Eric M. Esquivel — BrandWiki

Eric Michael Esquivel (born 1987[1]) is a Latino American comic book writer and journalist, known for the 2018 series Border Town, which was cancelled following allegations that he had sexually and emotionally abused a female friend.

Early life

Eric Esquivel was born on February 10, 1987, in Gurnee, Illinois. He is of Irish and Mexican ancestry.

Career

Esquivel has worked as a journalist and critic, writing for such websites as Bleeding Cool,[2] Fox News Latino,[3] Bookmans Entertainment Exchange,[4] and The Tucson Citizen.[5] He has worked as a comics writer for publishers including Archie Comics, Boom Studios, DC Comics, Dynamite, Frederator Books, Heavy Metal, IDW, Papercutz, Scholastic, SBI Press, and Zenescope.[6]

In 2018, Esquivel began writing Border Town, a magic realist comics series with art by Ramon Villalobos, at the center of a relaunch of DC's Vertigo imprint. The series dealt with immigration and Latino identity, for which Esquivel received death threats in advance of its publication.[7][8] The series was well-received by critics, and the first issue went to a second printing after its September 2018 release, to meet retailer demand.[7]

In December 2018, Esquivel was accused by a woman of subjecting her to ongoing sexual and emotional abuse several years previously; he disputed her account of their interaction. His creative collaborators on Border Town (of which four issues had been published) withdrew from the project.[9] DC cancelled the unpublished issues, and accepted retailer returns of those that had been published.[10][11] DC also cancelled plans for Esquivel to take over writing their superhero Nightwing series.[12][13]

In 2020, Esquivel announced Alternate Empire, a publishing venture with Eddie Berganza, who had been terminated by DC in 2017 following sexual harassment allegations.[14][15]

Bibliography

Childish Delusions of Grandeur and Superiority #1-2
The Adventures of Bikini Automatic #1 (one-shot)
Calabrese! #1-2
Horrible Little People (OGN)
Reasons Why Superman is Better Than God (mini-comic)
Awesomenaut (OGN)
Zombies vs. Cheerleaders #3 (collected in Zombies vs. Cheerleaders Volume One TPB), #4, #5, #7, Volume II #2
Robot <3 Kaiju (one-shot)
Girl Scouts in Space (one-shot)
The Golden Age: Blackest Terror (mini-comic)
The Golden Age: The Owl (mini-comic)
Blackest Terror (one-shot)
Normal #1 ('zine)
Unite And Take Over: Stories Inspired By The Songs of The Smiths Volume Two (OGN Anthology)
Thor: Unkillable Thunder Christ (one-shot)
American History Z (OGN Anthology)
Electric Youth (one-shot)
Freelancers #2-6
Autobiographical-Erotic Asphyxiation (a comic strip, appearing in The Tucson Weekly)
The Legend Of Oz: The Wicked West Volume Two, #6-8
The In Crowd #1-4
The Spider's Web #3
Smell Ya Later (An ongoing comic strip, appearing in the Tucson Weekly)
Bravest Warriors #13
BOO! #3
Adventure Time #27-28
Loki: Ragnarok And Roll #1-4
Grimm Fairy Tales: Wonderland #22-25, Age Of Darkness one-shot
Grimm Fairy Tales: The Dark Queen (one-shot)
Sonic the Hedgehog #265
Mega Man #41-44
Roberto Roboto Volume One, "Domo Arigato!"
G.I. Joe - Storm Shadow: 21st Century Boy
Super Sonic Digest #11
Border Town #1-6 (issues #5-6 not published)