The Sicko Side of the Sci-Fi Circuit
Greed is a weakness that leads man down the road to sin. Most often it leads to the sin of omission: silence in the face of evil when that evil is a benefactor whose favor is needed to satisfy one’s greed. Too often we hear of people who metaphorically sell their souls to those who have the power and influence to help them succeed and too often we find that those people in power use others’ greed to satisfy their own deviant desires.
Ed Kramer, founder of the highly influential Dragon*Con, is one such person. From his humble beginnings in a Miami Orthodox Jewish community, Kramer used his vision, charisma, and the force of his personality to become the kingmaker in sci-fi fandom. In 1987, Kramer and several partners launched the first DragonCon as an attack on the staid and boring, family-oriented sci-fi convention industry that dominated at the time. That first convention was a rousing success, featuring big names in the industry like Michael Moorcock and Dungeons and Dragons inventor Gary Gygax. The formula Kramer had created for DragonCon’s success was simple: other conventions were where people went to meet their favorite celebrities, Dragon*Con was where you went to party with them.
But in this sci-fi carnival atmosphere, Kramer used his rapidly increasing influence to turn the party into a nightmare.
From the beginning rumors followed Kramer as he began to appear in public with a harem of young male sci-fi fans and those appearances made people uncomfortable. In a 2002 interview, Mike Dillson, the head of Dragon*Con’s operations and security for nine years, admitted that he had seen many instances of inappropriate behavior involving Kramer and young boys. One of those instances left no doubt in his mind as to what was going on:
Early one morning, Dillson recalls, he called Kramer in his hotel room to come down right away to sort out a snafu in the dealers’ hall. “He came from the shower dripping wet and so was the little boy he had with him.” Later, he says, he refused Kramer’s request to take his young son on a caving trip.
It should be noted that Dillson didn’t alert authorities. In fact, for more than a decade Dragon*Con participants, from the celebrity guests to his fellow founders, witnessed increasingly obvious predatory behavior from Kramer toward young boys. But instead of a scandal, Kramer’s peculiarities became an inside joke:
Ed Kramer
The stories about Kramer, the sidelong glances and eye-rolling, the snickering behind his back were there almost from the start. What chum is to sharks, fantasy conventions are to teenagers, especially those who consider themselves misfits. Youngsters fill the gaming halls at Dragon*Con and are underfoot anywhere Magic cards are being traded. But for many that didn’t explain why Kramer had a constant coterie of boys seemingly wherever he went.”You’d go up to his suite to get passes or to talk to him and the room would always be filled with pre-pubescent boys,” Johnston recalls.
Mike Dillson, who served as Dragon*Con’s head of operations and security for nine years and oversaw a volunteer staff of 135, says Kramer “always had a legion of little boys following him around. ‘Ed’s boys’ — that’s what we called them.”
But while the rumors attained near-ubiquity, most people laughed them off or kept their suspicions to themselves rather than risk angering the master of Dragon*Con.
And Ed Kramer was the master. While he was one of a group of genre fans who founded Dragon*Con, Kramer was the most outgoing and confident, thus he became the leader. Kramer booked the acts, decided who got tables at the event, and was the gatekeeper everyone had to pass before being admitted to the wild, wonderful, and profitable kingdom. And that was enough to keep people quiet for over 15 years as Kramer allegedly molested children in their midst.
Illustrations: Aaron Rutten / Shutterstock and Paul B. Moore / Shutterstock
If this seems hard to fathom, you have to understand how the fandom industry works — and how lucrative it is. Long forgotten sci-fi authors who toiled away in obscurity can achieve new popularity and legitimacy just by being included in the program. Up-and-coming artists have their careers made at these conventions. Dragon*Con is the tastemaker for sci-fi and fantasy fandom and no one hoping to sell books, comics, indie films, or memorabilia can afford to leave a bad taste in the organizers’ mouths.
I talked to Hart Fisher about the convention industry. The man behind American Horrors, an independent horror channel debuting on satellite television and on the subscription web service FilmOn, Fisher started out his controversial career making horror-themed comics like the infamous Jeffrey Dahmer comic. Years ago he too traveled the fandom circuit and witnessed the power promoters had over artists. He observed:
If you’re in charge of booking tables – you’re God.
In our conversation Fisher was, as usual, brutally straightforward in his assessment of the “little men” who get their first taste of power and use it to erase years of anonymity, unpopularity, and failure. With the power to make careers through convention exposure, promoters can extort anything from sex with models whose entire living comes from these appearances to the loyalty of the up and comers who desperately need to connect with audiences. And they can buy silence though promises of fame.
More importantly, he spoke of those who are cowed by the Ed Kramers of the world — starving artists, failed writers, and all the sundry performers and producers who seek fame and fortune in the subcultures where they themselves often started out as fans attending the conventions. “None of these kids know how to stand up for themselves … how are they going to stand up to someone in authority?”
He might as well have been speaking about the kids Ed Kramer allegedly abused. But we were talking about the thousands of aspiring writers and artists who end up selling their souls in one way or another to some pudgy baby boomer who has finally gone from“geek” to king, even if it’s of a small kingdom that exists only for a weekend. Hart Fisher did his last convention in 2004 and told me he won’t do any others.
But not everyone can swim against the tide, and the successes of people who toadied for Ed Kramer are hard to deny. Splatterpunk author Nancy Collins reaped huge benefits from her association with Dragon*Con, going from a comic book writer and novelist with a modest following to editing anthologies with Kramer that included stories from luminaries like Stephen King. Collins and her husband, the late shock filmmaker Joe Christ, later turned on Kramer when the allegations against him became criminal charges. Both of them had their careers destroyed as Kramer’s many supporters in the industry launched smear campaigns against them.
