Twilightgate...and comics and Willingham...flipping the competitor the bird

[shadowkat]

Hee, I've been getting a kick out of Twilightgate. Also feel vindicated for predicting that this is exactly what would go down if such and such was revealed to be true. (Which was why I did not think Whedon would do it. I forget, Whedon is a television writer from a long long line of tv writers.)

What makes it even more amusing is well Willingham, who I have mixed feelings about - I rather enjoyed his work with Neil Gaiman on The Dreaming but he can be a big of a prick (not unlike Alan Moore, Frank Miller, and Eisner) , so I'm enjoying the fact that he's managed to make a big fool out of himself on the internet with people who have no idea who he is or the fact that they are basically arguing with one of the legends of the industry. Willingham is like Frank Miller - in that he writes and draws his comics, he's both an artist and a writer - which is sort of akin to writing and directing and acting in a tv show.

Go Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Willingham
He was writing comics when Whedon was in high school. I know because Whedon is my age.
Willingham is about ten to fifteen years older.

Bill Willingham (born December 1956 in Fort Belvoir, Virginia) is an American writer and artist of comics.

Willingham got his start in the late 1970s to early 1980s as a staff artist for TSR, Inc., where he illustrated a number of their role-playing game products. He was the cover artist for the AD&D Player Character Record Sheets, Against the Giants, Secret of Bone Hill, the Gamma World book Legion of Gold, and provided the back cover for In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. He was an interior artist on White Plume Mountain, Slave Pits of the Undercity, Ghost Tower of Inverness, Secret of the Slavers Stockade, Secret of Bone Hill, Palace of the Silver Princess, Isle of Dread, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, the original Fiend Folio, Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, Against the Giants, Queen of the Spiders, Realms of Horror, and the second and third editions of Top Secret.

He first gained attention for his 1980s comic book series Elementals published by Comico, which he both wrote and drew, however the series had trouble maintaining a consistent schedule, and Willingham's position in the industry remained spotty for many years. He contributed stories to Green Lantern and started his own independent, black-and-white comic book series Coventry which lasted only 3 issues. He also produced the pornographic series Ironwood for Eros Comix.

In the late 1990s, Willingham reestablished himself as a prolific writer. He produced the 13-issue Pantheon for Lone Star Press and wrote a pair of short novels about the modern adventures of the hero Beowulf, and a fantasy novel Down the Mysterly River published by the writer's collective, Clockwork Storybook, of which Willingham was a founding member. In the early 2000s, he began writing extensively for DC Comics, including the limited series Proposition Player, a pair of limited series about the Greek witch Thessaly from The Sandman, and most notably the popular series Fables.[1]

Willingham worked on the Robin series from 2004 to 2006, and established Shadowpact, a title spun off his Day of Vengeance limited series. He is currently writing Jack of Fables, an ongoing spin-off of his Fables series, co-written by Matthew Sturges.[2] At the 2007 Comic Con International, he announced that he would be writing Salvation Run, a mini-series about supervillains who are banished to an inhospitable prison planet.[3][4] Unfortunately, he had to hand over the writing to Sturges after two issues because of illness.[5] He will also be working on DCU: Decisions, a four-issue mini-series that deals with Green Arrow's endorsement of a political candidate[6] and, again with Sturges, is writing the Vertigo series House of Mystery[7] and DC's Justice Society of America with issue #29.[8][9]

The Elementals is the series that Neil Gaiman recently reprised a few years ago...then dropped. And Willingham and Gaiman have worked often on the same books or back to back.
This guy knows how the comics industry works.

And trust me, when I said that in the comics industry you don't take a rival book's hero and reveal him as your alleged villian, without giving them fair warning or at all. You don't interfer with their story or fanbase. And you do not suggest that you might.

I can see why he was pissed. I've never in all my years of collecting comics and this goes back to 1985, seen anyone flip the bird to another competiting group in quite this way. Heck Marvel and DC have a long standing rivalry, even got into a fracas when Marvel created Captain Marvel - which DC said was a bit too close too Superman for their liking.
And let's not forget all the writer snafus over the years - regarding royalties and control of their creations. Chris Claremount and Jim Lee left Marvel and started Wildstorm because they got fed up with how they were being treated while writing X-men - Marvel could do whatever they wanted to their creations and they had no say in it and got no credit.
And the Superman creators got robbed by DC of their royalties for Superman.

