I guess I shouldn’t be surprised — Forrest Ackerman was a notorious weirdo, an obsessive collector, and a major character in science-fiction fandom, so he was kind of a real world Comic Book Guy.
And now it is revealed that he was one of those men.
I guess this is the time to remind the boys here of #MeToo. I and other young women like me were subjected to a different kind of “Forry worship.” How differently would any of you have felt, when all you wanted was to talk about monsters with the “over eager editor” of your favorite monster magazine, if your Uncle Forry had forced wet kisses on you? If he had put his hands all over you, pinching your “naughty bottom” and squeezing your “boobies”? If he had enthusiastically related with a big grin how he wanted to strip off your clothes with everybody watching? And if, in the face of your total refusal of any of his attentions every single time you saw him in person, he never didn’t try again, and again, and again? And if for years, in between those times, he mailed you letters with pornographic photos, and original stories about how naughty you were, and how he wanted to hurt and abuse you, yet all the while make you weep and beg for more? And if he continued that behavior, despite written and verbal demands to cease, entirely unabashed for more than two decades? No, I can’t forget him either — or how he turned my childhood love of monsters into something adult and truly monstrous.
But he was also a promoter and collaborator with famous SF authors, like Marion Zimmer Bradley…oh, crap. Never mind. Someone please put the cover back on the open sewer.
No more cover, no more hiding. This has been festering in the dark for too long. Bring it all out into the open, until everyone is finally forced to admit how vast and foul it all really is.
Nope,no covers. We take off and nuke the sewer from orbit. It’s the only way to make sure it stops happening.
Burn it all clean.
https://openjurist.org/293/f2d/449/ackerman-v-united-states makes interesting reading.
I’m with the others. We can’t move forward until we confront our past. Fandom has some great contributors but that doesn’t make them great people.
Speaking of Zimmer-Bradley, that reminds me: Mercedes Lackey did a lot of work with her and is generally called her protege, but has she ever made any statements about the sexual assault revelations?
Let’s not forget that Forry Ackerman was, to be blunt, a con artist who stole from authors; who claimed to represent authors without being designated to do so; and whose business acumen was… less than Trumpian (and that’s better than his recordkeeping). He was personally responsible for significant harm to authors; but in H’wood, no one can hear you scream.