As rumourmonger Rich Johnston makes a bid to be the most hated man in comics, Andrew Wheeler argues in his defence, and wonders if it's time to rehabilitate other contenders for the title, namely Bill Jemas and Micah Wright.
14 February 2005

HARD TIMES AT MARVEL U

Marvel hasn't been getting an easy ride lately. Message boards have been alight with scorn for the publisher's big events, most notably Brian Bendis's 'Avengers Disassmbled', J Michael Straczynski's 'Sins Past' in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and now Mark Millar's 'Enemy of the State' in WOLVERINE. Meanwhile, the swamp of new books has struggled to get people talking about anything other than how Marvel has forsaken invention in favour of relaunches and 'youth' rehashes.

Of course, I'm talking solely about online reaction, here. I'm talking about that niche of comics fans, the ones with an internet connection and a compulsion to share their opinions with strangers. (Some of us even do it with a natty graphic headshot at the top of the page.)

Some ten long years ago or so, I was on Usenet. For the benefit of you young 'uns, I should explain; it was like a message board, except there were no Dynamic Forces ads, and there were only maybe three comic creators around, and they'd infrequently mingle on boards that weren't actually named after them. I sometimes hear rumours that Usenet still exists, like Liechtenstein.

'These are fans with an internet connection and a compulsion to share their opinions.' Back then, it was easy to see online fandom as a niche. It's not so true these days, where the internet is so close to universal that almost any comic fan can join the conversation if they feel so inclined. The online community isn't the bedlam of mixed nuts that Chuck Austen recently characterised it as. It's just fandom, unfiltered.

So it was interesting to read Joe Quesada's discussion of the subject with Bendis during the Marvel editor-in-chief's takeover of Newsarama last week. While both men seem to appreciate the huge benefits the internet has provided to comics by creating this global community, there's a substantial reluctance to validate the opinions of the people involved. Unsurprising, though, given that the consensus right now doesn't appear to be in Marvel's favour.

And then the conversation takes a very peculiar turn...

I SAW GOODY JOHNSTON WITH THE DEVIL

For the next ten paragraphs or so of their discussion, Quesada and Jemas launch a scathing attack on rumour columnist Rich Johnston. Mark Waid then adds his own condemnation of Johnston in a discussion thread at Comic Book Resources. Further threads appeared at MillarWorld, the Bendis boards and elsewhere, calling Rich a shill, a hack, a mercenary, a coward, a bottom-feeder, a liar and a creep.

Well, OK. But he's also my friend.

Now, he wouldn't expect me to defend him - he can do a much better job of it that I can, and anyway, I'm a terrible friend. I've had his BLADE II DVD for almost two years now. But the mischaracterizations and malice have been so ill founded that I feel driven to at least vouch for him.

If you're not familiar with Rich's column at Comic Book Resources, here's how it works: He collects gossip and rumour, and he publishes it, usually with a good sprinkling of shameless self-promotion along the way. He's been doing this since those lowly Usenet days of ten years ago, and that's where I first encountered him.

'Rich was called a shill, a hack, a mercenary, a coward, a liar and a creep.' When it comes to journalism, Rich's sensibilities and mine have never been very compatible, which is why he's much better known than I am. He's a tabloid guy. He likes controversy, sensationalism and circuses. This has led some to suggest that what he does is not journalism.

That simply isn't true. What he does isn't always pretty, but it is journalism. If he were fabricating things and passing them off as facts, in the style of The New Republic's Stephen Glass, that would be a different matter, but Rich always makes it clear that he's dealing in rumour, and he labels his rumours for credibility. He doesn't set out to fool anybody or misrepresent anything.

Rich has also been accused of muckraking for the money, though the column made no money at all for several years. It's been said that if he gets more hits, he gets more cash. That's true in theory, but as I understand it, Rich's returning audience is so huge that he's already in CBR's top payment tier. There are plenty of juicy stories that Rich hasn't run, because he was asked not to. He doesn't set out to ruin lives.

Of course, Rich wouldn't exist if the likes of Quesada didn't feed him. He wouldn't exist if he weren't seen as an easy way to get free publicity. He wouldn't exist if there were no disgruntled creators. He wouldn't exist if publishers were always honest with their audience. And if he didn't exist, the industry would find a way to invent him. Frankly, I'm glad that it's Rich doing this job, and not someone less honest.

I don't think Rich is always right, and I don't think he's always honest, and he works in advertising, so he isn't always human, but he tells the comics audience the things that the companies won't, and that means he's good for comics - even if he's not always good for business.

And anyway, he and Joe Quesada probably cooked up this whole thing as a publicity stunt.

THE FALL GUY

Speaking of stuntmen, another part of the five-part Bendis/Quesada interview at Newsarama that caught my interest was their discussion of former Marvel president Bill Jemas.

A controversial figure during his tenure, Jemas loved to portray himself as a loudmouth and a clown, with varying degrees of success. As mentioned in a previous column, Rich Johnston and I once discussed whether Jemas had been exercising too much creative control at Marvel. My view was that he had, and it was best for Marvel that he should leave.

I'm still convinced of the first part, but not the second. His worst influence on Marvel was his preference of decompression, and that's a disease that the company has never shaken off. Many of the other ideas we associate with the Jemas regime - no relaunches, no resurrections, no self-cannibalisation - have fallen by the wayside, and his greatest contribution, his flair for risk-taking, is long gone. Enough of those creative risks paid off to make the publisher retreat to conservativism again on the back of its successes, and now we're stuck with 'young female Wolverine', 'young female Spider-Man' and 'young sexually ambiguous Hulk' comics, and a half dozen versions of the Fantastic Four.

I never thought I'd say it, but like Bendis and Quesada, I miss Bill Jemas, and I want him back.

RESCUE RANGER

While we're on the subject of great pariahs of our time, the folks over at the MillarWorld board have been wondering if it's time to invite Micah Wright back in from the cold.

Wright, author of STORMWATCH: TEAM ACHILLES and the propaganda poster-boy for deceitful self-promotion in the comic industry, famously claimed to have served in the US military. Six months ago he admitted that this claim was a lie. He'd lied to his employers, his fans and his friends, and he'd used his lies to build his reputation and sell his books. He'd upset and offended a lot of people, and to this day he seems less than fully repentant.

But I think it's time to let him back in.

Fans have every right to mistrust Wright's public statements, and employers have every right to be cagey about giving him another chance. Those who have served in the armed forces have good cause to refuse to buy his books. Yet the fact remains, he was a promising writer, and God knows the industry could use a few more of those.

Too much time is wasted in the comic industry worrying about the cult of personality, and too many terrible writers are given chances to fail and fail again. With tempers cooled and the controversy behind us, it would be great to see Wright take a second crack at comics, though if he's got any sense, he'll shut up and let the work speak for itself.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.




All contents
©2001-5
E-MAIL THIS ARTICLE | PRINT THIS ARTICLE