From Comics Buyer's Guide #1052 January 14, 1994
by Peter David 
Since we have rolled into the New Year,
I've made the resolution to try and do something nice with this
column. After all, I wouldn't want people to come to the
conclusion that But I Digress is an entity that
exists only to destroy. Unlike some entities I could name - and
which I now will. Something that was a popular practice back in
second or third grade was that of forming clubs as a means of
hurting people. Either a bunch of kids would get together and
form a group for the specific purpose of keeping a person, or a
group of people, out. Or sometimes - it if was a particularly
malicious little undertaking - a club was assembled specifically
to get at someone. This behavior generally ended somewhere around
fourth grade, although the intense socialization would live on in
the form of cliques and such. But the "clubby" aspect
usually faded as maturity set in. Sometimes, though, there are
some folks of repressed development and maturation who make it to
adulthood with that same mindset - and that's when you wind up
getting something like this:
Somewhat to my astonishment, I received over my fax machine the
other day a one-page flier. It carried with it the warning,
"Please duplicate and distribute this sheet (provided no
text is omitted)." Ooo. I'm scared. I'm going to omit
text. EoE disingenuously bills itself as "Not an
organization for those who wish to malign, harass, or assault
Harlan Ellison. Just the opposite! EoE is for those who have been
named as enemies by Mr. Ellison and have been maligned,
harassed, or assaulted, purely because (in most cases) they
spoke the truth or expressed skepticism re [sic] his reputation,
craft, or self-promotional hype... "If you've received death
threats on your answering machine...if you've been referred to as
a `wetbrain' on nationally networked TV...if Mr. Ellison has
threatened to `pop you one' next time he sees you...if he's
promised to `sue you into oblivion'...then EoE is for you!
"To be eligible for full membership in EoE, you must be able
to prove that you have been badmouthed, punched, sued, harassed,
threatened, or lied to by Mr. Ellison... "Every full
member...receives a free bimonthly newsletter describing recent
gratuitous threats and nasty behavior by Mr. Ellison...
"Every full member will be eligible to contribute anecdotes
about Mr. Ellison to the forthcoming book, Harlan Ellison
as We Knew Him, a memorial tribute in preparation. Full
members will be offered copies at a 25% discount. "Enemies
of Ellison provides a warm sense of camaraderie. But more than
that, it will crusade for truth and justice..." There's
more, I assure you - much more that I have not reproduced here.
It is truly an amazing piece of work; amazing in its presumption,
amazing in its arrogance, and, most important, amazing in its
cowardice. Harlan Ellison has spend much of his life putting
people's noses out of join. That is beyond dispute. Isaac Asimov,
who loved Harlan dearly (and about whom Ellison cannot speak at
length without becoming choked up, so evil an individual is he)
summed it up most succinctly when he said, "He has no sense
of tact whatever." With Harlan Ellison, you always know
precisely where you stand. He does not prevaricate. He does not
dissemble. And he does not hide. And he's not a coward. That is
the first, and most remarkable, thing one notices about the EoE:
the stench of cowardice. They want your money ($14 for a full
membership). And they want your anecdotes for a book that is
apparently being designed as a "memorial tribute."
There's only one possible interpretation of that sentence:
They're waiting until Harlan Ellison is dead and then
they're going to attack him, just as one notorious comics
magazine did with Carol Kalish. They are so damned afraid of
Ellison that they don't dare take him on while he's alive. Not
even strength in numbers is sufficient. It's an amazing offer. In
essence, gullible fools have the opportunity to pay to
contribute to a book from which they will not share in any
proceeds. Then, adding insult to injury (something in which they
evidently excel), the EoE will sell copies back to the
contributors, keeping a mere 75% of the gross for itself;
attacking the deceased while profiteering at the same time. With
enemies like these... And even better: While he's alive, they're
hiding behind a post office box with no person's name attached (I
mean, you know I'm "To Be Continued Inc." But
who are these guys?) The man they condemn, the man they assail,
the man they variously describe as "tyrannical" and
"mad-dog" is someone who has gone out there, time after
time, fighting for the things he believes in. They may not be
what you necessarily believe in. But he's out there. And
when he's upset or angry about to something, he lets you know it,
and you know he's let you know it, because he's put it in
a column or he's left a message or he's spoken to you directly or
he's aired it on the Sci-Fi Channel. The man they hold in such
contempt does not engage in one of the single most contemptible
actions that someone can take: anonymous attacks. Harlan Ellison
has too much class for that. The "Enemies of Ellison",
on the other hand, do not - which tells you something right off
about the "Enemies of Ellison." A mean, hell, when a
Todd McFarlane or Jim Valentino takes shots at me, they've got
the guts to put their names in print when they do it. By the same
token, when I rake people over the coals in this column, they
know who's done the raking. But the EoE reveals itself in its
very first offering as craven and gutless. Have its unidentified
organizers earned the enmity of Harlan Ellison in the past? I
would not be at all surprised, for these are the exact sort of
cretinous little weasels with recreant mindsets that Ellison has
so despised - loudly and repeatedly - through the years. I also
adore the notion that, in return for your $14, you'll get "a
free bimonthly newsletter". Now, granted, you also get a
badge membership card, and certificate. The total cost of such chachkas
should be somewhere in the neighborhood of under two bucks per
set. That leaves $12 over for the "free" newsletter -
and since it's an annual membership, that means next year you get
to cough up another $14 for another six issues of the
"free" newsletters sans chachkas.
