Bent Corner

This morning I found yet another email from comic book artist Brian Bolland concerning the whole issue surrounding my blog post over two months ago about a sketch he did at the 2007 New York City Comicon. The email basically contradicts everything he has said about this matter up until now. He is now saying that the before mentioned Chicago real estate lawyer is his lawyer - even though he said prior that he was not.

This is what he originally told me about the lawyer:

The guy you refer to is A lawyer (apparently a Chicago lawyer) but he is not MY lawyer. I’m not employing anyone. He’s a friend and a comic fan.

Brian Bolland
3 May 2007

That seemed pretty clear to me. The Chicago real estate lawyer who represented himself as Mr. Bolland’s lawyer not only to me but to my hosting provider was in fact not his lawyer. Mr. Bolland even made the word “my” in uppercase letters. I took that to mean he was super serious about it.

Evidently not.

In his most recent email to me, he now sings a very different tune. He says this:

Mr. Caira was duly authorized to represent me in this matter. Although he is not my regular attorney, in this case and for this specific circumstance, he was acting as my representative.

Brian Bolland
4 May 2007

That just reeks of lawyer speak. As though a Chicago real estate lawyer wrote those words and told Bolland to send them. He also went on to state IN CAPITAL LETTERS that he wanted the entire letter posted anywhere on my blog where I wrote about this whole mess. That’s something I’m just not willing to do. Much of the letter contains facts that I know to be false and untrue.

I don’t put stuff on my blog that I know isn’t true.

My patience has run out.

The truth is I wrote a negative comment about a piece of art that Brian Bolland was paid $150 to do. The man is a professional artist. He ought to be willing to accept just a little bit of negative criticism every once in a while. He certainly seems more then willing to receive praise and admiration. If an artist is willing to be praised, he ought to be willing to be criticized as well. Especially if he deserves it. Otherwise said artist comes off looking like a thin skinned primadonna. He himself said that the art “was a pretty meagre drawing for the money“. He also admitted that he “shafted” the guy that commissioned the art. I’m then supposed to believe that I went too far when I wrote that he “ripped off” that same buyer? Not hardly.

I’m tired of getting lied to. Chicago real estate lawyer first told me that he was just a friend of Bolland’s and that Bollard didn’t ask him to do anything. He stated that he was not acting on Bolland’s direction. When I refused to post links to eight (8) images of better looking sketches Bolland did at the same 2007 New York City Comicon, he changed his story and claimed to be Bolland’s lawyer. He then sent me the secret confidential Cease and Desist letter that I supposedly cannot show anyone. He also sent an email to my hosting provider and demanded that my site be taken down.

Chicago real estate lawyer emailed my hosting provider and said:

It is critical that this site and the offending content be removed before my client is damaged and my privacy rights are violated any further.

The “privacy rights” he speaks of refers to things like his name, law office telephone number, and his law office fax machine number. Chicago real estate lawyer also went on to say:

Being that this is content in violation of the law I am notifying you of this situation before it moves to formal litigation in order to give you an opportunity to shut the site down before further damage is done to the name and reputation of Mr. Bolland by these scurrilous accusations.

Scurrilous accusations? They like to contend that by stating that Mr. Bolland “ripped off” the fan by drawing the “meagre” looking (his own description) sketch, people would immediately jump to the conclusion that Brian Bolland is some kind of wanted criminal. Give me a break. They were merely looking for any kind of excuse to silence negative criticism.

He threatened to sue my hosting provider unless my website was shutdown. Chicago real estate lawyer claims to have never said this. I think he was under the impression that my hosting provider wasn’t going to share the email with me. If that’s the case, he was wrong.

So what does this all mean? Well, it means that if Chicago real estate lawyer was indeed representing Bolland in these matters, Bolland cannot make the claim that he did not try to get my website shut down. I was more then willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he told me that Chicago real estate lawyer was not his lawyer and that he didn’t ask him to do any of this.

