An Open Letter to Paul Pope on Abuse.
Disclaimer: I have nothing to gain in publicizing this. I don’t want a lynch mob against Paul Pope for expressing my anger. I want him to recognize that what he’s done is unforgivable and hold himself responsible. How he has treated people is detrimental to “saving comics.” If anyone has anger towards me, note that Paul was given the choice to come out about this.
Paul Pope, you are a sexual predator.
I’ve been cautioned that if I spoke out about this there would be repercussions on my career. One victim felt their career was threatened too. As someone who looked up to you and is a victim of sexual assault, it has gravely affected me during a time of recovery.
I have lost so much professionally because of this and I feel I have to navigate comics carefully to avoid those associated with you. I’m tired of being silent. If being blacklisted is the cost of me not being silent, I’m ending any hope for a career right here.
I will not mention names for their protection. If you or your people go after anyone because you can’t take responsibility, you go after me. This is the only way I can warn any potential victim and for this matter to be taken dead serious by you since it’s been brought to my attention that you’re appearing at conventions again. Your streak against women shouldn’t be forgiven because you’re Paul Pope. You should not be allowed in a professional environment, at least not without a leash. It’s a privilege you’ve violently misused against people.
I am not obligated to protect you as some would expect. I am not your shield. Any anger you have towards me is anger you haven’t settled with yourself. It’s unhealthy and unethical of me to be silent. This is going to be a mess and I never wanted to call you out, but this is how the silence I told you to come out against played out.
This is what I’m aware of. I made a comment about a cartoonist being inappropriate and the person I was talking to mistook me for talking about you. They revealed that during a Comic Con, you had aggressively hit on her. She said it made her uncomfortable and it was unprofessional of you to treat her like that. She questioned whether this was common for you. She wanted it to stop.
I was at a signing talking and someone told me to bring you up with a cartoonist in the store. I did. That cartoonist told me that when they were in New York, you were saying gross, sexual things to their friend that bothered the group. She didn’t want you. They sassed you to stop, but you threatened to fight them instead. I told them that you were going through a lot of shit, having “dark times.” I defended you like an idiot. Someone sternly called me on it, “it’s inexcusable to treat women like that and threaten someone.” I didn’t argue with them. I went silent because they were right. I later found out that the other cartoonist involved was someone else who admires your work and they confirmed it. They care about you too and are more forgiving than I am. If this was just you being a drunk, I’d be with them on seeing you quit drinking, but it’s more than that.
This brings me to the major event that occurred in July of 2014 that I was made aware of in 2015.
My friend and his girlfriend brought her sister, who was excited to meet you, to your signing but you chose to direct sexual gestures to her suggesting she suck your dick. You were intent on fucking the sister and trying hard to coerce her back to your hotel room. When that failed, you went after the girlfriend. They helped your drunk ass back to your room. At the door, you forced her to kiss you and when she pushed you off, you slammed the door in her face. The girlfriend was shaken by what happened. My friend later confronted you about it and you brushed him off. This was sexual assault followed by indirect violence toward your victim for refusing you. You were taking advantage of your fans to fuel your womanizing.
My friend said he tried to go public about it but was silenced because he felt his career was threatened and comics media wouldn’t take allegations against you seriously. I want him remain anonymous because you’re the problem I’m addressing.
I want to take a moment to emphasize that, though normalized by rape culture, forcing someone to kiss you is sexual assault. No matter how they respond, dodge, or quickly push you off, you are invading personal space and denying them consent. They know that you’re trying to fuck them and they have to act defensively to get away. It is a violent step toward rape. I don’t know if it was not being aware or him trying to forgive you, but I had to tell my friend what happened was sexual assault.
There’s more soul crushing to that night, but that’s just you being insensitive to the people who look up to you, something that I’m pretty familiar with. People like you are why a lot of people have trust issues. If someone looks up to you for your work, you’ve made the world better for those people. You’ve brought positivity beyond their dollar. You aren’t obligated to respect them, but it speaks volumes when you treat them like they’re worth something and where making rent is concerned, they’re worth a lot to you. As an artist with a voice, you should leave a positive mark on people, not a scar.
Repeat to yourself, “I am where I am because I’m fortunate enough that people have connected with my work.” Be modest—the Comics Destroyer is a self-important facade.
