Story time! Story time!

Once long ago, a young girl went to school in quiet York County, Virginia. Her strong daddy worked to save the lives of others. She lived in a nice house.

She dreamed of being an artist or performer. She went to York High School, and worked summers at the Busch Gardens amusement park in Williamsburg, VA. She then went on to Christopher Newport University and became heavily involved in SF/Fantasy fandom. She was a big fan of The Lord of the Rings! She liked to get involved in fan events and to help run and sponsor conventions that raise money for charitable organizations.

Sound just like me, doesn’t it?

Same county, same high school, same summer job, same fan group, same college, same everything.

Except for this part: the girl we are talking about is not me. Her name is Amy Player.

She is about a decade younger than me, and instead of growing up to become a happy cartoonist who gets to go to conventions and sign autographs and hang out with hobbit actors, Amy Player decided she didn’t just want to go to a convention and meet Elijah Wood, she wanted to be Elijah Wood.

In a gender bending tour de force the like of which has not been seen since Victor/Victoria, she cropped off her hair, ran away from home, and adopted the identity of Jordan Wood, Elijah Wood’s male cousin, who, inexplicably (even if you read the explanation in the book), was on the run from the Irish Republican Army. She also made extraordinary claims about being sold into child prostitution by her very-shocked-to-hear-about-it family, has psychic visions, and generally made a wahoo of herself all over the place.

This means that in some fannish circles, she was very popular.

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About $2000 in donations were misappropriated by Beverly Erickson, the former Treasurer of UNSCREWED in the fall of 2007, and the organization has been struggling to recover ever since.

President Tom Stillwell explains, “when UNSCREWED was begun, it was a spontaneous, ad hoc organization, with everybody scrambling to get things rolling quickly so as to aid artists in need as soon as possible. Because of the urgency, we didn’t institute proper precautions immediately. Bev set up a checking account in her own name because we didn’t have a business name or incorporation papers until some time later and couldn’t open an account in the company name. We trusted her because she had been a longtime member of Comic Book Resources under the name ‘PaperGirl’, had served as a Moderator on the site, and was well-known and highly regarded by all involved.”

In October of 2007, UNSCREWED was informed by an artist that a Paypal transfer sent to him had been canceled. Other payments were found to have also been canceled. Upon further investigation, it was discovered that the organization’s checking account had been closed around the same time that Erickson had relocated from Florida to Alabama. Attempts to contact her went unanswered for over a month.

When Erickson was finally contacted, she explained that she had made “an honest mistake” and had accidentally used the wrong checkbook to pay some bills; by the time she discovered the error, she was in dire financial condition and could not pay the money back. She promised to send a small amount out of each paycheck until the debt was paid. No payments were ever received, and she has subsequently changed her phone number; attempts to contact her by letter, email and through family members have been unsuccessful.

“Legally, there was nothing we could do; the donations were sent to her Paypal account and deposited into a checking account in her name, with our consent,” Stillwell stated. With no other recourse, Stillwell began paying back the missing funds out of his own pocket., as well as replacing the canceled transactions, again at his own expense.

The organization’s leadership decided that it would be best for the group to absorb the loss and move on rather than spend a lot more time and money trying to recover the lost funds and harm UNSCREWED’s reputation in the process. Work has proceeded on the comic anthology the organization is publishing, and some artists have been assisted with filing claims against non-paying publishers. Despite the financial blow to the organization, no request for assistance has been denied. The situation has not affected UNSCREWED’s work.

But recently, when a disgruntled former acquaintance of Ms. Erickson with knowledge of the situation had begun threatening to expose the story, it was decided to go public.

“All we can do is honestly say what happened and accept responsibility for the errors we made in the past,” Stillwell said, “we’ve addressed those errors so they can’t happen again; the bank and Paypal accounts are in the organization’s name, the new Treasurer, Brian Crowley, lives nearby, and notifications of all account transactions are sent from the bank to multiple board members on a daily basis. Beyond that, all we can do is continue to replace the stolen funds and try to keep the organization going; it’s too important to just let it collapse.”

