The Four Color Media Monitor

I'd written some time ago about an Australian comics artist who'd been convicted and sentenced to life for sexual violence and murder of several women. Now, it turns out there was sadly an almost similar incident in California back around 2016 involving another comics writer, whose name was Blake Liebel, the millionaire son of a Canadian businessman, who was imprisoned in the past decade for the violent murder of a Ukranian woman he'd had an affair with, as was reported by the UK Mail at the time, and the worst part is that he'd developed a GN that bore clues as to where he was going:

A Canadian millionaire charged with torturing and killing his new lover was working on a violent comic that may have foreshadowed the alleged murder, it has emerged.

Blake Leibel, 35, was arrested and accused of murdering his 30-year-old Ukrainian girlfriend Iana Kasian on Thursday after her mangled body was found in his Hollywood apartment.

The property heir had been invited his girlfriend to his home to talk about his recent arrest for alleged sexual assault the day before her mangled body was discovered by police.

Friends said Leibel - who was also inside the home - had left his heavily pregnant wife and become increasingly paranoid in the months leading up to the killing.

He had published a graphic novel that contained cartoons of decapitated and bloodied women and a hand dripping with blood, alongside the caption: 'In the end we ALL become monsters.'

[...] Leebel, the son of wealthy Toronto developer Lorne Leibel, spent his days coming up with ideas for bizarre novels, comics and movies - which were largely panned when they were finally produced.

[...] He would walk into comic book stores and try to give out his chillingly violent books for free, one friend told the Post.

Leibel also seemed to have an 'obsession' with brutality and had written a novel called Syndrome, which is about a serial killer trying to find a cure for men who 'do terrible things'.

'If you loved hurting things, what would you do?' the book's foreword says.

He was working on another novel, Psychopomp, with illustrator Trevor Goring when he met Miss Kasian, and ended up moving in with her.

She later fell pregnant, but moved out after the sexual assault allegation was made.

Days later, Leibel apologized to Miss Kasian and asked her to come over and hear her out.

That evening, her mother, Olga - who was visiting from Kiev - became worried and went round to the apartment, but there was no answer.

She called the LAPD but officers would not knock down the door because she been missing for less than 24 hours.

Police returned the next day and forced their way in, finding a gruesome scene.

Behind a barricade of furniture, Miss Kasian was found lifeless in the bedroom and had clearly been tortured before her death, police said.

[...] A couple killed in Liebel's Syndrome novel were also drained of blood after being strung up by their feet.

A cartoon in that story shows a woman's decapitated body on a blood-stained bed.

Well this was definitely a monster who gave the comics medium a very bad name. The repulsive incident is also worse than what happened to cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who's also of Ukranian descent, after actor Alec Baldwin accidentally shot her to death a few years ago. The LA Times later reported that the murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment:

Olga Kasian’s hands trembled as she addressed the court.

In the two years since her daughter Iana’s murder, she told the judge, her life has turned into a hell of endless suffering. Her mind races with thoughts of Iana’s dying hours and the slow torture she endured. She often asks God a simple question: “Why?”

And she lives with an agonizing reality: The man who murdered Iana is the father of her beloved granddaughter.

“The life of this little angel began with the fact that her father massacred her mother,” Kasian said through a Russian interpreter, as she glared toward the defense table at Blake Leibel.

Her impassioned statement in court Tuesday, which ended with a plea that everyone go home and hug their children, came before Superior Court Judge Mark E. Windham sentenced Leibel to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Leibel was convicted last week of the 2016 torture murder of Iana Kasian, 30, who had given birth to their daughter only weeks before her death. Prosecutors said Leibel, a 37-year-old graphic novelist who once had a fledgling Hollywood career, patterned the murder from the gory details of a book he worked on years earlier.

One of the worst things about this horror is how the daughter now has a father who's a monster, one who took the life of her mother in the worst ways possible. The LA Times later reported that a judge ordered the monster to pay compensation to the lady's family:

A Los Angeles judge has ordered a graphic novelist from a wealthy Canadian family to pay $41.6 million to the family of his slain fiancee, whom he brutally tortured and killed in 2016 just weeks after their daughter was born.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Bobbi Tillmon delivered the verdict after a bench trial in the wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Iana Kasian’s family against Blake Leibel, who carried out the gruesome slaying using a book he worked on years earlier as a blueprint.

“This murder didn’t just kill one person, it really did kill the family, it shattered the family. And the family has had a hard time crawling back from this,” said Jake Finkel, an attorney representing Kasian’s family.

Correct. This incident also should make clear why the massive obsession of recent in Hollywood with all that's dark is leading to some very chilling influences, and another of the worst results is how the comedy genre, along with optimism and warm sentiments, are in danger of being thrown out with bath water for darkness' sake. This news makes clear that in north America, if anywhere, there has most tragically been a heinous monster who tarnished the comics medium very badly with his repulsive acts. And it's chilling to wonder, will there be more horrifying incidents like this in the future? If we want to prevent more violent incidents like these committed by comics artists from coming about in real life, that's why a demand must be made in the medium itself for contributors to do everything possible to clean up morale properly. Only that way will there ever be a chance of improving things for the better, and ensure women and children will be safe.

Labels: history, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, violence