Boiled Angels: The Trial of Mike Diana (2018) - full transcript

(ominous music)

(pencil scratching)a

(bright instrumental music)

- [Mike] I'm dying
for your sins.

- [Jello] So-called artist
Mike Diana is going to jail for

three years due to his issues
number seven and number eight

of "Boiled Angel." The good
citizens of Pinellas County and

surrounding counties burned
copies of "Boiled Angel" and

an effigy of Mr. Diana outside
the courthouse. Prosecutors

said that Mr. Diana
is responsible

for the moral breakdown



of society and has been
restricted from going within 200

feet of any schools or parks
where young children may be.

(television smashes)

- [Mike] Fuck those
motherfuckers, man! Don't those

dumb fucks realise
that I use my art as outlet

for all my anger? Maybe
I should just act like the

evil monster that they
are making me out to be.

I'll show you
fucks! See this little

brat? This kid is
trash now, he's fucked.

(baby wailing)

This kid would've grown up
to be a Florida state prosecutor

or a newscaster. Shit, maybe
I'm giving you people the wrong

idea with this comic. You have
to understand that I don't want

to hurt anyone. Hell, I wouldn't
even hurt a little insect.



- [Announcer] The trial of Mike
Diana is aired on live TV all

across the state. Diana showed
up with his stripper girlfriend!

- [Reporter] In court today,
the jury reached a unanimous

decision finding
Diana not guilty

of publishing lewd and obscene

material. So, Mr. Diana, how do

you feel about
the jury's verdict

and will you now continue in

your efforts to
draw and publish?

(gunshot fires)

Jesus fucking Christ, Mike Diana

has just been shot
dead on live TV!

(gunshot, screaming)

And the lamb of
God that killed him

has just blown his
own brains out also!

- [Announcer] Mike's
body is wrapped in old

newspapers rather
than a coffin due to the

fact he spent all his
money on lawyer's fees.

The holy lamb of God
rests in a gold plated

and diamond studded
coffin with a big

American flag draped
over it. Mike's spirit

spends eternity in
Hell where he is forced

to draw cute pictures
of flowers and puppies.

The spirit of the lamb
of God is given his wings

and halo and flies around
Heaven eating Big Macs and

Chicken McNuggets.
Mike is buried in an isolated

graveyard. Only the insects
come to visit his grave.

(crickets chirp)

- [Reporter] Michael
Diana emerged

from a Dallas County
courtroom this afternoon.

- [Reporter] Michael
Diana was arraigned today.

He claims efforts to
publish a magazine called--

- [Reporter] Michael Diana today
entered pleas of not guilty

to three counts of
promoting obscenity.

Diana publishes a magazine
called Boiled Angels.

- [Reporter] A
comic book filled

with sadism, masochism,
and perversion.

(energetic music)

- It's not any innocent
soft pornography.

This is hardcore
psychopathic material.

- Here we have another
sort of monster

being fellated by
a disembodied head.

- The prosecutors don't want

to acknowledge
Mike as an artist.

They want to treat this
as some sort of corruptive

foul sausage that Mike was
moving through the mails.

- It's just drawings.

He's not a rapist.

He's not a murderer.

He doesn't even harm a fly.

This guy is the nicest
man I've ever known.

- The whole theme of this,
of number eight was cannibalism.

- There's definitely though
a strain in his work of,

he's like class clown.

(babbling)

- I don't know if I've
read the whole thing,

but yes, I looked at 'em
and to me, art is art.

- I told him, draw things
that when you look at it,

it makes you happy.

Looking at somebody getting
their brains blown out,

it's not something that
makes most people happy.

- [Reporter] The Concerned
Women of America and

another group called
Citizens Opposing Pornography

say they will
maintain a court watch

to keep the
pressure on Diana.

- Jesus loves Michael.

He'll forgive him.

- Teenage boys are
always drawing dicks.

(bell chimes)

And here's a guy
just because he's

printing it up in
a little mini comic

that clearly wasn't being
sold at the local 7-Eleven,

it seems so
strange that people

became so freaked
out about it.

- He was very
scared, you know?

And he made every
right to be.

- It's not always
the function of art

to soothe or to simply depict
comfortable situations.

Sometimes art has
to depict things

that are very offensive,
very horrifying.

This case was a
perfect example

of obscenity law dealt
in laboratory sterility.

- The idea that somebody in,

at that time and
this day and age,

could be arrested
for drawing comics

seemed to me absolutely
and utterly obscene.

- They did want
to put me in jail

for three years
because of it.

- Because you're a
danger to society.

- Yeah.
- Well, I think you are.

I think you know
you're a punk.

(gushing)

- Hi, I'm Mike Diana.

I'm the only
comic book artist

ever convicted of obscenity
in the United States.

That happened in
1994 here in Florida.

(pencil scratching)

(heavy punk music)

(paper fluttering)

♪ You want me to
kiss your ass ♪

♪ Well bend over buddy,
here comes my foot ♪

♪ I don't need
your crying shit ♪

(siren wailing)

♪ Jesters rise
and take a fist ♪

♪ Bite it, you scum ♪

♪ Bite it, you scum ♪

♪ Bite it, you scum ♪

♪ Here I come ♪

♪ Bite it ♪

♪ Dumb fucking
sucking whore ♪

- [Jello] In a small
town in Florida,

artist Mike Diana created
two handmade zines

so full of potent imagery

that people wanted
to put him in jail.

Shocking, provocative,
offensive,

and often disturbingly
hilarious,

Mike Diana's art was also seen
by many as simply obscene.

Here then is what happens

when one man's art becomes
another man's obscenity.

(suspenseful music)

But first, a brief detour.

- The first time I saw an
EC was at Sam's Candy Store.

It was January 1951.

I was nine years old
and my aunt Leona

had taken me to the candy
store to get some ice cream,

and while she was negotiating
with the ice cream,

I was looking at the
racks of comic books

and standing out was "The
Vault of Horror" number 17,

I'll never forget it,
it had a werewolf on the cover

and I had never
seen a werewolf.

So I bought this comic book

and I knew that it was something
special, something for kids

and something that we really
didn't want the adults in on.

- [Jello] In an effort
to boost sagging sales,

William Gaines,
the publisher of EC Comics,

introduced a line of outstanding
horror and crime titles

that forever changed the
landscape of comic book culture.

Kids loved them,
parents hated them.

- EC Comics, they were the
best and they all had morals.

Each story had a moral.

Everybody that got their
comeuppance deserved to get it.

(gunshot fires)

- [Jello] EC horror
titles were so popular

that they opened the
door for hundreds

of horror and crime comics
from other publishers

that quickly flooded
the comic book racks.

Adults, however, feared that
somehow horror and crime comics

would seriously damage
children's minds.

Suddenly,
comics were a serious threat.

(bright music)

- [Announcer] There
are no economic

or racial lines to
the comic book threat.

But they're not reading
anything constructive.

They're reading stories
devoted to adultery,

to sexual perversion,
to horror,

to the most
despicable of crimes.

Horror and crime
comics upset kids.

You can see the
tension develop

as the story gets more
gruesome and if it's a bad one,

the kid is a mass
of jangled nerves

by the time he's through it.

(dramatic music)

Ah, he wasn't gonna hit ya.

He just wanted to know
what it would feel like

to almost knock
someone's brains out.

- [Jello] Leading the
charge against the comics

was psychologist
Fredric Wertham.

- Fredric Wertham was
a child psychologist

who had done interesting
work with the poor in Harlem.

He wrote a book that
became notorious

in its persecution of comic
books and it was called,

"Seduction of the Innocent."

For parts of it life, a Book
of the Month Club selection,

so it had a wide audience.

His case basically was
that reading comic books

turned children into
juvenile delinquents.

It was false science.

It was poorly reasoned, but
it was a very influential book

and it scared the
hell out of parents.

- [Jello] After first
captivating the nation

with his televised hearings
on organised crime,

senator Estes Kefauver
zeroed in on comics

with a 1954
hearing in New York

featuring EC publisher
William Gaines as a witness.

- It would be just as
difficult to explain

the harmless thrill of a
horror story to a Dr. Wertham

as it would be to explain

the sublimity of love
to a frigid old maid.

But do we think our children

so evil, so vicious,
so simple minded,

that it takes but a
comic magazine story

of murder to set
them to murder,

or robbery to set
them to robbery?

(flames crackling)

- We were also aware
of comic book burnings,

and these occurred in various
towns across the country,

and we knew that the jig
was up at a certain point.

It was all gonna
come to an end,

and it did with the
Comics Code Authority.

- [Jello] Panicking,
comic book publishers

quickly created a
comic book code,

which gutted their books
of anything objectionable,

horror and crime
comics disappeared.

Publishers folded, hundreds
of artists were out of work.

EC killed their
entire line of comics,

except for "Mad," which
is a whole other story.

And for all their trouble,

juvenile delinquency
still plagued America.

- I was reading EC before
the comic code. (chuckles)

That's how old I am,
and then all of a sudden

came the comic code and we
had to buy them underground.

We had to pay more for them.

There were only certain
guys that would sell 'em,

and it was like, you know,

a minor version of,
where do you get your dope?

- At a certain point,

I started thinking also
about the arguments

that were being
made against comics

from all sides, all borders,

and I took it into my mind

that maybe I shouldn't
have these comics.

Maybe they were harming me.