If the anonymous organizers of EoE have exercised this sort of
sterling business tactic in other dealings, that also might have
gotten them on the short end of Harlan's critical stick. For
Harlan Ellison does not suffer fools gladly. In a world where we
should be endeavoring to raise people's intellectual striving
rather than sending them tumbling into the mud, Ellison's
attitude should be lauded rather than attacked. Let me be
perfectly up front here (something that might be alien to the
EoE, if I haven't already lost them). Harlan Ellison is a friend
of mine. The first time we made contact was a number of years
ago. In the pages of CBG, for the Holiday Supplement (it
was before my column), I listed The Essential Ellison
as a good potential Christmas gift in that yearly "Top
Five" thing CBG always does. Much to my astonishment,
he sought out my phone number and called me to thank me profusely
for doing so. He didn't have to do that, nor was I expecting him
to. And, I must admit - as so many have in the past - I'd heard
all sorts of "horror stories" about Harlan Ellison. So
it was with great wonderment that, over the past several years,
I've made the increased acquaintance and friendship of one of the
most exciting and challenging gentlemen it has ever been my
pleasure to know. My wife, Myra, adores both Harlan and his wife,
Susan. My eldest daughter, Shana, has a standing invitation to
visit the Ellisons for a week. And God help me if I'm ever in the
Los Angeles area and I don't let him know, because somehow he
will find out - and he will find out, make no mistake -
and he'll call me at the hotel and demand to know when I'm coming
over to visit. He has been a source of advice and inspiration to
me since that first contact. Moreover, he took the time to write
the introduction to the But I Digress trade
paperback (on sale in February, kids!). This column owes its
existence, as I've said in the past, to my endeavor to try and
emulate him. So I'm not exactly unbiased here. When I first
started the column and asked readers to suggest topics, several
people wrote in (all unknowing of my friendship with Harlan) and
said that I should write a column attacking Ellison. I wonder how
many of these people actually had met Harlan. Had dinner with
him. Chatted with him. Spent any time with him at all. Or did
they simply believe - as, admittedly, I once had - the rumor and
innuendo spread by the types of people who would organize an EoE?
Is Harlan Ellison a saint? God, no. Not by any means. But neither
is he the single-minded "bombast[ic]" or
"blowhard" individual that the EoE would portray. So -
how to deal with the lily-livered pismires of the EoE? Here's
how. I am announcing, right here, right now, the organization of
my own group: the Friends of Ellison (or FOE). (I'd originally
thought of calling it "Friends of Harlan Plus Also
Susan", which would have made it "FOH PAS", but I
decided that was a long way to go for a joke that only a handful
of people would likely get.) The FOE will exist for the purpose
of disseminating stories about kindnesses that Harlan Ellison has
displayed. To join FOE, simply send in instances of times when
Ellison has made you laugh or made you think. Where he signed
autographs for many hours or answered questions patiently and
thoughtfully. Worked on behalf of a charity to help someone in
need. The FOE would like to hear from fans, professionals,
convention organizers, casual readers - everybody. I will produce
FOE buttons and send them to everyone who sends in anecdotes
along the lines of the above. (Kind of the flip side of the
"Stickler for Credit" buttons, I suppose. See? I
destroy, and I also create.) address them to "FOE, c/o To Be
Continued, P.O. Box 239, Bayport, N.Y. 11705." Every so
often, I'll produce a column that lists the accounts of good
deeds that Harlan has performed and will also send copies of the
column to everyone who has joined FOE - a free newsletter, if you
will. How much to join? Nothing more than the 29 cents it will
cost you to mail an envelope. Yes, that's right: It's free. Free
as in "not costing anything," rather than free as in
"send us 14 bucks." Free as "I'm absorbing the
cost of this myself, because I tend to put my own name and my own
money behind those things I believe in." Something that the
Enemies of Ellison cannot claim. Then again, the best things in
life are free.