Why would Bolland change his position on this? Most likely to protect Chicago real estate lawyer. Evidently Chicago real estate lawyer shows up at any comic book con in the United States that Bolland makes an appearance. He helps him by running the lines and managing the sketch list. Gets him food to eat and beverages to drink. That type of stuff. Yesterday a couple of people in the comment section of my blog brought up the idea that Chicago real estate lawyer could be in trouble with the Illinois State Bar for claiming to represent a client when in fact he didn’t. I’m fairly certain Chicago real estate lawyer read those comments. Not that I planned on perusing any type of complaint against Chicago real estate lawyer with the Illinois State Bar. That’s not my style. My brain is not hardwired that way.

The last couple of days I’ve had my hands full dealing with a blog post I wrote over two months ago. It was about super-star comic book artist Brian Bolland and a sketch he did for someone at the 2007 New York Comicon. I found an image of the sketch posted online while looking for pictures from the con. I wasn’t looking for sketches. I was looking for images from the con. Pictures of overweight middle aged men dressed up like the Flash. If you have ever been to a con, you know exactly what I mean.

Google being the way it is, I pulled up an image of a sketch someone commissioned Brian Bolland to do at the 2007 New York Comicon. It was a Silver Age Batwoman and it wasn’t very good. When I say that it wasn’t very good, I mean to say that it wasn’t of the quality that Brian Bolland is famous for. The man is truly a fantastic artist.

I decided to blog about it. Why I chose to I’m not precisely sure. It was over two months ago. I think it was because the sketch didn’t look anything like what Brian Bolland is capable of doing. Not to say that he is known for doing Silver Age Batwoman drawings. Because the fan that commissioned the sketch paid $150 for it, I entitled the blog post, “Brian Bolland rips off one of his fans for $150 dollars”.

That turned out to be a huge mistake on my part.

I should have phrased it differently. It seems far too many people read the phrase “rips off” and argued that I was implying that Brian Bolland was some sort of criminal. Nothing could be further from the truth. I thought I was fairly clear with the context of the phrase “rips off”. Some still wanted to argue that I was calling Brian Bolland a thief.

I think some people took exception to the fact that I was criticizing Brian Bolland’s artwork and they were using my use of the phrase “rips off” as an excuse to criticize me. Which is fine. I can take criticism as long as it’s for something I actually did. Since I didn’t refer to Brian Bolland as a thief or a criminal, I didn’t appreciate being told that I did.

Enter the Chicago real estate lawyer. Because Brian Bolland is a mega star comic book artist, he has more then his fair share of rabid fans. One of those fans happens to be a real estate lawyer from Chicago. Evidently he took great exception to my criticism of Brian Bolland’s Batwoman sketch and decided to take swift action. Swift legal action.

He claimed to be Brian Bolland’s United States lawyer and accused me of both libel and slander. He sent me a Cease and Desist letter from his Chicago law firm’s email account demanding that I remove the post from my site along with any and all mention of Brian Bolland’s name. He claimed that as his attorney, he had the duty to “protect” Brian Bolland.

I can say with all certainy that this Chicago real estate lawyer made things exponentially worse. Far worse then things needed to be. If Brian Bolland was truly bothered by the title of my post, all he had to do was tell me and I would have changed it. Brian Bolland left two comments before the Chicago real estate lawyer got involved and he didn’t seem bothered with my usage of the phrase. If anything, he seemed more bothered by the actual quality of the sketch.

To be honest, the sketch really isn’t that bad. If I were able to draw something as good as the Batwoman sketch, I would be ecstatic. I would make copies and send them to all my friends. In the years following, I would constantly remind people of the time I drew the awesome Batwoman sketch. Hey, remember that time I drew that really cool looking Batwoman sketch? Yeah, that was awesome. It’s just that when it comes to the art of Brian Bolland, the bar is rather high. Higher then most comic book artists.

