by MATTHEW HAYS

Litigiousness is big business south of the border, as we all know - take Danny Hellman and his ongoing comix conundrum for one. It's been almost five years now that the comic artist and illustrator has been embroiled in a court case instigated by Ted Rall, a somewhat better-known illustrator who doesn't much like being poked fun at.

In a nutshell, it goes like this: Rall writes a cover story for an August '99 issue of Village Voice, calling prominent New York cartoonist Art Spiegelman a comix dictator of sorts - perhaps ultimately bringing more bad favour upon himself than upon Spiegelman, judging from the rebuttals that ensue. One's a satirical cartoon and subsequent e-mail hoax from Hellman, signed Ted Rall, asking readers to "take a meat cleaver to all the comix industry's sacred cows" by sending slags to TedRallsBalls@onelist.com. Rall sues for $1.5 million (U.S.).

"Libel, libel per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, injurious falsehood and another that I can't bring to mind at the moment," Hellman lists off. He sounds wearied by the whole thing. "Obviously I'd like to put it behind me and forget about it, but the fact that it's such a stupid lawsuit makes me eager to talk about it. This has been a pretty big part of my life for the last five years."

It's also become a part of many comic artists' lives. Hellman sent out a call for submissions for a Dirty Danny Defense Fund book and got a flood of responses. "There are a lot of really talented people out there looking to get their work out, and there aren't that many places where they can get published," he says humbly. "I'm very happy to help them get their work out to readers."

Legal Action Comics, with 70 cartoonists in its first edition and 73 in the second, is an all-star anthology of the indie comix world - 250-odd highly turnable pages filled with satires of the Hellman vs. Rall affair along with the requisite weirdness, violence and a salient amount of little cartoon boners. ("To paraphrase my friend and collaborator Sam Henderson: ‘Little cartoon boners are always funny,'" Hellman quips.)

Hellman is bringing his story - still quite contentious in the comix community - to the Blue Met for a Q&A this weekend, which will be followed by doubtlessly dazzling comix slide shows from a few other artists. One to look out for is R. Sykoriak's Carousel, a popular multimedia slide performance from NYC, featuring Hellman and Michael Kupperman. Other projections follow from Montrealers Billy Mavreas, Bernie Mireault, Sherwin Tjia and Torontonian Marc Ngui.

Hellman, for one, is excited about Carousel, having never participated in that type of format. But his mouth really gets watering when presented with the idea of a comix dictator post of his own. "I would start by assigning every New Yorker cover illustration to myself," he enthuses. "I would then proceed to the annexation of the Sudentenland, followed by the invasions of Poland, France and Russia. I would then hole up in my underground bunker with a six month supply of chocolate until things settled down."

Comix: A Blue View lights up the room on Saturday, April 3, 2pm, at the Hyatt Regency Montreal Hotel (1255 Jeanne-Mance, Picardie Room, 5th Floor), $5