Well, here’s an interesting one. It’s not often you see comic book industry news on TMZ, but here’s something that caught their interest: the site is reporting that Archie Comics is taking legal action against their co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit due to offensive behavior, including at least two different rants involving the word “penis.” The aim, TMZ says, is for a judge to grant an injunction that prevents Silberkleit from returning the office.
Silberkleit joined the company as co-CEO in 2009, and last fall was the subject of a profile in Fortune magazine. The company’s other co-CEO, Jon Goldwater, has been much more visible in the comic book press and the subject of many Newsarama interviews, most recently in April of this year.
July 8th, 2011 at 6:19 pm
So she likes penis… What’s the big deal? Maybe she was discussing Watchmen.
July 9th, 2011 at 8:46 am
There’s apparently no room for people who like penis at Archie comics – except for Kevin Keller
July 9th, 2011 at 11:16 am
I hope someone recorded those rants, looks like they could be comedy gold…
July 9th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
maybe ex-Congressman Anthony Wiener can find a new job with her
July 9th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Since the management at Archie have shown themselves to be a pack of evil dicks time and again, I hope this goes very messily and takes forever to resolve.
July 9th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
I believe there is much evil at Archie
July 9th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
So Nancy Silberkleit has a penis. Big deal.
July 9th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
Jon Goldwater has come off pretty poorly in understanding what the Archie company values are. It would be a sad day if he was the only one in charge. Saying Nancy Silberkleit used the word “penis” could mean a thousand things, it seems like an attempt to create controversy. What if she said something like “No! we won’t consider showing a character’s penis!” Or “Would you please stop running around the office nude flapping your penis!?” Context is everything.
July 9th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
The story about this on Comics Alliance goes into a bit more detail. She supposedly pointed at male workers and yelled “penis, penis, penis, penis”.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/07/08/archie-comics-sexual-harassment/
July 9th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Without knowing the details of the circumstances in which she made those comments, I kind of have an idea that it might have to do with the number of gender based euphemisms that indicate women are weak or are considered “appropriate” for men to say regularly.
July 10th, 2011 at 2:14 am
Maybe she has Tourette’s, and this is her “word.” If so, then it would be a federal crime to discriminate against her.
THEPENIS
MIGHTIER
THANTHESWORD
July 10th, 2011 at 6:17 am
Well, “rants” is their word, and the best they had was that those “rants” included the word penis. Sounds like a shitty case.
July 10th, 2011 at 7:56 am
I worked under this woman when she worked at the .
She lined us all up and said none of us were man enough to last even 2 minutes with her…
I said “That may be true but it would be the best 2 minutes of her life!”
I was subsequently fired when I left work early without a “valid” excuse.
July 10th, 2011 at 10:29 am
if your anecdote is true , then her current woes have been a long time coming
July 10th, 2011 at 11:07 am
Marvel and/or Disney needs to purchase Archie comics, and merge them, and turn them into new cartoons, video games, TV shows and movies. It is way past time for more multi-media projects from the Archie universe.
July 10th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Maybe she was describing her nose?
July 10th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
And maybe the answer is as simple as that Nancy thought those guys were acting like dicks and referred to them as “penises” because she thought she was being clever and cute? I’ve heard people substitute one for the other before. And if that is the case, just how sensitive and over-reactive are those penises working at Archie?
July 10th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
She was probably reacting to the fact that DCnU is a reboot after she spent the past 25 years figuring out the post-Crisis DC continuity.
Either that or she was just trying out material for her new Nancy “Dice” Silberkleit routine.
July 10th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Maybe she is a convert of Zardoz?
“The Penis is evil!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOROvO2fxTc
~P~
July 10th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Maybe men need to reclaim the word “penis.’ We should stop being so sensitive about our body image, and learn to support each other in the face of all those invisible barriers women throw up around us. The best way to start is by learning to hold it, look at it in the mirror, and share our feelings about how it looks and smells. And then some drumming. Hey ya ya ya hey ya yaaaaa…!
July 10th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
She obviously wants the accepted term for the male member to be something more tasteful. Penis is a dumb word, it doesn’t represent the member well, especially the magic that can be done if it is used properly. I agree. That is why I always refer to mine as “Excalibur”.
July 10th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
This is all a misunderstanding. There was genetically modified mouse loose in the office with a penis growing out of its back. She pointed at it as it ran by yelling “Eek! Penis! Penis!”
July 11th, 2011 at 2:22 am
I truly enjoyed your article. It was very educational and use
July 11th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
She got hired at a CEO level two years ago and acts like this? I can only assume that at her previous job she cut costs (jobs), since that seems to be the only way people get hired at that level these days (this coming from a capitalist by the way). I just hope the list of people canned includes the people who hired her and did the background check. My guess is they got what they wanted and now they don’t like it.
January 13th, 2012 at 8:39 am
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