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!"

Reason #18373 I'm Not A Brevoort Fan

When DC hit with their 20 pages for $2.99 move, Marvel hit with all kinds of spin.

Brevoort indicated DC could make the cut because they didn't need to make a profit directly off publishing, but Marvel needed the $3.99. This despite someone from Marvel corporate already having told shareholders that they initially raised prices on their titles to see how inelastic they were.

The prices went up on their most popular titles first, not the books that were less popular but having hardcore audiences (like his suggestion that the same folks buying DC's Booster Gold at $2.99 would buy it at $3.99).

But what brings us here today is the sentiment expressed first, I believe, by CB Cebulski and echoed by Brevoort: DC's $2.99 move would hurt the talent, because they'd be getting their rate on 20 pages instead of 22.

Brevoort has, also, defended Marvel's raising prices to $3.99, despite the recession concerns of the retailers and their customers.

Yet Marvel has slowly but surely moved more books to 20 pages, while still charging $3.99 for a lot of them.

That's not the real impetus for this post, though. This is...

According to Richard Pace, he's "been told Marvel cut everyone but the top names' page rates and dropped two pages as well."

So, now the high and mighty Marvel gives less work per issue for their contractors to earn from AND pays less per page?

If there was any doubt that their claims to the moral high ground were false and full of spin, let this put an end to it.

Note: my problems with Brevoort started with his lying on behalf of Marvel to claim that refusing to tell retailers about the massive Civil War delays until Monday or Tuesday of the week the latest issue was supposed to hit was done "for the retailers". That was the first incident where my outspokenness resulted in Marvel's ire being directed at Newsarama. I went back and forth at Brevoort as a fan, since my Newsarama work involved no pay at the time and left me feeling that it would be unfair for Marvel to hold my opinion against them (I was not their employee) or for the 'Rama to feel I should bite my tongue on their behalf.

Corporate People Say The Silliest Things...

Thanks to Graeme for blogging about this, which is the only reason I caught it.

Tom Brevoort had the following to say about foreign royalties:

Like our editorial staff, our accounting department is lean, and the revenue derived from overseas editions isn’t so great that it woul justify the manhours it would take to determine that somebody was owed a three-dollar check for a story that had appeared in Zimbabwe and to cut it.

Gee, Mr. Brevoort...mighty kind of you to decide for your contractors what amounts of money are worth it for you to track. Corporate streamlining of your operation completely negates the legal and ethical obligation for you to pay them all monies rightfully owed to them.

People are right: creators DEFINITELY have no need or use for a union. Clearly, management has their best interests in mind at all times...

Edit: I'd like to acknowledge that Tom Brevoort says Marvel finds "other ways" to compensate creators for foreign reprints that we don't know about and shouldn't know about. I wonder if it is some manner of compensation that even their shareholders don't know about. Because, if it isn't, then there is no reason not to just share it with the audience. If the shareholders DON'T know about it...hmmmmm....