Bent Corner

I was doing some reading on the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s website and discovered something interesting. It concerns a 1997 case involving Oklahoma City comic book retailers Michael Kennedy and John Hunter. Undercover police officers entered their store on two different occasions and purchased copies of Verotika #4, a comic book featuring “erotica from Hell”.

Seriously, that’s what it says on the publisher’s website- “erotica from Hell”.

A subsequent raid found other books at the store that the police had problems with. Some of these books included Mighty Morphing Rump Rangers and The Devil’s Angel, a book supposedly featuring cartoon child pornography.

Both men were charged with multiple felony counts of trafficking in obscenity and faced up to 45 years in prison. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund agreed to take on the case and arraigned to pay the men’s legal fees. The case never went to trial.

This is from the CBLDF website:

Rather than risk imprisonment and a permanent felony record, the retailers agreed to plead guilty to the two felony charges. In exchange, they were granted a three-year deferred prison sentence and a fine of $1500 each. Kennedy and Hunter will serve no jail time if they are not convicted of any further criminal activities for a period of three years. After that time, the felonies will be permanently removed from their records.

This action was undertaken without notifying the CBLDF. It is the Fund’s policy to only take on cases where the accused individuals agree not to plead guilty in exchange for reduced penalties. “To say that we’re all disappointed is an understatement,” said Susan Alston, then executive director of the CBLDF. “In human terms, we all share a sense of relief that Kennedy and Hunter’s ordeal is over. But that in no way diminishes the fact that they were convicted in violation of their rights as Americans under the First Amendment.

Evidently when you receive assistance from the CBLDF there are strings attached. Your first obligation isn’t to stay out of prison. No, it’s to ensure your case goes all the way to trial. In exchange for CBLDF assistance you seemingly have to agree that you will not accept a plea deal even if it keeps you out of prison. What this policy does is cause cases to drag out longer then they normally should. It also might land you in prison.

Don’t let the HBO show Oz fool you. Prison is not fun and it should be avoided at all costs.

Most criminal cases don’t end in a lengthy and expensive jury trial. Most end with some sort of plea bargain. That’s why prosecutors start by charging a defendant with as many charges as the evidence allows. That way they can whittle down the charges and offer the defendant a deal. It’s called justice American style. It’s faster, cheaper, and more or less gets the job done.

If a defendant feels as though he is obligated to reject any deal a prosecutor offers no matter how attractive the terms, they aren’t looking out for their own best interests. This ensures the case will go to trial. That means the case takes longer and it will cost a lot more money then it really should. It also carries the risk of going to prison.

I find it ironic that the folks at the CBLDF were “disappointed” that the two men broke their promise not to accept a plea bargain. Who would have thought you couldn’t trust guys that sell such fine comic books as Mighty Morphing Rump Rangers?

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“Though I am willing to apologize for this particular art book getting in the hands that found it offensive, I will adamantly agree that the book is not ‘harmful to children’ or ‘obscene.’ In my opinion, this book is no more offensive then viewing the beautiful paintings of the Sistine Chapel or reading one of the best selling books with stories of sex, lust and nudity known as the Bible.”

Gordon Lee
February 07, 2005

“The first sentence in the comic book reads: ‘Brace yourself for a sex and absinthe fueled journey into one of the most exciting period in modern history.’ That’s not appropriate for a nine year old kid. I think that’s a no-brainer.”

District Attorney Leigh Patterson
February 10, 2005

Gordon Lee is a comic book retailer in Georgia. He is currently facing two misdemeanor counts of Distribution of Harmful to Minors Material, each carrying a penalty of up to one year in prison and up to $1,000 in fines. The charges stem from a Halloween 2004 incident in which Lee handed out an anthology comic featuring both female and male full frontal nudity to children.

He doesn’t appear to believe he did anything wrong. He insists that the book is not obscene or harmful to a minor. Though I don’t know if it’s actually obscene, I have no doubt that its not suitable for children. I disagree with Lee when he states that it is similar to the beautiful paintings of the Sistine Chapel.

Has he ever seen the Sistine Chapel?

The book Lee gave the kids (ages 6 & 9) not only shows full frontal nudity, it contains a reference to masturbation. In one panel, it even shows what appears to be an erect penis. There seems to be a difference of opinion whether the penis is actually erect or not. I would argue that if the issue must be debated, the book is not suitable for a child.

Compounding the problem for Lee is that he was convicted of selling pornography in 1993. I would think someone who had been convicted of selling pornography once before would be hyper-vigilant in not doing things like accidentally giving free comics that feature dick pictures to kids.

