Goodbye To Comics #8: "We Need A Rape" Part Two

Goodbye To Comics #8:
"We Need A Rape" Part Two

If you have been following this memoir at all then you realize that I theoretically have a mended broken vagina, a ton of hangups, and am “too nice.” You were also introduced to the deceased comic character Vicki Victim, who was raped, burned, and was also “too nice.” About three years a before I sustained a broken vagina I was involved in a special moment in time called a “syzygy.” That’s a time where the planets are aligned “just so” as to produce something along the lines of “shit happens.”

Vicki Victim was unwittingly the catalyst of this syzygy -- certainly not by her own fault.

“The rape pages are in!”

The Rape Pages. There is something almost festive about the way the phrase rolls off your tongue.

In the Rape Pages Vicki Victim, who was chosen as the theoretical sacrificial lamb for the theoretical Gilgongo! Comics’s sea change from “too nice” to “badass," was being raped by a supervillain. The artist would later tell me that drawing those pages made him feel ill.

Honestly, I felt ill looking at them that day. I felt like my head was swaying, light. Hmph, I was too weak, not badass, just like a “girl.” Why couldn’t I be more like my female co-worker -- stoic and no-nonense? She read saw the pages, she read the scripts, and she had no problem with them.

Actually, she did have a problem with them. But she never told anybody who could make a difference. And she didn’t tell anybody because she was smart. And so was I. Right up to the point where the syzygy happened.

So I make an excuse to leave my boss’s office and I get on the computer to read the latest on the comics gossip-mill. An item immediately grabbed my attention. It concerned more theoretical people I’m probably not supposed to talk about.

So this female in the industry accused this really big-time male in the industry of a Really Bad Thing. And now the big-time male, who, using my handy-dandy random name generator, I will call “Ned Hasley,” died and this woman was being savaged in the blogosphere for “sullying his good name.”

By an incredible coincidence, my latest assignment, freshly written-out on my yellow legal pad, was a huge tribute to...Ned Hasely!

Now, I knew Ned. Everybody did. He was company royalty. But I never heard of anything like what this accuser said. But for some strange reason, I kind of believed the accuser anyway. Maybe recently viewing Vicki Victim getting raped from behind by a man in a circus outfit sort of pushed my mind in that direction.

I felt the old familiar surge of my blood-pressure. I looked down at my hand and it was shaking. Why was I so affected by this gossip item?!

Before I knew it, I marched into the office of my other boss, the “sensitive” one, and closed the door.

“Is it true?!” I blurted out, the angry tone of my voice surprising me.

“Is what true?”

“Ned.”

There were pictures of Ned covering my boss’s desk -- a grandfatherly fellow with wise old eyes and an unassuming grin.

“What about Ned?”

“The thing about him groping Melia Bratton.”

My boss flinched for a second, then took a breath and said,

“Melia...she’s a nice woman, but very confused. Sexually confused.”

“But is there any truth to her story?”

“Yes and no.”

“I mean...did he touch her or not?”

“I’m sure Melia misinterpreted things. And Ned...it’s like OJ.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows what really happened?”

“Well...I have to say that working on this tribute for Ned has kind made me uncomfortable now. Because I kind of believe Melia. Because of what’s happening with (BLEEEEEP!!!!).”

“Is he still bothering you?”

“Yeah...” I raked my fingers through my bangs and looked up at the celing. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know how much more I can take of it. It’s really stressing me out. And now we just got these pages of...rape art. And...I don’t know, this whole place is really making me uncomfortable right now. I don’t know why this is all happening now like this. At the same time.”

Now let’s fast forward to my unlucky first fuck with comic guy Donovan Paul. I kick him off of me. There’s blood everywhere.

“W-what’s wrong?!”

“T-the bluh....the bluh....”

“Are you sure you’re not still a virgin?”

And let’s zip back, back, back in our theoretical wayback machine, back to my dad ripping my Wonder Woman and Batman posters off my wall in a rage.

“You ungreatful bitch!”

Now to when my old boss at the comic shop propositioned me sexually when I was 16.

“You arouse me...you make me hard...”

Now to the Gilgongo! Comics “New Direction” meeting.

“We need to get the ‘happy’ out of comics...”

Now to my lawyer.

“They said they are lining up to testify against you.”

Think the last five minutes of “Requiem For A Dream.”

I say: “goodbye, Comics.”

And Comics says: "shit, girl! aren't you gone yet?"

When I've written the last chapter of this memoir, I will go. I will go, relatively safe in my obscure niche, and I will not look back. And Comics can have Comics.