Maybe The Rama Is Getting Dogpiled (& The Dixon Saga)

I'm a comic industry gossip addict. I hit The Beat & Blog@ everyday...many times. I occasionally hit Journalista and Spurgeon's site. Journalista get hit daily from time to time, depending on how recently Dirk has picked a fight or stirred shit up on some topic.

I go to these sites because it seems to me that blog sites run with bits and fragments of news and stories more quickly. I think it is just the nature of the animal.

So, I'm a fan of the work done by The Beat and by Blog@, regardless of what people at either site might think of me. They are both damn entertaining.

That said...

I feel like the following from The Beat paints a disingenuous picture:

Covering breaking news seems to be a work in progress at the new ‘Rama. While l’Affaire de Chuck Dixon was all over the blogosphere last week, it was absent from Newsarama’s front page, something that did not escape Valerie’s notice. Matt Brady came back the next day with a solid story that was mostly background and no comment but at least it was something.

First of all, Newsarama wound up covering it on Blog@. Was it front page when there was little-to-know meat to the story? No. Could they have linked to the Blog@ coverage from the front page? Sure. But there seems to be an effort to trump it up into a bigger issue.

Then there's trying to frame Newsarama as responding to people criticizing their lack of front page coverage by giving it front page coverage the next day. The Beat seems to try to do this with subtlety in the above quoted piece. Occasional Superheroine did it with less subtlety by following this blog with "Guess What Story Is On The "Front Page" Of Newsarama?" Never mind that the front page article went live at 7:45am that morning, meaning it was certainly being worked on much of the previous night. That would seem to demonstrate that Newsarama was, gasp, trying to focus on good journalism practices more than rushing to get something on the front page that was already covered on Blog@ and countless other sites.

The final bit seems to be critical of Newsarama for their being nothing new in the reporting, despite their best efforts. They can't make anyone talk if they're unwilling (though, holy shit, what a difference a week makes with Chuck Dixon, apparently).

It seems like, due to the timing of this story with the changeover in the site, people want to see a major problem where there isn't one so they can tie it to the site transition.

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Oh, while we're talking about the Dixon situation, Val's take seems to view the whole thing through the lens of her life instead of what actually went on with Dixon. Dixon spoke out like he did to defend his reputation and it is partially appropriate because DC wasn't doing anything to explain the situation? That's how I read it from her blog, but feel free to steer me in the right direction if I'm wrong. Because, if that's what she's saying, there are a few problems with it as it pertains to Dixon (but no problem with how it pertains to her; she may have avoided names, but she gave a clear picture of the circumstances).

1. It would be kind of odd for DC to come out and announce that Dixon has been kicked off the books before there were any solicitations that would necessitate an explanation for his absence.
   
2. If there's been any demonstration that DC was leaking negative info about why Dixon was no longer on the books, requiring him to counter by harshly ripping "someone" at the top, I haven't seen it. Feel free to link me to it in the comments if I missed it.
3. Telling everyone you didn't quit doesn't really seem to defend your reputation. Bashing the conditions at the place you didn't quit doesn't seem to be much of a defense of one's reputation.

It seems clear that Dixon went a touch past defending his reputation in his blog commenting/Didio bashing. I can't argue for or against the comments being warranted or deserved. But I can certainly argue against them being necessary to protect against being slimed by his past employer. No, he seemed to be preemptively sliming his past executive editor. Last I checked (and I'll give you that it's been more than 24 hours), there still wasn't a clear picture of what exactly happened.

Chuck's not really being entirely fair when he says, "BG1, I simply stated that I was off my titles and that I did not quit. This was to get out in front of the rumors."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one knew anything to make rumors about until he decided to tell the world that he was off the books. THEN he had to get in front of rumors (that he created a vacuum and market for) by saying he didn't quit, which didn't exactly fill that vacuum.

In all of this, he goes through basically spelling out who the problem was by telling everyone who it wasn't. Shit, at some point, his not naming the person when he was doing everything BUT THAT to make it clear who he was talking about, his continued resistance to naming the name makes it seem like he's missing part of his anatomy. I won't say what part, but it certainly isn't the head and don't blame the shaft.

Funny that I haven't seen anyone (least of all Dixon) refute the rumor that Lynxara shared on the infamous Comics Should Be Good blog:

So I’ve heard an interesting rumor about this, not quite inside info, but sourced well enough I’m inclined to take it seriously. I cannot disclose the source as the information was passed along entirely off-the-record, so you may take this with a grain of salt.

