Ed Piskor's Agent: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You!

I keep returning to the point that no one has ever claimed to have been harmed by Ed Piskor in any way—not physically, emotionally, or in terms of their career. No one claims to have been assaulted, molested, raped, sexually harassed in the workplace or online, promised a tangible, concrete career benefit in exchange for sex, threatened with career retaliation if sex were refused, pinched on the bottom, or anything of the sort. No one claims to have been harmed or injured in any way whatsoever.

“But what about demanding a blowjob in exchange for his agent’s phone number?” someone importuned on one of my Facebook threads.

The actual allegation is worded thus: “I reached out to Ed and he eagerly invited me over. We had plenty of fun and discussed animation and comics. This was until he asked me to suck his dick in exchange for his agent’s number.”

It’s not clear from this account how the subject of agenting came up. Had the person brought along her portfolio? Had the two been “discussing animation and comics” when, out of the blue, the complainant suddenly requested agency representation? Had career ambition been her only motivation to “reach out” to Ed in the first place?

To which the appropriate response would have been: “Blow me”—Pittsburgh vernacular for “Go jump in a lake!” or “Get outta town!”

Or, more prosaically: “What makes you think you’re ready for agency representation?”

Perhaps Ed suddenly felt horny and blurted out, “I’d like you to pleasure me orally. I know of a bribe that would be of inestimable value to a wannabe jobber like yourself: my New York City literary agent’s phone number!”

Either way, it speaks of a relationship not predicated on mutual attraction and affection, but on transactional career opportunism. Since it wasn’t Ed reaching out in the first place, such base motives can only logically be ascribed to the complainant.

What use would an agent’s phone number be to a complete unknown, whose only credits seem to be one or two short animated spots for a local TV station in Pittsburgh and the design (in the style of John Kricfalusi) of a Tarot deck that apparently can’t be ordered anywhere and may never have even been manufactured?

(Note: My own desultory searches for examples of this person’s work online have not uncovered very much—certainly nothing in my opinion that would merit the attention of a top New York City literary agent. For that matter, there is nothing about the few examples I’ve seen to date that stands out at all, such as strong drawing skills or an original creative imagination. I may be wrong; if you are aware of this person’s IP and are convinced it will set the literary world on fire, then by all means—put them in touch with literary representation at once! And if you have a copy of the Tarot deck for sale, please contact me.)

According to a profile floating on the internet, Ed’s New York agent purportedly is in the market for prose in the following genres: mystery, commercial fiction, thrillers/suspense, military/espionage, sports, politics, medical, science “written as narrative,” memoirs, current affairs, and business.

They are “not interested in seeing romance, children’s or young adult books, screenplays, or poetry,” are “no longer represent[ing] fantasy or science fiction,” and emphatically “do not represent romance, chick lit, history, [or] cookbooks.”

Jesus Christ—even I wouldn’t want to waste this person’s time with a pitch.

They are also “looking to expand [their] representation of graphic novels”—but this would presume a would-be client who was a graphic novelist.

No doubt, I’m being terribly unfair. Perhaps I am missing something, but I have yet to discover whether the complainant has ever published a ‘zine, ever written or drawn a comic book, has plans for a graphic novel on the drawing boards, or has crafted so much as a single comic strip or comic book page for print or internet (“sequentials,” to use the modern parlance).

There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of cartoonists who have published comic books and graphic novels, created IP, and have book projects in the works—and could use the services of a top-rate literary agent in New York City. Creators who have actual credits, a track record, something of a ready audience for their work.

But a completely unknown local animator who designed a deck of Tarot cards in the style of Ren and Stimpy?

Again—being terribly unfair.

Partial screenshot of Ed Piskor’s New York City literary agent’s listing.

Some people seem to regard the “agent’s phone number for oral sex” offer as tantamount to a Golden Ticket to visit Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, or the guaranteed “rich and famous contract” Orson Welles offers to Kermit the Frog at the end of The Muppet Movie.

These people apparently have no idea how the comics business actually works.

Agents are busy people. Successful agents already have clients with finished projects they are shopping around to publishers. Agents don’t have time to find spot illustration work for the hook-ups of authors they already represent, oral sex or not.

Perhaps if Ed had offered a letter of introduction or a personal introduction … but even so, the odds are incalculably long.

