AJR  Drop Cap
From AJR,   January/February 1994

Sure, He's No Angel, But Is He Obscene?   

By Jim Romenesko
Jim Romenesko is the impresario of the media WeblogPoynter.org/medianews.     


When Florida publisher Mike Diana received a letter from the Pinellas County clerk last April, he figured it was a notice for an overdue parking ticket. Instead, he found a summons to face obscenity charges for his photocopied magazine, Boiled Angel.

Since he launched Boiled Angel in 1989, Diana has become a notorious figure in the subculture of small publications known as zines. Diana's publication, which appears irregularly, features explicit cartoons and stories depicting rape, bestiality, decapitations, incest, cannibalism and castration. One issue includes drawings of Jeffrey Dahmer gobbling body parts; another shows Christ having sex with demons.

Diana's zine is not for the squeamish. But since he only sells a few hundred copies to adults by mail (he requires written proof of age), he never thought its contents would be widely discussed. And certainly he didn't expect to run afoul of the law.

In late December or January, however, Diana is expected to stand trial on three misdemeanor charges of printing, distributing and advertising "lewd and obscene material."

Is that description accurate? "Yeah, pretty much," shrugs Diana, 24. "But it's art, so it can be lewd." A longstanding U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Miller vs. California , says states cannot ban material with "serious" political or artistic value.

State authorities learned of Boiled Angel in 1991 when they were searching for the killer of five students at the University of Florida. They questioned Diana but ruled him out as a suspect. The detectives did tell him, however, to stop publishing Boiled Angel.

"They said they could arrest me right there for it," says Diana, who works at his family's convenience store in Largo.

One issue prosecutors deemed offensive was Diana's eighth and most recent effort. It includes an interview with serial killer Ottis Toole, who professes to savoring human flesh ("If you ain't tried it, don't be saying it's nasty"), and offers his recipe for "Bar-b-que Boy Sauce."

Diana showed up last April for his arraignment without a lawyer, thinking he could simply pay a fine. Only when he spotted TV crews and picketers did he realize how serious the matter was. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit group that supports artists, has since provided an attorney.

Diana pleaded not guilty, then listened as Assistant State Attorney Stuart Baggish told reporters outside that Boiled Angel was contributing to "the breakdown of the moral fiber of this country," and that its creator should get therapy.

Chuck Shepherd, a former law professor who compiles the syndicated column "News of the Weird," describes the publisher as an unlikely pornographer. As he wrote in an alternative weekly in Tampa: "When Diana shows up for court, he's usually – hands down – the least scary guy in the building. Painfully shy, short and thin, he views the trouble he's in with bewilderment, much like Henry Thomas' character when he got his first good look at E.T."

The issue of whether violent drawings can justify the prosecution's request for a three-year jail sentence and $3,000 fine has been hotly debated. As Jack Moore, chairman of the American Studies department at the University of South Florida, told the St. Petersburg Times, "My heart is opposed to what the guy's doing..[yet] you can't say, 'I'm for free speech except in this one case.' "

Diana says he plans to continue publishing a zine of some sort. Already, he's thinking about a "worst of" issue with the most controversial examples of his work.

###