After seven installments, this series in search of online comics journalism is about to draw to a close. While we have encountered reasonable defenses of the worth of blogging, entertainment, industry-boosting and gossip, signs of serious, hard-nosed journalism have been rare, if not invisible. But before we sum up what we have learned about the journalistic standards prevalent among comics news sites, one more stop is in order. Rich Johnston has conducted an experiment that merits a revisit to his Lying in the Gutters site.

On May 24, Johnston returned to his site after a three-month absence following the birth of his child first daughter, Eve. He announced he would inaugurate the second volume of Lying in the Gutters with a six-week experiment, in which the site would be "run as an investigative-journalism column. Just to see what the fuss is about. Fewer but longer stories, a little less nonsense, a little more substance." At the end of the six weeks, Johnston would tally his readers' votes as to whether he should continue the new format or return to his old ways.

The Journal swelled with pride at this news. Even if the series hadn't found evidence of serious comics journalism, perhaps it had inspired Johnston to launch a new era. In a sidebar to Part Six, the Journal applauded Johnston's experiment.

Unfortunately, by the time the sidebar appeared in print, Johnston's six-week tryout had run its course and readers had voted 634 to 423 for Lying in the Gutters to remain a gossip column. The Journal was further deflated to learn from Johnston that it had all been a publicity stunt to draw visitors back to his site. Asked if the Journal's series had inspired him to give journalism a shot, he said, "I was just looking for an attention-grabbing way to bring the column back from sabbatical... Online absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder -- it just leads to the removal of your bookmark in people's browsers."

Furthermore, Johnston argued that his gossip column -- which posts tips from unidentified sources along with a stoplight icon that rates the credibility of the rumor -- has its own kind of integrity and is not so far removed from investigative journalism. One goal of his experiment, he said was "to possibly show that what some critics demanded of me wasn't that different from what I was doing anyway. When I discovered that Alan Moore was about to sever all ties with DC and move League [of Extraordinary Gentlemen] to Knockabout and Top Shelf, I thought that would work as a good way to kick that approach off. The subject, content and approach of the column didn't really change -- the only alteration was in the writing and the expectations of the audience."

The Moore story made a strong start to Johnston's methodology. Moore is a generous and articulate source of quotes, and the column's new format allowed him the space to tell his story. Plentiful sidebars explored other Moore-related developments and Johnston used the hypertextual ability of the Net to link to original and supplemental sources, such as an audio file of a BBC Radio interview with Moore and announcements for the Meltdown Festival at which Moore was scheduled to appear. It was not a story, however, that admitted of much investigation beyond Moore's testimony. Whenever one side of a controversial story involves DC Comics, one can rest assured that that side will not be shared with journalists. Johston made the obligatory request for DC's version of events and was met with the inevitable "No comment."

Johnston's first week concluded with three briefs and a short report on misprints in several Marvel trade paperbacks and hardcovers, and the publisher's failure to offer replacements. The latter was much the sort of gloss on Internet fan buzz that was common fare for Lying before its new resolution -- though with a little more commentary than usual on Johnston's part. The briefs were no different than what might have been seen on the site before, except for the absence of guiding stoplights. Similar briefs were to run at the end of most of the experimental weeks.

Week two saw what was perhaps Johnston's most earnest effort: an issue-oriented report on tax-related problems faced by comics creators. The piece looked at the tax theme in a broad manner and was more extended than the old column's approach would've been, but the results were rambling and unfocused, touching briefly on DC's "Compgate" controversy (over creators and staff selling comp copies), sales-tax issues for original art, and tips on what is deductible for comics professionals. The article concluded with the line "End of Part One." The suggestion that this was a topic that would be continued in future postings of the column pointed to an advantage that could be claimed for online reporting versus print reporting: The Web's continuous flow of news allows it to update and correct earlier reports on a weekly or even hourly basis, whereas print coverage tends to lurch forward in more cumbersome monthly (or fewer) installments. In fact, the same column also included, under the heading "Extraordinary Feedback," follow-ups to and clarifications of his Moore article from the previous week. Johnston never returned to the tax topic, however. Apparently finding his own report boringly exhaustive, he claimed he was just kidding about the continuation. "The tax thing was one of those far-too-long pieces," he told the Journal. "I thought putting Part One at the top [actually at the end] was funny. I can't see how the Web makes for ongoing investigations, save for the ease of being able to link back to previous installments."

