Disgruntlement-Is That A Word? I Think That's A Word

I pride myself on my professionalism (says the man who posts pictures of the Thing to a daily blog), yet, whenever a disgruntled comics professional breaks the locks on the Fortress of Solitude, as it were, I get a giddy little thrill. I like it when creative folks dish the skinny on the behind the scenes work that goes into a creative endeavour, even the bad stuff.

Maybe especially the bad stuff.

The question that occurs to me, after reading that article, is whether or not we should be hearing it. Now, among non-comics writers, I've come to learn that the gossip grapevine is a necessary evil. It tells you what editors are the kind you want to work with, what writers you don't want to share an anthology with, what's a scam publisher and what ain't...but the thing is, despite the advances of the internet age, that gossip grapevine is still a pretty small thing. The average fan won't see leaf one of that vine, nor do they care. But compare that to the number of people who read an interview with an angry comics professional on, say CBR or Newsarama and feel affronted on said creator's behalf.

Now, I'm all up in Dwayne McDuffie's corner, don't get me wrong. But should we-the noncomics professionals-have known of the problems he was having with DC editorial? Or should he have kept it in-house, as it were?

Personally, I think the genuinely squeaky wheel gets the grease. Barring fanatical overreaction, it should be fairly easy to tell the difference between a professional demanding their day in court (and taking their lumps accordingly, as McDuffie did), and a person with an axe to grind. And presentation makes all the difference, kids.

While it's DC/Marvel's prerogative to act as they will in accordance with their corporate mandate, and that that sometimes means a writer or artist gets the bum end of the stick-kicked off a book, series cancelled, etc.-other times it's a wrong-headed decision made in defiance of the audience's expectations and desires because someone in marketing didn't do their research or buys into outdated or biased market tests. In the case of the latter, it serves the industry as a whole if it gets plastered all over the internet and the proper outrage is expressed by the parties involved.

Now, granted, said outrage might not accomplish anything (in fact, I'd say nine times out of ten it accomplishes bupkiss), but, at the very least, it might get someone somewhere thinking. And that's the first step to changing things.

Or, y'know, I could be completely wrong and every writer or artist who complains about their treatment by the Big Two is an unprofessional jackass commie agitator. Opinions? Thoughts? Donations?