(Comics Publishing) Fantagraphics Books and The Comics Journal seem to be getting more than their usual share of online abuse lately. As mentioned last Wednesday, Roarin' Rick Veitch recently began kicking up a ruckus over on our message board in regards to the Journal's recent coverage of the financial predicament of its publisher. This in turn prompted both the report's author, Michael Dean, and publisher Gary Groth to jump into the fray and defend themselves. Both men do a reasonably adequate job of responding to the Roaring One's allegations, and in the end Veitch seems able to answer their retorts on only one point. In his original post in the thread, he charges:
"But most extraordinary is how News Watch responds to Groth's assertion that the creators 'have been fairly good about waiting' for their back royalties from Fantagraphics. Dean merely takes Groth's word for this and does not interview a single Fantagraphics creator to find out what any of them actually think about the situation!
"Which means Mike doesn't ask them tougher questions like who got paid and who didn't, how much each is owed, or when the rest is expected (as is the usual case with News Watch articles on comics businesses having cash flow problems with their creators). And of course he doesn't ask the really tough questions about whether they retain 'total control and ownership' of their projects, how they feel about Fantagraphics using their royalties to finance its expansion and move into the booktrade or if they feel its fair that creators are positioned last in Gary and Kim's hierarchy when its time to cut the checks."
Here's how Dean answers the charge:
"The most serious objection -- that I, in my cowardly obeissance to the Journal's bosses, neglected to talk to the Fantagraphics creators whose royalties were in danger of being delayed by Fanta's financial problems -- has been sounded repeatedly on this board. It seems to have distressed so many readers that I do regret not addressing it in the article. As it happens, I did in fact talk to a number of Fanta creators, all of whom corroborated Gary's account of things. My reasoning for not including quotes from them in the article is as follows: Because TCJ is a monthly magazine, when I cover events surrounding the financial difficulties of a company like Fanta or Top Shelf or Kitchen Sink, I try to approach them in the form of a feature story -- that is, I try to draw out the meanings of such events to the industry/art form as a whole. If you look at the Top Shelf story from issue #243 and the Fanta story, you'll see that neither story simply reports the facts of their financial troubles; both stories try to look at the bigger picture of the relationship between alternative comics publishers and the book trade. What seemed relevant to me was how the cash flow crisis was affecting Fanta's payments to creators and where the money that Fanta was raising was going. Both these issues were explored in the piece, and the question of creators being the last in line to be paid was specifically raised and addressed. Take a look at the final paragraph of the opening section and the second paragraph of the 'Limited Options' section. To me, a survey of Fanta creators as to how they felt about waiting for their paychecks would've strayed too far from the central issues of the article. And it's hard to see how a few quotes in which Fanta creators commented, 'I prefer it when my checks come sooner but I don't mind waiting a little longer,' would've made the article more 'hard-hitting.' Still, some readers appear to have been so bothered by this that I wish I'd put in a quote or two to set their minds at ease."
Groth further defends the point:
"Rick's next accusation is that Dean didn't 'interview a single Fantagraphics creator to find out what any of them actually think about the situation!' As it turns out, he did talk to Fantagraphics creators, but was evidently unable to get out of any of them the kind of dirt Rick was hungering for -- which is to say he investigated us far more than he did Top Shelf because he didn't talk to any of Top Shelf's creators! I suspect it's quite possible that Top Shelf was thrown behind paying some of their creators, which would only make sense if they were stretched so thin that an absence of $20K would put them out of business -- but calling all their creators in order to confirm essentially what Staros already admitted (i.e., they were financially fucked), it seems to me (and I didn't talk to Dean about this, so I'm merely surmising as the editor) would have been overkill, an unnecessary grinding our journalistic boot into Top Shelf's kidney. Eddie Campbell admitted to losing
'approximately $50,000' -- but Dean did not call up Campbell's bank or accountant to try to corroborate this, just in case Campbell was lying. Yes, he accepted it at face value. And I don't remember getting a letter from Rick Veitch accusing Dean of journalistic malfeasance at the time, either."
So far so good. As I said, however, Veitch did finally manage to answer the rebuttal, finding exactly one creator (sort of) with bad things to say about Fantagraphics' delinquency in paying its creators -- I say "sort of" because the creator is never identified. Veitch links to a thread in cartoonist Steve Bissette's message board, in which Bissette quotes an email from a friend whose work was apparently recently published by Fantagraphics:
"I am both ecstatic and confused. Ecstatic because of the obvious reason, and confused because not only did [Fantagraphics] not tell me it was out, I haven't gotten my advance money AND I had to buy a copy as I haven't gotten any comps! (Bought it anyway)
"I'm trying to find the politest way of asking them what the word 'advance' means in Seattle."
Bissette snidely notes that he withheld said friend's name because "yes, you have to pussy-foot around Fantagraphics when they're your publisher of note as much as we used to pussy-foot around DC when our only gig was SWAMP THING", yet never provide any examples of what he's talking about -- has Fantagraphics ever punished a creator it publishes for complaining about late royalty checks? Did said creator ask not to be identified for fear of retaliation, or is this Bissette's own innovation? Bissette doesn't say, apparently content to let innuendo do his work for him. Further, has the creator bothered to call the company and complain about any of this? Again, there's no way to know. I don't mean to make light of the creator's initial complaint -- on the face of it, it sounds valid enough to me -- but given that Veitch is citing all this as an example of Michael Dean's allegedly sloppy reporting, one must note that the allegation no more names names than the article for which Veitch castigates the Journal, and therefore there's no possible way for Fantagraphics or the Journal to fairly respond. Cute, that.
Of course, the Vermont Mafia aren't the only ones currently scaling the walls of the Elitist Bastards' castle at the moment. Over on Delphi's Gays and Comics Forum, artist Jose Villarrubia has taken to the warpath over a recent strip by cartoonist Johnny Ryan, "The Gaytriot", which appeared in The Comics Journal Winter 2003 Special Edition. The cartoon, reproduced in full on the linked page, is typical of Ryan's push-it-to-the-limits cultural satire, depicting an outragious gay stereotype rendered as a superhero, defending the Washington Monument against two equally broadly-drawn Muslim terrorists. Here's Villarrubia's reaction:
"I found it to be extremely offensive, hate literature really, and I think it is very telling that Fantagraphics is endorsing it...
"I guess, twenty years after Eddie Murphy did it, some people now think that it is ok to make AIDS jokes..."
Those familiar with Ryan's work, of course, will know that he tends to be an "equal-opportunity offender" -- past targets have included everything from Long Dong Silver to white supremacists to Holocaust victims, none of which apparently raised Villarrubia's ire until his own sacred cows were tipped. One wonders what would happen if he were to stumble accross, say, Ivan Brunetti or Robert Crumb.
I'm tempted to go on a long rant here, but it's getting late and I'd like to get the rest of the day's entries written and posted. Suffice it to say that given the choice of protesting either (A) a Congressional attempt to limits my rights as an American gay man with a Constitutional Amendment forbidding me access to the same rights and privileges other citizens take for granted, and (B) Johnny Ryan looking at me cross-eyed, I think I'll go with the former, thank you very much.