Maybe they were bad
for me and I said,

"That's it,
these comics are not wholesome.

"They're not a good idea."

I took them all, all my ECs
and threw them in the garbage,

and they,
(laughs) they wound up burned.

About a month later,
I decided that,

gee,
I need 'em all back again

and so then began
the lifetime search

to complete my EC collection.

To buy them for the next
10, 20 years.

Finally,
I got 'em all back again.

- [Jello] In 1969,
a new threat emerged.

Mike Diana was born.

- [Mike] Well,
I was born in upstate New York,

a small town called Geneva,

and my father,
he was a science teacher.

My mother stayed at home and
took care of me and my sister.

I seemed to have
a happy life.

I enjoyed school.

I enjoyed holidays
and everything.

- When he was preschool,
prekindergarten,

and the teacher came to
me and said, "Can he talk?

"Because he has never said a
word since he's been here."

And I said, "Yes,
he can speak."

Well, one day the
teacher asked a question

and Mike said the answer,

and one of the little
girls in the class said,

"He talked, Michael talked!"

- Growing up,
Mike was always special.

He was well behaved,
he was quiet.

Never had any
problem with him,

never had any problem at all.

Not compared to my other two.

- When I was in kindergarten,

we had an assignment was to
draw our family portrait.

So I ended up drawing
my whole family nude,

and I had drawn us
naked with genitalia,

and the teacher came over
my shoulder and said,

"Well,
where are their clothes?"

And I remember I felt ashamed
and erased all the genitalia,

and added clothes,
but you could still see

the indentations of the pencil
underneath the clothing.

I also had a
tapeworm collection,

hundreds of different
types of tapeworms.

I would sometimes
bring these items

into show and tell at school.

My father didn't really
believe in spanking,

but he did believe
in pulling hair

because he was a
science teacher,

they weren't allowed
to hit the students,

but they had to harm them in
ways they wouldn't leave marks,

and pulling hair is
one of those ways.

So, my father was always pulling
our hair when we were bad.

I started doing drawings

about people having their
hair pulled out by the roots.

Occasionally there was a problem
with one of the neighbours.

I remember one time this
woman who lived next door,

she was a little
crazy in the head.

She came out with two
cupcakes with cherries on 'em

and she called me and
my best friend over.

When we got close
enough, she smashed

a cupcake right in his face,

and he started instantly crying,
and then I ran right home.

(laughing)

- [Producer] Wait, what?

Is there any back
story to that?

Why?

- I don't know. (laughs)

- But then when I
was eight years old,

our family decided
to move to Florida.

(energetic punk music)

♪ My daddy died ♪

♪ He died on the phone ♪

♪ We all knew and
cried and cried ♪

♪ He thought I was a joke ♪

♪ They'll take his job ♪

♪ You know what they did ♪

♪ All I do is try and try ♪

♪ I'm just a kid ♪

- When I did move to Florida,
I never stopped drawing.

Drawing was what I
always liked to do.

In school,
it became the only subject

that I really got
good grades in.

I started drawing
monsters, spaceships,

the kinda stuff I
was drawing before,

but it was more intense,
even more radical in some way.

I remember making pottery
projects for my mother.

She still has them today.

One of the ways my mother
encouraged my artwork

is she took me to art
museums around Florida.

The Ringling Art Museum,
the Dali Art Museum.

We both enjoyed art together.

I often wondered how
my art would differ

if I never moved to Florida.

I feel like Florida
shaped my art

and put it in the direction

of the extreme nature
that it was in.

My dad liked sideshows
all the time,

so we'd go to sideshows

and see the freak animals,
barnyard oddities.

- Okay, what about
human oddities though?

- Those too.
We had the sword swallower.

Things like that
would amaze me.

I think at least people
in the carnival here

are kind of
outcasts in society.

- Okay, yes.

- After seeing them,
I felt the same way.

(suspenseful music)

When I was eight years old,
we first moved to Florida.

This was the church
we started going to.

I remember that
it was different

from the church I was
used to in New York.

The sermons here
by the priest

seemed to be full of
fire and brimstone.

He was telling us how we were
gonna burn in Hell for our sins,

unless we repented.

It felt very heavy somehow.

I remember one time
in Bible class,

the elderly teacher
was talking about

the crucifixion itself,
the suffering that Jesus did.

She went on in great description
talking about his tortures.

They rubbed salt
in his wounds.

They pulled his
beard hairs out.

They spit in his face.

She actually started crying

while she described
the tortures

and the horror that
Jesus went through.

Around this time, I also would
watch news reports on television

about Catholic priests
molesting children,

and how the church
would actually

cover these instances up.

This was very troubling to
me as a young person myself.

(church organ music)

When I was nine,
I went to my first Confession.

Father Hope handed
me a small wafer

and asked me to eat
it, I did.

He then asked me to drop
my shorts and put my rear

to the hole in the wall
that was between us.

I felt a sharp penetrating
pain in my tight anus.

That was the first
time I saw God.

It wasn't what
I was expecting.

That night I told my mom
about my experience with God.

I went and saw Father Hope

every Sunday for
about six months.

Then one day I went
to see Father Hope

and the nun said
he left for Canada.

I saw about six
other kids my age

wondering why Father
Hope had left.

They looked like lost sheep.

Now I'm 25,
I still trip out with God.

I drop acid hosts and shove
a crucifix up my asshole.

I'm a junkie sex
slave for God,

but at least I'll be
rewarded in the afterlife.

Right?

One more time.

This is your brain.

This is a Bible.

This is your
brain on a Bible.

(sizzling)

Any questions?

(bell tolling)

When I was about
10 years old,

I found some real
life violent pictures.

It was a book on child abuse

that was actually in
the school library,

and I started seeing these
images of dead children.

I felt attracted
to it somehow,

but also nervous
or afraid maybe

about violence,
real life violence.

(ominous music)

I used to love horror movies
ever since I was a young child,

and I went with my father
and talked him into taking me

to the local mom
and pop video store

and getting me my
own video membership,

so I could just ride there on
my bike and pick out movies.

Some of my favourite
videos back then to rent,

of course were
the horror videos.

The more bloody and
crazy the better.

In 1986, I actually had
saved up enough money

at my supermarket bag boy
job to buy a video camera,

a brand new video
camera of my own,

and my father thought
it was a good idea

for me to get the camera
because I could go around

and film family events
and stuff like that.

But what I ended
up filming mostly

was something my father
would end up not approving of

and that was making my own
homemade gore and slasher films.

(laughing)

Back then, I didn't really
have any of my own friends

who would want to be in
these films of my age,

so my younger brother was
kind of drafted into it.

I would send my brother
out to recruit his friends,

which again, was kids
around the neighbourhood.

We would say,
"You want to be in a movie?"

And their eyes
would light up.

"Oh,
in a movie?" (child screaming)

We're talking about kids
as young as five years old.

- Oh, that was fun. That
was fun making those videos

Having my friends from school

and trying to get them to be
in the videos was pretty fun

and having their
parents let them,

the ones that knew about
it anyway. (laughs)

- Mike suggested that I
be in one of his movies,

and I said, "Sure, why not?"

I think I had
my head cut off.

(dramatic music)

(splattering) (head thuds)

- Mike has always been
into making movies,

and I was actually in one,

and I kind of wasn't sure
if it was a good idea,

and maybe after the fact,

I wondered if it was
smart that I had done it

because I was religious
when I was younger.

I would go to church a lot,
and for this particular film,

he was to give me an abortion.
(laughs)

So in the film.

My stomach, I'm
pregnant, my baby!

Matt was hitting
me and I says,

"Oh, don't hit
me, I'm pregnant."

"I'm gonna have a baby."

And Matt says, "Oh, well,
I'll give you an abortion."

And so here I am, laying
there, and Matt has a hanger.

(screaming)

And then he pulls
the hanger back

and there's a little
plastic toy foetus

with fake blood all over it,

and that was kind of fun.

I'm glad that I did that,
even though I wasn't sure.

I have no regrets over it.

- After watching 'em
after we made 'em,

and it's just, that was
our home movies, you know?

That's all we got to
look at now. (laughs)

- In real life,
I detested violence.

Even in school when
fistfights would break out,

or all the kids would
gather around in a circle

and would watch the
fight and cheer and yell,

and the whole of energy
of that kind of scared me.

I remember always
walking the other way,

but horror movies I liked,

because it had a lot of fake
blood and I knew it was fake,

and it seemed to
me, it was fun.

I realised it was much easier

to make comics than
it was to make movies.

I didn't need
anyone else's help.

I didn't need anyone
else to approve anything.

I didn't need any
parents' permissions.

- Look at Phoebe.
- Phoebe, come here!

(laughing)

- Eventually, I discovered
"Heavy Metal" illustrated.

I got this at the
supermarket newsstand.

These were unlike any
comics I had seen before.

There was nudity, violence.

I found an ad in one of
the "Heavy Metal" magazines

and it said you could buy an
underground comic grab bag.

I had never heard of
underground comics before that.

Soon in the mail,
I got a plain brown

package of
underground comics.

The first one I pulled out

of the envelope
was "Bizarre Sex."

It had a giant
penis on the cover

breaking through the
sidewalk on a city street,

people screaming,
running away from it.

This did seem very
exciting to me.

Also "Skull Comics" and "Zap
Comix" were some of the titles.

- So, underground comics

were part of this
counterculture movement

and they were very subversive,
explicit publications.