I'm sure the industry is reeling from it. Oh sure big reveals have gotten leaked all the time.
That happened before the internet. I remember when Jean Grey's return got leaked. And
the reveal on Professor Xavier as Onslaught almost did. Keeping secrets is hard when you have distributors who want to advertise to subscribers months in advance. Wizard often leaked spoilers. Wizard - is the comic magazine with all the data and best bets. Also has a pricing guide in the back for serious collectors.

If you know nothing about this medium or are new to it, you probably wondered what's the fuss? He got Jossed. Big whoop. But if you know the inner workings, back history, and how comic companies interact - it's another story. Comics is a relatively small industry and not a big money-maker. The writers and artists get relatively little credit outside their medium.
And are grossly underpaid. You don't do comics for the money, you do it for the love. They don't make a tv writer's salary.

There are rock stars of course. And they all dream of screenwriting and film. But few get the opportunity. Most try to cross over...because like I said, not the most lucrative biz on the map. And you get slamned by the mainstream media all the time.

As a woman who loves comics...it's tough, because they are a boys sport. Few gals get in.
And usually only in the underground. Willingham is actually the norm - conservative boy geek - think Warren Mears. But he does on occassion write a fantastic story. The Dreaming rocked!
I loved it.

That said, I'm really glad that Whedon flipped him the bird. Because I'm glad that the story isn't being cramped by the politics of the industry like I thought it would be. It usually is, which makes comics like tv somewhat limiting a medium. Nice to see the boundaries get stretched a bit on that score. Makes things a tad less predictable.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info! It made for a very interesting read.

All told, I don't really care if Willingham's ego got bruised. Funny you should call him a prick. I was talking with my comics guy today and mentioned this whole incident and he called him the same thing. :D

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

All told, I don't really care if Willingham's ego got bruised. Funny you should call him a prick. I was talking with my comics guy today and mentioned this whole incident and he called him the same thing

As others have pointed out, the one I feel for is IDW. IDW is not as successful an enterprise as Dark Horse and had paid quite a bit to get as big a writer as Willingham. That may not matter to us, but then our living is not dependent on the sale of a comic book. It's easy to be cavalier about something, when your income or career isn't dependent on it. This is not really comparable to writing fanfic - because when your fanfic gets jossed - your income is not involved.

IDW is the loser here and they sooo do NOT deserve it. Ryall has been nothing but kind and considerate from the beginning, while Allie has behaved well less than professional, is the best way of putting it. I've read both men's blogs and Q&A's as well as letter pages, and Allie is as big a prick as Willingham.
I feel for Ryall for being caught between the two and think less of Whedon for being cavalier about it - since the fallout really doesn't effect him any - this is not his main source of income - it's a hobby.

So, while I like Whedon better than Willingham...he could have handled this in a manner that was more professional and less cavalier. He was the one with all the power in this situation and he used his power unwisely.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been saying since Willingham first posted that I feel bad for IDW. They deserve better. And Ryall has been very gracious.

[2maggie2.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about the comic industry. I'm not quite sure how to translate BW's stature as a creator of his own characters to his hissy fit about Joss wanting to tell a story about Joss's characters. As Chris Ryall says in his very useful Q&A today, this situation is a bit unique because there's overlapping licensing. DH has the Buffy license; IDW has the Angel license. And there are important characters that go both ways. He also said that it's been standing practice to clear IDW stories with Joss. That may even be part of the IDW license.

But Most Importantly, Ryall said Willingham was way out of line. He said it was a measure of the man's passion for storytelling but he really wished he hadn't done it and he expects him to not do it again. It was a pretty harsh in-public smack down. From IDW itself.