Reposted with some massive additions from the comments section from people who worked with Ross Rojek. And since the article still gets hits months after originally posted, obviously there is still interest in this case.

Ross Rojek, formerly of Another Universe, formerly of Comics and Comix, formerly the guy who served four years of a nearly 7 year sentence for screwing a bunch of investors who were fooled into believing he had created some kind of cool facial recognition technology that was going to keep the world safe from Al Queda, was released on September 18, 2008 from Sacramento Community Corrections.

If you are one of the many self publishers who shipped Rojek product for which you were not paid (including me), don’t expect him to be making good on those debts any time soon, felonious scoundrel that he is.

Rojek apologized to those people hurt by his actions on his personal web page. But that’s down, now. I’ll bet it was heartfelt. At least, heartfelt to people who fall for sappy crap.

Here’s an early Comics Journal article on Rojek’s arrest.

Ross got into an interesting bit of trouble over dvd’s of My So Called Life.

Here’s a website which once had pages and pages of jokes excoriating Rojek, and now you can get them in handy downloadable format! 73 pages of Rojek memories!

Somewhere on the internet, Rojek’s ex went public and ballistic at the same time, and if I could find that, I’d post it, too.

Rojek isn’t mental, or misunderstood, he’s yet another creep with no moral compass.

Just my opinion.

But then, he ripped me off, so I’m entitled to not feel a lot of sympathy for the guy. And while it may seem as if we are piling on here, in my experience, people like this don’t go away. The public needs to be aware of scammers and how to spot them.

Additions from those who experienced the wonder that is Rojek below the fold:

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To the Billy Boyd and Lord of the Rings fans: I’m so glad you like this post. However, it is bad netiquette to take this post in toto and put it on other websites and message boards without prior permission. Fair use allows you to quote a limited amount, and good netiquette asks that you link back to me.

Please be considerate and use good netiquette! Thanks.

This post is from some years ago, but even so it gets scores of hits every month. So, I have brought it back from the old blog.

I have edited out the huge lead in which I describe my sad adventure trying to navigate the highways of New Jersey. The streets of New Jersey and the horrors to be found there are, apparently, not news.

I have also added the fan reactions from the original letter column, because it turned out the Fan From Hell was very well known around the country.

While I have done hundreds of shows over the years, I have rarely had problems with fans. I have said over and over that almost every problem you will ever have at a show – or anywhere else for that matter – will come in the form of an aspiring pro or frustrated pro. The Fan From Hell was just one more example of same.

And now, meet the Fan From Hell:

I’ve been saying it for awhile now. The Lord of the Rings fans are the mellowest of the mellow, the most polite and appreciative of fans, and the main reason I do so many Lord of the Rings conventions and so few others.

Sometimes the shows let us have autographs, sometimes not. You never know. Rules are different at every show. I never know with Creation Cons what to expect because at one show I may get a big packet with lots of instructions, badges for the dealer’s room, name badge, security rules, schedule, etc. At the next, they just put a wristlet on me and leave me to my business. I don’t really collect much by way of autographs, but I love the LOTR stuff.

Fangirl.

I gave Sean Astin a hello. The last time I saw JMS, he sent Astin greetings and I passed them along. Sean passed along a cryptic message back for JMS, that I cannot repeat. I felt like a courier for the CIA.

Billy Boyd is one of the best guests I have ever seen on the con circuit. Not only is he very lively and friendly, he is extremely tolerant of some extremely rude behavior.

I guess one of the reasons I feel so mellow at LOTR shows is that “academic and scholars” don’t get nearly as much attention at these shows at the actors do, so we can relax and enjoy ourselves and talk LOTR without feeling a lot of pressure.

However, I cannot believe some of the behavior that is directed toward the actors at these conventions. Almost every fan was wonderful. The few that weren’t were a horror.