Illustration: Wampa / Shutterstock
But they weren’t the only people to benefit from Kramer, only to later have Kramer and company turn on them. In perhaps the most obvious display of the fickle and reckless abuse of his power, Kramer sued White Wolf Publishing, a company he helped to become one of the foremost role playing game publishers in the world, for money they had tried to pay him. He simply refused to cash royalty checks sent to him while claiming he wasn’t being paid. No one knows why he did this:
Beginning in 1990, Kramer also used his connections to help out a local role-playing game maker. He hooked the fledgling White Wolf up with writers — including Collins — and edited books for the company’s publishing arm.
The next year, White Wolf made gaming history when it concocted the hugely successful “Vampire: The Masquerade” franchise. Thereafter, it became a major Dragon*Con vendor, renting a sizable chunk of the dealer space.
But now, White Wolf co-founder Steve Wieck says Kramer is suing the company to recover several years’ worth of royalties and agent’s fees; Wieck says checks were dutifully mailed to Kramer, but, mysteriously, he never cashed them.
“For whatever reason, he saw fit to sue us over money we’re trying to pay him anyway,” says Wieck, adding that Kramer has yet to explain his quarrel with the company.
Consumed by his power in the industry, Kramer began to flaunt his depravity openly. Joe Christ claimed that he saw Kramer bring a very young boy to the adult-themed GothCon 2000. There, Kramer was physically affectionate with the boy in the way one expects to see from young lovers and not a nearly middle-aged man and a child. Before his death this was the incident Joe Christ pointed to that convinced him the rumors of Kramer’s pedophilia were true.
Though it didn’t convince him to call authorities.
On Aug. 25, Gwinnett police Detective Curtis Clemmons phoned Kramer at home, told him of the accusation, and asked him to come to the station for an interview. Kramer said he’d be right over.In fact no one knows who finally called the cops on Ed Kramer. The rumor has always been that it was the ex-husband of the woman he was dating. That woman had three young sons and Kramer was accused of molesting one of them in an anonymous phone call. An innocent man might have been shocked and hurt by such accusations. Ed Kramer was simply angry:
A few minutes later, Clemmons received a frantic call from the boy’s mother, who said Kramer had driven up to her house and was banging on the door, yelling, “Tommy! Tommy! Open the door! How could you do this to me?”
Trouble was, it wasn’t 15-year-old Tommy (whose name we’ve changed) but his younger brother whom Kramer was accused at the time of molesting.
In November, he was indicted for allegedly molesting both boys during various sleepovers at his house in the week following Dragon*Con 2000.
A master manipulator, Kramer, still wielding the power of DragonCon, spent the early 2000s orchestrating a two-pronged defense against the criminal charges facing him. The first part involved feigning illness. The man who was an avid caver and partied like Gary Glitter in a Thailand boy bar was now suddenly a lifelong invalid whose condition was worsened by a stint in the Gwinnett County, GA jail. The second was to paint Kramer as a victim of a smear job by competitors. Celebrities like Harlan Ellison did interview after interview claiming Kramer was innocent and Dragon*Con fans crucified everyone who spoke out against Kramer – even the children.
In 2002, Kramer or his supporters somehow convinced Benyamin Cohen, editor of the Atlanta-based American Jewish Life, to publish a hit piece on Kramer’s critics that claimed everyone from the judge assigned the case to Nancy Collins and Joe Christ were anti-Semites. By that time Kramer had suddenly re-embraced Orthodox Judaism and claimed the judge, who was a Christian convert from a Jewish family, was ruling against him out of spite. Cohen picked out of context themes from Collins’ and Christ’s works to prove they were anti-Semites and quoted an inmate who claimed to be a reverend saying that Kramer was singled out by the guards for ill treatment.
Illustration: DM7 / Shutterstock
The piece didn’t note that Collins and Christ were longtime friends of Kramer before the case, and when I spoke to Cohen he could provide no information on this mysterious reverend who has fallen off the face of the earth. That the piece did feature a quote from Harlan Ellison makes me wonder if the celebrity author didn’t pitch the piece to them as part of his campaign to keep his friend and promoter in the business. For years the piece was used as a fundraiser for Kramer’s defense, appearing on sites like Democratic Underground.
Cohen did admit to me, however, that he found Kramer’s embrace of Orthodox Judaism insincere and that Kramer’s “sudden devoutness” was an attempt to gain sympathy from the local Jewish community.
His malingering and grievance-mongering paid off. Kramer’s lawyers were successful in arguing he was too sick to go to trial and he was under house arrest until 2008 when a judge ruled he could travel under strict supervisory rules. He had to report his whereabouts to Gwinnet County authorities once a week and could never have unsupervised contact with anyone under 16.
Ed Kramer broke both those rules earlier this month.
Kramer was found in Connecticut in the company of a 14-year-old boy and claimed to be his guardian. The boy was acting in a film being shot in Connecticut and according to police reports, Kramer was staying in a motel with the boy. Police say witnesses saw the supposedly infirm Kramer hiking the local trails, sans the oxygen machine he used as a prop for his successful bids to forestall justice. He’s out on $50,000 bond and is headed back to Gwinnett County to face a round of uncomfortable questions, including some from his own lawyer who was unaware of Kramer’s adventuring.
But oddly after this latest arrest, there is little in the way of public support for Kramer except the diehard crazies who can rationalize anything. This might be due to DragonCon organizers making it clear that Ed Kramer has had no official involvement in the convention since his legal troubles began. Without the power of Dragon*Con behind him, and having already burned many of his supporters with his lies, Ed Kramer is being abandoned to his fate.
