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  1. #1
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    Default Eddie Berganza's history of sexual harassment detailed

    The article is up.

    At DC Comics, An Editor Rose Through The Ranks Even After Being Accused Of Sexual Harassment

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/dc-com...P7w#.rlBeJxXAP

    Liz Gehrlein Marsham had been working at DC Comics for less than three weeks when she said a veteran editor named Eddie Berganza cornered her, stuck his tongue in her mouth, and attempted to grope her.
    “By the time I left,” Marsham said, “I was really demoralized. I was physically ill from being stressed all the time and trying to hide it. I just felt like I needed to get out, however I could.”
    Now, for the first time, three women who say Berganza targeted them in the past have come forward to BuzzFeed News. Five people, including two of those women, confirmed that they spoke to higher-ups at DC about Berganza’s behavior.
    We all left, and he’s still there,” said Janelle Asselin, a former DC editor who spearheaded the multi-employee HR complaint against Berganza in 2010. “That, to me, tells me what DC Comics’ priority is.
    But Berganza’s editorial skills aren’t all he’s known for in the comics industry. At best, he developed a reputation for making offensive jokes or line-crossing comments in the presence of or at the expense of women; one former staffer recalls hearing Berganza tell a female assistant that a writer needed to make a character in a book they were editing "less dykey." Asselin recalled Berganza once telling her that the reason he didn't hit on her was because he had too much respect for her spouse. But at worst, he’s alleged to have forcibly kissed and attempted to grope female coworkers. One woman said when she started at DC, she was warned about Berganza — advised to keep an eye on him, she said, and to not get drinks with him. "People were constantly warning other people away from him," said Asselin, a vocal critic of gender dynamics in the comics industry.
    Berganza's reputation spread throughout the comics industry, so much so that Sophie Campbell, an established writer and artist, turned down an opportunity to work on a Supergirl comic two years ago because Berganza was the editor overseeing the project, even though she wouldn't have had to speak directly to him during the job. It would've been a cool gig, Campbell told BuzzFeed News, but it also "felt scuzzy and scary."
    A former DC employee said Berganza’s reputation was "something that I didn't like, but I stomached it. Everybody did. It was a gross open secret."
    Marsham had a beer or two and was sitting at the bar when she found herself chatting with Berganza. He had a camera, and when he leaned in for a selfie with Marsham, she says he kissed her on the lips. Marsham was taken aback. When she told Berganza she wasn’t expecting that, he suggested they take another photo, leaned in, and stuck his tongue in her mouth as she chewed on a french fry, Marsham said.

    She didn’t know how to react. She recalled blurting out, "There's a fry in my mouth!" When Berganza proposed they kiss again, Marsham said she told him no while laughing awkwardly, still shaken and confused. Berganza walked away. Later in the night, he approached and tried to grope her, she said, one hand reaching for her hip and the other aiming for her side under her breasts. She said she dodged him, and Berganza laughed it off.
    Joan Hilty's story uncannily foreshadows Marsham's. In the early 2000s, Hilty said, at a staff get-together at McGee’s, Berganza grabbed her and repeatedly tried to pull her in for a kiss. “I said no — he kept insisting,” said Hilty, at the time a cartoonist and editor at DC in her thirties. She said she eventually snapped, "If you don't take that arm off me, I'm gonna break it."
    Berganza’s continued success isn't an anomaly. Women in comics point to a long history of their industry rewarding accused predators while victims are quietly pushed to the margins or blacklisted. By the time Berganza started at DC, editor emeritus and DC Comics "goodwill ambassador" Julius Schwartz had spent decades allegedly groping promising female artists and greeting female colleagues with what former DC employee Heidi MacDonald described as "a big wet kiss on the mouth no matter how much I squirmed away."
    "I worried every time we had a new young intern come into the office that was female," Asselin said. "I just became very concerned with what he was going to do next. The more stories I started to hear from other people the more I started to feel this was a compulsion, that he couldn’t stop if he had tried and he wasn’t trying to stop. That scared the **** out of me."
    After that conversation, Marsham stopped editing books. She focused instead on scheduling and administrative tasks, effectively removing herself from the creative process. At one point, Marsham met again with Harras, along with the HR director at the time, Debbie Stegman, to discuss editorial assistants. "At that meeting, I said out loud that I could never recommend a woman [assistant] being placed with Eddie," Marsham told BuzzFeed News. Harras and Stegman did not respond to requests for comment.
    One former DC employee who spoke to HR about Berganza later said he did so because he thought some professional intervention might stop the editor from misbehaving in the future.

