LAW OFFICE OF CHARLES E. PETIT 
1012 NORTH BUSEY, URBANA, ILLINOIS 61801 CONCENTRATING IN PUBLISHING AND INTELLECTUAL 

(217) 337-1699 (VOICE) • (847) 589-6453 (FAX) PROPERTY, COMPLEX LITIGATION, UNFAIR 
CEPETIT@AUTHORSLAWYER.COM PRACTICES, AND APPELLATE PRACTICE 
25 July 2006 

Gary Groth & Kim Thompson
Fantagraphics Books, Inc.
7563 Lake City Way NE
Seattle, WA 98115
VIA U.S. MAIL AND FAX TO 206.524.2104


RE: WTYS Chapter 3 

Dear Gary and Kim: 

I have been following the prepublication “page proofs” of We Told You So (WTYS) with an increasing 
sense of foreboding for a couple of weeks now, and unfortunately you have justified that fear with 
misuse of copyrighted material and misstatements of fact concerning my client Harlan Ellison. Rather 
than immediately elevate this to formal unpleasantness, I have convinced Mr Ellison to give you 
one—and only one—opportunity to correct this matter prior to making the printed version of WTYS 
available for purchase. Specifically, we are concerned with two passages thus far posted. 

On pages 112 and 113, you reprinted an extensive quotation from the January 1953 Comics Journal 
“interview” article. As a warning only, you should not reprint further material from that particular 
article without careful attention to context; the context as originally printed in the Comics Journal 
should have modified your (Mr Groth’s) interpretation of those comments printed immediately before 
and after the reprint. This also pushes the limits of fair use, and Mr Ellison’s longstanding policies 
on permissions would require any further quotation to obtain explicit permission. 

On pages 118 and 119, I found a much more disturbing passage which I will quote in full for purposes 
of comment: 

Groth: Being a co-defendant with Ellison made me feel like I was in the Alamo: 
surrounded on all sides. It is little known that our relationship began to fray very early 
on. He was always coming up with schemes to wheedle out of paying his bills. One was 
so brilliantly Machievelian [sic] that it included both stiffing his lawyers and screwing me 

— at the same time! You just never knew what he was going to come up with next, which 
meant we had to watch our codefendant as closely as we watched Fleisher. 
One of my favorite stories involves Ellison cutting a [page break] deal that required 
him to reimburse Fleisher if he lost a specific motion. The judge approved the arrangement 
and Ellison lost the motion but refused to reimburse Fleisher’s out of pocket expenses, 
as agreed. Our lawyer started to realize what a loose canon [sic] he was when we 
learned that the judge was about to order U.S. Marshals to arrest Ellison for failing to 
obey a court order. Naturally, Ellison coughed it up but only days before he was about to 
be arrested. Oh, they were great times! 

I have consulted with Mr Ellison’s counsel, and we believe that there is no basis in fact whatsoever for 
the entire second paragraph (except, perhaps, Mr Groth’s hyperbolic characterization of the lawsuit 
as “great times”) or for the assertions that Mr Ellison was “wheedle[ing] out of paying his bills” 
and/or “stiffing his lawyers” in the first paragraph. We demand that you either: 

• Excise these assertions from WTYS immediately, and that you provide satisfactory documentation 
that you have done so to me at the address on this letterhead by not later than 5PM Central 
Daylight Time on Monday, 31 July 2006; or 
• Provide satisfactory documentation of the factual basis for these assertions to me at the address 
on this letterhead by not later than 5PM Central Daylight Time on Monday, 31 July 2006. 
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Based upon the tenor of our prior communications, I also require that you confirm identity and contact 
information for your counsel to me in writing by not later than 5PM Central Daylight Time on 
Thursday, 27 July 2006. 

Failure to comply with either or both of the deadlines stated above will be construed as a deliberate 
refusal to deal, as evidence of improper motive, and as refusal to retract defamatory and otherwise 
damaging communications. 

Thank you for your time and cooperation. 

Sincerely, 
Charles E. Petit 

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