There is no way the celebrities and performers who defended him all these years wouldn’t have seen Kramer – a man who can’t stay away from inappropriate situations while out on bail – indulging in his depravity. They all saw and said nothing because their success was more important than Ed Kramer’s victims. The fantasy industry hid the ugly reality of what this man was up to because they needed him, and now that they don’t they’ll pledge their loyalty to the next Ed Kramer and cover up who knows what for him. All for greed and the promise of fame, which in the world of sci-fi fandom is the mother of all sins.
I’m a SciFi and Fantasy fan and had always dreamed of going to something like DragonCon or GenCon. Never had the time or money. Now, I’m kinda glad I never went. I think I’ll have a hard time respecting many of those game developers and authors who were close to Kramer without speaking up, after this.
I’ve been to Dragon Con a few times.
It was a lot of fun. The gaming was great.
However, it got waaaaaaaaay too big for me. Also, it doesn’t cater (much) to what I’m interested in (literary SF/F). And I’m not much into partying. Now that I’m married, I would be reluctant to take my wife and there is no way I would take my daughters – too easy to get lost in the press of thousands upon thousands convention members.
I still go to SF conventions, but only to small ones. With limited parties. And LOTS of authors.
Good God. I’m glad the mother of “Tommy” finally copped a clue, but how did this bastard obtain unsupervised charge of such young boys to begin with? It’s disgusting that the adults around Kramer never stepped in on these kids’ behalf. Has Benyamin Cohen changed his mind? Does Nancy Collins feel a twinge of guilt?
Ech! Brings and horrible meaning to the concept of SMOFIII , secret master of fandom, level three…
“new and horriblw meaning”
Had three cups of coffee, no excuse.
An excellent article. It would have been better though if the central theme of power corrupting influence could have been fleshed out a little more. It isn’t only Fandom or Sci-Fi Geeks who have had thier innocent persuits destroyed by the like of Ed Kramer. Hollywood is full of stories of the Casting Couch. What is of much more concern to me is the willingness of the people who are abused to give themselves to the abuser. Abusers are in every facet of our society and yet all too often it is the enablers that allow it not only to occur but continue. So don’t just pick one area, like fandom or Sci-Fi Fantasy as it gives the impression that this activity is somehow special and allows this to happen. I am sure that was unintended but the real thing is to never invest power in any individual. It is true, Power corrupts, you know the rest.
Overtime, sci-fi cons, especially those on the West Coast (the ones with which I am familiar) became so full of hate, I quit going. There once was a Christian SF fandom welcome as part of the diversity; no more. The last few cons I attended in Seattle were raving hatefests where whole panels were given over to attacking the oil industry. What that had to do with SF wasn’t apparent to me.
I met Kramer (as part of a larger group) at a Dragon Con. Seemed a typical SF fan to me. Gave me the creeps. I had no idea I had reason to be creeped out. Then again, I’ve been in SF panels where people discussed having sex with their cats.
Any fandom “community” is like that, these days. Celebrating depravity because it makes them “unique”. Then you throw in a couple of politically-minded people, and suddenly they start demanding their own special civil rights, so that they can display their depravity in public.
They have been that way for quite some time; they just had much less visibility until gaming resurged around the turn of the millennium.
Particularly out in Seattle you will find quite the concentration of politically extreme types, wallowing in pushing the envelope of torture porn as RPG chic.
“Harlan Ellison did interview after interview claiming Kramer was innocent ”
I admire your bravery form mentioning the litigious Ellison.
Kramer’s behavior is common in Hollywood–look at its defense of Polanski (by Goldberg) or of Salva. And the number of pedophile-themed films is too numerous to count: Clownhouse, Manhattan, Chinatown, Lolita, Pretty Baby….
“I admire your bravery form mentioning the litigious Ellison.”
Ha! I thought the same thing when I saw his name.
Well, my “respect” for Harlan just slipped about three more notches- straight down.
And yes, I agree it takes a set of b**ls the size of the king of Bayonne to even mention the Tiny Terror in any sort of context.
On the main subject, the whole fawning adulation ambiance’, often over people who do not deserve it and never did, is one big reason I stopped going to, and working at, cons when I was still in college.
Well, that, and the fact that thanks to first mail order catalogs, and then the advent of the Internet, I no longer have to haunt dealers’ tables to find a copy of some obscure novel like Murray Leinster’s “The Wailing Asteroid”.
cheers
eon
It’s like the article said – the secret is Access. Anyone who’s “in” attracts wannabes. I think a comparison with Queen Elizabeth’s court is accurate. Fandom is it’s own little world in which people are always maneuvering, plotting, stabbing each other in the back just to be top dog and, more importantly, to get access to the inner circle. “Top dog” is hard to define. Could be someone who’s actually done something, like Kramer. In the old days, it might have been someone who published a Xeroxed fanzine. Or it could just be someone who’s well-known for being well-known.
I saw this first hand many years ago when I hung with a small group of fans. A friend of a friend of one of them – someone outside the group – sold a script to a sci-fi show that was popular at the time. Overnight, this woman mutated into the Fan Queen and most of her friends turned into courtiers – sycophantic followers, hangers-on, her entourage, her posse. She loved the adoration. They loved her proximity to the actual people who created the show. Eventually, the ass-kissers literally started fighting over her. Friendships broke up. As far as I know, she still circulates at cons, enjoying her residual fame as someone who once wrote an episode of a TV show that hasn’t been on the air in 25 years. It’s all kind of creepy.
Thank you for daring to mention Ellison. Ellison and his psycotic fans are one reason I no longer attend science fiction conventions or should I say Sci Fi, since Ellison hates the term. I attened one geared towards litary science fiction back in the early eighties. Ellson gave a talk or should I say gave a childish foul mouthed rant. After it was over and I mentioned to someone I how I thought I thought Ellison sounded like a bratty teenager it was overheard by some people who began to push and shove me. What abunch of losers living through their idols!
