Rich Johnston says he can bring down one of the big two!

[Vibranium]

That seems to be the prevailing attitude. I was reading comments on an article about Chris Roberson's decision to cut ties with DC and was once again saddened and confused by the attitudes of certain fans who heap undying loyalty upon the companies that publish their weekly fix while treating the creators as though they have little to nothing to do with producing the books and should just be grateful they even get to work in the industry. Of course, this attitude prevails among failures at life who seem to believe that working in comics is so much better than their own dreary existence, all sunshine and lollipops and magical unicorns, metaphorically speaking.

The truth of course is, well, you know what they say about sausages.

I agree with all of this....and as much as we love a good scandal, a "real journalist" would have ran whatever it is he's talking about if it was a legitimate story

[Blade X]

He never really apologized for it. And if you read his comments in the Spider-man forum... he doesn't recognize he did anything wrong.

Hence why I say that he is like Galactus.

[Iangould]

]As Bryan Talbot said in The Naked Artist there's a load of stories he left out because they would be genuinely nasty rather than amusing wee stories, and anyone who's been in a convention bar or down the pub at any con in the UK will have heard a good section of some of these stories which are (the ones I've heard anyhow) genuinely nasty ones [/B]but if rich is sitting on something worse than Jimmy Savile, then frankly he's being a bit of a cunt here.

Now I like Rich and have defended him (and slagged him off) over at BC but if he's sitting on a story which is suppressing a possible case of massive child abuse not to mention using it as a stick to poke fanboys with, then he's utterly wrong. I think we need people like Rich who will poke and prod so they can get stories that the likes of CBR would avoid because it might ruin their cosy relationship with the Big Two but if Rich is really sitting on something this big, he needs to get it properly sourced and run with it otherwise he's as bad as all those Fleet Street editors who spent years not printing the Savile story.

Even I know two or three.

[Vibranium]

I think we need people like Rich who will poke and prod so they can get stories that the likes of CBR would avoid because it might ruin their cosy relationship with the Big Two but if Rich is really sitting on something this big, he needs to get it properly sourced and run with it otherwise he's as bad as all those Fleet Street editors who spent years not printing the Savile story.

agreed

we have a growing generation of people who are getting into media and journalism because they are fans and want to keep their access, not people who are genuinely curious and want the truth of things

I started reading up on the Jimmy Seville thing and I was just appaled, just by how many people were complicit in the coverup and the massive amount of people affected

[Iangould]

It was Weisinger. Who was a 100% prick pretty much 100% of the time.

Julie Schwartz's bio is interesting in that he talks about how Weisinger was his best friend from their teen years onwards - and even he admits Weisinger treated people like shit.

[Monty_Cristo]

About the only scandal that cold "bring down" Marvel or DC would be something like a memo from Stan Lee to Jim shooter along these lines: "Hey, boychik. you remember that contract we found when we were clearing out the old storeroom, the one signed by Marty Goodman where he agreed to give Jack Kirby 50% of all net profits from all the characters he created? I talked it over with board and they agreed that we need to make absolutely certain every copy of the contract is destroyed."

how about past membership in some kind of nazi affiliated group?

[Iangould]

how about past membership in some kind of nazi affiliated group?

Well first, most of the really key people in the history of Marvel and DC were sort of automatically ineligible for membership in any Nazi group. Leiber, Kurtzberg, Goodman, Perelman, Donenfeld, Leibowtiz; Shuster; Siegel; Kane (both Gil and Bob).

Second, not sure if that would be considered worse than Jan Harps' conviction for multiple sexual assaults on minors.

[Spike-X]

how about past membership in some kind of nazi affiliated group?

Doesn't seem to have done the Pope any harm. Neither has decades of covering up child abuse within the 'company'.

[Loren]

About the only scandal that cold "bring down" Marvel or DC would be something like a memo from Stan Lee to Jim shooter along these lines: "Hey, boychik. you remember that contract we found when we were clearing out the old storeroom, the one signed by Marty Goodman where he agreed to give Jack Kirby 50% of all net profits from all the characters he created? I talked it over with board and they agreed that we need to make absolutely certain every copy of the contract is destroyed."

Which you could conceivably argue was "worse than Saville" in terms of the damage it would do to the organization involved in the cover-up.

Barring that, unless Rich can prove Harry Donenfeld kept a rape-dungeon full of teen sex slaves under his office and DC not only knew about it but paid for its construction, then I think rihc (who O really quite like) is guilty of rather wild exaggeration here.

And, of course, neither of those scenarios are possible under the parameters that Rich himself has already set. Because he specifically said that the story concerns "the actions of a senior executive many years before they came to the company."

What could *possibly* be in a senior executive's past that would be so bad that it would destroy their subsequent employers? Shy of the company knocking off victims and/or witnesses to the prior offense(s), I'm having trouble fathoming any conceivable actions that could be so severe (and in that case, the destructive thrust of the story would still be primarily concerned with the illegal/immoral actions of the company, not just the sordid past of the executive).

[Iangould]

And, of course, neither of those scenarios are possible under the parameters that Rich himself has already set. Because he specifically said that the story concerns "the actions of a senior executive many years before they came to the company."

What could *possibly* be in a senior executive's past that would be so bad that it would destroy their subsequent employers? Shy of the company knocking off victims and/or witnesses to the prior offense(s), I'm having trouble fathoming any conceivable actions that could be so severe (and in that case, the destructive thrust of the story would still be primarily concerned with the illegal/immoral actions of the company, not just the sordid past of the executive).

See I can actually construct a semi-credible theory revolving around a specific individual that might fit that scenario. But I've already been pretty irresponsible here and don't want to start a new rumor.

[Arvandor]

See I can actually construct a semi-credible theory revolving around a specific individual that might fit that scenario. But I've already been pretty irresponsible here and don't want to strt a new rumor.

There's only one man who fits those parameters. I really hope Rich is exaggerating.

[Iangould]

Stan Lee's in the clear unless he was a really terrible toddler.

[Monty_Cristo]

Well first, most of the really key people in the history of Marvel and DC were sort of automatically ineligible for membership in any Nazi group. Leiber, Kurtzberg, Goodman, Perelman, Donenfeld, Leibowtiz; Shuster; Siegel; Kane (both Gil and Bob).

Second, not sure if that would be considered worse than Jan Harps' conviction for multiple sexual assaults on minors.

under this scenario, one of those individuals would have forged a jewish identity to avoid detection. but, yeah, sexual assault is pretty much a deal breaker.

[Blade X]

I'm not sure what classification you could use for him.

Like I said, he's Galactus. If you're looking for a more real world term to call/describe him, then call him a rumor/gossip monger. So from this day forth Rich shall now be called either Gosipactus or Rumoractus the Devour of Rumors and Gossip.

[Blade X]

However as I said, we need someone like Rich because otherwise the majority of mainstream comics journalism and reporting would be the churnalism you see in pretty much every site because most reporters have a sneaky eye to get themselves a writing job in future.

Quoted because I believe this to be the truth.