The Albany, NY Times-Union has a columnist named Fred LeBrun who I generally ignore, because local politics is pretty dull.
LeBrun passed on some misconceptions about EC Comics in his column from Tuesday, March 13, 2001. Here's the column:
"Henry, go rosin up your bow" by Fred LeBrun
Much of my misspent youth back in the Dark Ages was taken up devouring prohibited reading material, notably EC Comics.
EC Comics featured the delightfully gruesome, like "Tales of the Crypt,'' that typically offered way-out story lines and the most lurid, graphic depictions imaginable of dismemberments and really kinky horrors.
If I remember right, the U.S. Supreme Court finally banned them, although on what pretext I can't recall. Then again, those were uptight times compared with our own and it wouldn't have taken much.
For some reason, EC Comics come to mind when I think of Rensselaer County Executive Henry Zwack.
One of the frequent EC tales told in various ways over the few years of their existence was about a character being in hell without realizing it, although we readers would because we recognized the same critical event repeated over and over. Another theme was the depiction of an alternative hell, a sort of twisted, divine justice at work. An example was of a brilliant but crazed young violinist who came to loathe the instrument he was so adept at playing. He committed some horrible act.
The next panel had him transported to some alien culture, where he was about to be turned into sushi. Except for some reason he still had his violin in hand, and in an act of final desperation started to play. The aliens, mesmerized, backed off a bit. As long as he kept playing, he stayed alive.
But put that fiddle down for a second and he was a California roll.
It seems what's happening to Henry and Rensselaer County politics has been amply explored in comic book form years ago, which is about where it belongs.
Amazingly, Henry is pretending it's all routine at the Ned Pattison Government Center up on the hill in Troy. He says he's just going about the business of running the county same as always, oblivious to the niggling nabobs of negativism that keep nipping at his heels.
Never mind the growing mountain of indictments piling up on Henry's head from special prosecutor Michael Katzer's grand jury, or the myriad other legal difficulties he faces, including a hefty federal civil suit from former employees Vic Cipolla and Sue Martin.
Henry Zwack says, regardless, his public life is normal.
The real wonder is that others around him, supposedly responsible county officials, are letting Henry get away with his version of normal. As one disgusted Rensselaer County reader pointed out to me recently, if Henry was a cop facing these criminal charges he'd be asked to take paid or unpaid leave until the issues were resolved.
On Monday, the special grand jury met and former first deputy assistant district attorney Nancy Lynn Ferrini testified for more than two hours behind closed doors. Ferrini was Rensselaer County District Attorney Ken Bruno's supervising assistant during those crucial times when a county grand jury was trying to get at the bottom of county employee Dirk Van Ort's no-show career. And specifically who let him get away with it, and whether that grand jury was steered away from pointing the finger at Henry.
Naturally, Ferrini's appearance fueled conjecture in the media that the grand jury is now about to take a bite out of Bruno. This is wildly dangerous speculation.
Maybe Ken Bruno's in trouble, and maybe not. It's premature to guess where the Ferrini testimony took the grand jury. We're likely to get a clearer picture after Monday's grand jury session, when another assistant district attorney, David Rynkowski, is expected to testify, and after which indictments may flutter up.
For now, it's best to stick with what we know, which is that one individual has been the main focus of this grand jury from day one.
I wonder if Henry plays the violin?
I kept my response short, because newspaper editors assume their readers cannot handle long pieces by the loose-cannons known as their readership:
Editor,
Just a note to let you know that the Supreme Court did NOT "ban" EC Comics in the 1950s, as mentioned in Fred LeBrun's Tuesday column.
EC was the subject of congressional hearings that led to the voluntary creation by the comic book industry of the Comics Code Authority, which effectively put EC out of business by prohibiting the themes and titles of the EC horror comics.
EC continues on in a sense, as MAD Magazine remains in print, and decades later the EC horror and science-fiction titles are ranked among some of the best ever in those genres, and the EC war titles are generally seen as visionary in their humanist themes.
The hearings and hysteria over the content of the EC titles remains one of the most shameful incidents of censorship in American history, and a constant reminder that those committed to free speech must be ever vigilant against attempts to restrain freedom of thought because of the assumption that parents are incapable of parenting their children.
Alan David Doane
After sending my e-mail, I heard back from LeBrun:
Mr. Doane:
I was delighted to see your e-mail in response to my column. Frankly, I didn't know where to clear the fog in my head over the EC flap, and clearly I remembered poorly. I should have thought to call you folks. My error.
Although the effect was ultimately the same as court action in terms of killing off the imaginative and creative work in EC. Your point is well made that the First Amendment is never to be taken for granted or lightly and can always use any foot soldier who will rise to the banner.
Thanks again, Fred LeBrun
While it's nice to see EC referenced in so public a forum, I couldn't let that bizarre error go by. I guess I can see how one could mistake congressional hearings for a Supreme Court ban (especially at the age LeBrun no doubt was when it happened), but you'd like to think that there would be a public outcry if the Supreme Court outlawed any venue for expression.
Then again, they stifled a pretty significant venue for expression in Florida last year, and hardly a peep has been heard since.
Go figure.