For anyone who doesn't know much about comics -- much less, independent comics -- let me give you a quick primer. Hart Fisher has an imprint known as Boneyard Press. It's somewhat of a joke in the comics industry -- this guy is bitching his face off about not being listed in comic price guides, for example. That's how important his company is. He, and his company, made a few splashes in their days -- mostly due to controversy. And when Gerard Way was a teenager, Boneyard Press printed some of his earliest comic book work.
With that out of the way....
Hart has a few complaints. His biggest one seems to be his notion that Dark Horse claims "The Umbrella Academy" is Gerard Way's first comic book. He somehow believes that this "false advertising" would artificially inflate sales. His logic is incredibly skewed, as anyone who reads his disjointed LiveJournal post can see this is not someone who is thinking clearly.
Elsewhere, however, Hart really turned up the heat, saying:
[He's] ripping off my old message and many of my actual written bits. I'm in the process now of going through the lyrics and matching up where he has straight up ripped me off from my old editorials.
Really? All of a sudden, this is what he has to do? I"d like to return to his LiveJournal, which reads like sour grapes about Gerard and Dark Horse's success with "The Umbrella Academy." Whether or not this was Gerard's first comic book, it wouldn't matter -- it would have sold to My Chemical Romance fans, either way. It also would have found the audience with comic book fans that it did, simply because it's a really good book.
And as for Hart's complaints about who really published Gerard Way's first work? Since I don't think Dark Horse really cares, either way, why doesn't he get the smug self-satisfaction, and simply re-print "On Raven's Wings"? There's definitely a demand for it -- even if it is just amongst My Chemical Romance fans. He could prove his point, whatever it is, and make some money off a 14-year-old book.
I find it hard to believe that anything will come of any of this -- the guy comes across as a bitter man who is trying to get a piece of the action. As for the plagiarism accusations? Well, let's just see what he comes up with when he's done searching his old editorials. I'm sure he wrote extensively about the subjects Gerard Way did while publishing comics that can't even get recognized by the comic buyer's guide. By the way, who uses LiveJournal to make their serious statements to the press? I'm not terribly impressed. [Everyone knows you use MySpace to make your serious statements. Geez.]
I suppose time will tell, but I have a hunch that Hart Fisher is not coming out of this with anything more than some egg on his face.
