Speaking at the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend, DC co-publishers Dan Didio and Jim Lee broke their silence about the public resignation/hurried removal of writer Chris Roberson. Roberson, who tweeted last week that once he completed his agreed-upon work for the publisher’s Fairest title, he wouldn’t be working for DC anymore in light of business practices he couldn’t reconcile with his own ethics (particularly around Before Watchmen and the treatment of Alan Moore), was then removed from Fairest by the publisher. Lee responded to the issue by saying that,
I don’t know the writer Chris and it certainly would have helped if I could have talked to him or if he had reached out to me. I didn’t know he felt that way so it was surprising to see that. It seemed odd to me as a creator, I would not publicly state I have a problem with the company that’s paying me to do work for them and I’m going to quit after I do this one project. It would seem wise to me to wait until you finished the project to voice that complaint. You have to imagine from our perspective, for our own internal morale, what does it say for a company to hire somebody who’s that vocally against our principles and yet we’re still paying them. From that standpoint, it doesn’t make any sense.
Didio was far more blunt:
As far as I’m concerned, he made a very public statement about not wanting to work with DC and we honored that statement.
The entire panel, in which Didio and Lee respond to criticism of DC over Before Watchmen publicly for what may be the first time, is worth looking at. Somewhat controversially, Lee, famously one of the “nicest man in comics,” suggests that public opinion of the DC vs. Alan Moore debate is based on a misreading of the situation:
This is not a situation where we have taken things from Alan. He signed an agreement and yet he said ‘I didn’t read the contract.’ I can’t force him to read his contract. So there’s all these things that people don’t know and Alan has said that explicitly – there are all these things that mitigate or go into the analysis. It’s not as clear-cut as people want to make it seem… It’s not a situation where we’re using the characters and Alan’s not being compensated. For everything that’s been done for Watchmen from the books to the movie, money has gone his way. The right amount that he deserves based on the contract. So we have honored that part of the agreement. It is something that can definitely be debated but to say that there is clearly one side that is right, I will dispute that.
Didio, meanwhile, sticks to the company line of “It’s all about the work”:
And we would not have gone forward if we didn’t think the talent was available to be perfectly honest. That’s actually one of the things that slowed us down. And the talent didn’t want to participate unless they felt they had a key story to tell. Darwyn Cooke was one of the first people asked and he turned me down because he didn’t know what to do with it. And then a year later he comes back and he knew how to make the story work. Then we’re off to the races.
Go read Collider’s transcript here.
April 23rd, 2012 at 9:51 am
In resume: GFY Alan Moore.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:48 am
I realize that Alan Moore has a grudge against DC, and they did do some shitty things to him back when Watchman was first published, but that was 25 years ago. Within the past 2 years DC offered to return all rights to Watchman to Alan Moore if he would write a prequel series. Seems like a win-win to me. But he not only turned them down but now no longer considers Dave Gibbons his friend. This doesn’t sound like someone who can be reasoned with. DC waited 25 years to start exploiting Watchmen with new material. Would ANY OTHER publisher have waited that long? When Alan Moore refused to negotiate, DC stopped trying to negotiate with him. I don’t see any moral turpitude here.
April 23rd, 2012 at 11:35 am
I love Moore and his work, and compared to Frank Miller with his hyper right-wing con views, Moore comes off as a saint. However, Moore has been nothing but a stick in the mud for the past 25 years, and has no one to blame but himself for not reading his contract. DC has offered the peace pipe several times and it is obvious that Moore has reached the age of grumpy old man status and will never change.
April 23rd, 2012 at 1:04 pm
I’m not sure of any other industry or company that would allow an employee, full time or freelance, publicly diss them and still expect to work there. It’s unfortunate that it went down this way, as izombie has been a favorite of mine since the beginning.
The art of private journaling was certainly a safer habit. Blogs, twitter, etc- it’s quite the bitch, and this type of cause and effect should be expected.
Did he even want to do “Fairest”? I mean, it’s a unique way to get bumped off a project you might not really want to do by publically complaining about it…
April 23rd, 2012 at 2:41 pm
how many people commit career suicide by twitter? at what point are people going to realize the things they write on the internet can be read by everyone?
as far as moore, i’m glad to see no one is felating this guy anymore. i love his work (some more than others) but enough’s enough already. it’s a business. grow up.
April 23rd, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Chris Roberson was doing the Fairest arc because of his relationship with Bill Willingham.
April 23rd, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Roberson is a moron. I wouldn’t badmouth a client until I was done with them. He obviously wanted to get canned. Mission accomplished, genius.
April 23rd, 2012 at 10:42 pm
DC offered Alan Moore reversion of the rights to the original Watchmen, after they’d sucked it dry with action figures, the movie and the best selling graphic novel for the last 25 years, so long as he’d write them a new story that they could suck dry with action figures, a movie and a graphic novel?! I hope the rights to that one would’ve reverted back to Alan Moore after 25 years, too! It only seems fair!
April 24th, 2012 at 12:19 am
.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:25 am
It genuinely pains me to read responses insinuating that Roberson either did it intentionally to get fired, didn’t realize that posting on twitter would result in his firing, or in some way was trying to get out of a job he didn’t want to do by making these comments.
Chris Roberson took a stand on principle that unsurprisingly cost him his job and prospect of future work with DC.
That is to be commended, not disparaged.
April 24th, 2012 at 4:29 am
It’s pretty much normal practice for any company to let an employee go if they publicly trash said company on social media sites.
It’s fine to make a stand based on convictions, but don’t expect to work there the next day.
April 24th, 2012 at 6:21 am
sure it’s normal practice, but I don’t think Roberson expected to continue working -from his comments he doesn’t appear to have been surprised by the outcome.
“…I had considered that might be a possible consequence of speaking out, …”
at:
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/comics/news/a377911/chris-roberson-speaks-out-on-dc-comics-sacking.html
What I’m saying -he expressed what he felt to be right and fair and regardless of the outcome, that is a virtue.
It doesn’t make him a moron or naive – it makes him a good person. He is to be respected for doing that.
April 24th, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I wouldn’t call it “normal practice” for a company to fire someone for complaining about the place they work. There are federal laws that prohibit this. They probably don’t apply in this case, as I imagine he was doing contract work, but employees are normally protected from retribution.
April 24th, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Hey Gerard, I’m not sure if your facts on laws protecting employees like that is actually correct. Employees get fired for mouthing off all the time.
Why express his disappointment when he did? Wisdom would denote to wait until the Fairest arc was done if he really wanted to do it. It’s hard not to think that he wasn’t too invested in following through with doing it if he went and complained when he did. I don’t respect that. I think it’s lame. Millions of creatives are so hungry for these chances and he just craps the fairest arc away without backing out on his own… oh well! I’ll always have my collected izombies!
April 25th, 2012 at 10:07 am
You don’t respect a guy taking a stand on principle just because you can’t read the rest of ‘Fairest’,Sally?
I dig where you’re coming from but surely being able to read the end of series (no matter how good) doesn’t outweigh seeing a person do what they think is right?
April 25th, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Hey sally, here’s an article about laws protecting employees: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-09-08/tech/30154875_1_social-media-facebook-comments-facebook-conversation
There’s a ton more cases if you do a google search.
April 26th, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Gerard,
I’m sorry but Sally’s right and you’re naive…
The courts usually side with big business.
You are SOL, period, if you publicly condemn the company you’re working for AND they find your name attached to those comments!
It’s just stupid to twitter, blog, Facebook, etc. comments even if the actions of the officers of said-company are despicable. You are cutting your own nose to spite them!