See, you get rid of the Comics Code Authority and then all Hell breaks lose.

Archie Comics Publications has filed legal papers against co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit — claiming she has a history of bullying and sexually harassing employees … and she must be stopped!
According to the lawsuit, filed yesterday in NY, several employees have lodged complaints about Nancy’s “offensive” behavior … including one time in 2009, when she barged into a meeting and “pointed to each [attendee] and said, ‘PENIS, PENIS, PENIS, PENIS’ and then walked out.”
Nancy allegedly pulled the same “penis” stunt again in 2010 — but this time she also screamed out, “My balls hurt.”
Archie Comics claims it hired an outside firm to investigate the allegations — and the company recommended Archie cut ties with Nancy ASAP.
Now, Archie wants a judge to grant an injunction — barring Nancy from returning to the office … and preventing her from representing the company at the upcoming Comic-Con in San Diego.

And so it’s picked up and we see this title, which strikes me as a little sexist.  “Lady CEO”. I suppose the joke is that her alleged behavior is un-ladylike.

Sure, I understand this theory of things.  Nancy Silberkleit wanted to point out the gender imbalance at her meetings.  Apparently she was in rooms with, by counting the number of times she shouted “penis”, four men.  Debate the matter of whether this is sexual harrassment… and, you know?

See? For that matter, what they are describing could be more appropriately described as “anatomical harassment” – just because a penis is used in sex shouldnt’ mean that every reference to it is sexual. It’s also used to urinate.

Well, Jay Leno can put on his network tv show “Puppetry of the Penis”, so I guess we’ve crossed a threshold here.

In her defense, we have a classic “mass comment” line here, alleging some company politics:

“Jon Goldwater is up to no good and has been since day one at the helm. The company has been turned on it’s side and Mr Goldwater has gotten his employees to take sides in an effort to take control and throw Nancy out. Additional­ly, artists such as the legandary Stan Goldberg have been tossed aside (after 40 years) as the ultimate Archie Ambassador for no apparent reason. Goldwater will run the company into the ground and that is the ultimate shame of it all. Nancy has to hold her ground (this lawsuit will never stand), put a plan into place to have an equal voice and restore a sense of sanity and direction (including hiring back Stan Goldberg) into Riverdale once more.”

Yeah, but doesn’t Stan Goldberg kind of suck?  At once somewhat competent and reliable in putting out a whole lot of pages — something necessary for this company, but he’s no Harry Lucey, Dan Decarlo, or Samm Schwartz!  — but basically deteriorating in quality?  And I’m not the only one whose reaction when Archie Comics launched its latest “media attention grabbing gimmick after media attention grabbing gimmick” phase with “Archie Marries Veronica” to see Goldberg’s art and think that that’s unfortunate — that that’s what they put out to wider public viewing.   Is the problem that he was let go so slowly (from reports), — just slowly dropped the number of assignments, or when he was let go was he not given just compensation or appreciation of long term of service?   Stan Goldberg got a “Best Of” book on departing, right?, and moves on to that odd post-retirement (forced or otherwise) field of “Legacy project“s invited by cohorts at Marvel Comics, right?

Note to the reference to “modernization, some might say liberalization” round about the page for the following comment, and see the sticking up for Nancy Silberkleit here.  This reference is with one of the “media attention grabbers” being a gay character, I assume, posted in snarling.

At bottom, nobody cares about the company politics at Archie Comics, and the if there’s any further back-story of back-stabbing and marshaling into an anti-Nancy Silberkleit faction and a pro-Nancy Silberkleit faction, this is all washed out in the “Penis Penis Penis Penis Penis!”.  The presence of peni rather suck up all available oxygen, and there’s not much else for Silberkleit to do to counter-charge for grasps of media attention.  That being said, the attendees at San Deigo’s comics con are either more savvy than the general public or more anarchic, and the Archie Comics booth will prove an irresistible target for someone, I am sure.

It is funny that the only other story one gets when looking up Nancy Silberkleit in news is a fluffy positive press piece about a children’s book fair.

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