From Hell's Heart, I Litigate at Thee!

It could be a sci-fi story, maybe even a comic. But Ellison says he'd never adapt these bitter life experiences into a story. And the plot probably wouldn't appeal to Fantagraphics' readers. Meanwhile, sympathetic supporters of both camps wish they'd let the matter drop.

Groth calls Ellison a publicity hound, yet it's hard to see the benefit. Certainly the suit—seemingly relished by both parties—won't help him reach new, younger readers. And Fantagraphics is growing and stable (for now), thanks in part to recent deluxe hardcover collections of Peanuts and Dennis the Menace. But comics, too, are coveted most assiduously by the graying boomers of Groth's generation. Wii and Xbox 360 and TiVo and MySpace and YouTube and iPods are where the current generation's attention is focused. It's hard to imagine those kids caring about, much less reading, a collection of old-geezer interviews in The Comics Journal Library or the corporate chest-thumping of Comics as Art. Besides, if it's already up on the Web, what's with all this First Amendment stuff? What's done is done, bra. Let it go.

© Fantagraphics 2007. Illustration by Dan Clowes.

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More About

• Harlan Ellison
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And so the asteroid just keeps getting farther and father away, growing smaller and smaller in the void of space, until it finally disappears from view.

bmiller@seattleweekly.com