Week three was even more ambitious, offering a history of corporate changes at Marvel and DC over the past several years. The two divisions of the story were subheaded "Inside Marvel" and "Inside DC" and alternated between Johnston's speculative observations from the outside and characterizations of events that apparently came from insider perspectives. For example, the following passage implies an intimate knowledge of private motivations behind public decisions:

"[Bill Jemas'] rivalry with [Marvel] studio boss Avi Arad was deep and personal and, for a while, Ike Perlmutter and Marvel's board supported Jemas. But after reportedly Arad blaming a number of Jemas' projects for destroying or stemming movies based on Marvel comics, and the huge success of Spider-Man, Daredevil and Hulk movies and their related marketing for Marvel, the tide turned."

In a similar manner, the previous week's discussion of "Compgate" and the taxability of complimentary copies included the following insider glimpses: "Reportedly, DC President Paul Levitz made assurances at a corporate level that the comp system was a necessary part of business, to keep employees informed..." And: "...it was reported that DC editor Lysa Hawkins made the opposite case, that the comp system was a necessary perk for lower-ranking employees, so they could afford to make the rent in New York. She did this by e-mailing Human Resources and copying in Paul Levitz, thus removing the possibility of plausible deniability. Lysa was dismissed, the comp system heavily curtailed and a procedure of zero tolerance enforced, which has seen other employees let go."

The story spends more time establishing context and considering implications than the old column did, but it imparts information according to much the same rules as the rumor column. Johnston stops short of saying that things happened. Things "reportedly" happened, with no clue as to who reported the information. This was true for the rumor column, as well, which often passed on information obtained from unnamed sources, but at least readers of the rumor reports were warned via the stoplight system which reports were more questionable than others. Arguably, an investigative journalist has an obligation to either get sources to comment on the record, find multiple corroborating sources or, at the very least, identify the nature of a source ("a source close to the executive's ex-wife..."). In Johnston's "investigative" column, readers are given no means of judging the veracity of the information reported, because they don't know where it comes from.

Asked if he felt that attribution was unimportant to a story and if he had had trouble getting sources to talk on the record, Johnston said, "Sources have never liked to be named," regardless of whether they are speaking to a rumor reporter or a news reporter. He said some information in his column had been corroborated from multiple sources and that "in other cases, the seniority of certain sources and candor on other matters has made for a form of self-certification, though one that bias often has to be extracted from. Been burned a few times, but then that only helps sort wheat from chaff."

Week four's lead article ponders criticisms of recent comics, especially Marvel's, aimed at older readers, "the age group who actually read and buy" comics. After briefly recounting the argument that traditional superhero comics should be aimed at kids, the article arrives at its punchline, which is that things would be much worse (or at least sexier) if the Japanese were publishing Spider-Man -- as evidenced by panels from a Japanese-licensed Spider-Man manga in which the protagonist fantasizes about tearing the swimsuit off a girl on the beach. Under the old column's methodology, the panels would've appeared without the pretense of an article. There are no interviews quoted here, giving the impression that the article is just a framing device for presenting the manga panels, though, to be fair, the piece concludes with the line "Marvel did not respond to questions made over the weekend, concerning this topic."

Similar non-comments from Marvel and/or DC appear in virtually all of the columns run during the six-week experiment. Because each new Lying in the Gutters is posted on Monday afternoon, NewYork time, the Journal suggested that perhaps the column's schedule might not allow enough time for the publishers to respond. Johnston replied that the column is sometimes delayed to give subjects a chance to respond to questions, adding, "I didn't go to print until I felt happy that the chance was fully given and in many cases answered with a desire not to respond." The Journal can confirm that Marvel and, especially, DC often desire not to respond.

Marvel also "did not respond to questions made over the weekend" regarding the second feature for week four: a report on Steve Gerber's ruffled feathers following the announcement that novelist Jonathan Lethem would be doing a comic-book revival of Gerber's Omega the Unknown character. Most of the article's quotes come from posts by Gerber on the Yahoo Howard the Duck Group's message board, but Johnston followed up by talking with Gerber directly and on the record.

One difference between rumor-wrangling and investigative journalism is that the latter requires you to call or e-mail people who didn't call or e-mail you. Arguably, the shift from rumor-reporting to investigative journalism is a shift from being used (by tippers and leakers with various motives for contacting a reporter) to being a user (trying to get people to answer questions on the record). Asked if he had found that people in the business were any more reluctant to talk to him after the switch, Johnston said, "I always try to contact people involved with a story, and have done since the column started to become successful. And I found no difference in the way they responded to me -- but then, this was only a six-week trial. There's no reason they should change their attitudes in that time period. User or used, I never noticed the difference."

