[...] to protect them against lawsuits like the current one, so beware of giving any money to their newly erected defense fund: Of course, the comic book industry sometimes functions outside of common sense and standard [...]

And what’s wrong with pornography? I read some of it, I’ve reviewed some of it. That question tells me more about your biases than I think you know.

Johanna–why are you defending a pornographer?

I thought he raised an interesting issue, though, so I went ahead and e-mailed Dirk Deppey at Fantagraphics to ask if the company had insurance to cover any damages from the Ellison lawsuit, and he directed me to a link where Gary Groth addressed the issue. And I (partially) quote:

“…our legal expenses are being paid for neither by an insurance company nor by a “secret financial angel.” There is no insurance company; there is no financial angel. We are paying –and have paid– all our legal expenses ourselves. Just to be entirely clear and incredibly redundant: We have to this date paid 100% of our legal expenses without any help from an insurance company or any “secret financial angel. …”"

Even if Meth didn’t believe Groth, at least mentioning this response (or the one he got from calling him up, if he’d done so) would have made for a much better column. He could’ve gone into why he didn’t believe Groth’s answer and tried to back that up. I still might’ve found his argument dubious, but maybe he would’ve convinced me. As it is, he’s only convinced me to view any of his future writings at ComicMix (or elsewhere) with a grain of salt.

Also, worth noting: Deppey addresses the column in today’s Journalista. If I wasn’t Web-impaired, I’d give you a link, but I am Web stupid.

Meth only opines that they have insurance. He never said that he called them or didn’t call them.

That’s my point. If he’s going to make such a big deal out of calling other publishers, basing most of his “case” on it, then he should have said whether or not he called Fantagraphics and what the result was. It’s a really obvious hole that calls the rest of his piece into question.

I don’t think his last paragraphs were at all loony; this was an opinion piece (it says that in the headline) and I think it’s clear that Meth has little if any respect for Groth.

>That Meth has a history of being unwarrantedly rude to professionals and holds grudges for decades…Not the guy I’d trust for unbiased reporting.

What most jumps out at me: He says he called other publishers for background, but he never mentions calling Fantagraphics and asking them directly. Did he? Was his call refused? Or did he simply not bother? It’s a surprisingly obvious oversight not to even mention it, even if they wouldn’t talk to him.

Based on the increasingly loony last paragraphs, I find myself wondering if he’s another one of those with a long-standing grudge against the company that he also neglects to mention? A quick Google shows that Meth praises Ellison and brags that Ellison “digs [him]“. That Meth has a history of being unwarrantedly rude to professionals and holds grudges for decades. And that in interviews he takes completely unrelated swipes at Fantagraphics, calling names.

Not the guy I’d trust for unbiased reporting. Maybe he should have revealed some of that, hmm?