Executive Summary: In a stunning assault on the international literary community, Facebook has expelled Voice Agency Comics founder Gordon Atkinson. Questions are mounting over whether Mark Zuckerberg fears the publisher’s forthcoming Issue #39—and, more troubling still, how he learned about it. Company officials remain defiant, and Atkinson has announced that, upon reflection, he doesn’t want his Facebook account back anyway.
Facebook CASTS OUT Voice Agency Founder in Stunning Prepublication Strike
By Chet Masterson, Senior International Correspondent, Voice Agency News
HOUSTON, TEXAS — The international literary community was shaken recently by reports that Facebook, the social networking giant controlled by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, has summarily expelled Voice Agency Comics founder Gordon Atkinson from its platform. The action, described by publishing officials as both unexpected and unnecessarily thorough, resulted in the destruction of Atkinson’s nearly two-decade-old Facebook presence, severing communications with approximately 1,500 friends, acquaintances, admirers, and persons whose identities could not immediately be established.
No satisfactory explanation has been forthcoming.
While Voice Agency executives have stopped short of alleging a conspiracy, serious questions have emerged concerning the timing of the action. Could Zuckerberg himself be concerned about the forthcoming Voice Agency Comics Issue #39? And if so, how did he learn of its contents, given that the manuscript has not yet been placed online?
These and other troubling questions remain unanswered. Meanwhile, the company’s formidable communications infrastructure has moved decisively to contain the damage.
Staff members in Houston, Fort Davis, Port Aransas, and Austin continue to operate their own Facebook accounts, providing uninterrupted access to important publishing announcements, literary developments, and occasional reports of a more personal nature.
Atkinson himself has reportedly declined to pursue restoration of the account, noting that much of its contents belonged to an earlier period of his life. The publisher instead intends to concentrate his energies on cultivating an entirely new generation of readers.
The setback comes at a critical moment for Voice Agency Comics, whose ambitious program of illustrated literary publishing continues to challenge conventional assumptions about the relationship between prose, illustration, and the modern reading public. Company representatives insist that the Facebook affair will have no adverse effect on the organization’s aggressive expansion plans. Indeed, there is growing sentiment within the organization that the loss of its founder’s personal Facebook account may ultimately prove to be little more than an inconvenient footnote in the remarkable history of this emerging literary powerhouse.
Voice Agency News will continue to monitor developments.
Chet Masterson, reporting from Houston.