Why you should not go to DragonCon

See this fine-looking chap? His name is Edward Kramer, and he's a bonafide, out and out pedophile. And guess what? He is a co founder of DragonCon. The simple summary would be that he has successfully delayed going to jail for a decade by funding a legal maneuvering campaign through his share of DragonCon profits. And the corporation that organizes DragonCon can't seem to quite shake off this gentleman. [read more]

Click for some cursory facts in this story.


And a small excerpt:

As Atlanta Magazine reported in September, the wildly successful convention made Kramer wealthy enough that he’s been able to afford to file motion after motion to stall his criminal case for more than a decade. A month after his initial incarceration in the Gwinnett County (Georgia Jail) following his August 2000 arrest, he fell and hit his head, an injury that, when coupled with his other unusual health requirements, led to his release in November 2000 on $75,000. He was back in jail within a few days — a neighbor reported seeing a teenage boy enter his home — but he was placed under house arrest following claims of a January 2001 assault by a deputy.

Even a reindictment to include a third alleged victim couldn’t keep the litigious Kramer in jail. His declining health, which apparently required the attention of 16 physicians, led to one hearing delay after another, and repeated petitions to the court resulted in 11 modifications to the conditions of his bond.

The next decade would see Kramer successfully petition for Social Security disability benefits and fail in a bid to emigrate to Israel, all while continuing to stall his prosecution. It wasn’t until Kramer was arrested in September 2011 in Connecticut on a bond violation — he was allegedly caught in a motel room with a 14-year-old boy — that he finally ended up back in jail. But even then, he fought extradition back to Georgia for more than a year.

 Here is a message from the Foglios, brought to my attention by the amazing Cathy Wappel:

We're Not Going to Dragon-Con.

The few people who actually check our Convention Calendar no doubt noticed that we were planning on going to Dragon Con this year. We were kind of excited about it, actually. We used to go to Dragon Con every year, and had a whole lot of fun. There's tens of thousands of people with pockets full of money who love our stuff, and the after hour parties are some of the best on the con circuit.

For one reason or another we stopped going. We do a lot of conventions, it's all the way across the country, it's the weekend before school starts, it's the same weekend as Worldcon, heat death, whatever.

But we always missed it, and planned to go back. So when they asked us to be guests, AND offered to fly us down AND put us up in the hotel AND give us a dealer's table, we were mighty excited. Whenever we go to a new convention, we always do very well, financially. There are always readers who wait to buy the books directly from the authors. Perhaps they think we get more of the money that way, or they want an autograph, or they just want to put a face to the work and actually talk to us (We love this stuff by the way, it's one of the reasons we do conventions. Meeting the people who enjoy our work gives us a 'contact high' that can inspire us for months). Whatever the reason, when we do a new convention in an area of the country we haven't been to in a while, we do very well indeed. And we're talking about Dragon Con here. 40,000 attendees. You only have to sell to a small percentage of that crowd to come back with grocery money for the next month or so. Plus it's a chance to bring our work to the attention of potential readers. A con where we have so-so sales, but give away several thousand postcards to people who haven't heard of us before is still a success in our eyes, because we're in this for the long haul (This should not come as a surprise to the people who have been reading us for the last 12 years). In my experienced opinion, if we went to Dragon-Con, Studio Foglio would make over $15,000. and that's net, not gross. But we're not going. This decision is costing us, and we don't care.

The reason we are not going is that Dragon-Con is partially owned by a man named Ed Kramer. Ed is a pedophile. He was arrested for it back in 2000, and again in 2011. He was arrested for it again– LAST WEEK. Why, you may ask, is Mr. Kramer not in jail? Well, he has been mounting a very effective series of legal delaying tactics. How is he able to afford this? Dragon-Con pays him close to $150,000 every year. That's how. (http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/2013/01/nancy-a-collins-calls-for-dragoncon-boycott-over-ties-to-co-founder/)

This does not have to happen. Dragon–Con is not a one-man shop. It is a corporation. There are a Board of Directors. They could dissolve the corporation, and then form a brand new corporation without Ed Kramer before lunch. This new corporation could then run conventions in the same place, at the same time, in the same facilities, possibly with the same name (but for P.R. reasons, they might want to think about that). However they have not done this. They have not done this for 12 years. Yes, it would be expensive. Yes, it would be inconvenient. Yes, some people would be made sad. But the Board of Directors has decided that they would rather send hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to a known, active pedophile. They are okay with that. They have made an active decision to keep on doing that.

I am not okay with that. I have children. I know people who have children. I seem to remember that I might have been a child myself, once. No doubt there are thousands of people who go to Dragon-Con who don't know about this. Tell them. No doubt there are thousands of people who do know about this, but will go to Dragon-Con anyway. I certainly can't stop you.

But I will be disappointed.

It's interesting that even a tangential hobby to 40k (although really, 40k would be more tangential to Comics and RPGs) can garner 40,000 participants to a single convention, and it's amazing that authors and artists command enough income to be able to boycott part of their income stream.

So are you going?