I really feel the whole
point of underground comics

was to break taboos.

I mean,
that's why they were made.

They were all about
pushing boundaries,

and why that was so important

is because they showed us
that nothing was off limits.

That we had complete
artistic freedom,

and I think by the time

Mike Diana was creating
"Boiled Angel,"

that's what he believed.

(people screaming)

(gunshots firing)

- I was drawing when I was
like, three years old.

I did some funny animal book

with an animal on
the right hand side,

and an animal on
the left hand side,

and poetry about that animal
on the right hand side like,

"Here's Edgar the Elephant.

"He thinks he's
a smell-ephant."

I didn't know there was
not a word smell-ephant.

Well, in high school I
started to do fanzines,

and when we went to college
and we did college magazines,

then we worked for
the realist and

free press type publications,

and then the
underground press came,

and then we did
underground comics.

We wanted to
speak to our peers

and our peers were not
reading the comic books

that were approved by the
good comics code at the time.

So, we just ignored it

and did what we wanted to do
and printed our own books.

So, when we did our
comics, we defied the code.

We ignored the
code, and today,

I'm happy to say the
code is dead. (laughs)

- So, these were very
explicit publications.

You're not gonna find
them in a drug store.

You're not gonna find them
next to Archie comics.

Where they were
primarily sold

is head shops next to
drug paraphernalia.

So, there was this outlaw
aspect to these publications.

That's why they were spelled
with an X at the end.

The X suggested an X rating.

- So-called pornographic
underground comics

like "Snatch" and "Felch"

weren't really pornography
in the traditional sense.

It was more like a
satire of pornography,

because the audience
were hippies, you know?

And they already, they
didn't have those repressions

about performing such
sexual acts themselves,

so it was kinda like mocking
those who did, you know?

"Snath," or "Felch,"
or "Jiz" comics

came out and it was kind of,

I even did one called,
"Turned on Cuties."

And I used a fake
name, just for kicks.

Everybody knew it was
me, but.

- Underground comics
weren't completely immune

from attacks of obscenity.

Usually the way it worked

was when there was
obscenity charges,

they would go after the
bookstores and the booksellers,

and this bookstore,

East Side Books in New
York was busted basically.

One of the kids
at the cash register,

there was charges
brought against him,

and it was for this
comic, "Zap" number four

and specifically
for this story,

Joe Blow, which is pretty
infamous in comics.

It's a comic by R. Crumb

and it's about a family
that at first glance

looks like this
squeaky clean family

but we get a couple pages in

and we learn they have

a very incestuous relationship
amongst themselves.

It really was pushing all of
the boundaries, very explicit.

As you might imagine,
it did attract attention,

and they did not successfully
fight those charges.

They had to pay a fine.

- Comics was really about
bonding with my dad in a way

because he was a
salesman, and he

sold cigarettes
and he sold candy,

and he would work most of the
day and come home at night,

and he'd have one comic
book that he'd give me,

and you know, I just was
sitting there waiting for it.

Sometimes I
remember the horror,

every now and then he
would have bought me one

that he had already
bought me before,

and I was like, "Oh my
god, I already have this."

But normally, it was this
really exciting thing,

and it was like this,

"Dad's coming home and
I get a comic book."

When I was in grade school,

I would get a
Big Chief tablet

and just draw my own
comics, you know?

I didn't do word balloons,

because I wanted to draw
them as quickly as possible,

so I would just say the
dialogue aloud like,

"Stop it, I'm gonna blast
you with my laser."

Whatever, and then draw
it as quickly as I could,

and then turn the
page and again,

it was sort of like this
feeling of incredible,

like an addict looking
for their next fix.

By some miracle,

I ended up going into the
Master's programme at Yale,

so I have like a BFA
from Yale University.

Yeah, over time I sort
of came to my senses

and went back
to doing comics,

and a big part of that

was sort of discovering the
zine world of the late '80s.

- These zines were
self-published by amateurs,

and they were printed
in small numbers

using mimeograph machines

or later in the '70s,
photocopy machines.

They were traded in the mail.

These weren't publications you
would find on the newsstands.

There was the zine community

that was dedicated
to science fiction.

There was a zine community
that was into horror comics,

and then there was the zine
community that was into poetry,

or bicycle repair, or all
these different categories,

and these different
communities

really didn't connect
or talk to each other.

They were very separate,

and one thing
that changed that

was a publication
called "Factsheet Five,"

and basically "Factsheet
Five" was like a catalogue

of almost all the zines that
were being created at the time.

- I was like,
how can I see all of these?

You know,
I'd buy "Factsheet Five,"

where there was this 100 pages
of all these zines listed,

and I'd get that
and I'd get home

and I'd start
going down there

and I was like, "I'd like to
see that one and that one."

But even though
they were cheap,

there still wasn't,
I wasn't making any money,

so it wasn't like I could
afford to buy all of them.

So I thought,
I had this friend Steve Serios.

We got the idea to
curate a show of zines,

and then the zine people
would send us the zines.

So in 1989,
we just started getting

boxes and boxes of
zines coming to us.

There was this extreme
quality to a lot of the zines.

They were just like,

pushing the envelope in every
direction you can think of,

and yet there was
this one zine (laughs)

that just stood out
from all the others.

I think the zines were
called "Angelfuck."

You know,
which is kind of in your face,

and it was Mike Diana.

- The title "Angelfuck" I got
from a song by the band Misfits,

and I thought it would
make a good zine title.

Even my first comics had a dark
side to them, macabre side.

I seemed to like drawing comics
that I had not seen before.

I liked to draw
mutilation, nudity, murder.

Things that most people
felt were unsavoury

were the subject
I liked the most.

I felt like there's a lot
of humour in my comics,

not everyone finds
the humour in it.

I thought they were funny.

- [Woman] It's not funny.

I'm not laughing, Mike.

Look at me, I'm not laughing.

This is dead
serious stuff here.

- It was just
like, wow, everyone

else is trying to offend,

but this one is so
fucking offending.

I mean, I can't, you know,
it's like I want to hide it

and only see it in a dirty
bathroom on 42nd Street,

and it was just amazing to
see someone who, you know,

it's like, "Oh, you really
have pushed the envelope."

I'm sorry, envelope
pushing winner right here.

- And then in 1989,
I did "Boiled Angel."

♪ Gonna save you, save you ♪

♪ What do I do ♪

♪ I'm gonna do you, do you ♪

♪ And if you sit beside me ♪

♪ Then you don't
want to get up ♪

♪ When I wanna talk ♪

♪ I'll talk I love
you, love you ♪

♪ When I wanna walk, I walk ♪

♪ I love you, love you ♪

♪ And if I had to try to
keep you screaming I will ♪

♪ What I wanna do ♪

♪ What I wanna do ♪

♪ I wanna strangle you
tonight, tonight ♪

- [Mike] I felt like
this was the year 1988

and things should
be a step above

the underground comics that
I had seen in the past,

that this was the future.

- I mean, there's a part of it
that's just like, look at me.

It's like,
I'm putting out a zine,

25 people are gonna see it,

but by pushing the
material to the nth degree,

it's like it's sort of almost
like compensating for it.

It's like, you push and you
push against a certain thing,

and I think what you're
pushing against ultimately

is this kind of bland,
suburban middle class world,

and that's what
punk music is.

- My goal was to make the
most offensive zine ever made,

and it should be
offensive as possible,

almost to the point
where your average person

would not want
anything to do with it,

wouldn't even want
to own a copy of it.

(explosion rumbles)

- [Jello] The state of
Florida was not amused.

- At the time,
I was the lead trial attorney

of Division E of the
State Attorney's office

at the sixth judicial
circuit of Florida,

which sits in
Clearwater, Florida.

What ended up happening was
that the "Boiled Angel" volumes

that preceded or I believe it
was "Boiled Angel" number six,

fell into the hands of
some law enforcement,

who then sent it

to the Florida Department
of Law Enforcement saying,

"You might want to
look into this."

This was during the summer of
1990, I guess it was or '91.

When at the time,
the student murders

were occurring at the University
of Florida in Gainesville.

- [Reporter] Five college
students, four women and one man

were found dead in their
Gainesville apartments.

Two of the victims were
reportedly mutilated,

their bodies left on display.

Another was beheaded.

- A law enforcement
officer who came

across "Boiled
Angel" number six

in the course of
a traffic stop

that resulted in an arrest

for something like possession of
marijuana, he flipped through it

and he saw something that
looked to him strikingly similar

to what had gone out on
the law enforcement wire

as being the appearance of
some of the murder scenes.

It was an officer I believe,

with the California
Highway Patrol

had sent it to the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement,

and they look at
it and sure enough,

this stuff comes from
Largo, Florida.

Somebody in the same state,
so let's take a look.

- One day Mike and I
were in my front yard,

and a police car drove up

and two officers got
out, a male and a female.

They said they came to
ask Mike some questions,

and it had to do with the
Gainesville serial murders.

They asked if they could
get some blood taken,

and Mike said no at first,
but I said, I said yes.

Yeah, if you're innocent, then
you will have your blood taken.

Who cares, you know?

At least it'll shut
them up for a minute.

- I was not the
Gainesville serial killer.

