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. ;)

WGBGB: Val's House Has No Mirrors?

(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.)

Wow. Now this is ridiculous. OK, it passed that point long ago. Now that Val has put all comments into moderation, she's actually going on a crusade against me.

She used my CIVIL DISCUSSION with Marc Guggenheim (one that he didn't express having a problem with at all) where I reported him to the WGA and equates it to the possibility of comic fans stalking and/or physically harming comic book professionals.

You know...taking Guggenheim's own public words on the same message board we were having the conversation on and then debate him on it...that's just like a stalker.

When called on it, here are the examples she gave in order to try to justify the extreme she was taking it to:

Example 1:

I find the fact that Kevin Huxford got involved with the personal life of a comic book professional absolutely chilling.

This is the same person who wrote on my blog alleged personal details of another freelancer's life. Ugly stuff, and rather sexist.

There seems to be a pattern, here.

These are things that are scary and cross the line. It is the job of moderators on boards and blogs to monitor this behavior.

These are the things that make me research security options for conventions and libel laws governing the Internet, and I feel 100% comfortable doing so.

The fact that I had to even say the previous sentence pretty much sums it all up.

Sub-topic closed.

By the way: she doesn't allow any comments from me on her page, while she continues (from the Devin Grayson thing) to try to smear my name through the mud.

Example 2:

Juan, say you run into somebody in your community and you two have a discussion about community policy or recycling or whatever. The other person violently disagrees with you, and insists that you admit he is right.

When you do not admit that he is right, he secretly follows you home and goes through your garbage to see if you were recycling properly or if your lawn adhered to the community codes. When he found something to pin on you, he goes to the sanitation department or the community board and reports you.

Now, the worst that could happen in this instance is that you would pay a fine. Certainly not on the level of "Taxi Driver," right?

But who does something like that to a stranger who happened to not share the same views as himself? What is the mental process behind a such a decision?

I've disagreed with you on this board before, Juan, but I do not go online looking for dirt on you to get you in some sort of trouble as the result of our online disagreement. It would never occur to me as something that people do.

And when things go from "conversation about comics" to "contacting the IRS or employer or WGA or whatever," when the fan in question is now an element in this freelancer's personal life -- there is a serious problem.

And in that case, the moderator of the board should have stepped in as soon as those things were mentioned.

Oh, now she's continuing the slamming of Newsarama that she claims she's not doing. For the record, people did step up as soon as they were aware of it (the reporting to WGA). That's part of how I realized my actions were causing problems for others and then decided to now PUBLICLY leave Newsarama (as I had already cut ties before that) and ShotgunReviews.

Example 3:

And I must say, this moderation feature is awesome!

Oh...I personally take that as her glee in deleting my one attempted post to call her on the twist and any others she might have deleted.

Example 4:

Juan,

A fan contacting someplace related to a freelancer's job or other related personal life issues -- no matter what the circumstances -- is crossing the line.

It's not motivated by a positive impulse. It seems to be more motivated from wanting to make an impact on this public figure's life -- and, in that way, becoming a public figure himself.

And it worked, didn't it?

And now we get to what she really thinks is going on, eh?

I didn't do this to create a name for myself. When I quit Newsarama and Shotgun, I had no idea what else I was going to do. I had just recently started blogging more at Shotgun (a site I miss being a part of). I knew I'd continue reviewing books on my own, because I believed a majority of the views I received on YouTube were still going to be there. I didn't expect any kind of bump from what happened...not positive, anyway. When Rich covered it, I was just glad that there'd be enough attention to insure that no one blamed Matt Brady or Troy Brownfield for anything I said or did.

I haven't actually become much of a public figure. I have a blog. A BLOG. Do THAT many people know my name? Please.

The accusation is extremely ironic, given that it is coming from you, the woman who made herself a public figure by savaging DC Comics due to what she perceived as misogyny with their books and stories of a ripped vagina. If only you had worked at Marvel Comics when it was a boys club (as Gail Simone described it), your fame would be due to savaging Marvel...and your ripped vagina.

You do understand that telling the world about what you perceive to be an environment that encouraged misogyny is impacting the personal lives of multiple people there? Just because you see a faceless target of a corporation doesn't mean that there are no faces behind it to be impacted. And when you keep it anonymous, you cause rampant speculation where even the innocent are thought to be guilty.

That ignores the point that it seems more likely that your difficulties at DC were caused by your incompetency, when you, an ex-DC assistant editor, couldn't tell the difference between Jefferson Pierce and John Henry Irons, despite the book referring to the character by name several times.

There's the additional irony that you deciding to try to drag me through the mud with your exaggerations is just serving to extend what ever 15 minutes of fame I might have gotten from having that talk with Guggenheim.

And to think...when you didn't agree with my comments on Devin Grayson (which weren't nearly as bad as you tried to make them out to be), you cautioned me to fear legal repercussions. I guess that's because she's a public figure and I'm not a...wait a minute. ;)

Update: WGBGB: Val's Decline Into Madness

(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.)

