In 1997, Mike Diana became the first artist to be convicted for obscenity in the United States. In the early 1990s, he produced an adult comic book called Boiled Angel. The comic contained graphic depictions of a variety of taboo and gory subjects. In 1991, while investigating a Florida murder case, a police officer discovered an issue of Boiled Angel and, desperate for clues, contacted Diana, informed him he was a suspect, and requested a blood sample. The real killer was soon apprehended, and Diana was not pursued. The officer in question, however, collected additional issues of Boiled Angel and sent them to the State’s Attorney’s office where they went on file. Two years later, the Assistant State's Attorney, Stuart Baggish, came across the books and sent Diana a certified letter that said he was being charged with three counts of obscenity: one for publishing the material, one for distributing it, and one for advertising it.

Richardson caught up with Mike to discuss his past, his comics, and the future.

Your most infamous work is Boiled Angel, when and how did you start making it?

I had started drawing comics in my high school years, I would pass them around the class and the story would have a teacher we didn't like being killed in a sick way. In '87, my final year of high school, I was so sick of class I just started to draw my own comics and I would try to submit them to a horror magazine. Well a few I sent out to magazines and got rejection letters.

My friend Robert in high school, we were both born in New York state so being in Florida we would often talk about how we hated it in the hot sunshine state. He got a job at a print shop and talked the boss into letting us print a book at cost for materials and only if we did the labor.

We got together my past high school works and I also made some new ones. Robert drew a bunch of comics for it as well, this was in '88, and we decided to call the book HVUYIM. We wanted to give folks a title where they would wonder what the meaning was but it doesn’t mean anything; I’m not even sure how to say it. We made negatives of our comics and then burned them into aluminum printing plates. We were going for print run of 1,000 copies but due to misprints there were only 960 made. I still have a small hand full of these.

My next zine in late '88 was Angelfuck , the title of a misfits song. I did three issues in 8 1/2 X 11 format. I then decided to do a digest size zine and change the title to a name I made up myself, Boiled Angel. The first issue was only 65 copies. I felt this would give it a collectable value being a first rare issue. Other issues grew in print run as I got more people interested in it. Issue #7 and 8 had 300 copies each.

Who or what do you view as major influences?

I was a big fan of Topps Ugly stickers when I was a kid, I didn't think about the artist who drew them, I just liked monster faces and gross stuff. I would collect Horror Head tattoos and put them on my body, also Wacky Packages stickers and Creature Feature cards that had scenes from horror movies but with a funny text added in. I liked underground comics as a teen and Heavy Metal Illustrated magazine, old copies of Creepy and Eerie magazines I would find.

There was a big bookstore in town called Paperback Palace and the basement was perhaps a football field of old comics. I even found some old 10-cent horror comics, some EC titles. I liked "Plop" with art by Basil Wolverton and all the first issues of '70's swamp thing comics with art by Bernie Wrightson. I then started ordering underground comic titles, even the fact I was not yet 18 didn't stop me from signing my name to order them by mail.

S. Clay Wilson was an old favorite as well as Greg Irons. Rory Hayes was another influence that I see a bit of in my own comics. Even the sick little chick publications I would find now and then were an influence. I once wrote a letter to Chick publications and had a story that I found a chick comic and it turned my life around. I drew a crude image of Jesus on the cross with a text arrow pointing to him saying "he saved me" and I asked for a bunch of chick books and they sent me a box of what I think was every issue they had at the time.

Also, I should mention that when I was a baby I was baptized as a roman catholic. I remember going to church each Sunday and I liked the images on the stained glass windows. However, I got a creepy feeling about Jesus hanging on the cross.

As I got older I was sickened going to Florida church. They would tell us how we would all burn in hell and then everybody would put money in the basket. Later, I would see the news reports on TV about priests molesting children. My brother would never behave in church so Dad had to spank him each Sunday in the church parking lot.

We also had to go to bible study Sunday class after church, one teacher would go on crying about how Jesus suffered for us, "They rubbed salt in his wounds and yanked out his beard hairs." Another teacher talked to my dad about me becoming a alter boy but I told Dad no way. I just wanted to be out having fun on Sunday with my friends who didn't have to go to church.

One day a young couple, male and female came to class to show us their evil record collection. They played them backwards for us and the song “Another One bites the Dust” tells you to smoke marijuana and other songs tell you to kill yourself when played backward, Beatles songs played backwards tell you to worship Satan.

They had a pile of records we were not to buy such as AC/ DC, Kiss, Black Sabbath; even Prince was on the list due to the almost nude photo of himself on the cover.

By age 16 I had decided to just stop going to church. My little brother had stopped going and my sister stopped before I did so I sure was not going to continue. My dad kept going for a while.