The column concludes with a short piece linking to a message-board thread on the potential conflict of interest in comics-grading company CGC retaining an employee who also operates a comics-restoring business. No comments are quoted from anyone -- "CGC representatives did not respond to enquiries made over the weekend."

By week five, Johnston's inspiration for longer, more in-depth stories seemed to be fading. The lead story is a six-sentence report on J. Michael Straczynski's plans for future comics work culled from remarks made by Straczynski on a linked Babylon 5 message board. Johnston investigated this by asking Marvel for comment, which it declined to give. A second piece follows up on an earlier report in which comics creators Jack Lawrence (Image's Lions, Tigers and Bears) and Theo Bain (Gimoles) came out of the closet as the gay founders of the BritDoodz gay-oriented fantasy art site. The two explain that a campaign by a "malicious gossip" scared them into removing some of the more provocative images, but that the images were later reinstated. A third item is little more than a link to the BBC website for scheduling information on a daytime TV talk show on which Johnston appeared. A fifth non-story concerned a brief message-board exchange between Danger Girls creator J. Scott Campbell and PVP creator Scott Kurtz, which failed to escalate into a feud. The column concluded with a self-mocking ("so-called 'journalist'") promotion for the release of Wannabee, Johnston's new comic book with Thomas Reidy III.

The experiment's last hurrah was week six's review of several comics creators and how well they are being compensated for their creations: Jack Kirby's estate gets no share in the Fantastic Four movie. (No comment from Marvel.) Dennis O'Neil apparently gets no compensation for Batman Begins, but was assigned the novelization of the movie. (No comment from DC or O'Neil.) The ownership of Gerber's Omega the Unknown and other '70s-era Marvel series appears cloudy to Johnston. (No comment from Gerber on this subject.) The centerpiece of this column is an examination of the lost children of the Ultraverse, the superhero universe published by Scott Rosenberg and his Malibu Comics before Marvel bought out both the comics line and its color production facilities. Here Johnston is genuinely investigative, speaking with Rosenberg and Malibu creators Gerber, James Hudnall and Len Strazewski in an attempt to figure out why Marvel has abandoned the Ultraverse characters. No comment from Marvel, though Johnston quotes Joe Quesada from an online Newsarama interview. Following a note on the restriction of IDW's War of the Worlds publication to the United States due to a potential claim on foreign rights to Wells' book, the column finishes with a plug for Mark Millar's new website and a reminder to readers to vote on his journalism experiment.

And we all know how that turned out. Johnston has no regrets, though, having come to the conclusion that the in-depth approach doesn't suit him. "Writing longer pieces seemed to work against my style, which suits a certain snappiness," he said. "I found there was also the ability to become lazier, I could write a piece, then source industry people's reactions, quote them at length and, bingo, that's a full article, all fully sourced, but signifying nothing. I guess the main difficulty was trying not to be dull."

Because it wasn't clear why an analytical piece about some aspect of the industry that has observations by Johnston and professionals in the industry would necessarily signify nothing, the Journal suggested the ideal approach would be to write a "fully sourced" and thought-out article that signifies something. Johnston said, "Well it's easier to write, but seems to turn into a talking-heads gallery. 'So-and-so said this; are you shocked?' Well, yes, I am shocked.' 'Well, no I'm not shocked; so-and-so has always been like this.' 'So-and-so has no business working in this industry.' 'I think so-and-so should get an award for saying what they did.' Etc."

As Johnston sees it, there isn't much difference, in terms of solid journalism, between his rumor column and his investigative news column: "Less sarcasm, longer articles and more exposition. Also less of a primal desire to be topical. Fact-checking, sourcing, that all remained the same."

The Journal agreed there was not much difference and suggested that was due to two principal factors: 1) Johnston's column always was more conscientious about verification and follow-up than one expects of a rumor column. As an intelligently written and knowledgeably monitored clearing house for comics-industry rumors and tips, Lying in the Gutters has always performed a rare and valuable service, which is probably why his readers couldn't quite bear to part with that format. And 2) Johnston's six-week experiment was rarely as diligent as investigative journalism ought to be, relying (like his rumor column) mostly on anonymously sourced information. The Journal couldn't help feeling that Johnston had never really explored the possibilities of investigative journalism.

"I think that's a valid criticism," he responded. "I just reckon it's been there all along under the mask. Which is a position I'm happy to work from." Ultimately, he said, "maybe diligence isn't my thing."

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