Update: I think Val might be addressing her fluff piece on the Ayre Force comic book due to a friend writing it, even when the company producing it is as diametrically opposed to feminism as you can get. I'm sure her friend did as good as one can expect with a vanity concept, but somehow I doubt her opinion would have been as positive if anyone else did it (like maybe Geoff Johns). Anyway...I wonder if any of the moderated comments she doesn't approve brought to her attention that Calvin Ayre uses scantily clad women, in addition to his gambling site, to make his money? :)
I now return you to the original column, already in progress.

I start off, first, with an explanation of the whole idea of WHEN GOOD BLOGGERS GO BAD.

Before I started this feature, I actually liked and respected Valerie D'Orazio. I indicated as much on several posts to her blog during my infrequent trips to it.

When I started this feature, it was with the thought that she'd be in the barrel just the once or only occasionally, not become the focus of the feature every single time.

But she's become fodder for this column because of the clear bias she exhibits on a regular basis, inability to behave rationally, and habit of completely trying to spin the counter arguments of others into something they are not (all while their actual words are still completely visible in the comments section, with the notable exception of my dust-up with her).

The latest?

Lisa Fortuner provides guidelines for writers of international characters, courtesy of "The Mainstream Comics Industry":

"However, the Mainstream Comics Industry advises against researching another culture and creating a well-rounded original character based on actual facts, because this could result in your readers thinking of foreign nations as places with a rich history and culture populated by a variety of individual thinkers who are worthy of respect as human beings. This leads to the audience raising their standards and refusing to pay for books that don’t adhere to that standard. "

But Lisa, if you just think of those characters as Legacy Heroes, and give them a chance instead of tearing them down because of supposed inaccuracies and "uninspired characterization" (my God, as if there really is such a thing), maybe they can blossom.

(runs)

Which reminds me...

Remember Faith from JLA?

What the hell happened to her?

See, when I worked on JLA, Faith was created to "kill two birds with one stone" by virtue of her Latin-American heritage. So you got a Woman (big W, trademarked) and an International Character.

Ask Morrison if he's going to use Faith in Final Crisis. Maybe she can be in one of those epic George Perez-like crowd scenes that get turned into a poster with a numbered identification index. She could be right behind Fire's shoulder. Boy, that Fire, I'll tell ya -- she's one hot Brazilian. Get it?

She goes on in the comments section (which is now closed) to lambaste Fire as a stereotype, ignoring posters pointing out that she's been rehabilitated over the years. It seems the extent of Val's using Fire as an example is going back to her creation as the Green Flame...which was born out of the Superfriends comic book in, I believe, the late 70s or early 80s. She would seem, despite having worked at DC, to not have any more modern examples of her behavior (missing the work Rucka has done on her, even though you'd think she would pay attention to the work of the guy who created Renee Montoya's persona and Batwoman).

She shamelessly tries to spin this:

"I think the South American/Latin American "spitfire" cliche for women has been pretty prevalent throughout pop culture, but you know none of my Latina/South American female friends or relatives fit that profile."

But Val, she has character development that explains her "spitfire" personality within Checkmate. I believe a character can be reappropriated. Once a sterotype doesn't mean always a sterotype.

And Val, just because your Latina females and relatives are not hot headed doesn't mean that none can be. My sister and a few of the girls I dated were hot-headed. It's a normal human emotion. As long as it's not her only characteristic, why is there anything wrong with that?

Greg Rucka goes forward and adds reasons to turn her into more than her stereotype. The way the character is right now, how is faith a better character for it?
I hate this idea that all minority characters have to be a stand in for their race. No one does this to white characters at all. No one goes and says that the Joker represents all whiteness. It infuriates me to hear this. Is it because whiteness is normal?

Into her response of:

I have to admit, every time I hear these arguments that there are no stereotyped characters in comics and no token characters in comics, I am fascinated.

Mind you...ABSOLUTELY NO ONE SAID ANY SUCH THING.

Many posters call her out on the straw argument, which she just answers with insults and inanity. When people ask her for a serious answer instead of just spitting out unrelated garbage, she goes on some hissy fit rant that sees her rapidly descend into insanity.

Examples:

Matt:

So why is a character that fits a stereotype, even though she has plenty of character development and is well-rounded, disqualified by default?

Val:

"So why is a character that fits a stereotype, even though she has plenty of character development and is well-rounded, disqualified by default?"

Matt, I ask myself this question about Witchblade everyday. I just don't understand why they just won't give Sara Pezzini a chance.Probably the bare ass with the cyber-webbing.

Matt:

Yes we know Witchblade sucks, but considering we're talking about Fire here I don't see your point.

Mind actually answering the question or are you still just throwing out "controversial" comments that you'll never back up in an endless quest for page views?

Val:

"Mind actually answering the question or are you still just throwing out "controversial" comments that you'll never back up in an endless quest for page views?"

You set up articles in Wikipedia for "imminent deletion" in your spare time just for kicks, don't you? Just to feel that rush. It's like your version of being in the jet in Top Gun. You engage in petty little arguments on the internet and smoke a cigarette after.

My God, Matt...it really *is* that important to you.

God, I didn't know...

