You did owe me, you lied about it for two years.

And my name’s not Tamryn, moron.

Gail

Instead …nothing. So if anyones getting a good laugh its the people in Internet land like me laughing hard.

I’m hearing daily that I should settle out of court with those involved, yet this specific group targets me and has made my making a living more difficult. WERE I as crazy as they imply, I would’ve already solved my problem of them. No, instead, I trust the civil court system.

Regarding the materials of TOTS; I have never received the completed materials. And that’s the bottom line legally. Do the reserach. Contracts made, contracts broken (by BOTH sides), end result work not completed and delivered to individual contracting to have the work done.

If anyone wants to consider me as these obsessive/compulsive types hanging out on Tamryn’s YABS forum do, that is fine by me. Just know that there are more people aware and supportive of me than have spoken out primarily because I’ve told them NOT to get involved. Why? Because –
The matter is first and foremost a private legal one and I’ve stopped bantering with Tamryn and her trusty troll patrol. They’ve made up more lies, substantiating them by *new* forum postees that were nothing more than sockpuppets. Whatever…

Don’t figure me for the poor bastard though, as I’ll have the last laugh. I always do.

Gail

Honestly, I took no offense, no worries. But I do read Newsarama pretty much every day. Who doesn’t?

Gail

And I get what you said, Graeme, I just disagree completely. We still regularly hear from people who hadn’t yet heard of the thread who have been in contact with Rick recently or have had a bad experience with him in the past. If the thread were on page 148 of my board by now, I doubt that would be the case.

As I said, and as you know, I loved Fanboy Rampage, but I think the “speak no evil” approach works swell when two pros bicker over a story approach, or when readers hate the end of a crossover. But it does pretty much no good at all when you’re talking about something more serious, ie. a serial shamster who is still to this day trying to find new people to cheat, and I’m pretty sure some of these same people who are so aghast at the pros who have expressed outrage might find the whole situation entirely more serious if someone had stolen THEIR paycheck and threatened to sue them if they spoke up.

Just sayin’. This shouldn’t be approached like the petty squabbles about nothing that made Fanboy Rampage fun. Actual careers and paychecks are at stake here, and it’s easy for some of these folks to laugh about that, but it did some real damage to some hard-working creators (not me, by the way, I told him, after two years of ‘the check is in the mail’ to stuff the remainder of the money he owed me).

Is it really ‘bullying’ to make other pros, retailers and readers aware of a serial scamster? To post updates on new and weird threats he’s made, new plans for conventions he’ll never be able to follow through with, and to announce when a court case is won against him? Once in a while he shows up and has a public meltdown and calls the women on the thread whores and the men gay or Mexican or some other racist or homophobic slue. I have to confess, I got no sympathy for a guy like that.

That’s about it, we’ll probably have to agree to disagree. But I do say again, I’m not the one who brought this stuff to light. I only started the thread when it was obvious he had no intention of paying all the people who worked on his vanity press books, and had the gall to threaten them for speaking up. I think it’s actually a nice thing to see so many pros, from Kurt Busiek, to Mark Waid, to Billy Tucci, to Tom Beland, to Marv Wolfman, to Scott Shaw, and many, many others stand up and tell this guy he doesn’t get to pull this again.

I hope we all stand up and tell the NEXT guy who tries it the same thing. If that makes some poster here upset, you know, whatever. I knew that would be the case and I still think it’s worth a few ‘tut-tuts’ from people whose money and careers are not at all affected. It may not always be pretty, but I like that the industry has banded together to stick up for fellow creators, many of whom are new to the industry and really needed the promised paycheck.

Best wishes,

Gail

Gail - Ziga kind of gets what I was meaning when I said talked about shutting up; I wasn’t talking about never having said anything in the first place, but instead stopping the dogpile on a man who has by this point become a laughing stock and is more than capable of digging his own grave without the need for people to make comments about anal lube or calling him fucknuckle. My point was that all that kind of thing (the name calling, the baiting) does now is make everyone involved look bad and that, having done the important job of exposing Olney as the liar and fraud that he is, everything past that point is more and more unnecessary to the point where it almost becomes bullying. Of course, you may disagree, and that’s why we have comments threads for people to take me to task on things, I guess.

The one thing I’d disagree on is that I’m never going to write about the good stuff that came out of that thread: I did so here, surely?

Graeme’s never going to write about all the good stuff that came out of that thread, unfortunately, because it’s not as fun to read, maybe. Which is why, I’m sorry, but I think this charge is a little bit horsepoo. I liked Fanboy Rampage as much as anyone, but we’re not talking about hurt feelings here or the ending of Civil War, we’re talking about people cheated out of their work and livelihood.

You have to be able to distinguish between a meaningless net kerfuffle and something where real people are being cheated and threatened. I think that’s a pretty important difference. And again, keeping quiet is what allowed Chuck Dixon, Val Staples, and many, many more creators to be screwed.

To those who say just let the matter drop, I respond that I STILL get email from people Rick is trying to get to work for him, he’s still sending very abusive threatening emails to people he owes money to, and now he’s claiming he’s hiring new artists and staging another convention.

We know none of this will happen, but it’d be very easy for newbies or uninformed people to still get burned.

That’s about it…I won’t say I was always a sweetie pie, I get mad like anyone else when friends are cheated and threatened. But the thread has a lot of good things on it, too, and I’m not guiding it, in any case. I just haven’t shut it down, because I’m big on free speech, anyway.

Best,

Gail

You’re right to say that Graeme goes to far when he says to ’shut up’, but the main part of his point, that — by stooping to Onley’s level of communication (though with much, much better spelling and wit) — you and your fellow forum members are lessing the effectiveness of your argument against Onley. He digs a pretty deep hole for himself laready, just leave him to it. At this point your (not just yourself, all of the posters) added comments aren’t really diggin the hole any deeper, maybe just a bit wider, which in the end does not much at all. Believe me, the message is out. You were right, keeping quiet was wrong, but everyone (nearly) has said their piece and there’s no need to continue dragging yourself through the mud to keep uo with onley.

Respectfully,

Ziga Sparovec

Gail

And I probably don’t need to point out the illogic of this statement…”Folks, you want to “win” against Rick Olney? Then all you need to do to is shut up and let him bury himself by saying things like this…”
because, well…he obviously wouldn’t have said it if we hadn’t kept the heat on.

In fact, when he lied to and cheated me, I kept quiet about it. It just wasn’t worth dealing with him. But the turning point was him insulting and abusing other pros when they came forward, most specifically Val Staples, who gave up everything to pay CrossGen’s debts out of his own pocket.

I have no regrets about it. Keeping quiet would have done nothing but allow it to keep happening, and a lot of good has come from that thread, regardless of the cherry-picking listed here.

You know I love ya, but it’s that thread that’s making sure he’s not out cheating more creators out of money and work, which he IS still attempting to do.

Best,

Gail

It’s the best part of Xmas! “Let’s go Wesaaelling!”

I think you have to kill 250 million of them in World of Warcraft.

I need a shower. Probably because I smell.

Yes, she is talented like them.

Or am I thinking of DeadPool?

//\Oo/\\

I’m up to the point where Kurt Busiek jumps in. Good stuff.