Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 226
All your views must be palatable or you have no rights.
BIG WEEK
Not really. Just spent a lotta time with my family. Lots of dog walks where I talk to strangers about Western Australia mining camps of the 1990s. Ate too much takeout. It’s a gift to be alive. Hope you’re all doing well.
BILL WILLINGHAM AND BEING UNLIKEABLE
Once people dislike you, nothing you do can meet their standard.
This is a sad reality that attorneys know better than anyone. Your guilt or innocence is the thing being decided, but it’s how you present that’s being judged.
Bill Willingham did an interesting thing this week. He put his FABLES work into the public domain, out of frustration with the title’s former publisher, DC.
He gave his reasons. And I can’t say if his claims are real or not but they are certainly believable enough. Failure of accurate accounting. Failure to consult him on creative matters. Failure to consult him on production choices. Failure to communicate. And the one I think should be plainly illegal:
“Nor did they owe me any money for licensing the Fables rights to third parties, since such a license wasn’t anticipated in our original publishing agreement.”
Again, I wasn’t in the room during these conversations and I do not have the man’s contract in front of me. But I will say that Willingham going with the nuclear option on his best-known creation speaks to something being mishandled. It is not a course any creator would take unless backed into a corner.
My understanding -like everyone’s understanding- of intellectual property law is incomplete to say the least. But it seems the characters and world he owns are now free to use across all media. This is not to be confused (as I saw many confused) with the right to republish existing stories. That’s still the province of DC Comics.
I don’t know how ‘important’ the whole thing is, but it is meaningful. If for no other reason than it painting DC as a business partner that would prompt such drastic action.
FABLES was the first book other than THE SANDMAN I witnessed crossover to non-comic readers. It had a really broad appeal. And women in particular connected with it, making it a rare commodity in that era. It never reached the cultural weight of something like THE SANDMAN but it was a license to print money for at least a time.
Willingham seems like a guy who knows his worth and isn’t afraid to let others know. Some people do not like that. Self-confidence, and its ugly cousin ego, are really offensive to the insecure. So as far back as I can remember, Willingham has had detractors.
And I don’t know how he identifies, but he’s conservative by most standards. He’s in his late 60s and has the accompanying worldview. While I believe comic readership leans center-right, the loudest voices are center-left. And once they start talking, narratives become codified and Willingham ends up on Bad Dude Island.
But being prickly and conservative is still within the window of acceptability. What really pissed people off was finding out he supports Israel, and worse yet FABLES was inspired by that support. Since learning this, some people cannot read his work or even hear his name without becoming… odd.
I’m gonna speak plainly here because I hope I’ve curated an audience of thinking adults.
Most Americans share Willingham’s view. That’s not speculation. Every poll since the founding of Israel says the same thing. The intensity has dulled. It used to be overwhelming majority and now it’s just over half. But it’s still the case.
I grew up in a rather Jewish town. Many of my lifelong friends are jews. I know their parents. Israel’s right to exist (and maintain its borders) is a core value for many.
I’ve lived in Brooklyn twice. Cumulatively I was there for a decade. Much of that time was spent in jewish neighborhoods or enclaves. My bosses were jews. My landlords were jews. Not coincidentally, support for Israel was ubiquitous (though I should mention Hasid have a complicated relationship with the modern state of Israel).
I’ve been to Israel. I have seen the country and spent time with its people.
All that said, I do not view Israel as Willingham does. Or as many of my jewish friends see it. Or as many of my former neighbors see it. Or, I should say, the many goyim who also back the notion of a Jewish state (those polls don’t get to 58% of the US without gentiles) see it.
Rather, I think ‘apartheid state’ is sadly accurate and I see the Palestinian situation as a humanitarian crisis.
As an American, I think it would be a bit rich if I blamed the citizens of a country for every inhumane policy its government enacts. And as a thinking person, I have to acknowledge the endless layers of complexity to the problem and I have to dismiss slogan solutions. But I know the current course is the wrong one and I believe history will be the judge.
Yet… somehow… I am able to enjoy a good comic book.
