Dan Slott Is Scary...Really Scary

In what was, for most of its existence, a polite debate over Marc Guggenheim's position on supporting non-union friends appearing on a struck show, Dan Slott waded in to be, as he admitted, a jerk.

When, in the course of that thread, I made mention of the fact that he quickly followed up another rude post directed at me with a private e-mail asking me to call him, he decided to publicly print his full e-mail to me from that night (though not ALL of his correspondence to me). That allows me to reprint it without being unethical.

Last night, after making my last stupid post, I tried to contact you again. I sent this e-mail (with one name and my number is redacted in this copy..)

"Kevin,
Are you up right now? Because if it's okay, I'd like to talk and clear the air before this-- whatever it is-- turns into something stupid.

Between you standing up for ****-- after he took a cheap shot at Brevoort and THEN posted factually inaccurate stuff about our book.
And then your review of ASM #546 which got a TON of stuff wrong about the issue-- not your opinion of the issue, but your recounting of what actually happened in the issue.
And now your recent digs at Marc-- which, while I know the subject of unions and strikes are pretty dear to you-- but whether you knew it or not, you were taking some pretty personal shots at him....

Well, basically, these are 3 completely different things in a row that are turning into a "Perfect Storm" scenario.

I've really only got 2 big gripes with online reviewers/journalists/bloggers...

1) When people go after my co-creators/staff as people. I have no problem when someone says that their/our stories/art/editorial decisions were bad, poorly executed, or sucked. What I do have a problem with is when people say something against their character.

2) When people report things which I know to be factually inaccurate or untrue. If I do something wrong, I'll take the hit. But I won't take the hit for something I DIDN'T do.

Those are my big two things. That's pretty much it.

I've been in this industry for 17 years and I haven't really pissed anyone off to an insane degree-- or vice versa.
And, for the life of me, I have no idea why you personally have popped up on the radar three times in such a short amount of time.

Can we talk and just nip this in the bud?
If you're up and you want to give me a call, here's my number:
(***) ***-****

Hope this wasn't too forward.
Dan"

First, Dan has gotten his facts screwed up. On the thread where he feels Graeme McMillan (the name he edited out) took Brevoort's words out of context, I never even posted, let alone defended Graeme. Of course, he and Brevoort were, also, way off on their suggestion that anything Graeme did there was unethical or beyond the pale.

The thread I did chime in on found Dan Slott questioning Graeme's integrity because he basically didn't fact check the BLOG HE WAS LINKING TO. Not an assertion he made himself, but an interesting discussion going on elsewhere that he linked to. Then, when he acknowledged the inaccuracy of THE BLOG HE LINKED TO in the comments section, Dan pretty much demanded he put the acknowledgment in the blog itself.

Ah, good! It’s covered in the link. Cool. I think that’s what the New York Times does when they have an incorrect and uncontested statement in the body of one of their stories. They include a link to another site.

“And lastly, Superman (specifically Action) has had an uninterrupted run since 1938. Numbers or not (although they’ve maintained the numbers as already pointed out, NO ARTIFICIAL INFLATION OR GIMMICKS), Spider-Man can’t touch that.”

Really? You want to leave that up in the BODY of your story– uncontested– when you know it’s incorrect? C’mon, Graeme. Step up and use that edit button. Wuss.

Comment by Dan Slott — January 14, 2008 @ 11:01 am

That Dan Slott; he's all class. Yes, he certainly is. Of course, he just feels he's a man on a just mission:

Yes. Graeme didn’t write those statements. He presented them on his blog at this comic news web-site. And he knows those statements are inaccurate.
He ALSO knows that ANOTHER statement from that same message board has CORRECTED that inaccuracy.
Why not INCLUDE that statement as well? That’s NOT editing the first statement. That’s being responsible.

Comment by Dan Slott — January 14, 2008 @ 12:22 pm

See? Not so hard, right? Now don’t you feel better knowing that what’s up on your blog is accurate TODAY? Oh, if only EVERY day could be like that….

