Just To Set The Record Straight...

(Editor's note: this is republished from 2008. I had taken it offline as a draft, but put it live again because I think there's some revisionist history going on with the D'Orazio/Sims thing. I might try to restore the proper date if I can track it down.)

Originally ran on 3/23/2008.

Dan Slott appeared over on a Blog@Newsarama comment thread. A few comments said that the Val vs. Huxford vs. Slott thing was distracting from the actual topic...and I agree. That's why we're here, ladies and gents.

On that thread, he tries to twist a few things that I've done or said in relation to what some have called a cold war between myself and Valerie D'Orazio. I'm going to endeavor to make this blog a place where I can counter his imagination with reality.

1. Valerie had started taking thinly-veiled shots at me before I ever ran a negative blog about her. She was dismissing everyone she found to be a troll by telling them to go argue with a creator on Newsarama, which more than a few friends pointed out to me as a perceived dig. I do believe she's a card-carrying F.O.S. (Friend Of Slott), but I can't confirm since I've been banned from the Bendis Boards due to my off-board conflict with Slott. I think that's where they keep the list.
2. My first blog criticizing her was done about a blog where she was not only making illogical arguments, but irrationally shut it down in a declaration that everyone disagreeing was just a bunch of rabble rousers. If she had left things open for discussion, I'd have gladly posted my opinion there. But when one acts like a child that is taking their ball and going home because the other children don't agree with her...well...one is going to take a lumping.
3. When I did attempt to post on her blog, prior to the joke involving the nearly-decade-old Grayson rumor, she would only respond with snarky dismissal.
4. In hindsight, I have posted many times that I regret making the joke the way I did. But I regret more that Valerie decided to spin what I said into something worse by her deleting all of my attempts to clarify and post a reaction that made it look worse.
5. Though it might seem like splitting hairs to some, I think there is a world of difference between saying someone got a job because of who they were sleeping with versus saying that their pitches had a better chance to be looked at via their boyfriend-as-networking-contact.
6. As far as taking time off from Newsarama, I closed my account there because I had stopped officially working for them awhile ago, but still wound up associated directly with them when that wasn't the case. With my account closed there, that seemed like a pretty good step to get the point across that I don't work for them.
7. When it was clear that my reporting Guggenheim might cause Newsarama problems, I told Matt I was willing to do whatever necessary to distance myself from the site so that my actions wouldn't be attributed to them improperly.
8. At no time was I told by anyone at Newsarama that I'd no longer be welcome there in any way.
9. Blog@Newsarama has long been treated as a completely different animal than the mothership. This is a point I tried to make to Dan Slott when he was expecting Graeme to do fact checking and run things past legal before he did A LINK BLOG OF ALL THINGS!!
10. Over in my WGBGB: Support For My Valerie Situation comments, I have a very slotty anonymous commenter that assails the veracity of the idea that dating Waid might have helped pitches get seen, leading me put up a fairly accurate timeline that shows Grayson was getting uncommon help from editors and appeared to start dating Waid before she made it in the industry. I did this less because I care HOW she got in the industry than because I care when people try to tell me something is factually impossible when it isn't.
11. I didn't make "sexual comments" about Valerie D'Orazio. When she decided to hold her little blog bashfest with me as the person to be bashed, she accused me of having had an argument with Slott and Guggenheim in order to make myself famous. I responded to deny that and then point out the irony of her accusation, given that she made her name by anonymously dishing dirt on DC Comics editorial (without naming names, so many innocents might be presumed guilty) and talking about her ripped vagina. That's being unfair to her? She made a three parter called THE BROKEN VAGINA MONOLOGUES. She has a label called Broken Hoohah that doesn't even link to every single time she drops a reference to the broken vag. I don't think pointing out that she played up her ripped vagina for fame is a cheap shot. It certainly isn't a SEXUAL comment, regardless of the fact that it involves a sex organ.
12. Dan Slott still has way too much time on his hands to go chasing me around, creating aliases, and sending unsolicited e-mails to those who don't agree with him.

There...much better. ;)