Well, they’re all hung up in a FANTASY BUSINESS. Of course denying reality is easy for them, it’s what they all LIVE FOR every day.
It is interesting how rich pedophiles seem to think that they can get away with anything just because they are rich. Look at Roman Polanski and how many lives he has probably destroyed. Find these bums and throw them in a small cell filled with angry Los Angeles gang members. I think that will do the trick.
Kramer HAS gotten away with this on merit of money for the past couple of decades. He’s spent 11 years dodging trial and lockdown so he could play tiddly-winks with lil’ boys.
Maybe I missed this, but the piece seems to have neglected one thing: Kramer still owns a big piece of Dragon Con. Of course, DC management is evasive, even downright deceptive on this one. In 2009, Kramer filed suit against DC, claiming he’d been scammed into selling the majority share. At that time, DC president Pat Henry acknowledged that Kramer was still a large, albeit, minority shareholder. Bear in mind, Kramer’s lawyers have gone above and beyond in their courtroom illusionist show and in 2008 Kramer was released from house arrest. For a man who claims to be so infirm that he cannot sit in a court room for more than two-hours at a time, one might reasonably infer that he’s not working much. Meanwhile, DC attendance has skyrocketed. Those high-caliber lawyers aren’t free and the elephant in the room is shaped like a dragon.
To those of you who have gone to DC since Ed’s indictment, rest assured, you have assisted him in his quest for more little boys.
Oh and also, if I recall correctly, Ed’s gotten a few paid appearances and fund raisers since the indictment. I believe the author underestimates the support he’s received. I don’t blame the poor guy, as Kramer has dumped a ton of money into PR and supporters ebb and wane in their public shows of support, depending on the tides.
And oh yeah, before Ed’s indictment, he was about as Kosher as a salami sammich.
If Obama, and his backers are successful, sexual perversion will be celebrated, and accepted as American as apple pie. Just like it is in Islamolandia. However, sex Afghan style will seem like ‘child’s play’.
Hang in there Kramer, you’re time is coming.
I went to Dragon*con the first time last year – interesting, but way too crowded. It was really hard to do as a family – our teen boys and little girls were with us. I knew Kramer was no longer involved (I ALWAYS do my homework), so felt reasonably safe taking my kids.
I was wondering how all this had come about, and am glad that he’s finally been trapped. Thanks for an excellently-reported piece.
I’ll still stay part of SF fandom – and eventually prodom – but I’m one of a growing number who will never sell our souls.
This disgusts me, but does not surprise me. Certain parts of fandom will turn a blind eye to their kings’ behavior, usually out of reverence or fear. When Cassandra Clare was caught plagiarizing original works for a fanfic, there was a huge backlash against the people who detected the plagiarism–and now she’s a legitimate published author with no consequences.
This is far worse, though. I’ve wanted to go to DragonCon for years, but now I think I’ll skip it.
It is easy to condemn the craven money-grubbing, amoral ambitious sci-fi wannabe writers and gamers. Rightfully so. The article and author does a great service in exposing this in this well-written article. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a far greater, more sinister acquiescence and complicit approval of perversion and evil in many areas, including pedophilia. Like child-star Corey Feldman said after his fellow child-star and best friend Corey Haim committed suicide: “Pedophilia is Hollywood’s #1 problem.” The sexual abuse of child stars and children in general has long been the dirty little secret of Hollywood. Where were the whistleblowers on the boys Michael Jackson abused? They tacitly approve of Roman Polanski – they all do it or want to do it. Allen Ginsberg openly admittedly his perverted pedophilic proclivities and still was the darling “intellectual” of the Left and Coastal elites. And now we have Liberals delicately pushing the envelope through the complicity of their arm in the American Psychiatric Association who wants to “progressively” legitimize pedophilia. It is said that you can tell the value and morals of a culture or nation by the way they treat their children. As we have sexualized and objectified women, now we are doing it to children. Every time we are silent about Hollywood’s secret and on screen sexualization of children, the Pyschiatric establishment, the teaching of moral relativism in our schools, the advertising industry’s sexualization of children, ETC. we are doing the exact same thing as those mealy-mouthed, spineless, selfish accomplices in Kramer’s sexual perversions. May God have mercy on us!
Sci-Fi went sicko a looong time before Kramer hit the scene.
This is just one stop along a long road.
Yes. I stuck a tiny toe in the water online, and finally gave up after a few months. I can understand the libertarian bent, but more than a few seemed to revel in depravity, and were tolerated.
Funny how SF/F with its near-universal simplification of good vs evil would find so many authors and fans so equivocal about evil in their midst. Rationalization of evil is the most common of human reactions to evil’s presence, so it’s hardly surprising, but the hypocrisy is a bit distressing, though hardly less commonplace. No doubt many involved in the convention had little or no idea of what was going on, but one would think that any who woke to the fact would take up a sword of goodly length and cut out the villainous heart, rather than pretending not to believe, or calling the police. SF/F has not been immune to the general decay of morality in our culture–nobody has been. Even the most strict and conservative of churches have succumbed to changes that not long ago would’ve been decried as irreligious. The problem is not that the new morality is intrinsically immoral–it is that there is no agreed-upon morality, even in areas such as child molestation. One would think it would be one area where we could all agree, but the Playboy ‘lifestyle’ has been agitating for lower the age of consent from the beginning. It has always been a part of the romantic movement, all the way back to the 13th Century. Now that we KNOW that the brains of children are not developed enough to make informed decisions about sex (among other things), and that even young adults remain retarded in their decision-making abilities, one would think that a moral consensus could be drawn from the science. Instead we have theorists preparing the ground for decades ahead of time; post-modernists undermining the concept of scientific evidence and making every scientific discovery questionable. The current demand that everyone MUST and SHALL believe in (a very outdated version) of darwinism and Anthropogenic Climate ‘Chaos’ or be exiled to the margins of society does nothing but undermine faith in scientific inquiry. It makes discoveries about how the brain develops and works amenable to disbelief, and so we have purportedly scientific associations claiming that despite the known chemical consequences of certain behaviors, no harm is caused and we should just stop objecting to pedophilia. Just think of how poverty could be ameliorated if one could sell children as sex slaves to wealthy pedophiliacs! And it would be so easy to rationalize that the sugar daddy would give them a better life, send them to college etc. And think of the lives that would be saved–no need to murder children after abusing them, since there would be no legal consequences.