Comment by Dan Slott — January 14, 2008 @ 12:46 pm

This is where he starts trying to suggest that a LINK BLOG from a blogger who is mostly known for (quite excellent) snark is a reputable news source that should be held to high journalism standards.

I made the mistake of weighing in:

I think comic book writers should spend more time writing comic books (especially one that has been thrown under the bus by editors as being the reason for delays in the past) rather than overreacting to someone quoting another site in their blog without pointing out inaccuracies in the quoted text.

Aren’t you one of the people taking shots at fans for overreacting to the Spider-Man developments? Even when you got what you wanted, you have to take a shot at Graeme? Is there some history here I’m not aware of? Because it doesn’t look like the finest moment for a professional.

Comment by Kevin Huxford — January 14, 2008 @ 5:37 pm

Now, this led Dan to make the leap to feel I was defending Graeme for anything and everything he had ever done that annoyed him. I probably would have, if I was aware of all the issues...since I can't see a reasonable, sane point coming from Slott on most of these discussions. But it was still an assumption from him that he apparently has held against me. He expressed that he'd like to chat with me about it. At this point, Slott's break with reality wasn't so clear to me as it is now. So I was actually interested. I provided my e-mail address. That would be yet another mistake.

He e-mailed me to ask that we have a phone chat, rather than e-mail or IMs. That was a little weird. You normally don't encounter professionals eager to give their phone number for contact to a reviewer they feel got so much wrong about their latest high profile work:

Personally, I think Graeme’s inaccuracies aren’t the finest moments for NEWSARAMA. I thought for a news site, you guys would care about getting your facts straight.

BTW, Kevin, in your latest vlog, there were a LOT of things you got flat-out wrong– facts that could have easily been checked.

If you want, drop me an e-mail and we can talk about it. But you ARE right about one thing, I DON’T have the time to be Newsarama’s fact checker.

You’d hope that a site called NEWSarama would actually inform people instead of misinform them.

Comment by Dan Slott — January 14, 2008 @ 6:39 pm

There he goes thinking that a REVIEW (which is OP/ED) is NEWS and that my OPINION was WRONG. We're clearly dealing with someone who feels they are an injured party and, due to that, are not behaving rationally.

His e-mails to me, personally, ran counter to conventional wisdom, as he has been more polite privately than publicly. Maybe Marvel is encouraging their writers to have WWE-like personalities to adopt in public, which would fit well with the way Joe Quesada has often conducted interviews where he thrives on infuriating a certain segment of his readership. Actually, that might owe more to the influence of Howard Stern (who Joe is friendly with), who made his riches by having people who loved to hate him often listen more than those that merely loved him.

Back to the issue at hand, though. Before calling him, I noticed that his shots at Graeme and myself weren't the only ones he had taken at people on Newsarama. Aside from trying to hand sell a few issues and making bets with posters that the new ASM would be successful, he took a shot at Matt Brady himself in his Brand New Day interview:

NRAMA: You've said before, Spider-Man is one of the what, three books that you would kill to write monthly...did your devotion to the character waver at all when it was made clear the changes in the status quo of Spider-Man and his world that you would be writing?

DS: Wow. That's a pretty loaded way of putting it. I can see where you fall on some of these issues, Matt.

So this made me wonder if having an undocumented conversation with Dan was the wisest thing. If it were just about me, I'd be fine. But Dan had been equating everyone's actions directly as reflective of Newsarama, despite my informing him that I was a subcontractor. Of course, others in the industry (from my experience) had continued to pin my words as representing Newsarama, despite the fact that I had informed Matt Brady months before that I would no longer be doing any work for Newsarama due to my own personal reasons. This occurred just before I found out that Imaginova was purchasing the site, to provide an estimate on when it occurred (without me digging up and reprinting my e-mail here).

Now, I will not reprint an e-mail he sent to me that he hasn't made public, himself. I asked that he express any problem he had with my review in e-mail or allow me to record the phone call for possible posting on Shotgun Reviews. He responded in the negative with some concerns that I felt were dubious.