I honestly don’t understand just how his lawyers expect to defend his innocence in this case. The jury won’t be deciding if the law is valid or not, they will be deciding if Lee broke that law or not. The jury has to consider only the facts of the case, not the merits of the law. Arguing the merits of the law is something that should be brought up in the appeals, not the actual criminal case in front of the Georgia jury.

Do they honestly think a southern jury will have a hard time with a law that prohibits distributing porn to children?

Lee can claim that the comic was no more obscene then the Sistine Chapel or the Bible. The problem is the jury will be looking at the actual book Lee gave the two kids. I doubt many of them will see similarities to the Sistine Chapel or the Bible. I think he is going to have a hard time finding a sympathetic jury in northern Georgia. Especially when he seems to feel he did nothing wrong.

It would be one thing if Lee admitted it was a bone head mistake and apologized for his mistake. He’s not really doing that.

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) has already spent $80,000 on this case and expects to pay even more. They are urgently trying to raise more money. Like a lot of comic book nerds, I’ve donated money to them in the past. I don’t think I will be doing so again. Not this time.

We had a rocking good time at the 2007 Pittsburgh Comicon. The Expo Mart is actually a fantastic place to hold an event like a comic book convention. The Expo Mart is connected to the Radison Hotel. It literary takes only 30 seconds to walk from the lobby of the hotel to the convention floor. Unlike any other funny book convention I’ve been to, parking is free. This means I had more money to spend on the convention floor.

If you entered the convention floor from the Expo Mart side, you were forced to walk by a table staffed with rude women that asked you to support “the troops”. Evidently the only way one could do this was to give them some money. I show my support to “the troops” by being against getting into costly and never ending wars under false pretenses. I don’t do it by giving to obnoxious people that ask for money as soon as I step foot into a comic book convention. To each his own though.

There were two dealers selling bootleg DVD’s. Both were selling copies of the South Korean monster movie THE HOST. It’s not out on DVD here in the states. I was very tempted to pick one up. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie, but I guess I’m willing to wait till I can purchase an actual legal copy. I was surprised to see anyone selling bootlegs after the raids at a comic book convention in Detroit last year. Not only were the two dealers selling bootlegs, it didn’t appear they were selling anything but bootlegs.

Probably one of the most peculiar things I witnessed at the con was STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE 9 actress Chase Masterson. She didn’t look anything like what she looked on DS9. She didn’t look like any of the photos for sale at her table. It appears the years haven’t been overly kind to Chase Masterson. It also appears that she has developed quite a fondness for all-you-can-eat buffets. Not that the same could not be said for me. The difference is that I don’t dress like a hooker.

Some time early Friday afternoon, Chase Masterson stormed out of her booth barefoot while talking very loudly on her cell phone. It was obvious that she was highly agitated about something. I thought maybe the convention organizers told her to go and put on some more clothes. Maybe they told her to go put on some clothing that actually fit. I could hear her yelling on her cell phone about something being paid in full as far as she was concerned. Something like that. I didn’t see her back at her booth the rest of the day. On Saturday, she still wasn’t at her booth. All of her stuff was there. I asked Marc Singer, famous actor from major motion pictures such as THE BEASTMASTER and the hit television mini-series V what happened to her. He was sitting in the booth next to her. Mark informed me that he didn’t know what happened to her and that he hadn’t seen her all day. I wondered if she had at least returned to get her shoes. When we watched her storm out the day before, she was barefoot. As this photo shows, she didn’t come back for her shoes.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the shoes were to end up on eBay. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the eBay seller was somebody that went by the eBay username “BeastMaster7667″.

One of the highlights of the con was the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund quick sketch raffle. That’s where comic book artists sit at a huge table on stage and draw giant comic book related quick sketches. Some of them were quite funny such as anything drawn by Chris Moreno. Some were much more artistic such as anything done by Rags Morales. People purchase raffle tickets for a dollar each and when artists are done with all of their numerous sketches, raffle tickets are drawn for each sketch. It was really quite fun. We attended both Friday and Saturday’s quick sketch event. Saturday’s event alone raised over $1800 for the CBLDF.

Looking through the long boxes at one vendor’s booth, I happened to spot a huge quantity of CIVIL WAR #7 books for $1 dollar each. There had to be at least 80 copies in the bin. One dollar each? How long until they make their way to the .50 cent bins? This is something to think about when reading the various online comic book best seller lists. Just because comic book shops order a certain amount of books doesn’t mean all those books are ever read. Many of them just might be collecting dust in a dollar bin. Like CIVIL WAR #7.

This was the best comic book convention I have ever been to. I enjoyed it immensely and will make it a point to go again next year.