Victor Von Dammit!

I think someone pulled a Brevoort here.

To the right, you see a story, as it ran on BleedingCool.com before Rich Johnston was swamped with complaints about questionable reporting on it (Rich committed the error of putting too much faith in his original sources, it seems).

The story he was fed? The real story behind cancellation of the Victor Von Doom mini wasn't lack of orders, a shift in Marvel strategy or because the original editor (the witty & well-liked Alejandro Arbona) was shit-canned, but that the artist (Becky Cloonan) had personal emergencies that led her to not have finished ANY of the artwork for the mini. Marvel claimed to not have received a single, solitary page.

Sources came to Rich almost immediately upon publication of the article, telling him Marvel's story was patently false and that they had seen the completed pages for the entire first issue.

Which brings me to "The Brevoort"...

Most folks probably don't remember this to the point of obsession like I do, but when Civil War delays led to delaying a bunch of titles that tied into it, Tom Brevoort tried to cover for the fact that Marvel only owned up to it the afternoon before it was supposed to be on shelves because, FOR THE SAKE OF RETAILERS, they needed to hold off on announcing it until they had a plan in place for "fixing" it. I'm in good company thinking that the whole move screwed over retailers, seeing as how that was Tom Spurgeon's opinion at the time. Going toe to toe with Brevoort over how asinine his claim was wound up being the first time I recall Marvel complaining to Newsarama about me (expecting an unpaid reviewer to have his opinion kept in check by the site).

Fast forward to today, with the product being much lower profile, but the overall issue of cancelled Marvel product being a little more embarrassing and the delay in announcing it being, once again, unprofessional. So they leak that it is because a freelancer had personal life get in the way of their professional commitments and, though they still love her and no one is mad at her, it caused the series to currently be cancelled...even if that might not be the real explanation.

While everyone is mad at Rich Johnston for having reported this, the real focus of the ire should be his source. Really...even if true...they wanted so badly to take the heat off of Marvel's decision to cancel by taking a swing at the professionalism of a freelancer that, by their own explanation, seemed to be going through some trying times?

Johnston's reporting here speaks to the larger problem with the state of comics journalism. Due to so few sites being willing to potentially frustrate their meal ticket, the publishers, there aren't many outlets for news stories that might cast anyone in a negative light. Yet a significant number of the audience eats up those stories, making the race to be the one who puts out the few bits of real news that ever trickle out a cutthroat one.

So, Johnston trusts his source. His source places the blame as politely as possible on a freelancer. He makes at least a token effort to reach out to the freelancer, but doesn't hear back soon enough for his comfort. Why the discomfort? It's Friday afternoon and he's losing his most valued readership time. Weekends are generally more dead than weekdays on comic book sites. If he doesn't get this up before the end of the business day, he will have to debate saving it for Monday.

Meanwhile, every moment he holds on to it, there's a chance the story will leak out to someone else who will run it without further confirmation without having nearly the same relationship with the source that he might have. And then what happens next time? Will the source bypass Johnston for the person willing to run the story immediately on their word next time? Maybe he crassly does the math that the source who gave him this story will be in a better position to give him future stories than the freelancer he'd be respecting by waiting for their response or eating the story altogether.

But here we stand: at last check, there were a lot of people who screamed "FUCK RICH JOHNSTON", but I didn't notice anyone adding "...AND FUCK WHOEVER GAVE HIM THIS 'STORY', TOO!"

I've Been A Bit Of A Marvel Event Hater...

(image found at DeviantArt)

...but thinking about it lately, I've come to remember all the types of stories I wished that the super-hero comics would tell. We always settled for Elseworlds, What Ifs and plain ol' out-of-continuity mini-series to get our fix of that really complicated story idea that you knew would never happen in the regular books because it would be too difficult to coordinate and too big of a gamble for the publisher to take (in case readers thought it sucked).

I've been too caught up on holding editorial and creative teams to hyperbolic statements made in fluff interviews to sit back and really appreciate the balls it must take to ALMOST ALWAYS have some major changes happening to their fictional universe that has ripple effects (or more) through their entire catalog.

I, also, get stuck on the idea that they went in this direction instead of that one or maybe weren't quite as ballsy with the changes as I'd like to have seen. That kind of reaction is either testament to how well they've been pulling it off (that my major complaint is that they should have gone further), a bit of entitlement or both.

When I review books (which I'll get back to shortly, whether you want me to or not), I make a point of trying to step back and evaluate the execution as much or more than I evaluate what story direction they've chosen. I've kind of lost sight of that in the last few months.

