May 25, 2005
Did Wizard Blackball Frank Miller?

Heidi MacDonald ran
this fascinating article yesterday about a tiff between
Wizard Magazine and Frank Miller dating back to his 2001 criticism of the magazine during a Harvey Awards speech. This is a disagreement in which a "peace" may have recently been reached through the use of an action figure and the intercessory actions of Miller's current creative and business partners at DC Comics.
I can't speak directly to the veracity of the rumor, except to do things like double check if the
Sin City press junket and Wizard World LA took place on the same weekend this year (they did).
My
Wizard collection is severely limited. Here's what I discovered in a cursory look.
A summer 2001 mention of a
Dark Knight Strikes Again production delay was almost certainly written before that year's Harveys. It's probably worth noting the production schedule on
DKSA was kind of screwy, which may have had an impact on a magazine on
Wizard's to plan ahead and get something in. Miller's desire not to participate might limit options as to kinds of articles.
The Dark Knight Strikes Again series didn't make the best of 2002 list, but
DKSA was greeted within the fan community like news in a kindergarten that Santa Claus had died, so that's not terribly surprising.
Sin City coverage or lack thereof I'm unprepared to measure, although my feeling is it should be compared to coverage of adult-skewing films like
Road to Perdition or the forthcoming
History of Violence, of which I can't recall a ton, as opposed to something with
Batman in it.
I tried looking at the web site with little success.
Wizard didn't seem to slam or ignore Miller in
this piece on great trade paperbacks, quite the opposite actually, but not only could that be from before the dates involved it's not the kind of article really at issue here.
Anyway, I have messages out to a few of the principals, and although I doubt I'll hear back from them, I want to give them a chance to respond.
What I can say right now is this. "Peace" between industry actors is never a positive in and of itself, and it is triply dubious in an industry that thrives on exploitation. There is no excuse for the dominance of avoidance rhetoric when it comes to openly fuckheaded behavior perpetrated by comics entities, and we should all strive to do much better saying so for and on the record.
posted 9:39 am PST |
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