The romantic movement has driven humanity from evil to evil. Free love is just the bait; Nazism, Communism, and all the terrible evils of the last few centuries are the true fruits. And SF/F is rife with romanticism, so it is hardly surprising that the moral confusion of intrinsic to that squalid philosophy would create many willing to avoid judgement and turn away from confronting evil.
Luke Skywalker turned off his targeting computer and followed Obi Wan’s advice: “Reach out with your feelings!” Romantic movement, indeed.
Empty men playing at being heros; the cowardly watched and laughed, the ones falsely called courageous ran away, and not one with the heart to even say stop.
I have read science fiction (mostly the hard-science fiction) for decades, but never bothered to attend one of these conventions. I read it because it makes me think, not because I want to be part of that world.
Those who seek such fantasy are truly an odd bunch.
That’s my perspective, too. I think a research psychologist could find endless material for study in this group. I certainly have MY theories.
My two cents: I was a member of the SF con scene in the paleolithic age (1969 to the mid-’70s), so I can’t really comment on today’s conventions. I do recall, however, that hormones ran amok back then, which made for some extremely interesting situations — in those pre-”Star Wars” days, women comprised maybe 5% of con attendees, so there were a whole lot of frustrated male heterosexuals running around.
In any event, I have to say a good word about Harlan Ellison. When some friends put on a “Star Trek” convention in Detroit in ’73 or ’74, I was tapped to be “security chief” due to having once been a Brinks armored car guard. Among the guests of honor were Ellison, writer Norman Spinrad and actor James Doohan, but I was most concerned about interacting with Ellison, who already had established his reputation as science fiction’s enfant terrible.
My fears were groundless. I spent many hours with Harlan during the three-day con, and he was unfailingly polite and friendly to the lowliest fan. It was a charming experience that I’ll never forget. (I hope he doesn’t kill me in my sleep for revealing this side of him.)
I hate to say it, but, were the grownups thinking that the kids were acting out their hidden desires? That this was the safe place for young gay males to learn how to be grownup gays?
I’m asking, b/c I had always thought that this was the big party for the polyamorists and open marriage crowd. I hadn’t thought one would bring a child to a place like this, anyway.
Whoa , you’re lucky enough to survive an abortonist and look what you get.
I would like to point out to those reading this article that Ed Kramer has had almost nothing to do with my career, save trying to destroy it. My first novel, Sunglasses After Dark, was already a best-seller and had won several awards, and I writing for DC Comics’ Swamp Thing before Kramer first approached me in 1991, commissioning a short story for an Elric anthology that, later, I discovered he did not have permission to solicit. At the time I knew nothing about Dragoncon until he invited me to one a couple years later.
It was Kramer who approached me re editing a couple of anthologies in 1993, in collaboration with the late Marty Greenberg (RIP). Believe me, Kramer was not the one responsible for coercing Stephen King, Alan Moore, Joe Bob Briggs and Michael O’Donoghue into contributing to those anthologies.
I did not seek this man out. He found me. And, in retrospect, I realize his interest in collaborating with me only occurred after he became aware I had a stepson (then around 7 years old) and several nephews (all around the same age, one of whom is developmentally challenged). I have come to understand all of Kramer’s supposed friendship was nothing more than grooming of myself and my then-husband, so he could have access to the children in my life. Shortly before his arrest, he, too, tried to talk me into allowing him to take my stepson on an unsupervised camping trip. I told him no. The look of barely suppressed rage on his face was the same as in his 2000 booking photo. *That’s* when I knew, without a doubt,that the rumors were true.
Prior to his arrest in 2000, I had not been aware that Kramer had been previously arrested and charged with aggravated child molestation in 1996 (which were later dropped), only that there were “rumors” swirling about him. Had I known he’d been arrested, I would have dropped the man like a hot rock. It did not help that the rumors were being spread by a similar “little big man” in the fannish convention world. (One Kramer later successfully sued for slander, BTW)This was all pre-Google, of course. And since Kramer had been able to keep the 1996 arrest out of the papers (as well as one in the 1980s, involving a roller skating rink he once worked at), there was no way of corroborating the story. That was why I made a point of notifying the newspapers about Kramer’s arrest when I found out about it. I didn’t want him sneaking away (yet again).
As for why so many people were willing to disbelieve the stories about Kramer that were going about *prior* to the 2000 arrest. As Harlan Ellison himself pointed out, Kramer was so physically repulsive (over 70% of his body is, supposedly, covered in psoriasis) most of us simply could not envision him engaging in sex, period, much less with a child. So he had that working in his favor. And he *was* (and, no doubt, continues to be) an extremely manipulative individual, eager to do favors and network. It probably doesn’t hurt that he has a masters in psychology. No doubt he views himself as a cross between Professor X and Hannibal Lecter.
Believe me, I have cursed myself for not walking away from the man earlier. But in regards to notifying the police or CPS about “suspicious” behavior of this type: it’s a lot easier said than done.Usually Kramer was far more circumspect in his behavior than reports would have you think. But in the months before his 2000 arrest he became, in retrospect, increasingly blatant. I’m puzzled, though, as to why people claim they don’t know who originally contacted the police re Kramer’s involvement with the brothers. It’s stated more than once in court documents that it was a close family member of the kids who alerted the authorities about him.