I wanted to believe this behavior was contained, but I’ve heard elsewhere that before 2014 you had hit on someone’s girlfriend and shrugged them off when they told you to stop. He didn’t mind as much as the others, but I suspect we’re wired to forgive you because you’re Paul Pope. This behavior isn’t a product of depression or alcoholism, it is who you are. If that’s the Paul Pope you want to be, ditch Pulp Hope for Pull Poop.
Given what I’ve learned, I won’t doubt there’s abuse spanning decades. My worst fear goes beyond forced kissing and attempted coercion to rape.
I feel for how your life changed as a result of stacked grief, and I cared deeply when I was told that you were drunk and expressing suicidal thoughts after your breakup. There’s more that I know about your history that I won’t reveal. I wanted you to be okay, but I can’t excuse this and I won’t treat you like a flower. I went through a breakup and several family deaths, but I didn’t sexually assault anyone because I know better.
You were in a position to learn and practice empathy, promoting it by default, instead you fucked with people. Harassment and Assault trickles down from the people involved to family, friends, publishers, professionals, and your fans. Everyone is affected. It’s not just an assault on one person, but poison within the community. You are responsible for how you affect people.
I talked to First Second and, while they did console me that speaking to them wouldn’t affect my career, I thought dealing with you would end there. It didn’t. I do feel I’ve wrecked any chance of working with them in telling them. They told me that there were no plans to tour you. Given there really weren’t any appearances for the Aurora West books and you aren’t signing at their booth at NYCC, I hold they’re true to their word and I hope it’ll stay true past the release of Battling Boy 2 and THB. Whether you’ve reformed yourself or not, your actions have shown that you are not fit for signings and appearances. First Second has a lot of women on all sides of production driving their quality up with each new season of books. Women who deal feminism in their comics and have work dealing with sexual assault. It’s not fair to ever have you on panel with them. It’s not fair to fans that are victims of sexual assault or allies to support you blindly.
This is how you’ve affected me: If there’s soul for comics I had, you’ve crushed it. I feel for my friend and the two girls and I wish I could have posted this warning before that night. When my friend vaguely posted about his experience with you, I knew it was you even before I knew any of this.
I started Destroy Comics because your art affected me. Running this blog was a great experience where I made friends, and learned a lot. Yet, Destroy Comics ended because you're a creep who forces himself on girls.
The truth is that in dealing with you I feel isolated. You were never really receptive. I don’t feel confident talking to creators or publishers anymore because of loyalty to you. I’ve withdrawn a lot from comics as a result. I know you never really gave a shit, but at the worst moment, I was having panic attacks and I felt lost like comics was being torn from me. I don’t care anymore. This is your legacy.
You are privileged to be relevant through generations past your own. While I admit your creative peak was THB before you wasted that golden momentum on Year 100. You aren’t responsible for all the problems I have, but I wanted to make comics until I die after reading Heavy Liquid and 100%; they gave me life as I was coping alone after being sexually assaulted and pushed away by my friends for speaking out. It’s a major hit to my motivation to know that you’d perpetuate that behavior when you have scenes of men stalking women in alleyways and arming themselves against that behavior.You weren’t the drunk who grabbed me, but all of this is familiar and it has become personal to me.
I started selling off your work. I can’t look at it and not feel anger over everything that followed me, how me telling you to stop set a dissolution for whatever fucked up acquaintance we had, and how it affected me professionally by losing all motivation for comics at one point because I felt trapped being told I should tread lightly for what I know. Your friends excusing you. Your friends giving me shit in denial. “Paul is usually batting off women,’ one said. I wonder if the only conversation I had with one of the people close to you was because you told him to keep tabs on me. I look at my own art and, though I’m trying desperately to remove it, I hate that I can still see your influence. As I pack your comics and toys in mailers, I feel grief because this brought me so much joy and now it’s gone. When joy for something that empowers you is replaced with grief, you lose a large part of yourself. It’s bled into my love for comics. What you did, how it related to my own history and caused me to be afraid for my career, it fucked me up on comics pretty bad. I retreated. I’m trying to make the love good again, trying to draw as much as I used to, but I don’t know whether I’m able to or if it’s time to give up.
I tried talking to you to settle the dust. I can see myself forgiving you in the email and I’m disgusted with myself for it, but I still made it clear I was not well because of you. You didn’t apologize. For the length I expressed my concerns and the days it took you to respond, "hope you are well” was impersonal and an insulting non-response.
