers shared a pillow. But reading this letter confounds any reasonable or educated knowledge of the term.
Laurie, I had to snort with you — “non-marital contact sports”?? I too thought of all the various real contact sports out there.
What a mealy-mouthed way of saying “made love” or “had sex”.
nutbar. with extra nuts. and sprinkles too.
*pass Colleen some chocolate fudge*
I am debating just how much of this to post. It got about 147.8 times worse than this over the years.
It galls me that so many people believed everything he said, and were certain he was sincere in his complaints about my work. In the days before the internet, someone could create a campaign like this and do a lot of damage. There was almost no way to defend yourself against it.
It was years before I knew he was pulling this shit. I had asked my publishers not to forward his mail to me, because it was obvious he was a creep. I didn’t give him any more thought after I stopped getting the mail.
But when I started self publishing, he could contact me directly. He figured out where I lived, and the name of my local comic shop. He started calling the shop. And I stopped shopping there.
His campaign against my work went to 11 during my self publishing years. It was absolutely awful. I could not shake this lunatic. He did everything he could to shut down my business. He bragged about how he was going to “…bring the house of Aria down around her ears.”
He constantly threatened to bring the law down on me, or bankrupt me. He made up numerous bizarre allegations, and even accused me of anti-semitism.
When I went to Image, I guess he figured these tactics would no longer work. He tried some other, bizarre attempts to get my attention, but the censorship screeds, and the attempt to shut down my company were abandoned.
Many threats of lawsuits came after, but nothing happened. He cost me a lot of money in legal fees having to deal with him, though.
I figure about three issues worth of A Distant Soil income and effort were wasted on this guy.
Which is, of course, exactly what he wanted.
They’d've been better written in crayon.
And dear old CC Beck, the self-styled “Crusty Curmudgeon”. No one took him seriously. A man as out of touch with the audience in the 80s as he’d been with it in the 40s.
Well, some of them were written by hand, and the penmanship was awesome in its awfulness.
The crackpot often bragged of his close connections to industry luminaries, like Stan Lee. Apparently, he hoped to impress me.
Somewhere around here is a letter in which he rages that I fail to give him the respect he was due as the owner of a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.
My work is not completely clean…and yet is is not completely dirty!
It’s CLIRTY!
But if the L and the I run together, your work becomes CURTY. Which it kinda is, in a Swan-y kinda way.
It’s not just purty! It’s CURTY!
Madam, you have my sympathy.
I often complain about how voicy some fans can get. but this person is right down insane. Was there no way to get him exposed as the fraud he is? e clearly is a “attention whore” and in this internetz era, probably, he’s trudging over every website looking whom to harm
Ewwwww god, what a creepy mouth-breather. That P.S. portion confirms it beyond any doubt.
There are so many things wrong with the philosophies of these kinds of people, it’s hard to know where to start. They’re never just concerned about “the children” either; they really feel, like he says in the letter, that certain things should just never be talked about in a public forum. Because, of course, no one could ever possibly benefit from public discourse about sexual assault or child abuse, and heaven forfend that some gay teenager should realize he isn’t alone in his feelings. 9_9 Social silence is the number one thing that torments and damages people dealing with these issues.
Gaby: This guy wrote hundreds of letters, but the last thing in the world he wanted was for anyone to know what he was up to.
He may have been crazy, but he knew what he was doing was wrong. He would use forwarding addresses to send some of his mail, and didn’t sign many letters. His handwriting and typeface were unmistakable. He spent a lot of time studying the law to figure out just what he could get away with.
The police and FBI were involved on several occasions, which is how I found out the guy spent a lot of his free time poring over legal tomes. The agent who handled the case said the guy was particularly dangerous, because he was smart and knew exactly what he was doing. He had a long history of filing lawsuits. He knew how to game the system, and clearly enjoyed the power.
When he started all this, stalking was NOT against the law. He never stopped until he was committed.
