Ouch and CrossGen

The sunburn has flared up again, and the pain is so intense that I couldn't sleep. So up I stay, blogging away...

I followed this gender genie link from Johnny Bacardi's blog, and pasted my "angry memory of the day" bit from Friday the 14th's first blog entry, and the gender genie told me that I'm male. My husband won't be happy to hear that.

Peter David and friends go on a little riff about profanity in comic books, and in general use.

Now there's a couple of threads on Comicon about the CrossGen problem. Here's where CrossGen insults the freelancers, and here's where the freelancers respond. CrossGen is just losing more and more mojo with me. Especially after Alessi basically calls the freelancers blackmailers. Gee, since when is letting people know that a company doesn't pay its freelancers as a warning to other freelancers been blackmail? Oh yeah, since the charge was leveled against Alessi's company. Dip. Pay your bills and keep your word and you wouldn't get this kind of complaint. Duh.

I guess the biggest shocker about this whole CrossGen thing is how Alessi set himself up for the fall. Since the start, he's made such a big deal about how different his company was going to be. How honest. How they were going to ship on time, darnit! They were going to be good to their employees! And for four long years it worked. The reputation Alessi worked so hard to build up held strong, even with rumors floating around in the comics world, and a group of hardcore CrossGen skeptics constantly predicting their downfall. The average reader, like me, still liked them. But this! Hearing about this has changed my mind about them. I can't not like the books... the ones I read I tend to enjoy. But I no longer think of them as the "good" company that doesn't cheat its employees. And that factor alone had me willing to try out new CrossGen books, and stick with some books during times they seemed to falter. They no longer have the magical shield of reputation.

I always thought of Alessi as a good person trying to do something great for the comic book world. I didn't know if he'd succeed, and sometimes, I confess, I didn't care. It seemed enough that he was making the effort. But his attack on Robin Riggs for daring to warn his fellow artists of CrossGen's deceptive business practices (and I think not sending a contract while constantly promising one is on the way, telling an artist his work isn't good, then publishing it anyway without paying him is pretty darn deceptive) has removed Alessi from my list of people I can respect.

Gah... I got a little carried away there. Managed to forget I was hurting for a moment. Ah well, more later...

Update: Sunburn report: As we approach 3 am, my sense of reality is distorting enough that I think I can actually decribe the pain in my shoulders in terms that make sense. When I read this after I've had some sleep, though, I may be wrong. I still have five areas that are seriously burned. My right shoulder, my left shoulder, my left upper arm, my upper chest, and my left shoulderblade. The worst two by far are my left arm and shoulder. My left shoulderblade itches and burns. It feels like someone is lightly rubbing fine-grained sandpaper over it, every once in awhile the person bears down a little and I get a sharp pain. I never knew that air could be so painful. My right shoulder is much better off. The only time I feel pain there is when anything touches it. I have to be careful not to turn my head to the left, because when my ponytail hits it, it hurts. It's like hot wires being dragged across the shoulder. My upper chest is much the same as my right shoulder, but it's also slightly itchy, so I'm tricked into touching the areas and every touch hurts as though I've just stabbed myself. I can't help but look down to make sure I'm not bleeding. Then there is the left arm and shoulder. They feel like someone has taken a two by four and pounded on me for awhile, then drove several nails into the painful spots, then pounded on me with the board again. It's been two weeks, folks. I thought sunburns went away fairly quickly.