From: [n--n--s] at [ea.com] (nina)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative
Subject: FORBIDDEN TO DRAW!
Date: 20 Jun 1994 17:37:21 GMT
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This is an article I found in this month's "Art in America." 

It is quite disturbing to see an artist forbidden to draw.....not only is 
this censorship, it is worse than any "Big Brother" intrusion into personal

freedom I have ever seen. It also reminds me of all the controversy over 
certain lyrics to songs, banned 
books, Jesse Helms and the NEA....next they will be forbidding you to
think, 
and to speak. (hey, isn't there something in the Constitution about this?).

[n--n--s] at [ea.com]
__________________________________________________

FANZINE CARTOONIST FORBIDDEN TO DRAW

A 24-year-old Florida underground cartoonist, Michael Diana of Largo, Fla.,
was convicted of three counts of obscenity in March for publishing, 
distributing and advertising "Boiled Angel," an underground comic anthology
of cartoons attacking the Catholic Church, illustrating the exploits of serial
killers and depicting child abuse, rape and dismemberment. Diana was fined 
$3000 and sentenced to three years' probation.

The conditions of his probation are unusual. Besides being required to 
undergo a psychological evaluation and perform eight hours of community 
service each week for three years, Diana must enroll in a college-level 
journalism ethics course and work full-time. Additionally, Diana is forbidden 
to draw, have any contact with children under the age of 18, and is subject
to unannounced searches to ensure that he is not "creating obscene materials."

Diana is the first fanzine cartoonist or publisher convicted of obscenity in 
the United States, according to illustrator Peter Kuper, who testified on 
behalf of Diana at his trial. "The prosecutor was successful in portraying 
Michael Diana as a serial killer in the making," said Kuper, who teaches a 
course on alternative comics at Manhattan's School of Visual Arts and who
has included Diana's cartoons in "World War 3 Illustrated," a fanzine he co-
publishes.

Diana's troubles began when Florida police found copies of "Boiled Angel"  
while investigating a possible suspect in the lurid murders of five college
students in Gainesville. Diana, a clerk at his father's convenience sore, was 
questioned and cleared in the case. Florida police contacted the Pinellas 
County Sheriff's Office about "Boiled Angel," however, and an undercover 
detective, using a false identity, bought editions seven and eight of "Boiled 
Angel" in 1991 and '92, respectively. Last year, Diana was charged with
three misdemeanor counts of obscenity.

During his five hours on the witness stand, Diana told the jury that his 
cartoons were "like a mirror to our society....I make it as ugly as possible. 
I want to make it really terrifying because these things really terrify me." 
His lawyer, Luke Lirot, argued that Diana's drawings are not obscene and that 
"not all art is meant to soothe or entertain. Sometimes art has to be ugly." 
State attorney Stuart Baggish linked "Boiled Angel" to serial killing, saying, 
"This is how Danny Rolling [the confessed Gainesville murderer] got started. 
Step one, you start with drawings. Step two, you go on to the pictures. Step
three is the movies. And step four, you're into reality. You're creating 
these scenes in reality."

I took the six-person jury only 90 minutes to find Diana's drawings obscene. 
Pinellas County judge Walter Fullerton ordered Diana held without bail for 
the sentencing hearing. After his weekend incarceration, Diana told Fullerton 
at the hearing that his brief imprisonment had "made me think about what I've 
done and what I've drawn and what I'll do in the future... I'm not going to 
draw anything that could be considered obscene."

Lirot plans to appeal Diana's conviction, but in the meantime the case has 
sent shock waves throughout the alternative -comics world. "Sure, I'm 
worried," says fanzine publisher Michael Hunt of Bensenville, Ill., who 
distributes "Boiled Angel".  "Everyone should be." Hunt told "Art in America" 
that he will publish a special-edition fanzine later this year to raise 
funds for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund of Northampton, Mass., which is
assisting in Diana's appeal. The tentative title is "Fuck Florida."

by Jack Rosenberger, "Art in America", June 1994