One of the best ways to boost a publication's sales is to get it censored. Boiled Angel is a perfect example. "My publisher is selling more copies than ever," says creator Michael Diana. "Now they have them in stores."
Twenty-five-year-old Diana holds the honor of being the first cartoonist in America to be convicted on obscenity charges. His comic book, Boiled Angel, graphically depicts serial slayings, date rapes, and priests engaged in pedophilia. Government officials in Florida, offended by the comic book, set up a sting operation in 1992 to get Diana. An undercover agent, posing as a fan, ordered Boiled Angel through the mail. It took the agents two years to send Diana a summons to appear in court on charges of publishing, distributing, and advertising obscene materials.
The trial was held in Pinellas County during March 1994. The prosecution hired a crack team of expert witnesses to present its case. Two were professors from Eckerd College who claimed that Boiled Angel was void of artistic or literary merit. Expert psychologist Sidney Merin testified that Boiled Angel appealed to "deviant groups," including the "fringe element," the "bizarrely unstable," and "those who have a libertine bent in their thinking."
The jury deliberated for two hours and returned a guilty verdict. Meanwhile, Diana spent three nights in jail in the Pinellas County's maximum-security unit awaiting sentencing. He received three years' probation, was ordered to perform 1,248 hours of community service, pay a US$3,000 fine, complete a psychology evaluation at his own expense, and take a course in journalism ethics, also at his own expense. But the shocker was Judge Walter Fullerton's decree forbidding Diana from drawing anything, even for his own personal use, that the judge might consider obscene.
The case is on appeal. In June, Diana paid the court US$3,000 (given to him by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which is funding his defense and his appeal) to postpone his probation until after the appeal.
Diana was pretty bummed, especially about the community service part of the sentence. "I don't like working for free," he said, but added: "The notoriety was worth the hassle."
And the court's attempt to keep him from drawing whatever he wanted was useless, Diana says. "I kept my drawings hidden, anyway."
Boiled Angel: US$6.66 each. Michael Hunt Comix: Box 226, Bensenville, IL 60106. +1 (708) 794 2723. Comic Book Legal Defense Fund: (800) 992 2533, +1 (413) 586 6967.
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