Comics in the Epstein Files

If you've heard virtually anything about US politics over the past two years, you've probably heard something about the infamous "Epstein files." But on the off chance you haven't, here's a short summary. Between 2008 and 2019, Jeffrey Epstein sexually abused dozens of young girls. He travelled in high profile circles and forced underage girls into sexual relations with a number of celebrities. He was eventually arrested in 2019 for sex trafficking and died in his jail cell a month after being incarcerated. Officially, it was ruled a suicide but there are more than a few reasons to believe he was murdered.

Because of the seriousness of his crimes and the length of time he was being investigated, the US Department of Justice has an extensive set of files on him, including material confiscated from Epstein's home as evidence. This is noteworthy for two reasons. First, Epstein had extensive surveillance capabilities on his properties, specifically in order to capture unflattering material of his guests that he could use as a form of blackmail. Second, these people who he had video and audio recordings of included the likes of Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and Donald Trump.

So the so-called "Epstein files" are not only things like datebooks and ledgers, but actual recordings of wealthy indvidiuals who -- given the great lengths they're going to in order to keep those files secret -- likely engaged in blatantly illegal and morally bankrupt behaviors. Given that Trump himself has already been criminally proven to be a rapist, has publicly shown himself to a weirdly sexual attraction to his own daughter going back to when she was a child, and seems to have fetish for watching women urinate, I can't imagine what levels of his depravity must be on those tapes that he refuses to have them released. (I wouldn't be surprised at what he's done -- I've been saying for years that there is no bottom with him -- just that he got recorded doing it.)

OK, so why the Epstein backstory here on a blog about comics? Because the whole sordid mess directly ties in with the comic book industry.

One of the women who Epstein abused when she was a child is Ashley Rubright. She's recently been speaking more openly about her experiences, notably in a CNN interview back in September. But this pertains to comics because -- as Rich Johnston just pointed out -- Rubright is a comic book dealer, selling comics alongside her husband Gary Attaway at BrokeAssComics.com.

I don't really have anything new to add. I'm pointing this out for much the same reason that Johnston did: that even if you don't follow this type of news very closely -- or at all -- because it's about immorally rich people who are so far removed from the reality of the rest of the world that they're even more two-dimensional that the bad guy on the worst Saturday morning cartoon you've ever seen, it still has a touches actual, real people. The victims these wealthy assholes screw over aren't just names on a page. They're real people who've been emotionally, if not physically and financially, traumatized. People who have interests and hobbies just like you. People who thought nothing of being interviewed on the BBC with shelves of long boxes in the background, and stacks of Amazing Spider-Man and Punisher comics within arms' reach.

 

That is why this stuff is relevant. Because it affects real people. This isn't "abstract background noise that sounds nominally awful but hey it's just about rich, white dudes I'll never meet." These are the people you run into at conventions. The ones you chat with on social media. The ones who are just as excited about seeing Robert Downey, Jr. as Doctor Doom as you are. To assholes like Epstein and Trump, they might be namelessly disposable, but they absolutely are not.

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