Vertigo Comics Creator Accused of Abuse and Sexual Misconduct

[Agent Z]

On Sunday, a woman by the name of Cynthia Naugle sought to come forward with a story of abuse and sexual misconduct she had received in the past from an unnamed comic book creator. Naugle tweeted out a link to her personal blogspot page, wherein she recounted her story for the public

In the post, Naugle recalls how she “was sexually, mentally, and emotionally abused by someone [she] thought was [her] friend.” and states that she is “coming out with this for many reasons”

Naugle details many instances of mental abuse, sexual coercion, and sexual harassment she received from the individual in question. These include pressuring her into unwanted sexual encounters including a ménage à trois involving her alleged abuser’s girlfriend.

While Naugle did not directly name her abuser, it was not long before members of the public were able to parse through the few identifying traits Naugle had discussed in her post to discover the identity of her alleged abuser: Eric M. Esquivel, current writer of Border Town for DC Comics.

http://boundingintocomics.com/2018/1...al-misconduct/

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Cynthia Naugle has a blogspot account where she relates the story in detail:

http://cynthianaugle.blogspot.com/2018/12/x.html

It seems there was quite a bit of detective work in naming Esquivel as the abuser. The boundingintocomics.com article says:

Naugle notes that the person in question was the Marketing Manager of a comic book shop where Naugle was employed, moved from Tuscon to Los Angeles, appeared at Tuscon Comic-Con 2018, and had also recently released a new book through DC’s Vertigo label.

According to her Facebook page, Naugle was previously employed at Heroes and Villains Comic Book Store, the same comic book shop where Esquivel was previously employed as the Marketing Specialist. Though Esquivel was a long time resident of Tuscon, AZ, Esquivel left his native Tuscon, presumably around 2013 as evidenced by his listed experience on his Linkedin page, for Los Angeles, the city which he currently lists as his residence on said Linkedin page. Of the creators announced for the 2018 relaunch of DC’s Vertigo imprint, only Esquivel had been listed as a guest for the 2018 Tuscon Comic-Con.

As of writing, Esquivel has not responded to the accusations. He has instead deleted all of his social media accounts, save his Twitter account, which has been set to protected mode. DC Comics also has yet to publicly respond to Naugle’s accusations.

[Agent Z]

Ramon Vilabolos' response

https://twitter.com/RamonVillalobos/...53943633039362

[KurtW95]

I’m surprised this isn’t getting covered more. The way things are looking, it seemed to be kind of an open secret in the industry that people ignored or decided to believe him over the alleged victims.

[Robotman]

I was so sad to hear this news. I’ve really loved Border Town.

The colorist left the book as well.

https://www.newsarama.com/43112-bord...st-writer.html

[kurenai24]

So I've only able to read 2 issues but before reading issue 3, I had wanted some news on what the next arc would focus on and was hoping for a teaser of some kind, so I went to Eric's twitter account and I saw that the account was private ...I thought the harassment he was experiencing for doing this book must have gotten really bad since he had no problem relishing in the tears of comicsgaters before, anyway I see that I didn't follow him so I decide to ratify that.

Then a couple of days later I see this thread and it mentions Vertigo and my mind instantly goes to Eric M. Esquivel and it was confirmed when I read the quoted article.

I like Border Town a lot but there is probably no way this story is gonna continue and that sucks, what sucks even more is despite the seriousness of this news, my first thought was about the comic over the victim which depending on how you view is either sad or understandable ...in any case I wish Cynthia well.

[Spiderboy12]

Yup. I've been reading Border Town too and loving it.

But the instant I heard this news, I knew it was dead.

And now it's official: https://www.cbr.com/dc-border-town-c...gation-writer/

[Punjabi_Hitman]

Humanity was a mistake. Every day another person respected turn out to be a fuckin piece of ****.

[kjn]

I’m surprised this isn’t getting covered more. The way things are looking, it seemed to be kind of an open secret in the industry that people ignored or decided to believe him over the alleged victims.

To be fair, a lot of our culture is built on smoothing things over and not make a scene. In lots of cases, that's a good thing or at least understandable, but it makes it easy to sneak sexual harassment, stalker behaviour, and other things under the radar.

It's not limited to the comics industry either, as #metoo demonstrated. Every facet of our society is infected. Too often, the knowledge of serial harassers and similar are spread around as gossip that only reach the people that can act with authority as vague third- or fourth-hand rumours, too easily dismissed or too vague to investigate easily.

At least in this case the perpetrator was so low on totem pole that he could be cut off easily. Otherwise you end up with people like Eddie Berganza or Jean-Claude Arnault, who fester until everything around them is corrupted.

[Yohei72]

Humanity was a mistake. Every day another person respected turn out to be a fuckin piece of ****.

You said it, PJ. The worst one so far for me has been Neil deGrasse Tyson. Motherfucker.

[uebersoldat]

I’m surprised this isn’t getting covered more. The way things are looking, it seemed to be kind of an open secret in the industry that people ignored or decided to believe him over the alleged victims.

Curious...I wonder why?

[ed2962]

I’m surprised this isn’t getting covered more. The way things are looking, it seemed to be kind of an open secret in the industry that people ignored or decided to believe him over the alleged victims.

I think it's because he's a not super well known creator on a fringe book. If he were either more famous or working on a major title I think there'd be more discussion.

It's like when the artist from Rat Queens was charged with domestic violence. People who read Image Comics were talking about it, but guys who were Marvel/DC only fans didn't weight in too much.

[Talon1load]

Am I missing something? He’s been accused but not found guilty. Why is everyone always so quick to jump to guilt? Is there verifiable evidence? I haven’t read much about it yet so I’m not sure.

[dancj]

Am I missing something? He’s been accused but not found guilty. Why is everyone always so quick to jump to guilt? Is there verifiable evidence? I haven’t read much about it yet so I’m not sure.

I was wondering the same. Looking at that linked article, he's claiming he's innocent.

I have no reason yet to be able to judge who is telling the truth here.

[kjn]

Am I missing something? He’s been accused but not found guilty. Why is everyone always so quick to jump to guilt? Is there verifiable evidence? I haven’t read much about it yet so I’m not sure.

I was wondering the same. Looking at that linked article, he's claiming he's innocent.

I have no reason yet to be able to judge who is telling the truth here.

On one hand, it is not our job to judge this specific case. It's for the people who know them, and their employers, and the legal people like the police and the courts. All of whom will have different perspectives. Social for friends, safety and PR for employers, legal for the courts.

On the other, the initial report felt true to me, now that I've read it, and it shows many of the same mechanisms and behaviours that I've seen in other cases. The abuse of power and status, in this case from workplace relations. The attempt of the victim to normalise the situation and make sense of it while the sexual abuse and harassent is ongoing.

For DC there are really two questions here. The first is the PR problem they still have after letting Berganza run around for far too long—even if Berganza is gone, the people who enabled him are still around, and people remember how long he stayed there. The second is that if they employ a known harasser and the person harasses someone "on the job" (at a con as a DC representative, or another freelancer working on the same project), it very much becomes DC's problem, as a workplace safety problem.