The Four Color Media Monitor

It looks like the now fired DC editor's troubles are far from over. Buzzfeed's reporting that at least five more women have come forward with additional accusations against Berganza, including a former film critic for the New York Daily News:

...five more women have told BuzzFeed News about their own experiences with Berganza. One says he forcibly kissed her, something he’d previously been accused of doing to a different woman in the 2010 complaint, and to the other one in 2012. Others now coming forward allege inappropriate touching, and one says Berganza told her she was "too pretty" to be interesting. If DC Comics had acted earlier to rein Berganza in, the women say, they might have been spared harassment and felt more comfortable pursuing careers at major comic publishers.

They include Molly McIsaac, who told BuzzFeed News that, in 2011, Berganza insinuated that if she slept with him he could get her a job. “It made me so uncomfortable that it was implied that I had to sleep with someone to get a job, that I would legit never write for DC unless I had sex with Eddie,” McIsaac said. “It was very obvious.”

The first time McIsaac says she can recall Berganza overstepping boundaries was when he started rubbing her feet in his lap in the lobby of a hotel at the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2011.

McIsaac was 22 at the time and had been working for a couple of years at comic conventions, taking photographs and reporting on them for industry websites. While chatting with Berganza in the hotel lobby, she said, she commented that her feet hurt from being on them all day. Berganza, then the executive editor of DC Comics, insisted over McIsaac's protests that he massage them and took off her shoes and put her feet in his lap, she said. As he rubbed them, she said, he peppered her with comments complimenting her legs and buttocks. Later that evening, as convention-goers got drinks at the hotel bar, McIsaac said that Berganza kept touching her hip and butt and saying he could get her a job at DC.

“And I got so excited,” McIsaac told BuzzFeed News. Then, she said, Berganza invited her to his hotel room to discuss it further over whiskey. She declined, but wrote Berganza afterward about possibly writing for DC, in an email reviewed by BuzzFeed News. Berganza responded two months later and said he could not bring on any new talent at the moment, but hoped to “remedy that.” A year later, McIsaac said, she saw Berganza again at the same hotel, and he came up and rubbed his groin against her butt.

By then, people had complained about Berganza's behavior for years, including to DC Comics managers. A complaint in 2010 to DC Comics’ human resources department included allegations of forcible kissing and attempted groping. But Berganza continued to thrive at DC, and at the time of his firing, he was overseeing Dark Nights: Metal, one of DC's best-selling comics.

None of the five women who’ve talked to BuzzFeed News since Berganza’s firing took part in the 2010 complaint or ever told DC about their experiences. All said they feared repercussions if they complained about Berganza, a powerful and lauded man in the comics world.

See, this is exactly the problem with people who want to get into the world of entertainment. They put career aspirations way too high, and end up costing their pride, safety and dignity as a result. Besides, if they realize the top brass in any company can be real scum, why should they want to work for them?

On top of all that, I'd sure like to know if they ever turned to Dan DiDio and Bob Harras directly, and if they refused to take action against Berganza, shouldn't they have expressed outrage and told them they didn't want to work with them either? It's bad enough Berganza was a pervert. But the acceptance by DiDio and Harras was no less reprehensible, and if they had no problem associating themselves with Berganza, they don't belong in the publisher either.

For now, it'll be interesting to see if Berganza's harassment and abuse results in a lawsuit, to which the aforementioned senior editors could be subpoenaed to testify. By all means, his victims should seek legal action against him for what he did, and that'll possibly lead to more deserved embarrassment for his former employers.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, misogyny and racism, violence