As for why the people behind the Brothers Barbarians and Moving Pictures Media Group (where he worked as a producer) were willing to work with him/unable to Google him, I have no idea.
Sincerely,
Nancy A. Collins
P.S.Kramer is still a stockholder in Dragoncon, and has profited from the convention’s proceeds the entire time. He has only recently become a minority shareholder.
I continue to be bemused by the claims of anti-semitism from Kramer’s camp, as my grandparents’ closest friends (who I grew up calling ‘Aunt’ & ‘Uncle’) were Jewish, and my late ex-husband’s great-grandfather was a klezmer musician and Sephardic Jew from Alexandria, Greece.
See, this is why I love comments sections in blogs better than traditional media. Thank you for contributing to the conversation.
Jonathan, I agree. Thank you for contributing to the discussion, Nancy.
I have to take some exception that _everyone_knew_ all along and didn’t say anything. I say this because I was in the gaming organization, DAGR, that Ed started and ran for years prior to Dragon Con and I knew Ed for years while I was in middle and high school.
The creepy factor was not obvious and in many cases the accusations seemed VERY much the case of it looks like this and so it MUST be the worst conclusion possible. Given how interpersonal-politics in business between people works and how a nominally innocent situation could be readily construed, it was the sort of thing I questioned for years when I did hear the accusations because, again, I was in the same circles and had not come to the same conclusions nor seen any convincing evidence. Just accusations that seemed spiteful from start to finish.
As Nancy states, the more blatant behavior started later but the early accusations on such tenuous evidence helped me to discount the accusations.
In retrospect, with victim testimony and corroboration, Ed’s behavior was execrable, there’s no doubt about that. But if I assumed that every instance of people having arrived freshly showered equated to them just having been In flagrante delicto, then EVERYONE was having some sort of salacious activity and that was simply not what I saw or thought what was obvious.
Put another way, folks would borrow showers in a hotel room because many were either short of funds to actually get their own hotel room or they were just unavailable, so using a shower or getting an offer of one was a boon (little used enough by some sadly). I myself surfed a room or two at the con when in High School (Late 80s).
Some argue that the folks who don’t take the time to get a shower is often an issue.
Some of my unsettled response to the “Everyone knew!” attitudes after the fact is that it bears a remarkable resemblance to the sudden and dramatic agreement after accusations of witch-craft, or similar, by a gaggle of people all too willing to confirm what everyone knew. I even saw the example that Joe Christ cites at Goth-Con and frankly, I didn’t jump to the same conclusions.
I have to take some exception to the above articles salacious terminology and ridicule of the sci-fi community. It’s ill mannered and ill conceived. More so the idea that Ed held the power of god over everyone. Given how much of Dragon Con is entirely run by volunteers who have ZERO financial stake in the convention itself, it stands to reason that someone who saw the obvious would have raised a flag if it was in fact that obvious.
Having been of ‘that age’ around Ed and having no inappropriate conduct at all ever from him aside from kindness and courtesy it was hard for me to believe or credit the accusations whispered by various people.
Hindsight is 20/20. Jumping to the obvious conclusion that everyone should have known all along is a poor logic.
Again, as it became clear the whispered accusations were in fact true, I found myself disappointed in a man that I thought was an ok fellow.
You’re saying you heard about incidents for years, assumed everyone was lying but that it’s a hysterical witch hunt to say people turned a blind eye to his behavior?
Also you know that the people at DragonCon need DragonCon for their business. I spoke with multiple people who did the sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention circuit for this piece and they all said the same thing. People’s financial lives rely on these conventions.
I’d suspect that the people who run DragonCon while volunteers still make a little something. I worked in non-profits for years and still got a decent salary. There’s no benefit to running DragonCon?
Dragoncon is a for-profit organization, which makes the use of volunteer labor extremely iffy. I had assumed it was non-profit, as well, until 2000. I can’t speak for the current convention, but when Kramer was running the con, it was already grossing 2 million dollars a year. I have no idea if that was memberships alone, or included sales of dealers tables.
While convention are common enough, there are only a handful of this size, and many of them are in the comics/horror movie category (Comic Con, Chiller). And while they are useful for professional creators, they are not necessary for most of us to make our living. Perhaps more graphic artists make genuine $ at these shows, but for writers they’re more useful for self-promotion and PR, and that’s about it.
For some reason, my above comment posted as “Anonymous”.
“You’re saying you heard about incidents for years, assumed everyone was lying but that it’s a hysterical witch hunt to say people turned a blind eye to his behavior?”
I’m saying that what I saw first hand as a teen and a young adult at the time contradicted what people seemed to be implying in whispers. I’m not saying it WAS a hysterical witch hunt but some of the apparent vindictive whispers DID have that character of one.
I have a rather HIGH regard for law and order (federalist libertarian conservative thankyouverymuch) where it touches on victim crime and I’d have found such clear behavior way out of bounds. But by the same token one CAN mistake harmless data for hazardous data and vice versa, this goes for engineering, medical or criminal fields. Furthermore, given how a label of child molestation can ruin a career, it is one of those things that I look very suspiciously if there’s not something concrete to back it up. I would expect someone at PJ Media to endorse such a principle and not run to sensationalist, yellow hued journalism. Remember Twana Brawley, I do, quite vividly.
“Also you know that the people at DragonCon need DragonCon for their business. I spoke with multiple people who did the sci-fi/fantasy/horror convention circuit for this piece and they all said the same thing. People’s financial lives rely on these conventions.”
