Word: hellman
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...Comics" should be found in the "Silver Linings" department of your local comicbook store. A thick, book-length anthology, "Legal Action," (256 pp; $14.95) has been published by the Dirty Danny Legal Defense Fund towards which, short of printing costs, all proceeds are going. The peculiarity of "Dirty" Danny Hellman's situation motivated enough comix heavyweights, like Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Spain, and Kim Deitch, to donate their work and turn "Legal Action" into one of the most anticipated comix of the year...
...circumstances that drew these and many other cartoonists to Hellman's aid may strike anyone outside the comix community as surprisingly weird and petty. Hellman has been sued for libel by another cartoonist, Ted Rall, because of a prank played on him by Hellman. The imbroglio began when Rall, author of the weekly syndicated strip "Search and Destroy" and an occasional contributor to TIME magazine, wrote a cover story for the August 3, 1999 "Village Voice," headlined "The King of Comix." It presented Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer-winning "Maus," as a kind of New York cartooning Nero - made...
...form of backlash was an email sent to about thirty people, written by Danny Hellman, another New York cartoonist, posing as Rall, encouraging the recipients to send in their comments on the Spiegelman piece to a lewd email address. Hellman then began spoofing outraged responses by New York print media powerhouses both real and fictional. The artless prank was exposed within days, but like a pair of schoolyard bullies the two continued to escalate the matter until Rall brought suit against Hellman for $1.5 million in damages. So to support the legal fees Hellman has put together this "Legal Action...
...book has many pleasures, though with Hellman presumably taking whatever anyone would give him, it lacks in editing what it gains in abundance. Comix scholars will appreciate the serendipitous class reunion of so many first generation underground cartoonists. Most notably, Spiegelman provides a back cover depiction of the Temple of Cartoon Gods, with Rall's effigy placed in the bathroom. It's his first public statement on the case and, by implication, Rall's article. The other really big name, Robert Crumb, has handed over what look like a couple pages from his sketchbooks, depicting a pair of medieval "Crumb...
...mean to be humorous and Tony Millionaire provides several of the best of these. My favorite contribution of his reads like a devastating, thinly-veiled reference to Rall, about a vicious, self-pitying giant snake roaming around the desert seeking love from the things it devours. Other artists use Hellman as an actual character, taking part in silly adventures that inevitably end in some vulgarity...