- They ended up taking body
samples from Michael Diana,

eliminated him as a suspect,

but in the course
of investigating

some of the most gruesome
murders in Florida,

they were still so shocked

by what they saw in
the material itself

that they decided we shouldn't
just let it go with that

and they handed it off to the

Pinellas County
Sheriff's Office,

which then undertook an
investigation for obscenity.

- Michael Diana has been
cleared of any involvement

in the Gainesville murders,

but his visions of sex and
masochism, and child abuse,

well, they seem to be
getting him in trouble.

- I know that the case
had been sitting in

going through the works inside
the state attorney's office.

Folks kinda wondering
what to do with it,

because everybody knew that
something should be done,

but wasn't exactly sure
how to go about it.

I was young and relatively
fresh from law school

and had taken First
Amendment as a class,

and remembered very clearly

all the law that
applied in the case,

and was interested in
going forward with it

and had a good idea
for how to go about it,

so the case was
assigned to me.

- I went on the publish
"Boiled Angel" seven and eight.

(ominous music)

Unknown to me at the time,

one of the detectives that went
after me for the Gainesville

student murders bought them
from me under a fake name.

- An undercover detective,
his name was Mike Tessas,

he struck up a correspondence
relationship with Mike Diana,

and ended up ordering
"Boiled Angel" seven

and "Boiled Angel" eight.

- [Undercover Detective]
"Mike, I'm tired of people

"fucking around with
what I believe in.

"I saw your "Boiled
Angel" at a friend's

"and it's everything I
think of and believe.

"Please send me a
copy of "Boiled Angel"

"and other flyers you can.

"It's hard to find
things to read

"because of people
fucking with us.

"Here's a three
dollar money order

"like the copy
said to cover cost.

"Thanks, Mike Fiore."

- So, we told him we
can't build a case

on "Boiled Angel" number six
because that was something

that was discovered
out in California.

We don't know if this
thing was published

from Pinellas
County, Florida.

It said inside Largo, Florida,
but we didn't know for sure.

We didn't have anybody to
say, "Yes, I ordered it.

"I received it in Florida."

We told him, you've got to
start from scratch with this,

and if you order
and receive them

here in Pinellas County,
we're good to go.

- [Mike] "Dear Mike F.

"You are the first
person from Largo

"to ask for Boiled Angel, so
I hope you find it to be cool.

"Let me know what
you think of them.

"Sincerely, Mike Diana."

- It wasn't entrapment because
entrapment only applies

if the person
allegedly entrapped

is not predisposed to
commit the offence.

The fact that this was
something that Mike Diana

had gone into and
published on his own,

and was already into
volume number seven

and then volume number eight
shows he was predisposed.

He just didn't know that
the guy he was selling to

was somebody other than
he held himself out to be.

We were unpleasantly
surprised

that they exceeded
"Boiled Angel" six.

You know,
seven was worse than six,

and then eight was
worse than seven.

(disorienting music)

- [Woman] Well, Mr. Donner,
everything checks out okay.

We'll send Scott
out right now!

- [Scott] Wow,
is it really true?

I've been adopted!
- Yes, it's true my new son.

- [Woman] Here's your
copies of the papers, sir.

- [Scott] Boy,
I finally got adopted!

Someone to love me
and to hold and--

- [Father] Shut the
fuckin' hell up, you fuck!

I only adopted you to
use you as my slave!

(dramatic music)

You didn't think I adopted
you outta love, did you?

How could I even think

of loving a fuckin'
misfit orphan like you?

The only thing I'm gonna love

is fucking your
hot little ass!

- [Scott] Sob, sob.

- [Father] This is your room.

You will sleep here.

Now,
get undressed and bend over!

- [Scott] Sob, sob.

Please don't!

- Shut up, dumb fuck!
- Throb, throb.

(groaning) (splattering)

- [Scott] Ah, oh, sob, sob!

- [Narrator] Next morning,
Scott woke with a sore asshole.

He was forced to eat
dog food for breakfast.

- Eat it, ugly!
- Blah.

- [Father] This is
my dog food factory.

Watch and learn!

- Yes sir.
- Ga ga, goo, goo.

- First I take one
of these infants

the whores downtown sold me.

(baby crying)

Then I fuck it inside out.

- Gasp!
- Whaak, splork.

(splattering)

- [Father] See,
I fucked it inside out,

and I really shot
a big wad also!

Then I toss the messy remains
in the infant shredder.

It goes through the grinders.

(metallic grinding)

And then it's
canned as dog food

so I can sell 'em
to the A&P store.

Your job is to
make sure the cans

go into the boxes,
understand, fuck?

- [Scott] Yes, sir!

- [Father] This is
Max, my watch dog.

Be careful, he bites.

(dog growling)

Now I gotta get to work.

(baby crying)

(sloshing)

Uh, climax!

That was a good one.

(grinding) (splattering)

- [Narrator] Over
the next work week,

Scott made a good
friend in Spot.

- [Scott] I wanna be friends.

See,
I got you a big juicy steak!

My new dad is a very
sick and evil man.

We are both his slaves.

Will you help me kill
him, please?

No one loves me!

Will you please
be my best friend?

Will you love me?

Sob, sob, sob.

(dog whining)

I'll set you free.

(metallic squeaking)

- [Father] What the fuck?

Put that chain
back on that dog!

(dog growling)

- Kill him!
- Shit!

Gasp!

(splattering) (groaning)

- [Scott] I'm so happy now.

He is finally
dead and lifeless.

It's just you and me
now, Spot.

I love you so very much.

Do you love me, Spot?

No, not you too, Spot!

Sob, sob, sob.

(dog barking)

(dog howling)

(dramatic music)

- I got a look at it
and I knew right away

that what I was looking
at was obscenity.

- [Reporter] Prosecutor
Stuart Baggish says

Michael Diana's art violates
community standards.

- I've seen gross
stuff before,

and it's not made me want to
lose my lunch or anything,

but this stuff when I
saw it the first time,

I just thought, this is vile.

It felt like a
punch in the gut.

You know,
that may have been his purpose

in publishing the material.

He certainly wanted to
get people's attention

for no reason other than
shock, the question is,

was he doing it in a way

that actually constitutes
speech or was it obscenity?

- It's worthy of prosecution.

- [Interviewer] And jail
time and everything, huh?

- That's what
we're shooting for

and we think that
this publication

requires that
type of penalty.

I look at it as obscene from
the minute I opened it up.

It was in our office,
it had not been prosecuted yet.

When I looked at it,
there was no question in my mind

that it was obscene,
I was repulsed by it.

There was even spending
more time with it,

I found nothing
redeeming about it.

I only found it more
and more repulsive.

(ominous music)

- [Mike] I got a
summons in the mail

charging me with three
counts of obscenity.

Publishing, distributing, and
advertising obscene material.

(crunching) (slurping)

- I teach at the Centre
for Cartoon Studies.

I've been there since
we opened our doors.

A class that is called
"Survey of the Drawn Story,"

because in academia,

you can't call it
"Comics History Class."

The Mike Diana case history

is incredibly important
to the history of comics.

It's important on
a number of levels.

It's important as a real
benchmark of the legal backlash

against the growing
freedom of expression

that was happening across
the board in comics

from the mid '80s to,
well, where we are today.

Another thing that happened
as part of that continuity

is another 18 year old
cartoonist named Mark Laliberte,

he was doing a zine as well,
very small circulation zine,

and he got popped by
the Canadian police.

Mounties showed
up at his door,

crashed into the house,
confiscated material,

and there was a strip that
Mark had done in his zine.

It was a parody of Peanuts,

but it had a panel where
Snoopy was sodomising Sally,

Charlie Brown's little
sister, right?

And the Canadian
legal authorities

not only go after Mark
Laliberte on obscenity charges,

they bring him up on
bestiality charges, okay?

This is what they go
into the courtroom with.

- There was a kind of,
I'm trying

to think of the exact name.

I think it was
Project Pornography

or something like that,

and there was this
kind of group of police

that were sort of moved from
kind of like the drug squads

to dealing with obscenity in
Canada for this short period.

And so they really actually
had no sort of sense

of what would be
considered truly obscene.

It was all guesswork.

- I was friends with
a Canadian retailer

and comics creator
named Mark Asquith.

Mark was one of the experts

brought into the
courtroom in this trial,

and Mark Asquith was
incredibly smart on the stand.

Mark broke down for the
judge and for the court,

that the only act
that had taken place

was that an 18 year old boy
was sitting down at a desk

with a pencil and a piece of
paper making marks on paper.

That was the only physical
act that had ever taken place

to create this
two page strip.

No human being was sodomised.
(laughs)

No dog had sodomised
a human being,

and the judge threw it out,

because it just didn't
meet any standard,

and had nothing to
do with the charges

that Mark Laliberte
had been busted for.

This becomes important
because Mark himself told me

that he and Mike Diana had
traded zines in the mail.

"Boiled Angel" had gone
from Florida up to Canada,

and Mark's zine had gone
from Canada down to Florida.

- The officers who
were trying my case

really hated Mike's work
and really hated that zine,

and really hated his
presence in my publication,

and tried to focus actually
a lot of my obscenity trial

on the fact that I was
a publisher of his work.

The officer was quite angry,

I think,
when he lost the case here.

- When the Canadian authorities
had the case thrown out

in their prosecution
of Mark Laliberte,

apparently a call was made
from Canada to Florida,

and it was like,
"We didn't get our guy,

"but (laughs) we have this
copy of Boiled Angel."

