Before we begin, a word from Jermaine: Now that the new Acme site is up and running, we return you to your regularly scheduled installment of M.A. Foster's Eyeless in Gaza editorial feature! Exclusive to Acme Comics.com, look for never before printed pieces as well as archives from the previous incarnation of our website. Coming soon! And now...our feature presentation!
EYELESS IN GAZA - May '07
Been gone for a while and had an adventure, Publishing. In the Next Installment of Eyeless, I would much rather, and much better, spent my time in Eyeless' endless trenches with the Comics' munchkins. (Where Are My Follow-ons to Lucifer? Where is Mazikeen, the mini-series!? What are Izanami's fiendish plans? What happened to Miss Zim'et AKA Zime'etnu? Spera and Gaudium? And what about more gruesome illustrations by Dean Ormston?
The Real World (Remember? Remember?) looms out there, even more dangerous than Dormammu's Dark Dimension and the Mindless Ones, destructive legions of monsters who have faces of blank TV screens and who destroy everything. It's called, in the Seattle Weekly, "Sci-Fi Geeks Battle Comics Dorks." Cover story! The splash panel depicts a grimacing spaceman with his angered head in a breathing buddle strangling a young woman in GREAT jeans defending herself with a drawing pen.
The meat and potatoes is that Harlan Ellison is suing Gary Groth and Fantagraphics for defamation, promising apocalyptic ruin for all. Groth published a reprint of an anti-Harlan book (originally published in England), and of course has been publishing articles about The Harlan for years, in a world of personal dislike which should never have reached litigation. He had the cover illustrated with a Drew Friedman drawing, too, an ominous warning of what might be coming down the road if ever there was one.
Gary Groth clearly does not like Harlan, in his public personality, or in his opinions as an editor and essayist, or in his product as a Sci-Fi writer. And for the truth of the matter, neither do I, on all three counts. Bravo for Groth and comics. Harlan Ellison is not on my favorites list of favorite anythings. Sorry: some just have to fail to meet the cut, or else one has no standards at all. I don't discriminate - I don't like Peter Bagge, either. Legal beagles take note: I didn't defame Harlan in any way. I didn't allege anything; I simply said that I don't personally like him in anything he's ever done in public - he's just not my cup of tea. I know that he's been awarded all sorts of Sci-Fi awards, but such commerce sometimes also wears a little thin. Just so was Henry Kissinger awards a Nobel Peace Prize. So what: people give awards, and they don't give awards, who have agendas, and that's the real world. Awards sometimes have questionable provenances. I have a real Certificate of Commission as a Lieutenant in the USAF, and I have a real Honorable Discharge, from the beginning and the end of the Vietnam Era. Awards are great but a demonstrable record will do.
Support Gary Groth and Fantagraphics by whatever means necessary - and then tell Gary, with real tough love, to shut up about Harlan, because comics has already won he was with Sci-Fi long ago (the final bell tolled when Neil Gaiman won a World Fantasy Award, 1991, Best Short Story, as a comics writer). And Dave Sim told me at our beloved Acmecon, "Comics is a medium and Sci-Fi isn't anything but a Genre." Canadians speak truth without fear! Even if they are from Edmonton, the city with a canyon, on the edge of the Great White North. (I'm fishing for a retirement in Prince Rupert, BC.)
Fantagraphics needs to leave Harlan Ellison alone. He's his own worst enemy, in the end he'll defame himself a hundred times worse than any real enemy could.
Sad thing about this article is that the author, Brian Miller, writes off both comics and Sci-Fi in general as relics coveted by old beezers while the new hip generation turns its Attention Deficit Disorder Syndrome elsewhere. Maybe I can stir that pot too, in issues to come. I hold briefs for Classical Music and Model Railroading, too.
But in the meantime, Jermaine, defier of robbers, and I, stand shoulder to shoulder as comrades, crying out comments from the blog-readers. What have I got to do - get Jim Amash to illustrate Eyeless? Email us! I promise to answer all and sue none! Mexican wrestling with masks and unitards. I will be El Peligroso friend and companion of El Borbah! Who will you be? Come to the Eyeless arena, pooshkas, feel my sleeper hold. I will give you rest.
M.A. Foster is the author of several science fiction novels including Gameplayers of Zan and The Morphodite. He spent over sixteen years as a Captain and Russian linguist in the U.S. Air Force and has seen and done more than most of us will do in two or three lifetimes. M.A. has been a patron of Acme Comics for almost twenty five years and is always a welcome and familiar face that brings cheer and credibility in these dark and uncertain times.