This is the response I sent to him:

Sir,

I have no knowledge of future plannings. I'm just a reviewer and occasionally contracted writer. I don't get inside tips from people. If ********* is privy to such things, he doesn't pass it along to me.

*********** is the only member of our team that I'm aware of even having access to online advance issues for review.

So...if this chat would be to clear up if I have advanced info, you can rest easy that anything I've stated in my reviews is based on what I read in front of me. I don't try to completely keep the fan/reader in me out of my reviews. So anything about future stories is plainly a guess at what might be coming. The only guess I recall making was about the identity of Mr. Negative being pretty easy to see.

As you can see, any conversation we'd have on the phone should be devoid of any unreleased material to discuss. And, for the record, I didn't defend Graeme for taking a shot at Brevoort, to my recollection. I stepped in about the issue numbering discussion that was being taken too seriously for link-blogging. You may have been riled up due to a shot he took at Brevoort. I might have agreed with him about a shot taken at Brevoort, if I read it.

But it didn't actually happen. What seems to have happened is Graeme ticked you off in one blog, leading you to overreact in a separate blog, and you've decided I'm an enemy because I pointed out what I felt was an overreaction.

For the record, I can't see how explaining to me what I "got wrong" on ASM 546 would require divulging privileged info. Or how it would take longer than the e-mails and posts you've directed at me to compose an e-mail. I don't want web hits from your recording. I want NOT to get into a "He Said, He Said" with you about it. Somehow, people seem to find themselves with a personal headache when they have a disagreement with a member of Marvel creative these days.

At this point, I don't think there should be much that we need to air out. You won't have to worry about me as an online reviewer, as it applies to your work, sir. I have to buy the books I review. Despite having enjoyed your past work (positively reviewing The Thing & She-Hulk), I don't believe I'll be doing that, again. If I were to find a copy in my hands, I could no longer consider myself unbiased in regards to your work.

Regards,
Kevin Huxford

That was sent on February 4th. I have not received a single response since. In my opinion, this confirms my fears that he was trying to catch someone (who he felt represented Newsarama) with their pants down. All the back and forth we had via posts and e-mails, yet he couldn't actually express his concerns in any documented and verifiable manner?

After this, I started looking at things again. I started noticing what appeared to be a full-on Dan Slott sock puppet that appeared in threads and blogs expressing opinions eerily similar to Mr. Slott's.

When Graeme poked fun at prior claims from Dan Slott that Avengers: The Initiative #7 would be extremely important, a "BBraddock" appeared immediately to take a slap at him (hot on the heels of a few other threads where Dan Slott actually appeared (and seemed to be squatting on to reply ASAP) and bashed Mr. McMillan).

You’re on a roll!

First, you make a misleading blog entry about Tom Brevoort using his quotes out of context to get extra hits from the current OMD controversy: an entry which many posters including Mark Waid called you out on.

Next you reported a false accusation that Amazing Spider-Man was using its thrice-monthly schedule to try to overtake the numbering on Action Comics - and when Dan Slott called you on it you tried to make him look foolish even though he was in the right.

Then you ran a piece by Augie DeBlieck Jr. about OMD (again - natch).And then ANOTHER OMD piece about Erik Larsen’s take on OMD, and now…you’re setting your sights on Slott again with today’s entry. Slow news day mayhap?

Some people see things through rose-coloured glasses, maybe you’ll enjoy life better and have more to talk about in your blog if you take off your OMD hate goggles.

Betsy

Comment by BBraddock — January 18, 2008 @ 2:38 pm

He, also, just happened into the dust-up I had with Dan & Marc Guggenheim. His desire to paint ANYTHING said by someone with even remote ties to Newsarama-Proper as being representative of the whole site.

Where does Newsarama weigh in on this?

---

Kevin Huxford stands by ¨win at any costs¨ principles and tactics.
He makes his case very clear. He believes in staying true to absolutes and sees no room for nuance, shading or any kind of compromise.

Marc Guggenheim is a television producer and writer. He is also a comic book creator for DC and Marvel. He came on Newsarama to promote one of his projects. He later joined the thread to interact with Newsarama readers. Kevin Huxford is a frequent Newsarama contributor, writing reviews for them through "Best Shots Reviews." He also posts on the boards.