FABLES is a good comic and that’s all any of us need from Willingham. His views don’t need to be your views. You can just read the damn book and see another person’s perspective and then you can consider that perspective or toss it. Or neither. Really, I promise you can do neither. Without even really trying.
And that brings us back to the current moment, wherein people mad at Willingham for holding the same view as 58% of their neighbors, are choosing to side with DC over him.
Comments sections read like this:
And his/my colleagues? Oh boy. So many deranged takes from people refusing to engage with the substance of Willingham’s public domain move or his claims against DC.
And if this was purely about self-interest, I guess I could understand. Willingham will not hire you. DC might. So if you’re gonna peacock around like a lunatic, you wanna peacock in the direction of money.
But it’s not self-interest. Or, at least, not the type of self-interest that makes sense to real life human beings. It’s clout. Status within a tiny vein of idiots. That is what’s guiding people to make comment against Willingham NOW. Because if your beef was that he supports Israel, you had 364 days to bring that up. The fact that anyone should choose the ONE day of the year that Willingham has something to say against corporations reveals something ugly about people:
They will take corporations over human beings when the human beings displease them.
Pettiness over principles for that crew. Because if hearing someone’s name sends you into a fit where you cannot control yourself and have to express your grievance, you’re a child. And if hearing that person has a beef with a division of a billion-dollar corporation prompts you to Karen-out about ANYTHING BUT THE MATTER AT HAND, you are a particularly maladjusted child.
Now I’m curious who uses FABLES characters in their work. If we had ACTUAL SOLIDARITY in comics rather than terrified serfs sucking up to paymasters, I suspect we’d see some mainstream creator-owned comics at least nod to FABLES.
As it stands I imagine we’ll only get the very fringe of the fringe acting on it.
Bears repeating, corporate publishers are not the enemy. This doesn’t have to be some type of jihad. As Willingham notes, the faces change often. We should not assume the worst of normal people going to work each day. It’s just a matter of being professional and expecting the same from the people you do business with. If DC was in the wrong here, I hope this is moment is instructive and things change. If Willingham is overreacting, then we can take inventory and give things their proper weight. But what we should not do is default to the idea that because we don’t like a guy that he should get fucked by a megacorporation.
SIDE NOTE
I haven’t read FABLES in a decade. I’d be curious to revisit and see just how political it feels. Maybe not at all, in which case we’d have to give Willingham his propers for pulling off an allegorical story without binding it in propaganda. Maybe it feels really political, in which case we could do a craft side-by-side with some recent titles that lean political. If I can carve out the time, I’ll give it a go.
YOU SOLD HOW MUCH?
Vault Comics says they sold 130k copies of a comic. Wow. Very impressive for a small publisher! Actually, maybe impossible. Should look into this a bit…
Oh, here we go. Fine print says they gave it to retailers for free.
Huh.
That’s a different thing then, isn’t it?
I’m of two minds. Is this a dumb waste of paper meant to pantomime ‘growth’ to potential investors? Prolly. Is it also at least trying something to excite retailers and maybe put copies of a new series into readers hands? Yeah, technically.
So, I dunno. Every time I come down on a gimmick as short-sighted, my friends who have worked in comics a long time always point out “it’s all gimmicks. That’s just the history of the industry.”
So, good luck to all involved, I suppose. I’ll pick up a copy.
ALAN MOORE GIVES IT AWAY
Alan Moore recently said he’ll be directing his compensation for film/television adaptations of his work to Black Lives Matter.
I don’t know exactly what that means, as you’ve got the national organization and regional chapters. The former has seen a lotta bad press of late. Maybe Moore doesn’t care. I don’t know.
But what I do know is it would be very weird if I cared.
That’s his money to do what he wants with. He doesn’t feel good about how it gets to him, so he gives it away.
Mo(o)re power to him.
THAT’S IT FOR ME
I’ve gotta use the rest of the day to get organized. I hope you get a chance to do the same. I always related to the reporters or cops or lawyers in movies who have stacks of bullshit on their desks. But in 2023, I can’t handle it. Spring cleaning here in Australia.
Have a good one. Get organized. Do for self.