What I’ve heard regarding this situation is that Dixon was approaching the books as regular runs and so had written very far ahead on all of his titles– I’m hearing something like two years’ worth of scripts. However, editorial didn’t give him full details of the outcome of upcoming events like Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, so the vast bulk of what Dixon wrote ended up being unusable.

This led to sharp disagreements about rewriting the scripts and whether Dixon should have produced that much material in the first place, and presumably the end of Dixon’s employment at DC.

He wrote possibly two years ahead on off-shoot books. He knows that Robin will always be lower on the totem pole than Batman or Detective. Same goes double for Batman & The Outsiders. He doesn't stop to think that the main titles might dictate enough to the spin-off titles along the way to present a problem? Maybe he's just not used to writing a spin-off without having more of a hand in the parent titles?

So...again...he writes ahead, presumably gets told that some elements crucial to his writing ahead aren't usable, and he doesn't agree that he should have to scrap that work and start over? That makes DC the heel and Dixon a saint?

What other type of employment is that acceptable in? What other type of employment is that not basically quitting by fact of refusing to do your job? If I behaved like what his role in that rumored scenario in any job I had, I'd at least be denied several weeks of my unemployment, if allowed to file at all.

And Comics Journalism Needs A Russert

• Rumors persist that Marvel_b0y was a viral campaign run by employees of Marvel, despite at least some sort of denial from Joe Quesada.
• Countdown counted down to nothing, since it certainly didn't countdown to Final Crisis.
• Grant Morrison says that he gave DC his first issue script and the outline for the entire mini-series long ago, yet rumors persist that Didio traveled out to Scotland because Morrison was delivering something different than he had previously laid out.
  
• Dixon leaves DC; he didn't quit, yet he says he didn't have quite the passionate "YOU'RE FIRED!" moment. There are strong indications that Didio is the reason he's gone, but he won't spell it out further, as of yet. Keep in mind he said no comment next week and now he's been posting up a storm of comments alluding to what the heart of the matter is.
  
• And now, despite protests to the contrary only a matter of weeks ago, JG Jones has obviously NOT been on schedule with his artwork for Final Crisis, as revealed now by Carlos Pacheco being added to the series as of Final Crisis #4.
  
• Kinda indicates that Grant Morrison was full of it when he protested that things were way too far gone for them to have adjusted anything to meet up with where Countdown to Final Crisis left things. It wasn't a combination of things, it was simply the lack of desire to change things. Again, nothing wrong with that on his part. Should have left it at "I didn't want to" rather than trying to say circumstances made it too difficult.
  

Man, I wish there was someone that comic notables felt that they HAD to submit to being interviewed by and could press for firm answers (without being spat upon by half of the fans out there).

You know what is a shame? I find the mysteries of Marvel_b0y (still) and exactly what the fuck is happening at DC more compelling than the comic book event series at either company.

Chuck Dixon Was Fired

Reading the blog over at Comics Should Be Good, it appears that Dixon was fired and that he has some serious issues with Dan Didio.

Countdown was Didio's baby. Giving Morrison the keys to the entire universe was his call. Letting him be uncommunicative about whatever changes he was making to the FC story in such a way that it screwed up the flow between Countdown & FC likely had the fault shared between Didio and Berganza.

I've appreciated many of the strides that DC made under Didio, but Countdown was his clusterf*ck and he follows that up by failing to make his people ensure that they bounced back. If you believe Valerie D'Orazio's picture of what happens when a series bombs (like she described with Titans), it appears that the editorial staff may have been too busy whispering jokes back and forth about how bad Countdown was doing and how bad Carlin looked in many of his Newsarama interviews, so more stupid mistakes were missed along the way.

Chuck Dixon Out At DC Comics

Heidi MacDonald reports over at THE BEAT that Dixon is no longer employed by DC Comics.

Reaction from fans, thus far, seems to be mixed. Some are lauding his return of Spoiler, but I have reliable info that says the broad strokes of her return have been sitting with DC editorial just waiting for the right time to execute.

I haven't been much of a fan of his Batman & The Outsiders, as it suffers extreme decompression, IMO. Probably not the one to look to for a fair critique of that book, as the creative musical chairs and pulling a switcheroo with the cast (especially after having the readers invest in a five week event meant to select them) soured me before the first issue hit.

Thoughts?