Despite having been an editor at Comics Buyer's Guide for four years, I always seemed to be out of the rotation when it came to attending the Comic-Con International at San Diego. This year, my first as News Editor at The Comics Journal, will be my introduction to San Diego.

Unfortunately, Journal publisher Gary Groth's idea of promoting the Journal at San Diego is to put on a presentation indicting the most important figures and companies in comics and charging them with crimes against the industry. This didn't seem to me to be the best way to establish an endearing presence among our colleagues and readers at the convention, but Gary's enthusiasm was unquenchable. I pointed out that, given the struggling state of the industry, this sort of negative hatemongering was not calculated to raise people's spirits. In fact, it smacked of some squabble between scavengers over dwindling postapocalyptic spoils. Actually, these were not my exact words. In expressing these points to my new employer, I softened my objections to a diplomatically phrased "Good idea, Gary."

Asked to firm up our proposal for the presentation, I decided that the best approach was to describe it in such ghastly terms that convention organizers would never approve it and even Gary would turn away in horror at such an obvious public-relations nightmare. I came up with the following:

The Comics Journal Performs a Public Service

In the wake of the kind of crippling disaster that has befallen the comics market in recent years, there comes a time of mourning, a time of recovery and healing, but most of all a time of recriminatory finger-pointing. Never mind heroes. What's needed are villains - inarguably swinish thugs who can be flushed from the underbrush, hunted down like vermin and hung from the nearest lamp-post.

Someone must take the blame, and the Journal has bravely appointed itself to cast the first several stones. Methodically and objectively sifting through the many weasels, opportunists, backstabbers, and pricks who have set the tone for the comics industry of the 1990s, the Journal has formed its own Nuremburg-style tribunal to bring to light the most deserving criminals.

Gather the mob. Light the torches. Sharpen the guillotine. Hear the names read off and pray yours is not among them. The time for reckoning is here, but in the spirit of forgiveness, any guilty party who expresses contrition and confesses openly that their own evil excesses are to blame for the wretched state of the industry shall be granted absolution by the power vested in The Comics Journal, after perhaps an hour standing in a prominent location at the San Diego Comic-Con with a confessional placard suspended from the penitent's neck. As for the unrepentant, let the cleansing begin. Only after we have gnawed the bones of our enemies can we wipe the blood from our hands and face the dawn of a new day.

Webmaster's Note: The text of this presentation can be found here. Enjoy!

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