With more than $45,000 raised for documentary about cartoonist charged with ‘artistic obscenity’ in the US, some will be used to pay $2,000 fine in Florida

A Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary about the US comic artist Mike Diana – the first person to receive a criminal conviction in the US for “artistic obscenity” – has surpassed its $40,000 (£32,000) goal, with enough extra money to clear the outstanding warrant for his arrest in the state of Florida.

Diana was living in Largo, Florida, when he became the first person to be convicted and jailed on obscenity charges in 1994, for his self-published comic book Boiled Angel. A jury took just 40 minutes to convict him following a sting in which an undercover police officer procured copies of Diana’s underground comic.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cover of Boiled Angel #1. Photograph: © Mike Diana

After spending a short period in jail on remand before sentencing, Diana was put on probation for three years, during which time he was forbidden to interact with minors or to draw. He was told that police could turn up at his home at any time to check he wasn’t breaking the terms of his sentence, so he would hide in his car at night to do his work.

Diana gained leave to serve out the last part of his probation in his native New York, but a claim that he had violated the terms of his sentence, which included doing community service, led to a warrant being issued for his arrest – meaning Diana couldn’t set foot in Florida for fear of detention.

After the Kickstarter appeal reached its $40,000 goal, a stretch goal called “Buy Mike’s freedom” was added, stipulating that if $45,000 was raised, it would be used to pay of the $2,000 fine attached to the warrant, essentially making Diana a free man again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The trailer for The Trial of Mike Diana.

The director behind the documentary is Frank Henenlotter, a self-confessed “exploitation” movie maker whose credits include the cult hits Basket Case, Frankenhooker and Brain Damage. Henenlotter’s work pairs well with Diana’s, which featured graphic sex, violence and gore, but mainly in a satirical and darkly humorous vein.

Henenlotter and Diana appeared in a live internet “telethon” in the final hours of the Kickstarter appeal, which concluded at 2am GMT on Friday and pushed the total figure raised to $45,816.

Henenlotter’s Kickstarter statement said: “Does freedom of speech mean anything when authorities see only obscenity? Does an artist’s vision matter when community standards conspire to suppress it? In a small town in Florida back in 1994, Mike Diana learned that the answer was a resounding no. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean anything when your art is declared obscene. And one man’s art could be another man’s obscenity.”

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Diana’s legal battle was a landmark case for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which marks 30 years this year of funding legal representation for comic-book creators and retailers who fall foul of censorship or obscenity laws.

After a failed attempt by the FBI to link Diana’s work with the activities of the serial killer Danny Rolling, the then 25-year-old was subjected to the undercover sting that led to his conviction. Earlier this year he told the Guardian: “Largo is a very conservative place. I think they thought what I was doing was making a mockery of their community. I wanted to show them [the jury] some underground comics so they could see there was a precedent for what I was doing, but they wouldn’t look at them. If they could prove that what I was doing had no artistic or literary value, they could prosecute me.”

The Mike Diana documentary is already in production, so the Kickstarter success means it can be successfully finished, edited and distributed in 2017. Arrangements are being made to screen the film in Florida.