I had a lot of anger toward the church and religion. I put a lot of this in my artwork. I felt it was a way, and still is a way, to get the years of them trying to brain wash me out of my head. Also it is so taboo for artists to go against the church so that made me want to be even more blasphemous. This anti-religious theme was brought up in court and used against me.

You are famous for being the first artist to be criminally convicted for obscenity in the USA, what were the circumstances that led to this conviction?

I had just published Boiled Angel #6 and had only sent out a few copies. One day near X-Mas '91 two detectives, a male and female showed up to my mothers house where I would visit and they pulled out a copy of #6 and said that because of the comic I was a suspect in the Gainsville, FL student murders. They told me I had to go and give a DNA blood sample to clear my name. A killer had murdered 5 students in their dorms at the college and the pigs were trying to build up a DNA database. A group called the Florida Department of Law Enforcement kept an eye on me after they stole my blood.

Later, I printed Boiled Angel #7 and #8 and I got a letter in the mail from a guy named Michael Flores who had just moved to Largo, Florida from Ft. Lauderdale and who said that he had heard my comics.

He was one of the undercover cops that came to me with the Boiled Angel #6 serial killer blood sample thing. In court he claimed that he was at the post office one day and I was in line and he noticed the return address on packages I was mailing out and remembered me. So he sent me a total of ten letters asking for boiled angel and sourballs comic and sent me money for the video and books, another letter he stated "come on, I'm not a cop." This was the first and only time somebody from my own city of largo wrote to me so I deep down knew it was strange. In one of my letters back to him I said why dont we meet in person to save the postage but he wrote back some excuse.

So that was in "91 and the books stayed on file at the State attorneys office for 2 years til I was charged. A theory my lawyer Luke had was that the prosecutor came across them by chance and thought he could make a name for himself with such a case. He ended up going into private practice and he had them blow up "obscene" comics mounted on foamcore from the trial {these were to show the jury,some of the most graphic scenes of boiled angel} well he had them proudly framed and hanging in the waiting room at his new office.

My lawyer, tried to get the case thrown out saying the letters were entrapment but it did not work.

The first time I showed up to court to enter my plea I was mobbed with TV and radio reporters as well as two groups of concerned Christian citizens with protest signs. I plead not guilty and then contacted the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund for help. They got me a Lawyer, Luke Lerot, and after much red tape and attempting and failing to get the case thrown out or moved to Tampa, where we felt we would get a better chance at a fair jury, it was time a year later to go to trial.

I was railroaded in court, the prosecution told the jury I was a suspect in the Gainsville murders even though the real killer was caught and had plead guilty just days before my trial started. They claimed that the art in Boiled Angel was made for killers and would turn people who read it into killers. At the courthouse the boiled angel books were on display for the public and even children to see, the Florida law says the public has the right to see material being charged, so Florida exposed my art to so many more than I could have ever dreamed of, not to mention they showed my comics on the prime time news on all stations. I was even on some TV talk shows about the case.

I was on the stand for over three hours to explain my art to the jury. I had a big stack of my old underground comics as exhibits to show them I was not doing anything new and that I had freedom of press but the judge would not let them be seen.

I lost my trial and was found guilty of all three counts. After, I was taken from the courtroom to the jail across the street and was there for 4 days to await sentencing. I was worried since I knew I was facing three years in jail. I returned to court in the same suit I was sent to jail in and I was given a harsh 3-year probation sentence. I was also ordered to pay a $3,000.00 fine, get a psycho exam and any treatment needed (at my own expense), work 8 hrs. per week for a non-profit group (for 3 years), take a journalism ethics class (so I can become “a real writer” as the judge said), and stay at least ten feet from anyone under 18 years old. Additionally, I was ordered not to draw anything and the police were to conduct surprise searches of my apartment to look for signs of art. I was on probation for 7 months and then my lawyer got my probation postponed until the outcome of the appeal.

You were forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation as a part of your sentence, what were the doctor’s findings?

Well, I went and saw this lady and she figured that since I was ordered by the court to pay, she could get some money out of me. She said she charged $100.00 per hour and the interview and testing would take 3 hours. I showed up at the fancy office and she gave me bunch of true or false questions about hearing voices and stuff. Then she showed me ink blots and went page by page in the boiled angel books asking me which drawings I did, then more questions about sex and shit and blood.

After it was done, she said the bill was $1,300.00. She said she had spent ten hours reviewing the boiled angel books, so I never paid her a dime and, sorry to say, never found out what the outcome of the evaluation would have been.

When I moved to NYC in '96 my case was still on appeal in Florida. Right after I arrived, I got word from my Dad that the police were looking for me, the appeals court had upheld the conviction and denied any further appeal. Since I was in New York and they cant come and drag me back to Florida, they let me serve my probation by mail. I ended up finding a shrink that gave me a perfect evaluation for $100.

As the only artist to ever be tried and convicted under Florida's draconian censorship laws, do you feel that this has added a level of notoriety to your work? Do you feel like you need to constantly be pushing the envelope with new work you produce?

It has for sure added notoriety; I never would have been talked about in Playboy, Wired, Mother Jones, Flipside, Dazed and Confused, and many other magazines if not for the charges.

I was getting my comics better known before the charges, but I had not produced another issue of Boiled Angel after #8 due to the fact that when I was charged, in ‘92, I was working on a graphic novel called Sourball Prodigy. By the way, Sourball Prodigy was also ordered in the mail by the police at the same time as Boiled Angel’s #7 and #8 but I was not charged for that one.

Everybody wants to see the Boiled Angel Books that started all my problems. I will soon release a box set of Boiled Angel #1-#8 for the first time ever. So be on the look out for that. Also, sorry to say, I have felt that due to the legal problems in Florida some publishers are afraid to print my art. Some feel they cannot ask me to do art because I will go too far over the edge for their publication and it is more fear on their part.

That being said, I did a great fold out cover for an amazing band; Iron Monkey, and I did a sketch for approval. It was a gorilla stuck to a cross with needles and they asked me, "Where's the big dick?" And I realized some want the big dick and some do not, so I gave the gorilla a big dick with a big needle stuck into a bulging vain. They were happy.

I do feel I should keep topping my past work in one-way or another. One way is doing short cartoon animation, little gags that are not as extreme as the Boiled Angel stuff but just being in movement and on the TV makes it seem shocking.

In the future I want to make a graphic novel all about the court case and how living in Florida is what made me rebel and took my art in the direction that lead me to jail.

I will show how horrible the Largo police were, beating up drunks on the street, and how it is basically a police state. The police got the fire department to have our family evicted from our house with only one week’s notice and then they bulldozed the house down.

The part of your sentence where you were forbidden from drawing for your own personal use and enjoyment seems particularly egregious. During the time you were still in Florida, you must have still been drawing, but the police also raided you. Were you ever caught with newly produced drawings? Did you develop any techniques to avoid being caught?

Well I talked about that with my probation officer and he said that it was up to him, if he felt he needed to call police to raid my apt he could. He seemed cool; he had followed my trial on the news and just wanted to help me get through the probation. I decided for the most part that I would do something I had been wanting to and that is painting. I kept it in the trunk of my car and would bring it up stairs to work on it. I did a few paintings and found it relaxing. I did a drawing for Wired magazine, the drawing was the court room and I depicted myself tiny and the judge and prosecutors as monsters. So that published drawing and a few others are illegal!

So no I was never caught with drawing but as a joke I said I was going to do a painting of a fluffy bunny with big happy eyes but then I figured the police would probably find that illegal.

Also at that time Superfly #1 came out in Chicago in ’93. The publisher Mike Hunt Comix thought it would boost sales or something to send a copy to prosecutor Stuart Baggish and when I went to court to get put off probation until the outcome of the appeal he had it there in the courtroom to show the judge. When the state’s attorneys office reviewed the Boiled Angels they also watched the Baked Baby Jesus video I had made, but they found that "even though in bad taste it is not obscene under the legal definition.”

Also when I was on probation a newspaper article came out with the headline "Internet sales of obscene video will pay jailed artists legal fees!" A friend in California had asked me if it was ok to offer my videos for sale on a blog.

Do you hold any ill will towards the officer who, by all accounts, made a personal vendetta against you?

Yes I hate all of them. I was forced to move to Florida in the middle of fourth grade and I never got used to the racism and the heat and the police. It was like being pulled over on your bike all the time, what's your name, are you a runaway?

I used to work at Winn Dixie supermarket after high school and at night I would be stopped on my way home or even one morning at 6 AM on a Saturday, I was riding to work and I got stopped and questioned and asked to submit field sobriety test when I had nothing to drink at all.

I know that the prosecutor Stuart Baggish felt he could make a name for himself with my case. The Boiled Angels had been on file at the State attorneys office for two years until he came across them on file and charged me. The legal helper my lawyer had, said that he knew the prosecutors from way back in law school and he knew from phone conversations between Baggish and another of his friends that Baggish thought the jokes in Boiled Angel were funny and said "SPLORCH" in a comical way, laughing, directly from my comic when the dick rams into the female rape victim. The next day in court he described that very panel and said I put the word Splorch to show how I really wanted to give it to that female. How I wanted to rape and kill.