The Geek Social Fallacies were also at work here:
http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html
Everyone who knew this guy knew he was a mess, but fandom is reluctant to take a stand on this sort of thing.
I feel sorry for mentally ill people too, but mental illness and evil aren’t mutually exclusive. This person was one of the most manipulative, evil people I have ever dealt with. The one time I saw him, he scared the shit out of me on sight.
Sexism was also a major factor in this. Particularly when it started in the 1980′s. Resentful male pros and fans do not feel sorry for a girl who rejects a guy, for any reason. For a long time, people just thought it was funny, or that I was being dramatic or exaggerating the level of harassment. If anything, I found the whole situation so embarrassing I just wanted it to go away.
This guy was good friends with another peripherally-involved-in-the-industry nutter who was obsessed with Anne Nocenti. The two men encouraged and enabled each other, passing information, forwarding letters. A classic folie a deux.
My dad teaches criminal investigation and has been in law enforcement 30 years. He says the whole thing is off the scale.
The guy who used to harass Nocenti gave me some weird times recently too, but seems to have gone away temporarily. He’s a schizophrenic under treatment. He has come up to me at conventions and smacked me, pinched me, poked me, and run off. Yet he swears he has never met me or touched me. Or written me.
The first letter I have from him is dated 1994. (EDIT) Wow, scratch that…just found one dated 1992. Holy cow.
He also claims I am somehow responsible for the death of his girlfriend, and that I gave the other guy’s mother cancer. It goes without saying the “girlfriend” was not his girlfriend. She was a married woman he barely knew, yet another unfortunate girl he became obsessed with.
The last time I heard from Nutter #1 was in 2005. Despite claiming my work was porn and that I was ruining children’s minds, he came to me asking if he could order copies of A Distant Soil.
I confronted the Anne Nocenti admirer on my old blog when he was harassing me with his bizarre mail, sending me massive email files. Once exposed, he had a meltdown, and wrote many weepy letters about how I had destroyed his reputation. Even if what I wrote about him was true (it is,) exposing him in public like that was tantamount to “murder”.
These cowardly, sick and evil men believe they have the right to do whatever they want to women, but they don’t want anyone to know what they are doing.
The minute they get called on it, they start whining about their illnesses.
Mental illness is not a blank check on character flaws. And frankly, it’s a slander against the many, many people who are ill who get through the day without doing anyone else any harm.
They know what they are doing is wrong, and they don’t want to be called on it. They plan, and plot, and carry on for years, and take great pains to cover their tracks.
Mens rea.
“Somewhere around here is a letter in which he rages that I fail to give him the respect he was due as the owner of a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15.”
XD seriously? Hilarious.
I didn’t even know what the hell that was. As if I care.
Colleen, I looked it up for you. AMAZING FANTASY #15 is the first appearance of Spider-Man and his supporting cast. In mint/near mint condition it can be worth $50,000.
Aren’t you impressed now?
ah yes, bow down to me, for I own a comic book. A rare, very expensive comic book.
Quaver and cower before my near mint Fish Police #1!!1!
It’s like the geek equivalent of “Hey chicks! Check out my expensive car!”
That doesn’t work, either.
I’d imagine his giant-sized Man-Thing is in untouched condition too.
BWAHAHAHAH!!! ALLAN WINS!
Thanks for the much needed levity, Allan.
I never imagined that someone, no matter how crazy, could go to that extent of harassment. Honestly, Colleen, I don’t know how you remained sane and kept your sense of humor and continued to put out such great work.
Sorry for the late response – I am now catching up on your posts as I was at ECCC last weekend, took the red-eye back with two crying kids aboard and now I can’t seem to regain my regular sleep pattern.
Now, see, if it were me, and he’d said “I own a copy of DETECTIVE #27″, I might be impressed … by the BOOK. The owner? Not so much. But then I’m a Batman fan.
@Miki: Well, I remain a bit touchy to this day, but there you go! I used to get upset, but meh.
How was the show?
