Is Harlan Ellison really this big an asshole?

[Archae]

I just read a little 2-part comic, drawn by a guy who saw a recent (as in this past weekend,) book-signing by Harlan Ellison.

The artist describes Ellison as profane, racist and anti-Semitic.

He also describes Ellison as charging money for everything, including having his picture taken.

[KamaAina]

1. That guy better have balls of cast iron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_Ellison#Lawsuit_against_Fantagraphics

On September 20, 2006, Ellison sued Fantagraphics, a comic book publisher, claiming they had defamed him in their book Comics As Art (We told you so).

The book recounts the history of Fantagraphics and discussed a lawsuit that resulted from a 1980 Ellison interview with Fantagraphics' industry news magazine, The Comics Journal. In this interview Ellison referred to comic book writer Michael Fleisher, calling him "bugfuck" and "derange-o". Fleisher lost his libel suit against Ellison and Fantagraphics on December 9, 1986.

Ellison, after reading unpublished drafts of the book on Fantagraphics's website, believed that he had been defamed by several anecdotes related to this incident. He sued in the Superior Court for the State of California, in Santa Monica. Fantagraphics attempted to have the lawsuit dismissed. In their motion to dismiss, Fantagraphics argued that the statements were both their personal opinions and generally believed to be true anecdotes.

I could give a rip if he charges for everything. That just makes him a douche. The racism and anti-Semitism, however, if true, would put him next to Orson Scott Card on my "SF writers who are also RW pigs" list. :(

[Bryan]

2. Do you have a link?

Ellison can be exceptionally profane, but he's a Jew and his credentials as a racist are little in evidence (he took part in the Selma-to-Montgomery march).

[Archae]

4. Here

He corrected a mistake in it:

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4543616/

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4543632/

[KamaAina]

10. Fatal system error!

The submission you are trying to find is not in our database.

Maybe it got yanked already?

[rug]

14. You don't want to go there.

[Archae]

15. Post corrected.

[sarge43]

16. Profane, yup, can take the bark off trees at 50 feet.

Anti-semite? A anti-semite couldn't have written such loving tributes to his Jewish parents.

Racist? I've read a lot of his work, often several times over. I've never had a hint of racism. A good writer can't cover his tracks forever. Eventually, what he really thinks and believes comes out.

Ellison never pulls any punches; he tells the truth as he perceives it. If he were a racial or ethnic bigot, he would have said so up front a long time ago.

[Frank Cannon]

18. Harlan Ellison is Jewish and a far cry from an anti-Semite OR a racist...

as anyone who's familiar with his work can attest.

That Harlan is kind of an asshole is well-known. He doesn't suffer fools gladly--or at all, for that matter.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

3. He's dying, by the way.

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/09/harlan-ellison-2/

[Archae]

5. Maybe he's just getting bitter.

My uncle, who was a total swine his whole life, racist, anti-Semitic, total asshole, got really bitter the last couple months of his life.

The motherfucker even died on Christmas Eve, we ended up going to his funeral on Christmas Day, in a snowstorm and fucking cold out.

[Aristus]

6. Ellison can be abrasive, but usually just to people who deserve it.

Here's a pic of me with Harlan Ellison, taken at a Fantasy Literature Convention in Bellevue, Washington in 2005:



He didn't charge me for the picture, or for the signatures he placed in three of his books that I own. He signed piles and piles of books for individual fans, and never charged a penny. He took a great deal of care with his signatures, too. He signed with an old-fashioned fountain pen, and painstakingly blotted every signature, so it wouldn't smear his fans' books.

What this guy you mentioned probably saw was the stacks of books that Ellison brings with him to speaking engagements. He sells them at a very reasonable price to his fans, and signs them at no extra charge. If you hear stories about Ellison being greedy and grasping, they are probably mis-remembered stories about his efforts to secure better pay and recognition for professional writers in Hollywood. He is adamant that writers be recognized and compensated as working professionals, and that their output be respected as proprietary material.

He is a spell-binding speaker, telling wonderful stories from his many decades as a writer, film critic, restaurant critic, and public speaker.

He is VERY profane, but neither racist nor anti-Semitic (he was raised by Jewish parents, but is himself an atheist).

He doesn't suffer fools gladly, which is to say, he doesn't suffer them at all. He has no patience for anti-intellectualism, banality, or anything that wastes his time.

I had the honor and pleasure of having dinner with him and a few of his other fans. It's been said that a true measure of a person's character is how he treats the staff at a restaurant. To our waiter, he was kind, friendly, and absolutely charming.

A lot of things have been said about Harlan Ellison as a person, and some of them are true. But having encountered him in person, I have to express my admiration for him, and counter a lot of the negative stories about him, no doubt circulated by vastly inferior people. Plus, he is a tireless advocate for liberal and progressive causes. That makes him a hero in my book...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Is he sitting on your lap?

[Aristus]

13. No, I'm crouching beside his chair.

B-)

[proteus_lives]

7. Dude is a legendary prick.

Well-known in the sci-fi circles.

[TrogL]

8. To this day I STILL do not understand the ending of "Repent, Harlequin"

Could somebody please explain?

It ends with a couple of nonsense words that probably make sense in context but IDGI. :shrug:

[Aristus]

9. "mrmee, mrmee, mrmee..." were things that Harlequin muttered under his breath

when he was plotting another strike against the Master Timekeeper. The Master Timekeeper ended up saying the same nonsense words when he found out he was behind schedule.

The meaning of the ending is pretty clear to me: even thought they "neutralized" Harlequin, he succeeded in throwing the world off of its rigid schedule, as regulated by the Master Timekeeper. It was just a dent, but also indicative of the world possibly getting rid of time regulation in the future.

[Bucky]

12. He's got a big ego, but certainly earned it. I bought a book of his original Star Trek script

His submitted draft of the classic "City on the Edge of Forever" was very different (and entirely too long for the 52 minute format required by TV at the time). He tells stories about how Roddenberry and The Suits all ruined his script. Even when the story is told only from his point of view, he comes across as a real pain in the ass to work with.

It would have made a great movie, but the story was simply lacking in the simple, thematic unity that aired version had. There are huge distractions in his script involving a drug-dealing crew member and some other Rube-Goldbergian machinations involved in getting Kirk into the 1930s long enough to bone the Keeler woman. The producers' reworking of the script is a huge improvement, but Ellison's notes are still fascinating.

I'm sorry to read upthread that the man is dying. He's leaving one hell of legacy behind him, though.

[Forkboy]

17. Soemone should take him and Alan Moore, load them up on PCP....

...and lock them in a room together with nothing but hammers.