I take that to mean that to the parties who know the actual licensing agreements, Willingham was off base. We get some hint of how that might be. To wit, prior to ATF, IDW was NOT allowed to write post-NFA stories. AtF was initiated by Joss AFTER Joss had decided on the Angel-as-Twilight storyline for season 8. IDW's license would not be nearly so valuable if Joss hadn't leant his name to AtF. Joss thus gave something to IDW, and it would make no sense for him to do that if it came with some moral obligation to NOT tell the story he was already planning to tell.

However that cashes out, not even IDW is trying to defend Willingham on this. I take that as meaning that his rant is not defensible.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I think that might have more to do, with IDW being completely powerless here, then with them thinking that Willingham has no right to be upset (no one was happy about the wording and he was aware enough that he was blowing up that he distanced his rant from IDW in the disclaimer).

IDW is getting screwed here, pretty much exactly like shadowcat described. Joss might be the guy, we like better of the two (though I don't know Willingham well enough to call him Warren), but in this case it's Joss who used his power to throw other people's work under the bus, when they were relying on him to play by the rules.

I care more about stories and less about writers, but the paralells to what happened with Charisma Carpenter are kind of there and all the Willinghambashing (and worse IDW bashing, when Chris Ryall is the only one in the affair, whome I'd attest really honorable behvior in this) in fandom annoys me to no end as I think it's pretty uncalled for.

IDW is now completely at Joss mercy. Willingham is most likely going back to work, where no one a lot more powerfull can break his storylines at any point and after that they either get a collaboration with Joss, or they'll never find someone with a name, who'd touch the title with a stick. They have no choice but to suck it up and I don't feel like gloating at them for it.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Willingham is an unpopular guy generally. Fans of established canons which he's started working on have been regularly spotted complaining about characterisation which is wildly different to that established by previous creators, and he's also a very irritating sexist. (Writing stuff in his books which is blatantly designed to troll feminists and then, when the expected reaction happens, whining about how "EVIL FEMINAZIS WANT TO CENSOR ME HELP HELP HELP!!!!!".)

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I can picture that from some stuff in Fables and no, that doesn't make him likeable. He probably really isn't likeable, but in this case he still got screwed, by someone who is probably generally nicer and a lot more charismatic than he is, but screwed nontheless.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

While Willingham comes across a bit as the Warren Miers of the comics industry...that doesn't mean you treat his story as if it doesn't matter. Nor does it mean that you treat your competitor or a former collaborator - with whom you actually worked with - as if their comic is beneath your notice and again, caters to you.

I'm not crazy about Willingham and selfishly like the fact that I'm getting resolution to character arcs from Whedon in Buffy, without IDW's rights to Angel and take on Angel standing in the way - I still think what Whedon and Allie did was an abuse of power and will have ramifications for all involved. It's a small industry. And it does hurt IDW, who was the victim here not Willingham.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank, flakesake makes some good points. And is correct.
If you read Ryall's Q&A closely...you will catch a few jibes that he makes at Allie.

1. He showed Allie the cover for Spike 2010 before he posted it (to, in part, demonstrate how it should be done.)

2. Oh, and in our next issue of Transformers - the villian is going to be Hellboy. (Hellboy is what made Dark Horse famous and their biggest seller.) (He's joking, but he's making a good point.)

3. And well, we thought everything we did was approved by Whedon and Fox, so it was canon...

(that's what they were told by the rightsholder. Before you can publish anything based on the original story - you have to get permission from the rightsholder. The rightsholder usually hires someone to read all the pitchs, books, etc and then read the criteria and then decide if it fits or doesn't fit. I know I applied for a job like this once at Nickloedean. It's a bizarre job.)

Ryall is being gracious because he really doesn't have the power here. Ironically this whole thing is about "power" - who has it and who does not. Willingham has no power as a freelancer, but as a gun for hire - he can go where-ever he wishes and since he has a name for other tales, which he created, he is independent. IDW needs Willingham more than Willingham needs IDW...just as IDW needs Joss Whedon's favor more than Whedon needs IDW.

IDW got the best sales in quite a while on Angel. It sold out.
Granted it may not have done better than Buffy, but it came close. And they landed a big name.

Then before their second issue, which they'd marketed and promoted heavily in a heavily marketed and promoted arc - which cost money and they invested in, Dark Horse reveals who Twilight is.