@ scribbler: the guy would alternate between raging at me and trying to bankrupt me and offering me money. He kept telling me he was going to leave me his collection, and sent me what he claimed was his bank account info and lawyer contact saying he had made me a cosigner.
I have no interest in this guy’s money, or his comics.
Unable to impress me with his copious funds and big fat pile o’ comics, he resorted to pleading poverty. He sent me an envelope of ashes saying his house burned down, claimed he was dying (that was 20 years ago,) and often whined about being persecuted by the nefarious forces of the comics industry, particularly John Romita JR.
This went round and round for years.
I figured if he ever did leave me his comics, I’d just donate them to the CBLDF. But not without selling one expensive one for me so I could throw an awesome party.
Wow, Colleen, that is indeed truly demented. And yeah, a MAJOR fixation on you! Whew. I … can’t think of a thing that you obviously have not already said. Just wow. Creepy, indeed.
Colleen, the show was great. The weather held up nicely – I only got rained on once. There was a large increase in attendance over the previous year. The promoter chalked it up to Stan Lee on Saturday & Leonard Nimoy on Sunday. I guess fans still show up for the old guys! I of course spent too much on art including this beauty-
http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=612841&GSub=2242
Btw – I have a nice copy of Adventure 247 – impressed?
I guess not.
Oh well!
For anyone not in the know… Adventure Comics #247 was the first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
A thought. Next convention we’re at at the same time, let’s have a posse of trusted Colleen followers. We spot him then we be around you when he is. Then he won’t play his games with so many witnesses about, eh? Safety in numbers.
OMG! That’s TOTALLY HOT!
@ Anne…um, sorry your comment got caught by the spam filter! I uh, don’t mean what you say is totally hot! LOL!
I haven’t seen either guy at a show in years. I only saw the one guy (that I know of) once. The other one was barred from the last few conventions I attended.
They have a little list.
Who would have guessed!
btw your favorite Legionnaire is on that cover in the link ‘revealing’ himself.
LOL! BTW, I deleted your duplicate comment.
You must have been momentarily dazzled by the Legionnaire reveal.
The likelihood of anything happening at a show is minimal. There are enough con security, concerned fans as well as colleagues to prevent anything from happening. At a con last year some joker tried to steal Mike McKone’s phone. He got about 5 steps before he was apprehended.
Thanks for deleting it.
I am often dazzled by legionnaires
…. but the female kind.
@ Miki: I usually don’t have any problems at shows these days, but a few years ago at a NY show, someone got behind my booth when I was on a panel and vandalized some of my art and paperwork. They wrote odd comments on my stuff, some of which were homophobic. I posted about it on the old blog.
I was seated next to a very elderly pro who simply didn’t understand why it was not safe to let people behind the artists tables, even though I had warned him repeatedly not to let strangers slip in there. When I came back from my panels, every time he had let at least a half dozen people just wander around behind our tables. Each time I came back from getting lunch or going to a panel, some stranger was seated at my table.
I informed my agent of what had happened, and he made sure I had better security at other shows.
Alas, at San Diego a couple years ago, someone took a sharp object and scratched up the slipcover of my Tory Amos limited edition. That was done AFTER the show was closed down. Had to be someone with a pro or dealer badge in order to get in there. That book was hidden behind my booth, and wrapped in a table cover. My booth had three people manning it during the show, so someone was there after we were gone.
Money and all other art were left untouched.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’ve never had a serious problem with a fan. I don’t believe fans are ever a real problem. I’ve had problems with a few name pros (none in years, thank God,) and a list of lower-echelon semi-pros/aspiring pros, like the ones I wrote about above.
Every name pro I ever had a problem with gave me a hard time when I was just starting out. They leave you alone after you reach a certain point.
The aspiring pros/lower list pros can be a nightmare. Frustration combined with sense of entitlement and jealousy – a lethal combination.
NEVER had a real problem with a fan. EVER.
