JMS contre Marvel : Acte 2

Vous vous souvenez quand je disais dans la news précédente que l’attitude de Marvel m’avait énervé, et bien ça va mieux, car à la vue des développements de l’affaire JMS contre Marvel, je commence à comprendre des choses.

En effet après la réponse de JMS à son commentaire, Stephen Wacker, qui manifestement n’avait rien de mieux à faire ce week-end, a décidé de continuer à nourrir la polémique :

Starting my weekend off right!

My mistake…Apparently when you wrote “Just saying’…’” you meant “Just sayin’…the books in good shape and I wish the team well.”

JMS, I don’t know you beyond a couple of brusque ‘hello’s, so I don’t have a lot of heat wrapped up in this “fight” as you seem to imagine. Certainly no one’s “yelling” or “calling you names” as you suggest. You posted something passive aggressive at best and it deserves a response. (I agree that I’m bad at passive aggressive, so that’s on me. Clarity is my curse.)

One thing we agree on here is that Dan Slott is a good guy who wants to do well. It was nice he reached out to a guy trying to make the argument the book was tanking. I don’t know that I would have reached out to you privately since A) I hardly know you and B) you posted this publicly.

At the bottom of it all, though, you’ve posted an absolutely incorrect chart that isn’t based on real numbers and leaves out many individual issues to make its “point”. The sales chart you posted is the fictional fantasy fantasy of a blogger who has a massive, medically enhanced hate for the comic and the people at Marvel. In the past has cracked about wanting to “punch Dan Slott in the face” among many other vile– and sometimes violent– remarks about everyone on the comic.

(He VIOLENTLY hates you too, for what it’s worth. And you’ve now fanned his flame something fierce.)

However, in the end, that’s just deranged—though impotent– fan cranking and moaning. More over the top than most, but we’re all used to that and deal with it regularly.

What’s more important is that, as I clearly said in the last post, his numbers are absolutely wrong, out of date and out of context.

You seem to somehow read that as me not refuting the numbers. Let me say it plainly then…I refute the numbers. I even REFUDIATE them. I even REFUDIUDIUDIUDIPUDIATE them. (You are better with words than me, so if there’s something stronger, please use it in the previous sentence.) Hope that clears it up.

Yes, individual sales are on average lower than when you wrote the book. That’s true. You are without a doubt one of the top writers in comics. Once again, I concede that point… so congrats on that. I’ve long said so in the comic and in interviews that we all knew sales were going to go down once a top writer in comics left (especially after such a controversial story like OMD).

So to come in to show off how sales have gone down after you left seems to be needlessly spiking the football after the other team has set up for the next kickoff. You already won the point.

(I will happily write JMS IS ONE OF THE TOP WRITERS IN COMICS on a fan at the next convention if you want. It is just that true!)

BUT…and it’s a big but… we’ve also published over 4 times as many issues of ASM as we would have otherwise in a market that has weakened considerably since you were writing Civil War tie-ins. Amazing Spider-Man is still consistently and safely among the industry’s top sellers.

Since you’ve left, my writers and artists have managed to create the highest selling single issue in 15 years (which was purposefully left off the chart you’re brandishing) and add over 40 collections to the Spider-Man backlist.

That’s important information. And it puts those fake sales numbers you’re crowing about in context.

When the former heavyweight champion writer of a book shows up chiding my book’s sales with a ridiculously unfactual, cartoonish chart it sends a message to everyone that the book is somehow doing worse than when you were on it. You can see some of the responses here for just how well that worked out for you. If you say, you didn’t mean it that way, that’s great.

However, if trying to show up the current people on the book WASN’T your intention, I can’t imagine what it was. Just sayin’…

You are correct that I do take it personally when other creators knock the work my team does on any of my books (except Daredevil…swing away there. Those guys are jerks.). I stand by the notion that posting a comic’s sales after you’ve left is a creepy thing to do.

Just as a mental test, try imagining if I did the obvious thing here and posted…say…current Superman and Wonder Woman sales now that you left the book.

That would be buttheaded of me. And I try not to be buttheaded.

I did love your ASM run, though (except the Gwen thing…ewww). Especially loved Doom at the airport and the way you wrote Pete and MJ as a couple. (I also thought it was cool that we used you in Thor. They didn’t use Slott in the Spidey musical…which I believe was a huge mistake!)

Bon en gros son commentaire est plein d’ironie au vitriole, et il explique à JMS que les chiffres  de vente sur lesquels il s’appuie sont faux, qu’il les réfute, et que ceux-ci ont été fournis par quelqu’un qui déteste Marvel, et qui déteste JMS aussi. A part ça, et si vous lisez entre les lignes, vous comprenez qu’il traite JMS de sombre connard.

Mais ce n’est pas fini puisque Mark Waid, qui a bossé sur Brand New Day, et qui continue de bosser avec Wacker puisque de dernier édite Daredevil :

Dick move, Joe. Flat out, a dick move, and you know it. Either your point was to show people how awesome you were, or to show people how things have deteriorated since your absence. There’s no other way to interpret your post. None. Are you really that hard up for approbation and fan love that you can’t rise above that sort of shit? I understand Wacker’s frustration. Maybe he overreacted a bit, in the way good friends DO react when they perceive their friends and employees being attacked by a bitter man with a bottomless ego, but you made the first move, and it was a dick move. And if anyone doubted you were doing it for anything other than informational purposes, adding « Just sayin' » was the snarktacular icing on the cake. No one says « Just sayin' » unless they’re doing exactly the opposite of « Just sayin’>

Half an hour later, still fuming at JMS’s shitty passive-aggressiveness. I should probably go walk it off. Maybe with a long walk. A long, dull, pointless, boring walk. Across America.

That I won’t finish.

Le commentaire est de la même teneur que celui de Wacker, sauf que Waid ne sous-entend rien et traite clairement JMS de connard… et en profite pour revenir sur un certain run de JMS sur superman…

Alors qu’est-ce que j’ai compris en lisant tout ça qui peut me faire marrer ? :

1 – ces gens, JMS inclus, sont des crétins à l’égo sur dimensionné

2 – je suis moi aussi un crétin pour avoir reporté cette info et avoir « nourri la bête ». Ce sera donc mon dernier article sur cette polémique, et à l’avenir j’éviterai de revenir sur ce genre d’histoires, et de batailles d’égos, qui sont une perte de temps pour tout le monde.

3 – que je peux aimer le travail d’un artiste, mais que ça n’empêche nullement l’artiste en question d’être un crétin, que ce soit JMS, Mark Waid ou n’importe qui d’autres.

4 – oui moi aussi j’ai entendu la musique de Dallas !!! en fond sonore alors que je lisais les différents commentaires de ces messieurs d’âge mûrs pas si matures …