Kevin joined the thread promoting Marc Guggenheim's newest project. In his first post this frequent Newsarama contributor showed up Marc Guggenheim, stating that in his opinion Marc had compromised his principles on a previous thread, and that he, Kevin Huxford, would therefore not support Marc's project because of his own principles.

Marc came onto the thread and though Kevin Huxford kept bringing Marc's principles and convictions into question, Marc politely did his best to state his points of view. Marc talked about his experience in the WGA and his participation in the WGA strike as both a writer and producer.

From his previous posts, Kevin has shared that his father was an accomplished teamster and Kevin, himself, once tried to start a union when he worked as a cashier for Foodtown. Kevin obviously has strong views on the subject of strikes because of this, and because his efforts to once form a union got him fired for being too vocal.

Throughout their discourse, Mr. Guggenheim stayed polite and on point. He answered most of Kevin's questions and talked about specifics and nuances in his position and Kevin remained true to his absolutist stance. When asked if he was a member of the WGA or any similar organizations, Kevin said that he was not. When Mr. Guggenheim suggested that because of that, Kevin might not be aware of nuances of the specific situation that Mr. Guggenheim found himself in, in my opinion Kevin crossed a line.

Quote:

Originally Posted by khuxford Since I have had my knowledge of the particulars called into question, I've chose to just report it to the WGA. Surely, they are aware of the nuances involved in defending someone appearing on a strike show and encouraging people to watch that show to see how the person was wearing that red rubber band. If the rest of the WGA feels as Mr. Guggenheim does, it should be fine. Of course, that will, also, mean that they'll eventually get run over by the producers because they have no understanding of the purpose of a strike.

Because Marc Guggenheim pointed out that he might possibly have more insight on a specific issue, Kevin took things to another level. Because of a discussion on a Newsarama thread, a frequent Newsarama contributor reached out into the real world and tried to hurt a professional's standing in his industry.

To recap:
An industry professional came to Newsarama to promote their project.
An industry professional took the time to participate on the boards and politely discuss the issues.
A frequent Newsarama contributor, under a perceived slight, took action outside the message board to potentially hurt that professional's standing in their industry.

How does Newsarama feel about that? How do other professionals feel about that?

If I were an industry professional, that would make me think twice about participating on these message boards, promoting projects on this site, and having any dealings with Newsarama contributors. What if professionals took notice of this and held true to rigid principles like Kevin Huxford's? What if they stopped interacting with Newsarama and went to competing sites instead? What if those sites started getting all of Newsarama's hits? What if the advertisers noticed this? How would Newsarama react then?

Web disagreements should stay on the web.

And he, wouldn't you know, the Newsarama account of "bbraddock"? Three total posts. Two in that thread and the other is about "OMD whiners":

History is written by the whiners

---

If you're not aware of OMD you don't need to read it to jump onto BND.

The problem with any BND detractors like some of the frequent posters above is that their hatred of OMD has blinded them to the potential of BND. Have you ever heard of wearing rose-colored glasses? Some of the people who have read OMD are now wearing very large hate goggles (copyright mine).

It's a new start, that's the point - and I think it could go interesting places, no matter the mess that it has come from. If someone told me a new Spider-man book was coming out by Dan Slott (who remember wrote that GREAT Spider-man/human torch mini-series thing) and Steve McNiven (the phenomenal artist from Civil War) this would be a no-brainer.

Yes there's an elephant in the room but it seems from all the interviews with the creators and the new editor that they're about to walk into a new room.

So you can stay here and look at the elephant all you want, but the rest of us are going into the new (and elephant-free!) room.

So, I guess my question would be: well, MARVEL COMICS, how do you feel about the behavior of one of your top writers who represents your flagship title that is in the middle of a huge push, who not only behaves rudely and unprofessionally at almost every turn, but quite possibly creates anonymous accounts purely to bash his critics?

Oh wait...you employ Reginald Hudlin, too.