You know, and this according
to two accounts I've heard,

was what led to the
prosecuting amping up,

prosecution amping up.

They're going
after Mike Diana.

I have to say, it was always
suspect to me that a zine,

you know, Mike Diana printed,

I think like 60 copies of
"Boiled Angel" number one,

and the highest
circulation he had

was between 200
and 300 copies.

That's a little drop of piss
in all the oceans of the world,

and that the police would
happen to come across this zine

just is complete
fantasy to me.

It made perfect cause
and effect sense to me

when Mark Laliberte
told me his story.

I mean, my understanding
is at some point

they went, "Oh,
he's not the killer."

He's not the Gainesville
killer, why go back after him?

And this whole thing with
Mark's zine being busted,

going to trial, and the trial
failing and then within weeks,

everything starts heating
up for Mike Diana.

Boy, I mean,
it seems very credible to me.

- A one time suspect in
the Gainesville murders

faces obscenity charges in
Pinellas County tonight.

This all involves
a comic book.

- I didn't realise
how serious it was

until I got to the courthouse
and saw the newspaper

and TV reporters and
protest groups against me.

Even worse, I was facing
three years in prison.

- [Evan] Michael
Diana emerged

from a Pinellas County
courtroom this afternoon

prepared as he says,
to fight the state of Florida.

The 23 year old could
face two years in prison.

- First of all,
there are three types of pleas.

- [Evan] He was arraigned
today on three charges

of publishing, and
advertising obscene material.

It's called "Boiled Angel."

- How to kill our children
and put 'em in barbecue sauce.

Showing these books out

on people murdering our
infants and children.

- So,
where do you draw the line

on what's obscene
and what's not?

It normally depends on
community standards,

and the Mike Diana case
may have Pinellas County

reevaluating its standards

right here in the
next couple months.

Well, in the newsroom, we were
talking about it at the time,

and I remember wondering how
someone could be prosecuted

for their art, for their
beliefs, for their comics.

In the news business,
you get a call or you get a tip

from the community
about a story like this

and it goes through
the assignment desk.

I got assigned the
story and out the door

to meet Michael Diana and
see what this was all about.

I thought it was kind of odd

to see that one
woman in my story,

her eyes would
well with tears

in the second before
she would talk to me,

and then when we were done,

she'd go back to doing
what she was doing.

That happens with a lot of
stories in the news business.

When the camera comes
on, the drama begins.

I was struck by the severity

of the events surrounding
him a little bit,

and I remember
picking up a book

containing these
drawings of his,

and I'm looking through them
and of course they were gross.

They were odd,
but they were cartoons.

They didn't really upset me.

I kinda chuckled and
wondered at the time,

is this what this
is all about?

Judge Mary Jean McAllister set
a pretrial date for June 7th.

Diana says he doesn't
have an attorney yet,

but he does say that
he has contacted

the Comic Book
Legal Defence Fund

and they may represent him,

but we were not able
to confirm that.

(alarm blaring) (dog barking)

- I was going to art school
in the 1970s in New York City,

and while I was there,
I went to a record store,

and they had a spin rack that
was all underground comics.

When I saw that,
that was when I knew

I wanted to be a cartoonist,

and that I wanted to be
an underground cartoonist.

I also mistakenly thought those
guys were all millionaires.

I found out the hard
way that that was not the case.

Throughout the 1980s,
there was as

comics are becoming
more popular again,

and with the rise
of undergrounds

morphing into
alternative comics,

comics were no longer clearly
about just being for kids,

which a lot of people
in the country had a

really hard time getting
their head around,

so when they'd see a comic book

that had adult content in it,

they just assumed
that somebody

was trying to subvert
their children.

At that time,
there was something

that was really
dominating the news

and reached the point of
hysteria was child sexual abuse,

and his comics
touched into that,

so it was bad timing that his
comics were dealing somewhat,

not entirely of course,

but somewhat with sex
with underaged people.

(trippy synth music)

There was a lot
of controversy

about his work
amongst artists

just because a lot of
people thought it was bad.

You know, a lot of people
in the comic book industry

just thought this
guy can't draw

or they saw no beauty
in the way he drew.

They saw no artistic
value in it,

and also a lot of people
in the comic industry

were just as offended
as everybody else

by the content of it.

So even though he was
in very serious trouble,

and his First Amendment rights
were clearly being violated,

or a government
agency was attempting

to violate his First
Amendment rights,

it was still a bit of a
controversy in the industry

as to whether we should
use our resources

through the Comic Defence
Fund to help this guy.

So, I was a little
bit taken aback

by some people in the
industry who didn't think

that money should be spent
to help this guy out.

They just figured,
just let him hang, you know?

And it's to their
eternal disgrace.

- [Mike] The Comic
Book Legal Defence Fund

hired Luke Lirot as
my defence attorney.

- When I first saw
Mr. Diana's work,

I was personally
troubled by it.

I found it somewhat
unsettling.

- [Kathy] Sure.

- But to me, it posed a
much greater issues because

it's not just his comic book
that we're talking about.

We're talking about the entire
gamut of First Amendment rights,

and if you cannot be secure
in protecting his imagery,

no matter how
offensive it may be,

then you can have no security

that any ideas
will be protected.

I actually went to Catholic
school in the early '60s,

and we were given an
assignment to create a collage.

My parents were divorced.

My mother worked
in a dress shop,

and to create this collage

that was given to me as
a homework assignment,

the only magazines
I had access to

were fashion magazines,
women's magazines,

and they had women in bras and
legs sticking out of bathtubs

and I think it was Vogue,

Harper's Bazaar,
Women's Wear Daily,

and when handing
it to the nun,

she was so shocked about
the content of my work.

She tore it up right
in front of me,

which was an
absolute shock to me.

I thought she'd be impressed

at how much time and
effort I put into it,

and I got expelled
after that.

I got kicked out
of second grade

because I essentially
had turned in something

that a person in authority
found to be unacceptable.

So, if there's a
defining point in my life

that has made me a big fan,

and basically what I consider
to be a valiant patriot

in the service of
the First Amendment,

I think I can track that
back to second grade.

- 20 years ago,
this used to be the courthouse.

I don't know
what it is today.

In a way, I was like
an instant celebrity.

People had seen
me on the news.

They came up to me
and they would say,

"Oh, so they let you out?

"Even though you
killed those people."

They were talking
about seeing footage

and images of the
Gainesville student murders,

the bodies being actually
led out of the dorms

with white sheets over them,

interspliced with footage

talking about me and my
"Boiled Angel" fanzine.

But then there was the
other side of the coin,

the religious fanatic people
that would approach me.

I would be just pumping gas
into my car at a gas station,

and there'd be a few religious
people would recognise me,

and come over and
start praying for me,

giving me religious pamphlets,
telling me to change my ways.

This was very
unpleasant sometimes.

What is this, police?
- I don't know, bro.

- Detectives.

- [Producer] Are you
scared of the police?

- Hmm?
- Are you scared of the police?

- Oh yeah.
- Why, what reason?

- They'll rape you
with a nightstick.

- Eyewitness News reporter
Steve Nichols joins us

from our St. Petersburg newsroom
with the very latest twist

in what's known as the
"Boiled Angels" case, Steve?

- Kelly,
as that very name suggests,

this is not a
mainstream magazine.

Its publisher says he only
prints about 300 copies

of each issue but if
he had any doubts,

Michael Diana now knows
for sure his tiny mag

will attract all
kinds of forces,

and not all of them friendly.

Outside the courtroom,
one protestor in Diana's corner.

- I'm here today
because I believe in

America, and I believe
in the Constitution,

and I believe in
the First Amendment.

- [Reporter] But there
were far more protestors

against the defendant, including
one offering forgiveness.

- But we are concerned
for you as a person,

and I know, I know you need
a heart and mind renewed.

- [Reporter] And
outside the courthouse,

a sample of the
debate to come.

- He can't be tied up!
- Brutalization

and victimisation
of children.

- Should these hands be tied?

I think not.

- Citizens Opposing
Pornography

and Concerned
Women of America,

promised to keep the
pressure on prosecutors

and judges in the
"Boiled Angels" case.

- By his looks here,

Diana is just cluing
in to what lays ahead.

- I strongly associated
with national

and local organisations,

the particular one was
Concerned Women for America.

That's how I found out about
the Michael Diana case.

My heart was
particularly touched

by somebody this young
drawing such graphic material.

What I felt was under the
guise of the First Amendment,

because the First Amendment
was meant to redress issues

of religious and political
problems and ideas

on both sides of the
fence, not obscenity.

So, my heart kind of went
out to this young man.

I did not read
all of his book,

but I saw enough of
the graphic material,

and what disturbed
me the most

was the fact that
it used children.

Michael Diana, have you been
sexually abused as a child?

- No, and it isn't any
of your business anyways.

- You're lying, Michael.

Even though Michael
said to me he wasn't,

he prefaced it
with he wasn't,

and then said, "But it's none
of your business anyway."

Which seemed to shout
to me loud and clear,

there is a lot of
pain in his life.

Where is your pain coming
from then, Michael,

if it wasn't sexual abuse?

Why all this
prolific, graphic,

psychopathic sexual distortion
of what should be beautiful?

So, am I saying he lied?

I'm saying there's a very good
possibility because of shame,

people hide it in
different ways,

and they don't always
want to admit it.

- Was there something
in your life,

maybe I'm looking a
little too deep into this,

but just let me
ask the question.

