Hundreds of leather people from all over the globe recently gathered South of Market in San Francisco to pay respects to Marcus “Mr. Marcus” Hernandez.

Mr. Marcus was the original leather columnist for the San Francisco gay rag, The Bay Area Reporter. For more than 30 years, Mr. Marcus was known as HatchetQ (Hatchet Queen), Marcus the Merciless and the Wicked Witch of the West. He used his column to promote various leather events throughout the world.

I first met Mr. Marcus in 1987 and like most leather people in the Bay Area enjoyed or endured a love-hate relationship with him. During those earlier years at the Bay Area Reporter, Merciless would live up to his name by destroying the reputation of anyone unlucky enough to be on the wrong side of the stroke of his pen. Many of us were on his wrong side throughout the years but we also knew it was Marcus’ love for the leather community and the San Francisco Bay Area that made him hold any and all of us accountable for our actions.

Mr. Marcus’ commitment to community was not just limited to the leather community. Few people are aware that he was Emperor I, the very first Emperor of the now world wide Imperial Court System. He was one of the few who understood the importance of the contributions of non-leather people to our causes in the early days of the AIDS crisis. Marcus used his ties to the Imperial Court System to provide entertainment for various events and fundraisers throughout the city. Marcus also pushed the leather community to accept other factions of the gay community, including cowboys, bears, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and of course the drag community.

Mr. Marcus’ influence on the leather titleholder competition was evident at the first International Mr. Leather contest held in Chicago. That competition saw a tie between leather men David Kloss of San Francisco and Durk Dehner, now president of the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles. It was the vote of the leather columnist from the Bay Area Reporter used as the tie-breaker in that contest. Mr. Marcus gave the title of International Mr. Leather 1979 to David Kloss, which defined the role of International Mr. Leather as a political force instead of a heavy duty “leather S/M player.”

Recently, I asked Marcus why he chose David over Durk besides the obvious connection to San Francisco. His response, “everybody wanted Durk to win so I wanted to shake things up” was simple and characteristic of the man referred to as “Merciless.”

The next 30 years Mr. Marcus continued his work with International Mr. Leather as a judge and later as judge emeritus. It was his job as judge emeritus to read the names of the top 20 who would continue on vying for the title of International Mr. Leather. During this time he would give a little tidbit or information on the titleholder before reading the name, which was fitting because Mr. Marcus was the only one who could and would have that kind of information on practically all of the titleholders on the stage. Marcus traveled to most major contests and recently began attending Mr. San Diego Leather.

Mr. Marcus demanded the most from leather titleholders.

I had the pleasure of judging with him at the Mr. San Francisco Leather Contest last year. During that contest he expected contestants to know the motto of the city of San Francisco along with the city flower and official song. Personally, I didn’t know there was a city flower and song, but he felt it was important for anyone representing the city he called “Fagdad-By-The-Bay” to have as much pride in their home as he did.

I remember saying to him during one of our last hospital visits “you’ll make it through this cause mean people never die.” Now I realize the truth in that statement.

Marcus “Mr. Marcus” Hernandez left us on Oct. 8, 2009 .