    "This never should have happened, but one one would hope after something like this, it wouldn’t happen again," the ex-employee said.

    Two years later, it did.
    In March 2012, during WonderCon, an annual comics convention in Anaheim, California, Berganza allegedly forcibly kissed another woman at the bar in a Hilton hotel lobby. The woman, then 27, who spoke to BuzzFeed News but asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was trying to network, hoping to break into the industry by going to her first comics convention. She was there with her boyfriend at the time, a writer who works with DC and who declined to comment.

    After Berganza stuck his tongue down her throat, the woman told BuzzFeed News, some people pulled him off of her. She quickly ran up to her hotel room, frightened by what had just happened. She didn't know what she could do about it. She wasn't a DC employee, and more than that, she said, "At the time I was so terrified that this would affect myself or my partner’s prospects in comics, worried it would jeopardize either of our careers." Ultimately, the woman did not report the incident to DC Comics.
    Not only does Berganza need to go, but so do his enablers. Warner Bros better clean house.



    On Eddie Berganza and the Misperceptions of Wrongful Dismissal

    Since it has now become public knowledge that Buzzfeed will be reporting on the Eddie Berganza situation at DC Comics, and thus might very well cause DC to finally take firm action on Berganza or at least inspire more people to demand action, it feels necessary to discuss one of the most frequently asked questions about Berganza: why couldn’t DC just fire him? It’s actually a pretty easy question to answer: there is no reason why they couldn’t. But over the past five years that Berganza’s behavior has been whispered about in the comics industry, people have nonetheless been convinced that something prohibited DC from firing Eddie Berganza, namely the concept of “wrongful dismissal,” or the idea that it would be legally wrong for DC to fire an employee they had already allegedly officially disciplined.
    http://loser-city.com/features/on-ed...ampaign=buffer



    With sexual harassers going down left and right, Berganza might be joining them.

    I understand that Group Editor of the Superman comics Eddie Berganza has informed staffers at the DC offices that Buzzfeed is about to publish an expose feature all about him and allegations that have been made against him regarding sexual harassment.

    In 2012, Bleeding Cool reported the story that such an incident was alleged to have taken place in a hotel lobby at WonderCon in Anaheim.

    I received multiple reports that the subject of the original post was DC Comics then-Executive Editor Eddie Berganza and the woman was a comic book creator in her own right, a partner of a regular DC writer, and an occasional convention reporter for Bleeding Cool.

    She did not want to be named back then – she was afraid it might damage her work prospects and wanted to move on, and we respected that. But a few weeks later Bleeding Cool was able to name Eddie Berganza as the man allegedly responsible.
    https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/11...shing-article/
    Last edited by Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever; 11-10-2017 at 08:38 PM.

  2. #2
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    Good. About time.

  3. #3
    Extraordinary Member adrikito's Avatar
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    ..Berganza... As I imaginated, I heard that name time ago... Now I remember why..

    I never expected heard about him again..
    Last edited by adrikito; 11-10-2017 at 02:28 AM.

  4. #4
    Astonishing Member vasir12's Avatar
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    If there was ever a good opportunity to fire a guy, now would be the time. I still don't know why he wasn't fired earlier.

    ... I mean, I DO but still.

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    Astonishing Member sakuyamons's Avatar
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    He’s the most known, and hopefully he gets the boot.

  6. #6
    Father Son Kamehameha < Kuwagaton's Avatar
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    I guess we can call this discussion fourth hand. A BC rumor about someone talking about a potential buzzfeed article. The bastion of integrity... for some reason or another, I feel as though they'd be saying exactly the same things we've already heard. But if those clicks they bait manage to bring more awareness to the crucible, I won't say that this may not help people.

    What this does for Superman, I don't really know or care if anything. That'd be a pretty lame motive for investing interest into these allegations.