And there are enough people who’s financial lives did not depend on Dragon Con, certainly not in it’s beginning years when it was just another sci-fi convention that, had it been obvious to everyone, someone would have reported it to the authorities. As I said, there are a lot of people in attendance who are there just for fun. I’m a well paid IT professional and I attend the con again now simply to volunteer on staff. I was there for the first three years then went off to college and work then circled back around years later. Dragon Con had more than 35,000 attendees last year. How many of them depended on the con for their welfare? A very tiny percentage.
If you’re going to state that people who work with someone on a once a year period are supposed to know what the other’s personal lives are like, you’ve mistaken a lot of what people do at Sci-fi cons. As they get bigger and more important they get FAR more busy and complicated and chaotic.
“I’d suspect that the people who run DragonCon while volunteers still make a little something. I worked in non-profits for years and still got a decent salary. There’s no benefit to running DragonCon?”
You’ve never been do a big sci-fi con have you? I would offer that you need to go to find out how much of a mono-bloc of society it is NOT.
My work this past year of more than 70 logged hours in the technical operations area was very much NOT compensated by price of a 4 day pass. When you’re working as staff, even when you’re not working you’re working when you see something that is a problem or needs work. One of my friends there (also working staff) wore a pedometer, she had 65 Miles logged on the thing. At the end of my vacation I needed a vacation. Sure the board member and other folks get money but the metrics of the con mean there are folks that work the con FOR fun just because it something different to do.
Ed clearly got more bold about his predilections and with his crimes over the years which is why he’s been caught, thank goodness for that. But he’s not quite been taken to justice, which is a problem. But for you to paint the Sci-fi Con-circles as everything but willing co-conspirators just befuddles me.
Blast, that’s me above.
Unfortunately, sci-fi fandom has a very long, sordid history of protecting and enabling sexual predators in its midst. Google “Walter Breen” and you’ll see what I mean. I had heard about the “Breendoggle” as a fan, but it was years before I learned what it was about. When I did, I was aghast that anyone would have bothered defend the man, much less put as much venom/time into it as they did.
My first beef with this story is that it assumes, after the fact, that it was “obvious to everyone” what this man was up to. No, it wasn’t. It never is. Law enforcement spends millions of man-hours trying to catch kiddy-diddlers every year, and it’s always a horrific shock when real molesters are caught, because they’re never someone anybody would suspect. That’s how so many of them get away with it for so long; because they don’t fit the stereotypes that the Great Unwashed expect.
And never you mind the horrific witch-hunts of “suspected molesters” that took place in past decades… perfectly innocent people who were falsely accused and railroaded by the courts, and whom everybody “always knew” were deviants— until the evidence came out absolving them. Maybe the reason nobody said anything about this man is because they didn’t want to make a slanderous accusation against an innocent man based on nothing more than a “creepy feeling” or some odd, potentially misunderstood public behavior.
Perhaps the author of this little article, despite his vast and high-browed wisdom, missed the fact that sci fi conventions aren’t exactly filled with the most socially deft of people. The odd, the awkward and the strange gather there; Someone behaving in an uncomfortably non-mainstream fashion isn’t exactly going to stick out, and no weirdo is going to notice another weirdo is two tenths of a degree further off norm than another.
What a shame the people there lacked the omniscient clairvoyance of Mr. Taylor, here.
My biggest grievance here is that Mr. Taylor tries, right from the title of the story, to imply that the Sci-Fi fandom is a seething hotbed of child-molesting sexual deviants. Member of the chess club steal your girlfriend, Mr. Taylor? Or maybe you just tried to shake down some nerd for lunch money and they kicked you in the nuts in front of the cheerleaders? This isn’t journalism, it’s sensationalist tub-thumping. Congrats, you caught one pedophile who happened to be the head of a sci fi convention. How many other social subsets— businessmen, bankers, shriners, preachers, teachers, catholic priests…. internet columnists….. could we more justifiably damn that way due to the dozens or even HUNDREDS of miscellaneous sexual offenders to be found in their numbers?
Asinine. Your argument is that “nerds” are so socially awkward that people might mistake their social awkwardness for pedophilia? Really?
When people in these articles admitted that they refused to let Kramer take their children anywhere – yet said nothing about “ed’s boys” – they were doing the right thing?
Come on. People knew Kramer was a degenerate but they didn’t want to get on his bad side. This isn’t unique to sci-fi conventions but this story was using sci-fi conventions to illustrate how easily people will abandon morals for favor. Sorry my “tub thumping” didn’t go through every industry on the planet where people kiss up to scumbags.
I’m a veteran of the Catholic Abuse Scandal Wars; realitycheck’s response sounds familiar. He offers attacks on the author’s motives and character in lieu of substance, which tells me he probably doesn’t have anything else. Realitycheck, are you a member of Regnum Christi? (Sorry, I had to ask)
You’re making a charge that people willfully ignored evidence of Kramer’s pedophilia solely to advance they’re careers.
You mention names including that of Nancy Collins and implied that she was among them.
She and others have responded by pointing out that Kramer did not have anywhere near as much power as you imply and that the evidence of abuse was nowhere near as apparent as you claim.
You know, there is a flip side to this — people making up claims of pedophilia to advance their careers. See Martha Coakley
Very sensational article. Almost yellow press style.
You remmeber that thing? Innocent until proven guilty? Yep, it applies here, too.
“witnessed increasingly obvious predatory behavior”. Oh really? And he was the mastermind who kept them all quiet about it? Really? You want me to believe that? Oh yeah, he’s sooooo powerful he could make everybody forget what they saw. Oh please.
“turn the party into a nightmare.” Oh really? Evidence please. I want to see all the hard evidence, not speculation. “I have seen something some years ago” is not evidence. “I have been told” is not evidence. The moment we abandon reason and hard facts, the moment the whole system turns into a joke.