They are now scrambling to save their arc, keep fans interested, and hope they don't lose sales as a result.

Whedon and Allie had a lot of power. Their cavalier treatment of the competitor was an unwise abuse of that power, whether it was intentional or not.

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Willingham might be a prick, but he's not an old, wizened prick! (Unless he is.) Anyway, I think you've got excellent points here, but I don't think they are generational. Joss was born June 1964, so they are just 7-8 years apart. Fables rocks, though.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Apparently Whedon's older than I thought. For some reason I thought he was a '67 kid. (shrugs).

Willingham has more years in the biz. He was writing and drawing comics when Whedon was in college. And in the industry - he's more well known than Whedon in some circles.

Plus he's, as others in the thread have pointed out, IDW's big name. They may not be able to get another one now, once he's gone and it's unlikely they will get him again. He's not hurt,
IDW is. Allie hurt IDW.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

I usually don't care to find out much about the writers I like, Stephen Fry and Neil Gaiman are basically the only two people where that was not a bit of a let down.

I quite like Willingham's work and like you, I can absolutely see why he's pissed. I can't say I'm greatly happy about the way Joss behaved (and more so Allie). Would have a higher opinion of him, if he simply played fair with IDW (who showed nothing but extreme good will in the whole affair) and did not spring the whole thing out of the woodworks for them.

Like Willingham's I like Joss' work, but I'd get a lot more of a personal liking boost, if I thought he was playing fair in this and not using his credit as a writer to throw the other guy under the bus.
Willingham's outburst makes him not sound exactly sportsmanlike either, but I do see him as the wronged party here.

Imho chances are slim that he'll stick with Angel under the circumstances and IDW is highly dependent on Joss now, they either get a collaboration with him, or they'll never be able to hire anyone with a name for the Angel comics.

[shapinglight]

Very good explanation of the whole comics business.

Like flake_sake, I'm not much bothered about Willingham's bruised ego. What bothers me is how many people seem to be conflating what he said with IDW's position in general, or getting the notion that he 'works' for them. Yes, they commissioned the series (and were lucky to get a comics superstar to write for them) but Willingham is a free-lancer, like most comics writers, and even he was careful to say that he was only speaking for himself, not for anyone at IDW.

During this whole affair - right from the start of the two comics series, in fact - Chris Ryall and IDW have always taken the high ground when it comes to the rivalry over the franchise and never retaliated when provoked. That they continue to do, even though, as flake_sake points out, they're the ones who have lost out in every way in this affair.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I don't care much about Willingham, one way or the other.

During this whole affair - right from the start of the two comics series, in fact - Chris Ryall and IDW have always taken the high ground when it comes to the rivalry over the franchise and never retaliated when provoked. That they continue to do, even though, as flake_sake points out, they're the ones who have lost out in every way in this affair.

But IDW invested a great deal in their Angel franchise. They paid money for the license and they thought they had a tacit agreement with Whedon regarding the canonical direction of their universe. They also managed to obtain a comic book rock star to head the line - their first pick was Whedon, but Whedon said no. And they tried Kelley Armstrong - but she fell flat.
And while Lynch was doing well, he wasn't interested in being full time on Angel - had over commitments, plus he's not well known in comics. Landing Willingham was a big deal. They advertised at the cons and it resulted in huge sales.

I feel for them. It's ironic in a way...considering Whedon's comics are about abuses of power.

[hazel75.livejournal.com]

Hmm, though, it has to suck getting flipped the bird by someone who's basically doing this as a vanity project, not as his, uh, living. Joss and his ego really annoy me sometimes.

[rahirah]

It may be fun to see a jerk get flipped the bird, but unfortunately, Willingham's not going to be the one who suffers for it, not really. He's got enough clout that he can go elsewhere and do just fine, while Ryall is stuck with the consequences. :/

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. While it's amusing to see Willingham get it, and admittedly satisfying to know the story is not limited by such things...it could have been handled far better than it was by Dark Horse and for that matter Whedon.

It is rather easy for us and Whedon to be cavalier ...when our living does not depend on the sales of a comic.