Comic book fans tend to love a good fight, and one was waged on Twitter today between Ron Marz — current writer of Top Cow titles including Witchblade and Artifacts, and a veteran of Green Lantern, Silver Surfer and plenty more — and the official account of Bluewater Productions, the always-controversial publisher of largely unauthorized celebrity biographical comics of everyone from Taylor Lautner to Michelle Obama.
Things got started when Marz, while linking to a press release on an upcoming Bluewater biography of Ayn Rand, stated, “If there’s a better pairing than horrible, selfish nutbag Ayn Rand and Bluewater, I’ve yet to hear it.” Highlights of the quarrel include — after prompting from Bluewater — Marz offering to write a sequel to Bluewater’s Justin Bieber biocomic (provided he was paid his full page rate, which he would donate to the Hero Initiative, and that Bluewater would donate their profits to a charity of their choice), and Bluewater declaring “Bio books are what people want,” along with making lots, lots, and lots of comments about Witchblade sales being low. After being initially denied, the offer is currently at the “trying to smooth it over” stage.
In the ensuing melee, Bluewater (via the account run by the company’s publisher Darren G. Davis), responded to a number of other harsh criticisms of their company centering around alleged non-payment of creators, including one from frequent Marvel artist Mark Brooks, who stated, “You STILL owe me money from 10 years ago. It’s a fact, not made up. I’d drop this Darren.” Davis simply responded “tidalwave,” a reference to Bluewater predecessor Tidwalwave Studios, which Brooks worked for a decade or so ago on comics like Atlas, and an apparent attempt to separate past accusations from current ones. Brooks, in response: “it’s still you Darren. Semantics don’t change that.”
Also getting involved: Greg Harms, who inked Bluewater title 10th Muse circa 2009, accusing the company of “creative bookkeeping” and letting Davis know “I’d tell you to your face that you are an ass.”
Since it’s very possible Bluewater might think better of some of their harsher allegations and reach for delete, we’ve documented a few for posterity’s sake — along with a few of Marz’s barbs — and assembled them into an ersatz highlight reel. Those are after the jump. (And yes, the adorable pup in Marz’s Twitter avatar most certainly does go a long way in making the heated discourse seem much more amiable.)
And, some time later…
Addendum: I interviewed Davis around this time last year for an article, which you can read here.
March 30th, 2011 at 4:49 am
Awesome, thanks for posting this here! Gotta hate Bluewater, the current scum of the comic world. Even making Dynamite/Dynamic Forces look good.
March 30th, 2011 at 7:45 am
What did Dynamite do? I’ve never heard of them not paying creators.
Incidentally, Brooks is wrong on one level. Yes, in terms of semantics, it’s Davis that owed him money. It terms of the law, it’s Tidalwave. If Tidalwave (or any company) goes bankrupt, the debts are part of the company’s bankruptcy, not the person’s. It’s the same thing people fail to understand about Pat Lee.
TRUE, it doesn’t make Lee or Davis less of a scumbag or make not getting paid suck any less, but there is a legal hurdle here that a lot of people don’t acknowledge.
March 30th, 2011 at 7:46 am
Marz is right and Bluewater doesn’t register when he’s landed a good insult on them.
I’d boycott Bluewater except I already wasn’t buying anything of theirs. I am picking up a few Top Cow books, though.
March 30th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Fred: Well, as far as being able to get any money out of him that was owed by a bankrupt previous company, that’s totally true.
As far as accusing him of being a sleazebag for his part in that company’s not paying people, all’s fair. It might at least give him some stress and make his day a bit shittier.
And yeah, I’m glad that there’s nothing to feel conflicted over: since every Bluewater comic I see solicited is always part of a parade of comics I can’t imagine ever wanting to buy, I have no worries.
March 31st, 2011 at 7:00 am
The reason they are the new Dynamic forces, is that DF dont and never have done anything positive for the industry and their overall operating tactics suck **** in hell, ok