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    Legendary Member daBronzeBomma's Avatar
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    Isn't the main reason that he has lasted this long (with his "indiscretions" being an open secret in the industry) is because he allegedly has "dirt" on some DC's higher-ups whom he keeps blackmailing to hold onto his job?

    But, post-Weinstein, maybe that finally won't be enough to protect him any more.

    I don't normally root for someone to be removed from their job IRL, and I don't care if this potential move benefits Superman in terms of storytelling, but I just am done with the whole "well what can you do about it?" attitude in this and every other field.

    Will be tracking this case ...

  8. #8
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Unless there are actual criminal actions that are able to be prosecuted, I don't know if/how this might effect Berganza at this point in time.

    This was a big story several years ago, and DC did take action against Berganza then (though many may question whether those actions were really strong enough). So, unless there are going to be criminal actions (not just civil suits) brought against Berganza, or if strong allegations are made of Berganza actually conducting the type of behavior again in the period since DC took action against him (and he performed his punishments/whatever you want to call it), then it may be a non-starter in his case.

    If DC did take any further action against Berganza now without any concrete proof that he continued the behavior even after he was already dealt with by DC and performed whatever penance he had to as a result, I would think Berganza might be able take legal action against DC (sort of like how a person can't be brought to court a second time for the same crime if he was found "not guilty" or if he already served a sentence for that crime).

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    Moderator Frontier's Avatar
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    I'm curious to see if this will lead to Berganza finally being ousted and, possibly, whatever dirt on DC higher-ups he's rumored to have as well...

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by daBronzeBomma View Post
    Isn't the main reason that he has lasted this long (with his "indiscretions" being an open secret in the industry) is because he allegedly has "dirt" on some DC's higher-ups whom he keeps blackmailing to hold onto his job?
    He is currently the longest serving editor at DC. He pretty much knows where all the skeletons are buried.

  11. #11
    Extraordinary Member superduperman's Avatar
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    I kind of hope they get rid of him, personally. For a number of reasons, not just the allegations though those are certainly reason enough. The continuity trainwreck of the mid-2000s can largely be put at his feet and we know successful ideas, like Jon, were Jurgens, not him. Just from a creating standpoint this will probably be good for the books. Of course I'm still reeling from finding out about Allison Mack yesterday so take that for what it's worth.
    Assassinate Putin!

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    The article is up.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/dc-com...P7w#.rlBeJxXAP

    I'll edit the opening post with some quotes from the article once I've read it.

    Could a mod rename the title of the thread to 'Eddie Berganza's history of sexual harassment detailed'?
    Last edited by Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever; 11-10-2017 at 04:45 PM.

  13. #13
    Formerly Assassin Spider Huntsman Spider's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever View Post
    The article is up.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/dc-com...P7w#.rlBeJxXAP

    I'll edit the opening post with some quotes from the article once I've read it.

    Could a mod rename the title of the thread to 'Eddie Berganza's history of sexual harassment detailed'?
    Just wanted to tell you I like your signature, especially the second sentence. Life does influence and/or inform art very often, even if the artists themselves or the audience aren't always aware of it.
    The spider is always on the hunt.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Huntsman Spider View Post
    Just wanted to tell you I like your signature, especially the second sentence. Life does influence and/or inform art very often, even if the artists themselves or the audience aren't always aware of it.
    Thanks, credit goes to Roxane Gay.

  15. #15
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dolores - The Worst Poster Ever View Post
    The article is up.

    https://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/dc-com...P7w#.rlBeJxXAP

    I'll edit the opening post with some quotes from the article once I've read it.

    Could a mod rename the title of the thread to 'Eddie Berganza's history of sexual harassment detailed'?
    Isn't renaming the thread to that a bit extreme?

    And, again, it sounds like mostly old news. Things that happened prior to Berganza's being dealt with by DC and stuff they were probably made aware of in many/possibly most cases. That may not be likely to effect Berganza at this stage of the game because it's not exactly breaking news in his case.

    As much as people wish he had been fired well before now, it may not happen in his case because it's not as if accusations like these hadn't already been brought up.
    (That may not sound fair to people, but since it's not exactly a big secret that was maybe only whispered about prior to this, it's a bit different than the stuff in the news recently.)

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