Obsidian Wings

Comics and other unprofessional professions

by Doctor Science

I hope that one of the big topics of discussion for the comics industry, as they gather for NY Comic-Con this week, will be Janelle Asselin's public exposé of Scott Allie's history of assault. Scott Allie was Editor-in-Chief of Dark Horse Comics, the fifth-largest comics company in the US, until a few weeks ago -- he remains as Executive Senior Editor. At San Diego Comic-Con, very drunk, he "greeted" freelance comics writer Joe Harris ... by grabbing him in the crotch and then biting his ear.

Asselin's evidence (and lots of long-standing industry gossip) shows that this wasn't a unique incident: Allie has an unacknowledged record, going back many years, of out-of-control drinking, harassment, groping, grabbing, and biting. What makes this incident different is that Harris is willing to talk about what happened -- and the fact that he's a man means people are more willing to listen.

I am never particularly surprised to learn, of any industry, that it has a tradition of unaddressed abuse or sexual harassment. I *am* surprised that omertà in the comics industry is so effective that it even covers biting. Drunken biting isn't harmless japery, it's flat-out assault (or is it battery? IANAL), and with the potential for severe and ugly injury. Yet Asselin shows that people at Dark Horse have been joking about it for years, which is the kind of thing that should make their legal and HR departments scream in fear.

There are a number of really good posts about this from people in or near the comics industry: I first heard about Asselin's article through File 770, and I also recommend Heidi McDonald, Anthony Dean, and Doctor Nerdlove. Great articles written before Asselin's (but which appear to reference Allie obliquely) include Marcy Cook at The Mary Sue and Alex de Campi.

De Campi said:

It isn’t even really a comics problem. You get ANY company with hundreds of employees and statistically speaking, at least one of them is going to be a screaming fool who should never be allowed alcohol or thinks mailing dick pix to female employees is a gas and fuck her if she can’t take a joke. But it’s what senior management does about these people that matters.

What I wonder is, why is harassment and abuse so much more of a problem in the comics industry? Has the comics industry gotten worse in recent decades? Did other industries used to have similarly pervasive problems, but they got better? If so, how?

One possible reason for things being worse in comics is summed up by Dr Nerdlove:

the comics industry is incredibly small and more incestuous than a Lannister family reunion. Everyone knows everyone else and it takes very little for someone to be blacklisted. There are damned few jobs to begin with and getting on the bad side of just one wrong person can mean being frozen out of the big publishers entirely.

My (extremely outsider) impression is also that the small group of powerful gatekeepers in the comics industry includes a disproportionate number of abusive people.

Do abusers naturally gravitate toward small, ingrown industries? Or is there something about such industries that brings out abusive behavior? Comics also, like other entertainment industries, has a pipeline-overload problem: there are *many* more people who'd like to do the work than there are paid jobs, so gatekeepers automatically get a lot of power. Does this automatically bring out abusive behavior, or does this attract abusive people, who then move up to become abusive senior management? How do you break this cycle?

I'd love to hear from those of you who understand the dynamics in other industries, especially ones that seem to you have become *less* abusive over time. Can it be done without massive lawsuits?

[I shall try to fix my "just got out of the habit of blogging" problem. Like this!]

Two Horses Fighting in a Stormy Landscape, by Delacroix. I tried to find a specifically comics-related image, but I don't know enough about comics, and I *do* know Delacroix.

You can't have too much RAM or battery life

by Doctor Science

I was just getting ready to post something of actual substance (this time, for sure!) but it's that time again in the Household of Science, College-Age Division: another laptop is circling the drain. Give us some advice, O Internets!

The computer in question is an Asus and has been OK for a few years -- but now the power cord is no longer plugging in properly. Every laptop the kids have had, has had a problem with that. (wow, I don't think I've ever written so many forms of "have" in a row and had it make sense. English is weird, man.)

What College Sprog needs:

• At least 8GB RAM (or more, given Moore's Law)
• NO TOUCHSCREEN
• No need or desire to split off tablet.
• At least 5 hours of battery life, more if at all possible
• Ability to: do light video editing, play Minecraft. Run Spotify plus Word plus multiple tabs of a browser without crashing.
• Around 15 inches wide -- smaller means there's no number pad, which she likes, and larger gets to be unwieldy.
• Windows.
• Costing not much more than $1K, or less of course.

Advise us! Tell us of your good/bad/horrible/hilarious laptop experiences!

The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838, by Turner. In the National Gallery, London. Recycling these days isn't nearly so romantic.

The Political “Long Term” is Barely 5 Years Out – Weekend Open Thread

wj

It’s been too long since we kicked off a new Open Thread, so here we go.

Since 1984, turnout in presidential elections has ranged from 49 to 57 percent of eligible adults; since 1986, turnout in midterms has ranged from 36 to 39 percent. What does that mean for US politics and policy? Basically this: Legislative and Congressional districts are, in most states, drawn by the state legislature.

When the state legislatures which do the drawing are elected in mid-term elections, they tend to be more conservative (which, today, means more Republican) than when they are elected during Presidential election years. And 2020 is a Presidential election year –- with the state legislators elected that year doing the drawing which will be in effect for the next decade.

For the past couple of decades, the Democratic Presidential candidate has regularly managed to pick up more popular votes than the Republican candidate. And demographic trends, combined with the current direction of the Republican Party, suggest that 2020 will see that trend continue.

As a result, we will likely see more state legislatures with Democratic majorities doing the next round of redistricting. Which, in turn, almost certainly means more Democrats elected to Congress. Maybe even to the point where the House majority changes hands.

So if you are a die-hard conservative (i.e. more fanatical than almost any of us here), you basically have 5 years to get as much of what you want as possible. And getting that means compromising your principles in order to get half a loaf on various issues, rather than deciding that it is more important to maintain absolute purity than to make US law even somewhat more conservative. After that, no matter how hard you wish and believe, your chances drop significantly.