Some clarification is appreciated

Mark Waid tells us how it really is when rumours are started:

"Well, let's take this week's column as an example, though I will now say nothing I could not have said a half-dozen times before.

Professional coward and succubus Rich Johnson spends, oh, let's say twenty seconds typing up a bullshit rumor he overheard about some project I'm connected with. Specifically this week, he decides to claim that my new series is losing its artist with issue two.

Remember, in all likelihood, it takes Rich less time to type those words than it's taken you to read this far in this post. That's an important part of how Rich damages people. Less time because, God knows, he certainly doesn't bother to try to validate or corroborate this announcement in any way. No one even remotely connected with this project, for example, heard anything FROM Rich QUESTIONING this rumor. He just ran it. And that's okay, apparently, because after all, he just reports what he hears, right? Investigation is for actual journalists, or at the very least for genuinely responsible people rather than total lowlifes who seek out a smarmy career doing what we all do with some level of shame from time to time but what every single one of us learned as early as childhood was an act we should never take pride in: spreading gossip.

So, Monday. Rich takes a few seconds to "report" a bullshit rumor that isn't even remotely true--but is potentially damaging to my livelihood and to the livelihoods of everyone connected with the project. Can I take the financial hit? Yeah, but you don't know that. Marc? Probably, but that's not my judgment to make. The inker, colorist and letterer of the book, all of whom will be affected if orders drop because retailers are left to believe that Marc has left the book? If your answer is "yes," by all means, feel free to phone 'em up and tell them that you think so. I'm sure they'll get a laugh out of it.

Irresponsible? Oh, God, yes. But it's out there regardless because Rich shoots first and asks questions later. (And by "later," I generally mean "only after someone actually calls him on his lies.") Twenty seconds of typing, bam, done. Rumor spread.

Then, for the REST OF MONDAY FUCKING MORNING, from the moment I AWAKEN, I have to spend literally HOURS fielding e-mails and phone calls squashing this rumor immediately or risk having it do damage to a project I both enjoy and which helps keep food on the plates of people who depend on me. Marc has to do the same. As does Jim McLauchlin, the publisher, who already had a million plates to juggle that morning and suddenly has a million and one. As does Annie Pham, the lovely Top Cow marketing woman who I'm confident is far more overworked than fucking Rich Johnson and really didn't deserve to get hit in the face with a frying pan first thing Monday morning.

So guess what I don't get done yesterday? Script pages for my Legion artist. Why? Because I'M busy setting the record straight because Rich is at best...at BEST...being careless and thoughtless. Which means that Legion is running one day later. Which means the Legion artist may be unemployed for one day next week whether he can afford to be or not. Likewise the inker. Likewise the colorist. And by the way, Marc, how IS issue two coming? What's that? You're NOT drawing right now? Why not? Oh, because you're busy reassuring FANS AND RETAILERS. Bam, bam, bam. Watch how the dominoes fall. Who does Rich hurt when he pulls shit like this? Start counting.

And worst of all, next week, Rich will do it to someone else. He'll report, without any fact to back it up, that so-and-so's book is getting reassigned, casting aspersions on his professionalism or his ability--or that Artist X is a troublemaker because he said something disparaging about his employer, which would be a bad thing to do had it actually happened--or that Freelancer Y is the reason something's late when, in fact, Rich hasn't the first clue. It will take him less than a minute to open any given barn door, but it will take everyone else's day to gather the horses and put them back inside. And don't lie to yourself; he won't dredge this shit up because he's somehow a noble and gallant crusader for justice. He'll do it because every time Rich's column gets another hit, the cash register goes "ding" again. Meanwhile, across the ocean from Rich, some very nervous father of three, already staring down a long assignment with a short deadline, isn't able to voucher for the time he's spending on the phone with his editor trying to find out why he's received all these troubling e-mails from fans and websites claiming grimly but with concern for his welfare that CBR has it on "good authority" that the series he's been pencilling for the last four months is about to be cancelled because its star is actually the super-secret killer in IDENTITY WARS and, gee, they hope he lands on his feet.

Rich hurts people, plain and simple. If he didn't, there wouldn't be a line around the block of otherwise kind and gentle comics creators who would eagerly beat him to death for a dollar and give you change back. When he prints rumors that have absolutely no foundation, as he does all too frequently, it is the wrong thing to do, and no rational person can argue against that. His inexcusable behavior serves no one but him, yet it often visits anxiety and suffering on other people solely in the name of profit and self-glorification. It is indefensible."

Honestly? It does make me think about it a bit differently, but not enough to stop visiting All The Rage and Lying In The Gutters on a weekly basis.

I guess I'm insensitive.