Because sometimes
art helps us work out

some very big
nightmares in our lives.

Is there anything that
happened in your life

that's inspired your art?

- Well, I was never abused.

I had a pretty
good childhood.

I had been taking art classes
ever since I could remember,

and I just want to draw
what I want to draw.

(suspenseful music)

(snoring)

(bottle shatters)

- [Father] Wake up,
you ugly piece of dog shit!

I told you to
have my breakfast

cooked for me
before I got up!

The way you disobey me, you
must like this clothes hanger.

And don't come back till you
catch me a rabbit for my lunch!

- [Stan] Sob, sob!

Hi, little grasshopper.

Will you be my friend?

My father is so mean to me!

He's a hardcore alcoholic

and he sexually
assaults me every night.

He puts his lit
cigarettes out on my arms!

I wish I could just live here

in these woods the
rest of my little life.

(birds chirping)

You almost look like
you understand me!

- [Grasshopper] It does
understand you, Stan.

- [Stan] What the hell?

Who are you?

You know my name?

- [Grasshopper] The grasshoppers
told me about you, Stan.

I come from a far
faraway, exotic land.

Can you dig it?

(rubber band springing)

I came to help you,
Stan, to set you free!

Your dad fucks you
up your little hot,

young, tight ass,
doesn't he, Stan, huh?

- [Stan] Yes,
he does all the time!

- Don't cry,
take my hand, pal.

(rumbling) (birds chirping)

- [Stan] This is so cool!

We're flying so high!

How do you do it?

- [Grasshopper] I can make
you into a grasshopper, Stan.

Only you have to pass
one little test for me.

- [Stan] It's my house!

Why are we here?

Dad?

- [Father] Where
the hell ya been?

I don't see my lunch!

Time to pull out
the clothes hanger.

(crunching) (groaning)

Son, my arm.

(groaning)

- [Stan] Mm,
you taste good, daddy!

- [Grasshopper]
How did you do?

- [Stan] I ate him just like a
grasshopper eats a juicy leaf.

- [Grasshopper] You must now
take off your pants, Stan.

(spring boings)

Now I strip some
flesh off your legs.

And off your cigarette
scarred arms also.

Then stick a couple
clothes hangers

into your head to be
real working antennas.

(Stan groaning)

And finally we cram this
piece of sheet metal

into your back as a wing.

I must now leave you, Stan.

Fly and be happy and free.

- [Stan] Goodbye,
friend, and thank you.

I fly in the cool
breeze of the night sky.

Now I am truly happy and
satisfied with myself.

I fly over small towns

and listen for the cries
of little abused children.

I swoop down and eat their
parents like fresh green leaves.

I am and always will be

the grasshopper boy.

(wind howling)

- When he got charged
with obscenities,

all this stuff was done
without my knowledge.

I had bought a
little convenience

store down in Florida,

and there was a
luncheonette next door,

and I'd go over to
the luncheonette

and I took the St.
Petersburg Times,

that's a big newspaper
in the county.

Right on the front page
in the centre section,

I started reading and it
said, "Michael Diana,

"Gainesville murder suspect
being charged with obscenities."

And I didn't know
what I was reading.

I started to get dizzy
and my head was spinning.

What is this?

And I tell you,
it just devastated me.

Now, I love Mike and
I've always loved him,

and I support him,

I just didn't like some
of these drawings myself,

but to want to put somebody
in jail for three years

for drawing
pictures is crazy.

(ominous music)

(owl hooting)

- When I discovered
the world of comics,

the world of people who made
comics, it was about 1983.

I was a 22 year
old journalist,

and I'd read and loved
underground comics

as a kid, as a teenager,

so I was very,
I was very buoyed up.

I was excited, I was
thrilled to come to America

where they had this First
Amendment where things,

this material was
actually produced

where it seemed like
artists could create art

without risking
customs' wrath,

without risking police wrath,

without sending
people to prison.

A chief of police who
walked into a comic shop

in Jacksonville,
Florida pointed to a sequence

in "Death: The High
Cost of Living,"

where we had a six page public
service announcement comic

in which a character
puts a condom on a banana

while explaining how not
to get AIDS, and said,

"If this is still on your
shelves a week from now,

"I'm shutting you
down forever."

And because there was a Comic
Book Legal Defence Fund,

because they had a fantastic
attorney, Burton Joseph,

who could fire off a letter

to the Jacksonville
Police Department

explaining the concept of the
First Amendment, it went away.

I remember I was at the,

I think it was the launch
of the Cartoon Art Museum

in Boca Raton,
somewhere in the early '90s,

and Mike's case was
already happening.

He hadn't yet gone to trial.

I remember meeting some
rich important people

in the Florida
comics business.

These were,
I think they were the wives

of eminent cartoonists
and such,

and talking with
upset and outrage

about what had happened
to Mike at that point,

and being told by them that I
didn't have the full picture,

that really there were
evil, terrible things

that would all come
out in the trial.

But it was obvious that
they had been sold a line,

and had bought that
line completely,

that Mike, this was just,

the obscenity charges were
merely the noxious froth

on the top of evil sewage

that went down a long way
and that there were bodies.

If you reached down,

you would come up with
rotting body parts and dirt.

- [Woman] He put
on a tie himself.

- Excuse me, ma'am,
would you like some cake?

- [Woman] No.

- What we're doing
here is we're, uh--

- They portrayed children

being molested and
in sexual activity.

- It's a First
Amendment case.

- They show young
children being raped.

- [Man] Yeah,
I had to hold back the lawyers.

- Did he tell you?
(people chattering)

- The day of the court date,
I had my own video camera,

and I took it to
the courthouse

and they told me not to turn
it on, but I had it on anyway,

and I had it on the entire time
through the metal detector,

and I had it to
the courthouse,

and I was videotaping
everybody.

I was interviewing
a few people there.

One lady was pretty crazy,

telling me Mike is
damned for good,

and I'm sure that's
on video somewhere.

- All I can feel
is compassion

for him because
he's deceived.

He's deceived, Hell is real.

Hell is real.

Hell is real, you're serving
Satan, and he'll kill you.

He'll take you to
Hell eternally.

- I got to sit in on the jury
selection with my lawyer.

There were two younger
people in the group of 30,

which said, "It's okay
for art to be shocking."

They were struck my the
prosecution immediately.

- Was this a jury
of your peers?

Was anybody under
35 on the jury?

- No.

- You knew you
were in trouble

when they all had
swastikas on their shirts.

- Yeah.

- And they all had
rednecks, right?

- Yep.

- Had they ever read a book?

- Well, one of the
old ladies in the jury

said her only contact with

pornography was
a copy of Playboy

she found in her grandson's
underwear drawer.

- Isn't that pathetic?

You're lucky,
they were gonna lynch you.

If you were black,
they would've hung you up.

- [Jello] Although
"Boiled Angel"

printed the works of
numerous artists and writers,

it was Mike Diana as publisher
and Diana's art in particular

that became the
focus of the trial.

- This isn't the usual charge

that the DA's office
or in Florida,

the State Attorney's
office typically brings,

and because it typically
evokes strong public reaction.

You know, this is America.

We don't have
censorship here.

What are you trying to do?

So, we wanted to make
sure that in fact,

all of our ducks
were in a row,

that all of the elements of
obscenity were gonna be provable

and the standard for gauging

whether in fact
something is obscene

is really a very,
very difficult standard to meet.

It's established by
the US Supreme Court

in the case of Miller
versus California,

and it's a three part test.

You know, the first one of
course is that you have to prove

that it is patently offensive

according to contemporary
community standards.

Pinellas County does not have
to accept what is acceptable,

in the bath houses
of San Francisco,

and the crack
alleys in New York.

- In this instance,
Mike had made it clear

that his zine was
only being distributed

to various individuals
that shared

the same avant
garde, very creative,

very cutting edge
artistic views,

and it wasn't for
sale at any bookstand.

It wasn't available
to children.

The only people
that were ever

forced to view it
were the jurors.

They were the first people

that had this shoved down
their throat by the state

when the very first thing they
did in their opening argument

was hand out these zines

to the people sitting on
the jury just to shock them.

(woman screams)

That's almost like saying,

"Hey, come on into my
house for a sandwich,"

and walking into
the dining room

and somebody's having
an appendectomy

on your dining room table.

- The second element
of the Miller Standard

is that it has to
appeal primarily

to a prurient
interest in sex.

Now, prurient is not a word

that we use in our
everyday conversation,

it means a shameful, lustful,
or morbid interest in sex.

Something that's gonna
make you ashamed.

- None of it appealed to a
prurient interest in sex.

There's nothing
sexual about it.

It does have sexual themes,

but it's not there
to scintillate

or appeal to the
prurient interest.

It's there quite honestly,

to be shocking and
confrontational.

- The third element
of the Miller Test

is that it has to lack
any and all serious

literary, artistic, political,
and scientific value.

What that's there
to do is to ensure

that we don't have a knee
jerk response to stuff,

and start calling things
obscene that truly aren't,

just because we
missed the point.

- So, he wanted to make sure

that there was nothing
artistic about it,

and he went to great lengths

bringing experts into
the trial to say,

"Well,
this isn't life affirming,"

or "This isn't the
Grapes of Wrath."

Obviously,
it has no artistic value,

therefore, it's obscene,

and I think that that was
one of the real issues

that we were trying to
fight is that there is

no good taste exception
to the First Amendment.