An agent’s phone number, in this case, would have about the cash value of a losing lottery ticket.

The odds that the complainant would have ever gotten a call back from this agent are likely less than zero—and not only because the agent requests that queries be mailed in a self-addressed, stamped envelope, not phoned in.

Now, if a New York editor were to promise someone a permanent penciling gig on Wonder Woman in exchange for sexual favors, that would be a tangible career benefit. It would also be sexual misconduct and subject to legal sanction.*

But … a phone number for a literary agent in New York City you have to cold-call yourself, who will probably never call you back in a million years?

Ed Piskor refuted the allegation thusly: “It’s so corny. I absolutely never asked for a blowjob in trade for anything ever. She successfully made me look stupid and everybody accepted her word as fact.”

Indeed. People who can accept such rubbish as plausible are pretty damned stupid.

Back in the 1990s, when I was self-publishing Bizarre Heroes under my Fiasco Comics imprint, I was often approached by people who wanted to self-publish. Many others were self-publishing with greater success than I—Jeff Smith, Batton Lash, Colleen Doran, James Owen, Rick Veitch, and so on. Dave Sim was proclaiming it a movement (the first seventy issues of Cerebus the Aardvark had actually been published by Dave’s girlfriend and later his wife, Deni Loubert, until she divorced him, thus propelling him into self-publishing—but no matter).

Many of the people seeking advice were not industry veterans seeking refuge from the freelance, work-for-hire trenches, but rather absolutely untested beginners who had never written or drawn anything before in their lives. They had never freelanced for Marvel or DC, had never created a comic book, never developed any IP, never drawn so much as a page of comics anyone had ever read.

It was easy to tell such people, “Why don’t you come back when you have a first page that makes me want to read a second page? Then, maybe we’ll discuss how to approach distributors and printers, marketing, and so forth.” There was no point in wasting my breath on someone who wasn’t even remotely ready to consider self-publishing.

I remember being confronted by one individual at a convention in the mid-nineties who actually had a finished comic—penciled, inked, and computer-lettered—and demanded I tell him everything I knew about self-publishing. It was a first effort, admirable at least in that it actually existed on paper. But the comic was completely and thoroughly mediocre—a substandard version of what Marvel and DC put out far more competently at least two hundred times every month.

I told this person the market didn’t need worse versions of what it already had too much of. Self-publishing was about putting out something that traditional publishers weren’t willing to take a risk on, something experimental, a personal vision that the cartoonist believed in. Perhaps in not so many words.

I was something of an idealist back in the mid-nineties.

This wasn’t what they wanted to hear—I supposed I was expected to at least cough up a blurb on demand that could be used to promote their book. This person immediately went over to the tables of other creators and self-publishers in Artists Alley and proceeded to badmouth me.

The book, I understand, was eventually published, but I’m not sure it ever made it past a second issue.

I assume the allegation “he asked me to suck his dick in exchange for his agent’s number” is similarly-motivated trash talk by someone with unrealistic expectations to begin with, seeking an expedient and undeserved shortcut up the career ladder.

To my mind, this was never a serious allegation of sexual misconduct.

The idea that Ed Piskor was obligated to share his industry contacts with a completely untested beginner—for love, money, or a crude, spontaneous sex act—is simply ludicrous.

That the complainant’s hypothetical cartooning career was harmed in any way by withholding that agent’s phone number (which can actually be found on the internet) is even more preposterous.

I keep returning to the point that no one ever claimed to have been harmed by Ed Piskor in any way—not physically, emotionally, or in terms of their career. Correct me if I’m wrong. —Don Simpson.

(I would dispense my agent’s phone number, but it won’t do you any good. If you can get them to call you back, you’ll be doing better than me! Good luck with that.)

Beaten to Death: The Ed Piskor Grooming Hoax (10k words) | Newsflash! Women Were Fond of Ed!

Ed Piskor and Life Drawing | Remembrances of Ed Piskor | Ed: Socrates’ Sockpuppet

The Comix Beat-Up Guide to Outing Your Groomer (satire) | The Ed Grooming Hoax: A Recap
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*Seducing your child’s nanny her first day on the job and an eighteen-year-old fan forty years your junior in your thrall, consensual or not, would also be considered sexual misconduct by many. But this is comics.