Nancy A. Collins, you present the conventions as a melting pot for sexual predators and bring ONE example as “proof”.
This is a case for the police to investigate and the prosecution to prosecute (if there is substance to it.) They will follow FACTS. It’s not for the media to speculate.
How long until I get to hear “D&D promotes witch craft”?
Thank you for putting all nerds into the same box. You all essentially say that all nerds are sex predators. How lovely.
Pretty sure that “innocent until proven guilty” applies only in court of law… not to blogs. You might want to check your sources when it comes to legal matters. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest, even before you bring it up, that you check the actual definitions of “defamation”, “slander”, and “libel” so you’ll realize that none apply here.
This sounds like a similar case I read about in San Bernardino, California. If anything, both men and both cases are the exception, rather than the norm. Frankly, I have nothing but contempt for people who choose to exercise their power over another through sexual abuse.
I disgust myself for writing this, but it must be said…
I have known Ed for most of my life. Like all of “Ed’s boys” I stayed at his house many times over the years…was his guest at many a convention…and he never touched me. Nor did I ever see him touch anyone else.
I’m not denying that Ed is a lvl50 Scumbag of the highest order. I do not deny that he is a master manipulator and string-puller who uses and discards everyone around him. He even made his mother’s slow descent into death serve his ends, helping get his restrictions loosened. I want to make this clear…like so many of the ‘ed-ites’ I have abandoned him to the fate he so richly deserves… But again… I never saw or experienced anything.
Ed is one sick puppy. There is no denying it. He gamed the system. He secured his freedom without ever going to trial. He had to do two things to maintain his freedom: He had to accurately report his whereabouts, and he had to stay away from children. He could not do either of these things. So, the question becomes, Just what kind of sick puppy is he? Does he just think the law does not apply to him, or is he exactly what Collins, Dillson and so many others have said. I do not know. Is there something fishy going on? without question the answer is yes. Do I have a shred of personal evidence to report as proof? Unfortunately, no. Do I believe he has done these things, I concede to the possibility, if not the probability. So, in the final analysis, I have decided to hate Ed based on the things I do know, and there is more then enough in that category that, for me at least, the question of his pedophilia does not sway my decision all that much. I’ll leave it at sick puppy best kept from the rest of us.
Oh, one final thing – Bail was set at $50,000..but Ed is not free yet. He is about to be extradited from CT to GA. Check the court records in CT and you will see this. There is a second case pending for his extradition with a 100k bond, both cases to be hears October 13th
The reference to ads on Democratic Underground is rich. I wonder how many of the “wishing Cheney died” Bushitler- bashers in that motley crew are really short eyed perverts exploiting children. Liberalism is a mental disease!
I think you’ll find that perversion is possible for people of any political belief system. The people on the left don’t disagree with you because they’re perverts, nor is everyone on the right a saint.
Ed was a powerful figure in fandom, to be certain – but the failure of fans to call out the sickos in their midst can perhaps be more easily explained with the Geek Social Fallacies – http://www.plausiblydeniable.com/opinion/gsf.html – particularly “ostracizers are evil.” Fans get into bitch-fights about Kirk vs Picard alla time, but when it comes to involving the big bad outside world, suddenly there’s a surprising degree of solidarity amongst the geeks. Fans will put up with an amazing amount of really terrible behavior from their fellow nerd brethren, all because nobody wants to be the parent in the room spoiling everybody’s fun.
The liberal bashing in the comments is cute, but Pedobear stalks both right and left sides of the aisle, fellas.
Nowadays the Catholic Church makes all volunteers go through a sex abuse awareness training program called Virtus, run by a company called Presidium, the same company that helped clean up the Boy Scouts in the ’90s. One of the main things I learned in the training was that everyone sees signs of abuse, but decides to ignore them thinking “it must be my imagination”, or “I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation.” It is not just about money and power, it is also the fact that we do not want to believe the worst about people; it does not help that abusers are experts in manipulating both children AND adults.
I recommend Mary Eberdstat’s research on pedophilia in The Weekly Standard over the last ten years. Sexual abuse of children is not just a geek thing, or a Catholic thing, or a Hollywood thing. It can happen anywhere, and it is becoming more common and MORE ACCEPTED every year.
I’m do a little gaming with some folks who are far more into gaming than I am. I’ve been to the game shops where there are somewhere around 20 boys playing various games with some shady-looking adults. My kids will never be in one of those places unsupervised, and certainly never allowed to roam a convention on their own… even when they’re teens.
Parents need to be aware of the fact that perverts will be drawn to these places, because there are so many nerdy kids there, many of whom have very low self-esteem (the ‘tween/teen who doesn’t is rare) making them easy targets for predators. I continuously find myself fighting the urge to say “it’s common sense”, but obviously it isn’t. That’s why it’s so important to keep stories like this one in circulation.
There were several outspoken defenders of Kramer, not just Harlan Ellison. There were writers and other pros, fans and even the prominent Libertarian Bob Barr. There was not just the “didn’t do it” theme, but many people mentioned Kramer’s right to a speedy trial, and the “out of control prosecutorial conduct of Gwinnett County and Danny Porter.” O Please. When the defendant is the one asking for delay after delay and refusing every offer of courtroom accommodation, “speedy trial” is not the issue. Anyone heard of any of these defenders saying, “Oops! I mighta been wrong?”
I knew Ed Kramer in 1985 when I was 13 and a regular user of his BBS (bulletin board system) in Atlanta. I visited his apartment once (because I wanted to know what it was like to run a BBS) – that was all it took to know something was definitely not right with him. My parents met him and decided never to let me go back. I shudder when I think that I might have been a “near miss”.