That doesn't mean that the execution of the last few years of events has been flawless, mind you. Just that I think that a lot of fans forget that, at one time, they asked for this sort of cohesive storytelling to the fictional universes they read about and now try to tear it down because it went off in a direction different from what they would have preferred.

You have to take the good with the bad and, sometimes, just have to step back and realize that the next major change might bring along that story you've been waiting for them to tell for years.

Who Is THE PAINTED DOLL?!?!?

I don't know how many of you might recall this, but...as Civil War was unfolding...an apparent mole at Marvel was revealing many secrets of the mini-series before they hit the stands.

Its Spider-Man that gets unmasked in Civil War. He does it willingly on live TV. Thor comes back as a clone/cyborg created by Richards and Stark and Sue leaves the FF with Black Panther and Storm filling in for her and a mortally wounded Human Torch. And Namor's still a prick.

Discuss amongest yourselves.

The Painted Doll | 04.24.06 - 5:34 pm

No one realized how spot-on this guy was. He clarified later that the mortally wounded was based on Torch's injury in the first issue, which Marvel apparently went in a different direction with.

He has more along the way, though, in a post directed at Rich Johnston (on 09-26-2006) in his LitG forum:

What's up with the lack of Spoilers? Civil War is in full force and you aren't dropping hints on anything.

Like, who's gonna be on the new Fantastic Four?

Will Tony and Reed be able to control their Clone Thor?

Is it true that the Winter Soldier will be wearing Cap's costume when this is all said and done?

What's up with the mutants leaving the mansion, and how does the world's first mutant play into that?

Who is Hulk bringing back with him when he comes back in World War Hulk?

Is everyone's favorite scottish writer really taking over after whedon leaves the house that Xavier built?

And most importantly, how much is Marvel paying you to keep your mouth shut? Inquiring minds want to know.

He hits Blog@Newsarama to drop a hint:

Tigra’s a double agent. Wait, I mean….Spider-man unmasks on TV. No, what I meant to say is that Punisher kills two v-, no, no, actually Cap is really le-, ah forget it.

Comment by The Painted Doll — December 13, 2006

In January 2007, he shares the following on a CBR thread:

That Amazon review is bogus.

Cap gives up in issue 7. During the big super hero slugfest (which ends in the streets of NY), civilians jump to Iron Man's defense, making Cap realize the error of his ways. CW ends with his ass in jail. As for what makes them kiss and make up.....go reread the end of Watchmen for your answer to that question.

Toddles.

So...the question remains...who is THE PAINTED DOLL? A Marvel staffer? A Marvel writer? Rich Johnston, alluding to being paid off in some manner for not reporting it himself, but still getting the info out there? All one knows for sure is that this person had amazing resources or contact within Marvel editorial and appears to have been a fan of Alan Moore/Promethea.

Maybe they are still out there?

What Wine Goes With Superman Cape, Mr. Millar?

Mark Millar recently stated in an interview (that Kevin Melrose covered over at Blog@Newsarama) that Civil War was the best selling comic in the last 15 years.

When people called him on the hyperbole that ignored the facts, he got cranky. I don't necessarily blame him, because you can't expect him to research everything he might say in an interview. The point that it was an amazing sales success is true. This is the sort of thing that only obsessed comic book fans would gripe about.

But...

In his crankiness, he said the following:

Groan.

If someone can show me another monthly comic series published in the American market that has outsold Civil War then I will eat my Superman cape. You can go all the way back to the collapse in 1994.

This is truly pathetic and pedantic, but typical of some aspects of the Internet, unfortunately.

MM

Oh my. You should really not put a challenge out like that. While you should be able to speak extemporaneously in an interview without being expected to have researched every bit of what you say, there's really no excuse for sitting at your computer and not doing a bit of research before making a bold statement, fueled largely by thin skin and thick ego. Sorry, Mr. Millar, but as much as you can do some great work, you certainly make sure no one forgets it and rail against any who don't tend to agree.

Courtesy of MyComicShop.com:

X-Men (1991-) 42
Published July 1995
Original cover price: $1.95

Deluxe edition on glossy paper. "Heaven Can Wait." Script by Fabian Nicieza, pencils by Paul Smith, inks by Matt Ryan. Statement of ownership--average print run 800,625; average paid circulation 614,075. Andy Kubert/Ryan cover.

Let's see. July 1995 actually came out in May. The statement of ownership would then go back into May of 1994, I believe. (Edit: It has been pointed out to me that the likely period covered by the statement of ownership is January 1994 to December 1994, still within Millar's range)

The lesson today, boys and girls, is to quit while you're behind and just admit a mistake when you make one instead of getting into a pissing match with people that have more free time than you and know how to work a Google search properly.