I’ve personally been assured by Brian Bolland that the Chicago real estate lawyer does not represent him. That the Chicago real estate lawyer is not his lawyer. That he did not authorize him to send me a Cease and Desist letter. That he did not authorize him to take steps to take down my website.

As stated earlier, it was a mistake on my part to use the phrase “rips off”. I’m sorry I did it.

This morning I found an email in my inbox from an attorney claiming to represent comic book artist Brain Bolland. The return email address along with his signature shows that he is from the Chicago law firm Klafter & Burke. Their website shows that they specialize in real estate and taxes. Evidently they are expanding their legal scope into the lucrative world of comic book law.

Yesterday this same person attempted to post two comments to my blog. He didn’t identify himself yesterday as a lawyer representing Brian Bolland. In fact, he claimed the complete opposite. He claimed to not speak for Brian Bolland.

His comments were automatically held for moderation because WordPress misidentified them as spam. He attempted to post numerous links within his comments. I have WordPress configured to identify any comment with two or more links to be spam.

This all stems from a post I made on my blog almost two months ago concerning a commissioned sketch Brian Bolland did for a fan at the 2007 New York Comicon. I found the image of the sketch while looking for photos from the convention. The fan (also named Brian) wrote that he paid $150 for it. The sketch measured approximately 3 by 4 inches.

I believed that Brian Bolland overcharged the fan for the sketch. In fact, I wrote that he “ripped off” the fan.

Evidently Brain Bolland Googled himself last week and found my post. He twice responded to what I wrote. His comments seemed good natured and not the least bit snarky. It seemed that he was admitting that he overcharged the fan for the commission. He wrote, “I feel particularly upset that I’ve shafted a fellow Brian.”

How can he admit that he “shafted” the fan, but then have his lawyer send a threatening email to me demanding that I remove my post? Isn’t shafting someone worse then ripping them off? I’m no wordsmith, but it certainly seems so to me. Maybe it’s just me, but the expression shafted seems to have a pseudo-sexual connotation to it that the phrase “ripped off” just doesn’t have.

If Brian Bolland wanted me to remove my post, why didn’t he just ask me himself? Why engage the services of a lawyer? The truth is that if he had simply asked me nicely to remove the post when he first discovered it, I probably would have done so. I had no malice or ill will towards him.

All that changed though when he decided to threaten me with legal action. I don’t particularly like being threatened. Then again, who does? Not that I have any malice for him now.

I now don’t particularly feel like removing the post.

Update: My hosting provider asked me to remove the the Cease and Desist letter sent to me by Brian Bolland’s lawyer, Christopher M. Caira of the Klafter & Burke law firm. Caira threatened legal action against my hosting provider unless the C&D letter was removed. Caira claimed that the letter disclosed private information including personal contact information. Oddly enough, it’s the very same “personal contact information” published on the Klafter & Burke website. I thought it was important to include the C&D letter to show what steps Brian Bolland and his lawyer were taking to silence critical speech.

Update to the update: I have removed references to Brian Bolland “ripping off” anyone. Though I only meant the expression to mean that in my opinion Brian Bolland delivered “a product or service that is overpriced or of poor quality (American Heritage Dictionary), too many people insist on telling me that I meant Brian Bolland was a criminal. I assure you that I did not. I am also fairly certain that the individual that repeatedly represented himself as Brian Bolland’s lawyer was not his lawyer, but simply a huge fan. He is a lawyer. He is just not Brian Bolland’s lawyer. Even though he identified himself as such not only to me, but to my hosting provider. It is my honest belief that this person who claimed to be Brian Bolland’s lawyer made things expotentially worse. Far worse then they needed to be.

A guy goes to the recent New York City Comic-Con and commissions comic book artist Brian Bolland to do an old school Batwoman sketch. The price Brian Bolland charged said fan was $150 dollars. The actual sketch only measures four by three inches.