Why Rumors Suck

I'm usually not a big fan of Rich Johnston's Lying in the Gutters, mostly because he reports everything, including stuff that just hasn't been confirmed yet. On the other hand, if you want to know what is happening in the industry, he's the guy to go to, as he generally scoops everyone. And, to be fair, his traffic light graphics to indicate which rumors are actually rumors do give fair warning.

Anyway, Rich's latest is about last week's yellow lighted rumor regarding attempts by DC to sign JMS to an exclusive contract, which JMS went ballistic over (including the threat of legal action against the person at DC who started the rumor). This week Rich is claiming that those rumors didn't originate at DC... but were a clumsy attempt by someone at Marvel to make DC look bad when they didn't sign all the people the rumors claimed they signed. There's more on the conspiracy theory at Waiting For Tommy.

Ug.

I like comic books because I like reading comics. The personalities behind the books don't interest me all that much. That's why Lying in the Gutters doesn't interest me when it gets into the nitty-gritty nonsense. But a story like this, in which the one writer at Marvel I actually like is threatening legal action against DC, and it turns out the rumors he objected to may have been started by his own bosses at Marvel... this kind of story really bites. I like Amazing Spider-Man. I intend to try out JMS' Doctor Strange. The last thing I want is for JMS to leave Marvel because of some poorly thought out rumor-mongering makes him mad at his bosses. In the end, I just find myself hoping this is all so much smoke and mirrors, and some stupid fan made up the rumor.