Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
Recently I got an email about an article discussing some old well-known top-level guy in some comics organization – support group, company, whatever – who is a total grab-ass on young girls. If girls complained about it, they didn't have a hope for keeping their jobs in the comics industry, because then they'd be Complaining Females and all blacklisted and stuff.
I didn't get into who it was, because on the site where they were talking about it, a bunch of the girls who had kept their mouths shut to keep their jobs or who had to go through legal action to get the horn-dog off their case, were being all torqued off about it now, and saying why it is that nobody ever says who did it, fear of libel, disbelief of the victim, accusations, yada yada, the usual reasons that females in a male industry have to put up with crap.
After awhile I got tired of reading it, trying to find out who the clown was. You'd think that now everybody was Coming Out about him, they'd have named him. I mean, what's the use of finding out some guy is a pervert who thinks all young female artists are available issued jail-bait if we can't point him out and hoot at SDCC or EXPO?
Whoa. Am I being a little heartless here? Expecting the girls and their decent male colleagues to band together and slam these abusers? Help each other out? Hm. Maybe I am. Here may be why:
I recognize all this BS from the U.S. Army. Back in 1970, you better believe that we WACs (Women's Army Corps – dey don't make dem no more) had to be on our toes for old horn-artists like this. I remember getting a ride home from headquarters with an old Sergeant Major who put the moves on me.
"Sergeant Major, I'm going to tell your wife."
"Aw, she won't believe you. You're a WAC."
"Oh, yeah? If you're trying it this time you've done it before. She may call ME a liar – but you'll be sleeping in the garage. If you're LUCKY."
Perfect gentleman all the way back to the barracks.
What these old industry testicles don't understand is that, when they don't have a witness, the girls don't have a witness. I told a Lieutenant to fuck off and in the middle of his blow-up at me I snipped, "Yeah, Lieutenant Bubbles? Prove it." Shut him right up.
What's the old comics dude going to do? Tell everybody you laughed at him? That he's not so hot? That you didn't want anything to do with his shaky wrinkled ass? Well, who would? These guys are not that attractive. Remember, a lot of industry oldsters were originally fan boys. You know what fan boys look like -- and they don't get any prettier as they get older. They're going for the girls because they're DESPERATE.
Let the old guy worry about a libel suite, for that matter. Remember, who's going to be worth suing? You, poor beginning lamb – or the industry ram? He's got deeper pockets. Tell him you'll get an appointed lawyer and he'll have to pay for one, because he can afford it. Rip him for every dollar he's got.
If he comes on to you in private, you can call him foul names and even hit him and who the hell is going to believe him when he comes in with a black eye? What's he going to say?
"The widdy biddy girl put the moves on me and hurted me big manly superhero-sucking self!"
You may look like a ballbreaker* but HE's gonna look like a Wuss.
(*Will somebody explain to me why the term "ballbreaker" is an insult? What's wrong with breaking balls? Like it's HARD? Pardon the pun. Widdo biddy soft vulnerable tender things that they are. An ICE-CUBE can break a ball. Pft. Bending over too fast can break a ball. Please.)
I should give the comics industry girls a break in admitting that us old WACs would sit around in the barracks laughing about the latest abusive testicle moves and sharing the best way to defend ourselves against them – preferably the funniest way, and that would make the biggest public fool of him.**
I can remember some Sci-Fi big name at DragonCon down south years ago (actually, I can't remember his name – I don't read Sci-Fi, and nobody's that big out of his own teeny industry), who drunkenly decided he was going to lick my hand and turn me on. He did this in a hotel lobby. After about 10 minutes, while I talked to other people and let him make like a sugar-happy dog on my palm and fingers, he finally stopped and complained:
"You must not be very sexually responsive," he sneered.
"Naw," I said, wiping my hand off on his coat, loudly enough for everybody to hear. "You're just not very good at this."
(I wouldn't do this today; God knows if a guy like hat has AIDS or not.)
Part of it may be that a guy like this really does think he's attractive sexually, or that just because a girl doesn't flat-out beat him to death she must want to go to fuck him on the lobby couch. I mean, have you SEEN these guys? Baggy scraggly trying-to-be-elegant half-asses who think they are just THE thing. Pink-eyed old rock-stars who look like bloodhounds. Skinny-butted drummers. Stinky knock-kneed needle-dicked comics writers.
These guys really do think they're attractive – I am not KIDDING -- for their physical selves, and not the chance of getting some of the long green out of their wallets (it's probably the only long thing they've got anyway. The THOUGHT of what their baggy dangly balls must look like... eewwwwwww....). I mean, why would anybody bother with them if a job wasn't on the line? No wonder they try to keep the girls from talking?
Before any of these antique lemurs even THINK Of approaching a fine young female inker or colorist, he should look in the mirror and just DIE of shame for even considering it. I mean, he's supposed to be an ARTIST, right? This would permanently prove he has absolutely no sense of beauty or proportion. Blagh. I'm going to go brush my tongue.
We, as industry professionals, have to share the attacks these old monsters perpetrate, amongst ourselves. And come up with entertaining ways to humiliate 'em in public. Ways to drag it out into the lobby, where everybody can laugh at them.
Aren't we always howling about how nobody respects our industry? These nasty yahoos aren't going to bring us any more respect.
So many of the young men in the industry are decent people, who are disgusted by this kind of activity. They would no more want their female colleagues to be treated like this they would put up with their black or gay friends being subjected to abuse. They, like their colleagues, have WORK to do.
**I wrote about banding together in the barracks in my semi memoir,Permanent Party.
And now an Ad from guy who is supposed to be helping me this year (don't let him kid you; artists and writers are in it for the ego and they'll sign your BUTT if you'll let them). And I told him that any woman seeing the name of his company is going to start wondering if she got tampons the last time she went shopping. But you know guys; where we think cooking and clean-up when you mention meat or blood, they get all excited and think it's scary.
But Martin's a good guy anyway. Go look at his site.
Martin R. Oakley says: Gear up for a great year for small press! Not only from Bloodstained Productions but above and beyond the normal "big two" fare! Here at BSPRD we have a full slate of books for 2006 including Star of Bethlehem, Beyond Mortality, The WolfBlade Chronicles, Ripperman 2: Fates Warning, Shadowflame, and much much more! Don't forget to sample our books by buying the preview! And if you're nice, I may even sign it for ya!