Well, you're right, Matt: there is no overly-sexualized history of Fire in the JLA. There are no Latin stereotypes in popular culture. And I don't want to be quoted saying the thing about some stereotypes being justified, but if you did feel that way, I wouldn't rain on your parade.

You are right, Matt.

Matt Is Right.

It's going to be okay. You are Somebody. You are The Master Of This Comments Page, the Master of Post ID #2585950957379771360.

Enjoy it.

And it just gets worse from there (or better, if you're simply looking for the mesmerizing entertainment that can be provided by people who have completely lost touch with reality).

Oh...and she seems to have completely sold out her principles for an exclusive about a vanity press piece. Yeah...the proceeds are going to charity. But it is a vanity piece to fluff up Calvin Ayre's ego...you know him, the guy behind BoDog Poker and the BoDog Girls. Yeah...good ol' Calvin makes a portion of his loot parading women around as sex objects. Not that there's anything wrong with that, unless you're a rabid feminist...wait...no...that's an insult to feminists...unless you're an insane person who claims to be a feminist.

Good ol' Valerie is closing down comments sections left and right, going to moderated comments now. Why? Because she can't handle open debate. She wants to throw out controversial, inflammatory accusations without having to back them up. Check the comments section I linked to above and tell me she intelligently or rationally responds to a single commenter. Now there will be no evidence of her unwillingness to back up her off-the-wall assertions with something resembling facts.

DC Vs Marvel @ The Movies: Much Ado About Nothing

OK...it has become chic to suggest that Marvel does better with their properties in the movies because they are not adverse to creating a cohesive universe where their characters cross over in the movies.

What?!?

Does anyone pointing this out as a strategic advantage realize that Iron Man is the only movie that has been released thus far that is starting that trend? And that means there has effectively been NO CROSSOVER BETWEEN MOVIES YET? How can that be a sign of the strategy being a success?

Some people (cough...linked above...cough) just love to find any possible angle to bitch about DC Comics. I'm sure that's not true of ALL of the people putting forth this idea, though.

For the record, I do think that the Marvel Entertainment approach is a helluva lot stronger than Time-Warner's history of giving too much of the control to individual filmmakers. But I do find it hard to argue decisively against giving such control to previously proven artists like Singer & Nolan. If I had to bet on the abilities of Favreau, Singer, and Nolan to helm a super-hero franchise prior to the release of their respective movies, Favreau would have the worst odds of winning.

But the biggest flaw here is thinking the cohesive universe is why Marvel's succeeding when it hasn't even occurred in the market yet to have contributed to their success.

WGBGB: Mike Choi

Mike Choi had the following to say on his Blogger account recently:

Why I don't allow comments on this blog

"I sure hope this isn't a Marvel marketing ploy, if it is I will

be DONE with anything marvel. I will go over to DC and their shitty characters and boring books. (Green Lantern is the exception) you hear that Joey Q, you fucking hack." (editor's note: quote taken from a Marvel_b0y blog comment)

When people and their audience are anonymous, there's no incentive to think about the content, plausibility, or credibility of what you're about to say. THIS is why the internet comic fan community feel like they're not being paid attention to. Because you can't.

No, it isn't that he doesn't allow comments. No, it isn't about his reason for not allowing comments.

It's dismissing the whole of internet comic book fandom by the way a relatively small percentage of the whole wield their anonymity like a weapon.

Marvel Comics put out survey forms in some of their comic books a few months ago (and what a colossal mistake that was, IMO). Other than assuredly having made a purpose of some sort, you could not have any certainty that the results weren't manipulated enough to render the data invalid.

As long as comic book companies give no other form of feedback (besides sales to retailers) for their target audience, you HAVE to attempt to find some formula for reading and reacting to the internet comic fan community. It might be a smart idea if the larger companies came up with a registration process that at least confirmed home address (can't login until you've received your PIN on a postcard, possibly) so that they have a way to hear the signal through the noise.

Oh...regardless of whether he still wants to make love to me...I do feel it necessary to point out one of his best blogs. The man draws a purty picture and is a heckuva storyteller, too.

WGBGB: LJ Blogger "_alecto_"

OK...including _alecto_ in WHEN GOOD BLOGGERS GO BAD presupposes that this blogger has ever been good. I can't swear that they have, but I'm not creating a whole new feature for this person.

What genius effort over at their blog caused this attention?

Not going so far as to count how many times men and women speak in 1 and 1/2 episodes of Firefly.
Not suggesting that pornography has a heavy influence on Whedon's work.
Not that anyone who pays Inara for her "services" is a rapist.

But this:

Zoe, of course, is meant to be our empowered, ass-kicking sidechick. Like all sidechicks she is objectified from the get go. Her husband, Wash, talking about how he likes to watch her bathe. Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour. I have known a black woman whose white husband would strangle and bash her while her young children watched. My white grandfather liked black women because they were ‘exotic’, and he did not, could not treat women, especially women of colour, like human beings. I grew up watching my great aunts, my aunty and my mother all treated like shit by their white husbands, the men they loved. So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession.

So...because her grandfather was an ass, this fictional character was a rapist and a misogynist without need of any contextual clues regarding such characteristics?