There's no bad taste exception
to the First Amendment.

It's just one of
those things that

if it doesn't work all the way
for all forms of expression,

it's really absolutely
meaningless.

- Really, if you satisfy all
of the elements of Miller,

you're not talking about
what is actually speech.

You're talking about an act

that takes the form
of pictures and words,

but it is patently offensive.

It appeals to a prurient
interest in sex,

which is a shameful, lustful,
morbid interest in sex,

and it lacks any
and all serious

literary, artistic, political,
and scientific value,

and Mike Diana had the
unfortunate circumstance

of having satisfied all of the
standards, which is unusual.

(surf punk music)

- The Comic Book Legal
Defence Fund asked me

if I would be a
defence witness

for the trial
of Mike in 1994,

and I was sent a package
of "Boiled Angel,"

and I opened it up and
I was fairly disturbed,

and semi-horrified
and nauseated.

You know, as I was going
through this is was like,

"Wow, I don't know exactly
if I can defend all this,"

because it was
just so extreme.

Then literally,
the phone rang,

and it was Chris Malone
and Stuart Baggish,

who were the prosecutors,
and they said,

"We're calling you to
take your deposition."

(high-pitched babbling)

When they started
asking me questions,

I was so offended by
their line of questioning,

because they were basically
saying that this wasn't art,

and that wasn't a question
in my mind at all.

Of course it was art,

it was just a matter of
not being sort of my taste.

So, as soon as they started
talking about those things

and questioning
whether it was art

and throwing out what was
obscene and what wasn't,

I found myself defending
the work quite easily,

and then I was like, "I'll
see you in Florida!" (laughs)

Slam.

I think that might've been

my first time in
Florida, actually,

and I went back to my hotel
room and I turned on the TV,

and I felt like I was in
a little Mike Diana comic.

There was a serial killer

that they had just caught
named Danny Rollings,

so every station had all this
gruesome detail about all of,

you know,
one station's got Oprah

with people talking
about rape and incest,

and then there's the
news on another station

where there's some priest
who's molesting some child.

It gave me more
ammo in terms of,

gee, is it possible
that Mike is responding

to the environment that
we live in, per chance?

And he's doing that
through art and comics?

(ominous music)

I met Mike Diana
for the first time

when I was down on the trial,

and he just had
almost nothing to say.

You know, he was just like
a very shy, quiet guy,

and then the hilarious
part was that

he had this extremely
attractive girlfriend,

and she was like the energy
behind Mike in that moment.

She was like, "You have
the wrong person on trial.

"I'm the deviant here."

- Nothing.
- Mike Diana is God.

- What we could do--
- Mm, mm, yeah.

(moaning)

I was reading a "Creative
Loafing" magazine

that was like the local
magazine around back then,

and I saw an article
about Mike saying

that he had gotten into
trouble with his artwork,

and there was a
picture of him,

and he looked really
sad, like scared,

and I felt like he
could use a friend.

So, I reached out
to him and I said,

"Hey, come over."

And that's, and then
we hit it off. (laughs)

The first time when
Mike came to my house,

my dad pulled me
aside and he said,

"That's the
Gainesville murderer!

"I saw him on TV!

"How dare you bring
a murderer here!"

Like, he's not a murderer.
(laughs)

Yeah, that made me
really, really mad

about how the news
demonised him.

(audience shouting)

- Let me ask you something.

Would you like
to get beat up?

- No, he doesn't--
- [Audience Member] Are you

planning on having
kids with this guy?

With this clown?

- With this clown?

He's the nicest man I've ever
known. He would never, ever--

- Yeah, I can tell by pictures
how nice he is. He's demented.

- You know, things like that,

of course it's gonna take
its toll on a relationship.

- The trial was a very
difficult time, very stressful.

Very hard to deal
with at times.

I had given my
lawyer my collection

of underground comic
books to show the jury

that this kind of artwork
was really nothing new.

However, the judge
said it was irrelevant,

and wouldn't let us
show it as evidence.

The prosecution also had an
art expert from Eckerd College,

which was a
Christian college.

He was pointing to the blowups
of "Baby Fuck Dog Food,"

and at one point
he was saying,

look at the way he
drew these lines,

so powerful and such emotion,

and then Stuart Baggish
would interrupt him and say,

"But wait a second,
it's not art, right?"

And the art expert would say,

"Oh, no, no, no,
it's definitely not art."

Their whole defence was based
on the fact that it wasn't art

and that it was art

that would turn people
into serial killers.

It didn't seem to
make much sense to me.

- [Jello] In 1954,
a psychologist testified

that reading comics
would turn children

into juvenile delinquents.

In 1994,
a psychologist testified

that reading "Boiled Angel"

would turn adults
into serial killers.

- I mean, that was one of the
big ways that the prosecutor

was able to frame Mike
as a threat to society

was because there was this
serial killer in the news,

and that people were
in a frenzy about like,

that Mike was a serial
killer in the making,

that this art
represented somebody

who was one step away
from serial killer.

First you do it on paper,
then you do it in reality.

- I was talking about the
testimony of Sidney Merin,

who had testified that this
stuff was designed to appeal

primarily to a prurient
interest in sex

of members of a deviant class,
which is sexual sadists,

and Sidney Merin
treats sexual sadists,

that's what his
practise consists of.

He said this is the kind of
thing that they start with,

and then when it no
longer stimulates them,

they move on to printed
material with photographs

depicting the sort of things

that were depicted in
drawings in "Boiled Angel,"

and when that no longer
excites them anymore,

they become
desensitised to it,

and that works itself
along a spectrum.

I'm not saying and I
didn't say at the time,

but it's something that
happens inevitably.

It's just that
when you read about

somebody doing
something horrible,

oftentimes there's
a reaction,

why didn't somebody
do something about it?

I mean,
it happened with Adam Lanza

when he shot up the
school in Connecticut.

People are wondering,

why didn't anybody do
anything about this kid?

What I wanted to point
out to the jurors

is in Mike Diana's case,
somebody did something about it.

We did something about
it while it was still

within the jurisdiction of
the misdemeanour courts,

and hadn't become a
capital felony, you know?

- I had not met Sidney Merin

when other defence attorneys

had referred to him
as "Sid the Squid,"

because anyone could hire him

and the theory was that
he could squirt ink

into the waters
of the courtroom

and create this murky,
kind of awkward scenario

that would benefit whoever
it was that was paying him.

I just thought his
entire line of testimony

should've been stricken,
should've been precluded.

Merin comes in
there and testifies

of who would look at this
kind of thing and I thought,

"How the hell
does this guy know

"who's gonna look
at this material?

"What could be
more speculative?"

Dr. Merin didn't test anyone.

He didn't evaluate anyone,

and he goes through this long
list of adverse adjectives

about people that
are sociopaths

and just on, and on, and on,

painting this
horrible picture

of not only what the
material represents,

but who would be reading
it, and even worse,

what would the
effect of that be

in looking at
Mike Diana's work?

What's it gonna
make somebody do?

(dramatic music)

The mind is much more complex

than this monkey
see, monkey do

sales pitch that
they try to make,

but the state got away
with it in this trial.

One of the subtle and perhaps
not so subtle undercurrents

of this whole trial
that Mike was not,

Mike Diana's art
wasn't on trial,

he was as being some
kind of psychopath,

as being some
kinda degenerate,

and that's just ridiculous.

I mean,
you just can't make that up,

because I'm sure
none of the people

that were actually in
this case prosecuting this

had any problem at all
with Mr. Diana's work.

I think that a lot of it was
motivated by their own desire

to perhaps become
more notable

or make a name
for themselves,

but we felt that
their ambitions

coupled with the judge's
dislike of the material,

and what we felt was
judicial interference

in our ability to make our
case on a level playing field,

it felt to us like
the fix was in.

When you make your
closing argument,

it's the most important,
absolutely critical phase

in any trial and what
makes it important

is that you get the opportunity
to tie up all the ideas

and persuade the jury

and explain to
them the important

rights that are at stake.

The minute I started
to make progress,

and I could see the
jury's faces change,

like lights going
on over their head,

and to have that flushed down
the toilet by somebody saying,

"Well, we took a break
five minutes ago.

"Let's take a
break right now."

- There was something

that we all thought
was really bizarre.

When it happened, I remember
looking at Chris and saying,

"What the hell was that?"

When Judge Fullerton just
put his hands on the bench,

"We're gonna take a break."

I thought, "Okay, I guess
we're taking a break." (laughs)

I thought it was peculiar.

- To take a recess in the
middle of my closing argument,

I felt was fatal
to our defence.

To this day,
I'm still unhappy about it,

and I often speculate
what would've happened

had that recess in my closing
argument not been taken.

(ominous music)

- I thought my lawyer Luke
put on an amazing defence.

Our expert witnesses
on our side,

we really shot down the

prosecution's experts,
I felt like,

and I really felt that
I was gonna win my case.

(gavel hammering)

- One thing you can
say about that material

is it is absolutely
worthless.

- [Reporter] The jury agreed
and took less than 90 minutes

to convict Michael Diana
for distributing obscenity.

- And I had always thought

I had the freedom to draw
whatever I wanted to.

There was a seventh
alternate jury member

who ended up not
being needed.