I know you unfollowed me on social media, and I didn’t let it bother me too much because I already accepted you were a flake, which is a common feeling among people who know you. I woke up one day to my phone notifying me you were following me again, but opened twitter to the contrary. I don’t know what was up with that. It was embarrassing for me and now I’m sure it’s embarrassing for you. You blocked me months after. I hardly ever talk to you. Was it because I told you to stop being a creep and own up to it or because the last thing I said was to not spread news of Darwyn Cooke’s death before his family could make it official? Paired with feeling like you’ve had people keeping tabs on me, you’re sketchy.
It’s been over a year I’ve felt I can’t talk to people we both know without great risk. Paired with battling isolation depression, I feel a creative paralysis from this. It’s a spiritual return to trying to out the person who assaulted me. I’m exhausted and I feel caged. I went after Ulises Farinas after hearing about multiple offenses against women, something that was an entirely different mess that I will not focus on but will support anyone who does choose to speak out in detail, I realize I acted out because of repression from my silence about you.
There’s subtle things I hope you’ve been called on about your personality that’s frankly racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. This is your mess, it deserves attention.
Remember the day after Michael Brown was murdered you tweeted this for whatever reason.
Do you realize how dehumanizing it is to add season to what’s already a huge slur against people of color? You’re promoting fear against people of color to your following.
You delete tweets a lot. For some reason you didn’t delete that one, but you did delete this, but the remains are on twitter if you search.
“Hey lesbian--that’s cool and all, I know you’re a rebel--but please for godsake take a MFing bath!!”
You have members of the LGBTQ+ community who love your work, yet you made this tweet years ago where you ridicule a lesbian. Lesbians aren’t lesbians to rebel. They are lesbians because they can’t help liking women. This tweet gives them shit for their sexuality and has nothing to do with political statements or personal hygiene. It’s fucking homophobic.
Chris Hunt parroted that you described the struggle of being cartoonist a “Trail of Tears,” and I’ll hold him to this too as per his request.
I get you’re into Native American imagery, but appropriating a significant event in the ongoing genocide of Native American cultures for a metaphor to describe a glorified desk job that doesn’t pay well is pretty fucking insensitive. The genocide of native people is not a euphemism for you to sling, especially considering you’ve shown nothing to offer visibility or justice for native lives still fighting to survive hunger, uranium poisoning, cops, and corporate development. What have you offered the Standing Rock Sioux against DAPL? By the way, my grandmother was Inuk, an who exiled herself instead of going along with the forced high arctic relocation, another Trail of Tears. Her culture never reached me. It’s nothing like paying health insurance on a cartoonist’s income. It’s a poor euphemism and I really don’t appreciate you using the history of invisible cultures to describe career problems while you romanticize their culture.
It goes well beyond how I saw through you when you used the word “bitch” to tell me about the organizer angry with you for missing a panel in Oslo, you saying a cosplayer can’t be a comic book fan but rather an exhibitionist, and so much more. Even that essay on Suicide Girls in Pulp Hope feels like you’re trying to put yourself above pornography like the moment before the fall of a conservative senator caught in a sex scandal. You’ve even retweeted that “political correctness is the death of comedy” bullshit John Cleese pushed. I’m not the few originally offended by a lot of this. I have only noted responses the past couple of years.
I want you and professionals like you to publicly accept responsibility for damaging behavior. Abuse and hate against women is too common and the only way to hold offenders accountable is to be vocal. No more sweeping it under the rug.
Paul, you make a book for children about kids who fight monsters who take kids into dark places to do things to them. You potentially have kids who are making comics for the first time because of Battling Boy. It’s devastating to have someone whose work you enjoy trying to bed you, to threaten the people who tell you to stop. It’s okay to try to fuck people because people like to fuck and get fucked, but if you ever think that the best route to sex is being aggressive rather than gradual, you have a problem with consent. You have become a monster dragging innocents into the darkness.
No matter how low you get in life, it never excuses how you affect the world. If you want someone who got sober and is in the position of wide influence that you waste, Andrew Reynolds could be a great inspiration for staying sober.
This open letter is a negative, but with what you know about the venom of your own negativity, you can take the two negatives and make a positive not for you, but for the community if you do the right thing. I was a fan who took my love for your work and organized a presence on tumblr for you. People that didn’t know who you were became fans through it. Several friends outside of comics picked up Battling Boy because they saw how much I loved your work. I’ve given kids copies of Battling Boy. I was your fan and now I’m your enemy. You now have control over a significant amount of the hate that will be directed towards me. You said that to save comics you had to destroy them, but this is what that destruction yields.
Don’t expect to be forgiven. This is about penance. Do the right thing.