Yes, human nature being what it is (jealously, greed), it pays to be vigilant. Another friend and I have been helping out Barry Kitson at his table for his US con appearances and we always make sure that nothing is left at the table unguarded. At ECCC, the con also provided con staff to man tables or booths for creators who had to be at a panel. And I know at Baltimore there is always extra con staff around.
The first few NY cons were a little chaotic, but the last one was better organised.
Hopefully you will be back to NY this year?
That being said it would be extremely difficult to prevent someone with a pro/dealer badge doing something after the show closes. It does make me sad that someone would be that petty.
Yes, but now we’ve got your back and will be happy to destroy this bug the next time he decides to wave his crazy stick around.
SCREW this piece of shit.
I was at that SDCC when the Tattoo book got hit, I remember showing up at the table that morning in the aftermath of that. All I really remember is Colleen saying to herself “at least the book is okay, it’s only the slipcover” a few times. She had the same kind of look on my face I think I had when I came out of the movie theater and found that while I was in there, some punks had keyed BOTH sides of my car, the whole length of the car, twice over. Little bastards.
I also vaguely remember some guy playing the “monopolize the pro’s time with inanities that have nothing to do with the pro’s work” game. It took a lot of work to “convince” the guy to move on, it took all three of us (me and my roommate and my friend) and all our junior high-era gang of girl skills to do it, too.
I may have to hire myself out as a freelance convention bouncer. There’s obviously a market for them.
Thanks everyone.
@ Miki: there are people in this business – though usually AROUND this business would be a more precise description – who are nasty cusses. Back in the day, they’d send anonymous letters or letters with fake names to the Comic Buyers Guide. Now they use sock puppets and goad gullible fans into doing their dirty work for them.
Just because someone wrote a comic that does not make them a good person.
@Gail: thanks so much and thanks for the personal note. You’re absolutely right. It’s best to ignore such people.
You can bet that if someone were stalking them they wouldn’t be writing weepy posts about how we should all hug the poor stalker who needs sympathy and care because he’s mentally ill.
I am not a teachable moment, and I am not obligated to be nurturing to a victimizer because he had a bad childhood, or didn’t take his meds. I have the right to protect myself and my interests by any legal means necessary.
I question the “feminist” bonafides of people who demand nurturing sympathy from the victim of a crime toward the criminal.
SCREW both pieces of shit – the criminal and his enabler.
@ Arlnee: Hm. I believe that expression is “appears to have been hit in head by brick”.
yeah, or maybe “staring at brick going, did this just hit me?”
I find it a shame that the guy invoked C.C. Beck. I knew Mr. Beck when I lived in Miami and he was much more cranky in what he wrote than he was in person. His problem was not just that he thought comics should be just like they were in the 1940s, but that the only person who knew the correct way to do comics was him. He didn’t even like what Mac Raboy did at Fawcett in the 1940s, nor did he appreciate the artistry of Hal Foster because the art had too much unnecessary detail. He seemed to think that comics were a simple art work aim only at kids and that attmpts to stretch beyond that were misinformed. He complained that during the brief time he worked at DC in the 1970s that the scripts they sent him were childish, and yet he didn’t seem to appreciate comic books aimed at an older audience. I don’t know if anyone ever debated this with him at any conventions, but it would have been interesting to hear his opinions.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for popping in. I really don’t know much about Beck.
I’d bet money you know who the stalker is. His name got around in fan circles back in the 1970′s-1980′s.
The stalker invoked the names of what he called “The Greats” in almost every letter he wrote, claiming close associations with all of them. Of course, he was out of his mind with ego, and had only the most tenuous associations with anyone in the business, since his only real job in comics was as a production assistant for about a year in 1970-something.
Anyway, the stalker was not only obsessed with keeping comics safe for kids, but with keeping me innocent and pure as well. He had a “little English schoolgirl” fixation, and thought I looked like one.
Ugh.
I’d post more oddball moments from the stalker’s letters, but it’s just creepy as hell going through them.