He was outside the
courthouse here

and he started talking to me,

and he said his feelings
being with the other jurors

was that the serial
killer slant on my trial

being told by the prosecution

that I may be a serial
killer myself, basically,

was what really turned them in
the direction to convict me.

(splattering)

- I think before
they said guilty,

I kind of had a little bit
of faith in the system,

and I thought for sure that
he wasn't gonna go to jail.

I saw them take him away.

I was in shock.

- I was led from
the courtroom,

handcuffed and taken
to a paddy waggon,

which took me across
the street to the jail.

I'm happy that there's no free
speech in Pinellas County.

- [Reporter] Okay,
will you still continue

to do your form of art?

- No, I'm gonna give up

till I move out of
the state some day.

Three years from now
when probation's over.

- [Reporter] After
his comments,

Diana was then loaded
into a sheriff's van

for the short ride
back to the county jail

where he'll spend
one more night.

- Well, I mean,
when you heard

that he actually was found
guilty, I mean, it was scary,

and from our perspective
here in New York,

I think that our attitude is
like, "Well, it's Florida."

I mean,
anything could happen.

- That famous line when
the prosecutor stands up

and dismisses the expert
witnesses who'd come in

with the statement that the
standards of Pensacola, Florida

are not the standards
at the gay bath houses

of San Francisco and the
crack alleys of New York City.

When I heard that,
I suddenly understood that,

no, this is a small town case,
and it's small town values,

and they got him.

- I was in the
maximum detention

for the first 48
hours in jail.

After that,
I moved to a less secure area,

mostly with DUI
repeat offenders.

My lawyer came to
visit me in jail.

He said that the judge didn't
have to put me in jail.

He just wanted to make
an example out of me.

After four days
and four nights,

I was returned to the
courthouse for sentencing.

- I worked every
day at the store,

so I wasn't able to go
to the five day trial.

I did go the last day
when people could go in,

relatives could go in

and talk about him to
influence the sentencing.

I remember I couldn't believe

what they were
making out of this.

I left the courtroom,

and there must've
been a dozen reporters

shoving microphones
in my face.

I didn't want to be on the
news, on TV, so I told 'em,

I said, "I'm going back to
my store the Cabbage Patch,

"and I've got some more

"of those $1.49 Marlboro
cigarettes to sell."

Because I thought,
if they put it on the news,

I'm gonna get some
free advertising.

But I said it because I knew

they would never
put it on the news.

- The prosecutor Baggish
was pushing for jail time.

He was telling the judge
that the only way you could

really be a punished man
was that if I did jail time,

because now the whole case

and publicity had made
me a famous artist.

- We felt that
incarcerative sentence,

meaning something
involving jail time

was certainly appropriate
given the gravity of it.

- Instead,
the judge sentenced me to,

(gavel hammers)
(birds chirping)

three years probation,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to pay
a $3,000 fine,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to pay $1,200 for
my own psychiatric evaluation,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to complete 1,200
hours of community service,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to work 40 hours
a week at a full-time job,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to take and pass
a journalism ethics course,

(gavel hammers)

ordered me to stay
at least 10 feet away

from anyone under
the age of 18,

(gavel hammers)

and I was forbidden
to draw anything

that might be
considered obscene,

even for my own personal use
in the privacy of my own home,

(siren wailing)

and I was subject to
warrantless searches

by the police to see
that this was enforced.

(siren wailing)

- Not only couldn't
his comics be sold,

but the decision of
the court or the judge

was that he was not allowed
to draw at all. (laughs)

I think that's what it was,
and that's nuts! (laughs)

I mean, there's nothing,
there's no defence for that.

This is one step away from
cut off his hands, you know?

- My students gasp when they
hear he wasn't allowed to draw,

that at any point in time,

the police could
come into the home,

come into Mike's room,
and make sure he wasn't drawing.

That's just like,
"What the fuck?" (laughs)

That's just crazy!

That's just crazy.

- And I think he even limited
him in his artistic supplies.

You couldn't have all
kind of art supplies

in your house,
just crazy stuff.

(birds chirping)

- [Jello] Life goes on.

- This case was filed in
'93, tried in '94,

and that's a lot of
water under the bridge.

I mean, the internet didn't
exist when we filed this case,

and certainly internet porn

didn't exist when
we filed this case.

You know, nowadays, people
are exposed to lots of things

that they weren't
exposed to then.

That's one of the beautiful
things about the Miller Standard

is just because something is
found obscene in 1993, '94,

doesn't mean it's
obscene forever,

and it doesn't mean
it's obscene everywhere.

It just means it's obscene
right here, right now,

and that's really about it.

- Actually absolutely
no regrets.

We did the right thing,
we did our job, I'll say that.

We did our job and then
the jurors as citizens,

they were charged
with an obligation,

and the result
was what it was.

- The ultimate irony was that
Stuart Baggish and the law

exposed more of the
community to "Boiled Angel"

number seven and eight
than I ever could have.

Until then, nobody even knew
about me or "Boiled Angel."

It wasn't until it
was on the news,

the news cameras
actually took photographs

of the so-called
obscene artwork.

- Mike is the only artist,
the only American artist

ever found guilty on
obscenity charges.

Not the only cartoonist, the
only artist in American history

found guilty of
obscenity charges,

but they had a real
hard on for him.

This was personal.

This went beyond, you know,

a local authority running for
office wanting to amplify.

I mean, they, you know,

this was like they wanted
to take this kid out,

and even the very personal
nature of the attack.

But you know,
legal authorities

tend not to go
after millionaires,

because millionaires
got money

to defend themselves
in court.

A 17 year old, an 18 year
old, easy target.

What is this kid gonna do?

And that to me is a
real act of cowardice,

and just an incredible abuse
of authority and power.

- Now, what the name of
the local prosecutor?

What's his name?

- Stuart Baggish.

- Tell this DA that I live
in Pompano, come visit me.

Bust me, you scumbag!
Come and get me.

What's his name, Baggish?

- Baggish.

- That bag of
shit we call you.

(laughing)
Bag of shit.

Name's Al Goldstein,
I live in Pampano.

1500 North Ocean
Boulevard, bust me.

You turd!

Why don't you pick on
someone your own size.

You small dick
cocksucking turd!

- When I left Florida
and moved to New York,

it was right in the
middle of my appeal,

so I basically snuck
away to New York.

I didn't even tell my
lawyer at first that I left,

because I just needed
to get out of there.

After I found out
that I lost my appeal,

they wanted me back in
Florida to do probation.

They actually tried to
get the New York office

probation office
to take my case,

but New York didn't
seem to want to have

anything to do with it.

- The impression I get is
that the police of New York

are too busy to knock
down somebody's door

at four o'clock
in the morning

and make sure
they're not drawing.

- Well,
the probation officer,

this woman would call
me up on the phone

and remind me I wasn't
supposed to be drawing.

Of course, at that time,

I was drawing every day
since I wasn't in Florida.

She also reminded me I was
getting behind in my fine.

I was about $100 behind

and she ended up quitting
the probation office

and violated my probation
before she left.

So since 1998, I've been wanted
by the police in Florida,

and I haven't been
able to go to Florida

out of fear of
being arrested.

- I had mixed feelings
about a lot of things

regarding Mike
Diana in particular.

I kept getting this feeling
that he personally had

ambivalent feelings
about everything

that was happening to him and
I could be terribly wrong,

but I kept wondering, is he
as outraged as his defenders?

Just when I would
read quotes from him,

and even when I met him, there
was this benign acceptance.

It's almost like some
part of him was like,

"Well,
I asked for it and I got it."

You know? (laughs)

- At this moment today, well,

which is I'm sure just
randomly chosen the day

that a crew would come by to
chat with me about Mike Diana,

is the 60th anniversary of
senate subcommittee meeting

on juvenile delinquency,
which happened in 1954,

and this was when Bill Gaines

was actually interviewed
today 60 years ago

about what his evil influence
on children with EC Comics.

But it's still the
only person I know,

that's ever gone to jail for
doing a comic is Mike Diana,

so here's to you, Mike.
(chuckles)

- For me, the thing that's
most important right now

about Mike Diana's case
is nobody knows about it.

The idea that in the
history of America,

one American artist has been
found guilty of obscenity

for his own work and
what he was sentenced to,

should be taught
in every school.

What happened to him
was so profoundly wrong,

and so profoundly representative
of what can go wrong,

and why the First Amendment is
necessary, and what it means,

that I'm just so happy that
somebody's telling the story.

- I was saddened to know

that he still carries
many of these wounds

and I want to
apologise to Michael

if unnecessary wounds
were inflicted.

- They claimed he's gonna
end up killing people.

He's gonna be a serial killer,
and here how many years later

and I don't think he's
killed anybody yet.

- [Jello] Mike Diana has
never stopped drawing.

His art is still as
outrageous, raw, shocking,

funny, confrontational,
controversial,

but not obscene
as it always was.

The trial introduced
him to legions of fans.

Since 1994, he's had exhibitions
in New York, Chicago,

Baltimore, Miami,
London, Berlin, Prague,

Copenhagen, Stockholm,
Toulouse, and Los Angeles.

he has also published numerous
anthologies of his work.

- Yeah, it got him on
people's radar screens,

and he became a
cause celebre.

You know, that's unavoidable.

I hope he made
good use of it.

("Star Spangled
Banner" guitar music)

(laughing) - Oh,
that's crazy.

(bluesy guitar music)

(heavy punk music)