At my sentencing, he was saying that if I was not given jail time that it would not be a punishment because prints of my art were now selling in NYC for thousands of dollars so this court made me rich, all a lie. He was pushing for the three years in jail but since I had no other problems with the law in the past the judge said no.

One time when I was still on probation my brother had to appear to plea on a lil’ crappy charge and I went to court with him otherwise he would not want to show. So in the hall outside the court room I saw one of the the prosecutors little helpers, I acted like I didn’t see him but was sure he saw me. So me and bro were sitting in court waiting for his name to be called and the bailiff or cop in the court room came up to me and pulled me into the hall and said “You were spotted smoking pot in the bathroom, we have a place for people like you across the street." Across the street was the jail I had spent four days and nights at. That rat bastard told that cop a lie to just get me in trouble. It was like a war but I didn’t want to fight anymore, in '96 I fled to NYC.

Also I hate the Florida legal system anyway, it sucks people in, picking on the poor who end up on probation for little nit picky charges. It makes me sick. So now my case being lost will make it easier for the law to go after others. There is no freedom of speech down south in Florida.

You have been living in New York for some time now; do you feel safe from persecution here?

I had a strong feeling that I had to get out of Florida in early '96. I had wanted to leave for many years, even before my problems, but never got out. My whole family was there. Well I made up my mind to leave by my birthday on June 5th. The next day Dad called from Florida and said the police and news cameras were looking for me. I had lost my appeal to the second district court and they denied any further appeal. The probation office contacted the NYC probation office to see if I could be transferred and the NYC office didn’t want anything to do with it. They let me do my probation by mail and the conditions still stood. I got a non-profit job at a group called Gods Love We Deliver. I signed up at NYU for the journalism ethics class the judge ordered me to take. It turned out the teacher remembered reading about my case in the newspapers. I had to get the psychiatric evaluation so found a nice shrink for $100. I explained my problem and each month I was to see her and she would give me a letter to send Florida office that stated basically that I was not insane.

My case was submitted to the US Supreme court but sorry to say they chose not to hear the case. I was sending in the $100 per month toward the fine plus a $50 per month probation fee. But the lady probation officer that would call me on the phone and say, "You aren't drawing there in New York, are you?" "Of course not," I would reply. She quit the probation office and didn’t tell me; as a result, I violated my probation. Since '98 I have been wanted in Florida.

I had a close call when returning from an art show I was part of in Portugal. I was detained at JFK airport for having three Kinder chocolate eggs, seems now they are banned in US due to stupid kids choking on the toys inside. The law is you can’t bring them in US for resale but that didn’t stop them from taking them away and searching everything I had. Then they asked me about Florida and said that I was wanted there, they had to call and see if they wanted to send police to take me back. I was always told that I cannot be forced back for misdemeanors but I was worried. Finally, he said that they didn’t call him back and he let me go. After that I traveled to Sweden, then Bolivia and each time returning when I get to JFK airport the homeland security scans my passport and a alert comes on the screen saying; "Check this guy for chocolate eggs" and I get taken to a room with about ten cops on computers. Finally they let me go.

I am working with the Comic Book Legal Defense fund again and am looking forward to finally putting the legal stuff behind me and then I can return to Florida without fear of arrest.

A lot of people in NYC welcomed me with open arms, I thank them all and have great love for this city.

You were recently awarded a prize by Printed Matter, congratulations by the way, what are you planning on doing with the money?

I have a new comic collection called "Sugarfang" which I might publish, or I might finally publish the long awaited "Tantalizing Terror" a collection of my terror and gross comics published in Europe but not seen in the US. Also some comics that just never got published anyplace. Also, some new terror comics, which, when finished, will be at least 100 pages so I have to work it out in the cost. I will reveal the final product on the website for sure.

Where can people see or find your new work?

My website is soon going to be redone and have all my new archive work added, along with interviews and more. The site is mikedianacomix.com. People should check out Baked Baby Jesus and Bloodbrothers, now on DVD! These are the tapes that were viewed by the Florida police.

Are you still doing boiled angel? If so, when can we expect a new issue?

I was never going to do another Boiled Angel because that was such a special time and now I kinda will because I plan to publish "Boiled Angel Lives" a collection of my and others art. It will be about as close as possible to the real thing, most likely printed in digest format but really thick and with a spine. I have a lot of work for this ready, with great artists from all over. I hope by the end of 2011 I will have an idea about the finish date.

Folks should keep checking the website for info and other art and products. Thank you for the interview.

Mike Diana, 2011

email mike here! mikediana@testpress.net

Check out his website here! http://mikedianacomix.com/