Eric Michael Esquivel (born February 10, 1987[citation needed]) is a Latino American[1] 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.
Eric M. Esquivel | |
---|---|
![]() Esquivel with his book, The Blackest Terror, 2012 Phoenix Comic Con | |
Born | (1987-02-10) February 10, 1987 (age 35) Gurnee, Illinois, United States |
Nationality | American |
emecomics |
Eric Esquivel was born in Gurnee, Illinois, of Irish and Mexican ancestry.[1]
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, Starburns Industries Press, and Zenescope.[6]
In 2018, Esquivel began writing Border Town, a magic realist ongoing 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.[1][7] 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.[1]
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collaborators on Border Town (of which four issues had been published) withdrew from the project.[8] DC cancelled the unpublished issues, and accepted retailer returns of those that had been published.[9][10] DC also cancelled plans for Esquivel to take over writing their superhero Nightwing series.[11][12]
In 2020, Esquivel announced Alternate Empire, a publishing venture with Eddie Berganza, who had been terminated by DC in 2017 following sexual harassment allegations.[13][14]
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)