Daniel Reeve was the calligrapher for the maps for LOTR and also did work on Chronicles of Narnia and Pirates of the Carribean. Lovely fellow with a very nice family, and he’s also a fine looking guy. He gets an inordinate amount of fangirl interest too, but his wife looked dead shocked at some of the girls that just thrust themselves on her husband for a hug and a grope. Mrs. Reeve had never been to a con before and really got an eyeful. My dealer’s table was down the row from his and one femmefan after another left saying “DAMN! He’s married!”

Late one night, The Reeve family, me and Billy Boyd were hanging about the bar getting a drink, and there was a particularly horrid woman who simply would not go away. Billy was incredibly polite. I mean, a martyr to manners. It was astonishing. This fan gave everyone, including other fans, the creeps.

While a number of folks broke the unspoken rule of “Thou shalt not bother the celebrity guest when he is having private time”, others obliterated the rule, nabbed autographs and got photos. Billy was more than kind. Some pros don’t care much, some do. As long as all is done within reason, I say.

But after repeatedly popping into the conversation, getting autographs, photos, and generally making a nuisance of herself, this one fan did not then whisk herself away. She remained to repeatedly run her fingernails down Billy’s back every time he turned away from her, grab his arm, and start giving him a massage. My mouth about dropped on the floor and Daniel and Mrs. Reeve looked like they were witnessing the events in an alternate universe.

The fact that the woman had been hanging about all weekend and behaving extremely strangely was bad enough, but to add to the weirdness, she often ingratiated herself by pushing forward her little daughter to grab your attention and then practically daring you to tell her to get lost. She bragged about how she could induce her kid to go on crying jags so that celebrities would spend more time with her. She would push forward her kid, and if the celebrity did not respond, the little girl would boo hoo on cue. Then, she could get access, a trick she used to continue to get access repeatedly. (more…)

Dear Colleen,

Karen French

Dear Karen,

First off, let me say how kind it is of you to ask! I am so very grateful for your consideration.

I have absolutely no problem with people writing fanfic of my work. Write away! I was also a part of fandom and did lots of fanfic and fanart when growing up, so I know how much fun it is.

A lot of fan activity exists in a kind of legal grey area. Some authors and artists never want to allow fans to make fanfic or fanart of their work. In all the years I have been a pro I have only had to step in and deliver a legal warning a couple of times when the use of my work got a bit out of hand.

Technically, fanfic and fanart are derivative works. Go to FANFIC QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS for a great website which will tell you just about all the legal stuff need to know about fan activity.

I don’t mind it if you post fanfic on your blog and share it with your friends. But please don’t make commercial use of my work. I usually try to not pay close attention to any fan use of my work, because I trust the fans to do the right thing.

The best way to share your fanfic with your friends is by setting up a user group and sharing the fanfic within the mail user group.

Please don’t forget my copyright and trademark information.

As long as it stays “fannish” in nature and doesn’t stray into commercial enterprise, or as long as it doesn’t threaten the viability of my copyright and trademark interests, I will do nothing to interfere with your fun.

The only serious action I have ever taken against anyone in this area was when a former editor of A Distant Soil was found to have been writing and selling A Distant Soil fanfic some ten years after I stopped working with her. Due to the nature of the confidential information on my book to which she had had access, and the breach of professional boundaries, as well as the copyright and trademark concerns, we had to send her a cease and desist notice.

It might interest you to know that the first mainstream comics job offer I ever got was because I was working on a Legion of Superheroes fanzine when I was in high school. The fanzine was always sent to the DC offices so the pros could see it. Keith Giffen, the Legion artist, saw my work on that fanzine and called me on the phone one day!

Most pros I know support fan activity and would really prefer to NEVER take action against a fan.

It is so good and kind of you to ask, and I am glad to have this opportunity to share this information with other fans. Enjoy your writing!

c