I’ll admit, I hadn’t heard anything about this story in the last month, but many of you may already know of it. I guess I’m late to the game on this one. The story started the day after Christmas, when I wasn’t even near the Internet much, so I can see how I missed it. The Four Color Media Monitor has a good summary of what has gone on, but I’ll do a quick recap:

Ronee Garcia Bourgeois, a Buzzscope columnist, did a serious column alleging that the head of an industry group that helps “creators in need” (given the small industry there are really only a few to choose from) sexually assaulted a woman. She filed a police report and asked for this man to be removed from his post, but they only gave him a brief suspension and a donation to a women’s charity.

This column was followed by two interviews (here and here) with a group of women who talked more seriously about the nature of sexual harrassment in the comic industry. The problem, as they see it, is that the comic book industry is too small and inbred to speak out without fear of utterly killing your career. There are two giant publishers, two biggies (Image and Dark Horse), a good dozen third-tier companies, and then there’s just indies and self-publishing. It’s an industry where a blacklist, official or by a mere consensus opinion, can ruin you.

I’ll admit, I’m surprised this goes on, but that’s probably because I’ve spent 10 years working in computer companies where we all get read the riot act about sexual harrassment before we sign up. There are workshops and long meetings about sexual harrassment, and the men live in fear of saying the wrong thing because the management will always side with the complainer. I knew a Spice Girls fan who had to take down their picture from his half cubicle because it made a woman uncomfortable. Heck, I got called into a very stern meeting because I’d used Catbert’s Performance Review Generator to e-mail a meaningless performance review letter to a friend (someone I’d hung around with outside of work, even) and she’d taken one of the random statements the wrong way.

This “telling a blonde joke might get you fired” environment has been the norm for the last 15 years, so it’s weird to read these stories from the comic industry where apparently the 1950s office party view of women never ended.

Granted, sexual harrassment laws took a hit in the late 1990s when feminists put on the brakes Flintstone-style and said that, hey, you can grab a boob as long as you cease if the woman says no. Since a boob grab is what this nameless lech is accused of, maybe he was under the misunderstanding that the new rule applied to everyone and not just horndog presidents.

All kidding aside, I’m grateful that this Buzzscope column was able to get so many people talking about an issue that has apparently been under the comic industry’s radar for far too long. However, I wonder if there isn’t another way to handle some of the incidents related in the interviews. For instance, one of the women tells of having her butt grabbed by a man running a convention, and her concern that shoving the guy into the buffet would have hurt her career. Well, isn’t there a way to quietly explain in no uncertain terms your dislike of the grope without making a career-ruining scene and/or humiliating the guy in front of all his friends? I’m not saying that we can’t try to make this a better world where men aren’t grabbing strange butts in the first place, but in the meantime it is a viable alternative to suffering in silence or a loud altercation embarrassing for all concerned.

(Just a brief warning: Although the subject matter is quite serious, there is a lot of unprofessional language used by the columnist and others interviewed. Understandable, as it’s a heated topic taken quite personally, but I don’t want anyone browsing to this expecting newspaper-level coverage.)

(Another warning: Never ask a female comics professional if she wants to see your “Giant-Size Man-Thing.”)

Hat tip: That’s My Skull. (Be sure to read that article!)