Sexual Harassment at DC Comics

DC recently let go the long-time editor of its Vertigo line, which has seen a catastrophic sales slump. This brought back to the limelight an old issue with another editor, Eddie Berganza, who’s stayed at DC despite multiple sexual harassment allegations (not that there’s a connection between the two). Heidi McDonald says DC sources have confirmed the rumor that when Berganza was Superman editor, no women could work in the Superman office — and points out the unlikelihood of anyone tolerating a “no men in the office” rule. McDonald has also written more broadly about sexual harassment in comics, including stories about longtime DC editor Julius Schwartz (which is disappointing to me, as I love his comics work over the years, but I don’t doubt that it’s true).

There is nothing terribly surprising in this. Organizations in these cases have an ugly tendency to protect their own — and “their own” is invariably the person with authority or seniority, not the low-ranked employee. This is not particularly a comics thing: all organizations protect their own, from the Catholic Church to the military. But that’s no excuse.