For a couple of years, Alston ran the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund out of a detached garage at her Northampton home on Prospect Street.
Susan Alston.
When Superman and Spiderman need help, who do they call?
If it's help with the law, they might call Susan Alston.
Alston, a former Northampton and Springfield resident who helped manage the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle phenomenon, was named this month to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. The New York-based non-profit organization comes to the rescue of graphic artists, publishers, retailers and others connected to the comic book industry, protecting their First Amendment rights and providing other legal assistance.
Alston, now a Hampden resident, is no stranger to the fund. She ran it out of her Northampton home until 1997, then served on its board of directors from 1997-1999.
Schooled in fund-raising and philanthropy at Bay Path College, where she earned a master's degree in these disciplines, Alston has worked for Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges, the University of Massachusetts and several area non-profits.
Alston owned Sync Gallery in Northampton when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle empire began its rise in the comic book world. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, the comic's creators, hired Alston to be administrative director of their company, Tundra, which was based in Northampton. In 1993, Tundra merged with Kitchen Sink Press, owned by Denis Kitchen, who started the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Although some think of comic books as childhood fantasy fodder, the graphic art form has struggled with censors for decades. For a while, the Comics Magazine Association of America tried to police itself, instituting its own Comic Code Authority that banned gore, graphic violence, sexual innuendo and obscenity from the universes of Green Lantern, Thor and Archie.
Meanwhile, renegade artists were turning out their own comic books and graphic novels that took an unflinching look at crime, the drug culture and just about every sexual fantasy conceivable. With the rise of underground comics in the late 1960s, tensions spilled into the courtroom.
The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund supported artist Michael Diana when he was hauled into a Florida court over his comic "Boiled Angel" in the 1990s. The fund also helped a comic book store in Illinois charged with possessing obscene material and a California artist who contested an effort to impose a state tax on comic books.
The Diana case came to a bad end for Diana, who was convicted of obscenity. He was sentenced to community service, which he performed with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
For a couple of years, Alston ran the fund out of a detached garage at her Northampton home on Prospect Street.
"I had a 50-foot phone cord I used to plug everything in," she said. "In the winter, I'd haul it over snow banks."
Alston moved to New York a decade ago, taking a hiatus from the comic book world to work in fund-raising. Now she's back in Western Massachusetts, where she fights for justice on behalf of the comic book world. That world goes far beyond "Betty Boop," she said.
"When people talk about comic books, it's not just for children but has a whole adult theme," said Alston. "We try to make people aware that when their First Amendment rights are infringed on, they can call the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund."