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.

Goodbye To Comics #7: “We Need A Rape”

Goodbye To Comics #7:
“We Need A Rape”

My theoretical comic company, which, for the theoretical purposes of my theoretical memoir, I’ll call Gilgongo! Comix, was tired of being “pushed around” in the sales wars and in the court of fanboy opinion (such as it was). So with all the red-nosed gumption and determination of Ralphie from “A Christmas Story” Gilgongo! Comix decided to go badass.

They needed a rape. Because there’s nothing quite so badass as rape, lets face it. And the victim couldn’t been from the usual suspects: “The Black Raven” (done that already plus ovaries ripped out), “Bondage Queen” (wasn’t she raped like every issue--at least mentally?), “Demon-Girl” (she was already paralyzed from the last pseudo-raping and that provided all sorts of logistical nightmares for the artist).

No, they had to find the most innocent, virginal, good-natured “nice” character they could find and ravage her not once but twice.

Theoretically, this character’s name was Vicki Victim.

A whole groundbreaking limited series would be built around Vicki Victim’s rape and murder.

This made me nervous. In the office, I was known as being innocent, virginal, good-natured, and “nice”. I was kidded on it on a regular basis, as well as being told it was exactly those qualities that were “holding me back.”

Of course, it was silly to identify with a dumb old comic character.

Vicki Victim’s fate was sealed in a Gilgongo! Comics confab in which we explored how we could change our comics to be more “badass.” It was decided that the reason we were trailing in sales was because we were “too good-natured and nice.” This would have to stop. Our books needed a grittier edge. We needed a grittier edge.

So our books changed. There was rape, and murder, torture, death, and mutiliation. Superheroes did amoral or outright evil things and the line between good and bad was blurred.

And you know what?

Our sales improved. And this is a fact.

But it all started with Vicki Victim, and she has to be given credit.

To be fair to the ultimate writer that was assigned to the Vicki Victim Story, he was specifically told to include sensationalistic “adult” themes in the story. But when we got the scripts in I was still kind of shocked. Perhaps I was so affected not simply because of my fannish defense of Vicki Victim’s “purity” as a beloved character. Perhaps I was dealing with my own issues.

Let’s back up.

Do you know what a syzygy is?

That’s when all the planets align in such a manner that crazy shit happens.

In my time at Gilgongo! Comics I experienced several of what can only be described as “syzygies.”

One was an incident where one of my bosses set out to rid me of my “niceness” once and for all. It involved a freelancer who had a habit of delaying handing in his work because he was such a damned perfectionist. I was told to go into my office, close the door, and scream at this freelancer until he cried. I wasn’t told to simply “be firm.” I was told to scream at him until he cried and scare the living shit out of him. And believe me, he would have cried. And he did. I screeched like a maniac at the poor devil, threatening and berating. Right beyond my nearly closed door, I could see my boss listening with glee.

Tears rolled down my cheeks -- not out of pity for my prey, but because the sheer shock to my system turned me bright red and sent my blood pressure through the roof. I thought I was going to have a heart-attack. On the other end of the line, the freelancer was stuttering, crying, freaking out.

I couldn’t stop shaking, even minutes after I hung up. What had just happened was so unnatural to me, so vile. And it served no purpose anyway. Because soon after the lights flickered and my computer began to whine like a little baby, and soon all the power was out. Everywhere.

Syzygy.

But this wasn’t the crucial syzygy that began the chain of events that ended my career. That particular incident had to do with your dead friend and mine, Vicki Victim.

It started with my associate editor running gleefully into our boss’s office, several boards of art in his hand.

“The rape pages are in!”