Ed: this is now a second draft – my first posting was written in the moment, and with a few days of refection I wish to clarify the opinions I expressed. Then i rewrote a few more times just for good measure. last draft completed Saturday march 18, 3:56pm. and ps:Bold text is ment to only highlight thoughts.

Hey all

So, FINALY, I get to read the much murmured about letters!

Well.

Ok, so I first heard about this all I think from Éric Thériault, who asked me to sign the 'manifesto' over a year ago.

That night at the Jam when I was asked to sign a sheet, it seemed I was not going to be able to read it first – this was a non starter for me, really I wonder why I as asked at this stage.

I recall my telling him that as a general rule I don't often 'sign things I don't write or draw' as well, but I'd consider it if in fact I could read it first!

I guess he or others decided to not bother showing me the thing when it was done, which is too bad. I don't think I'd have signed but It's certainly not the horror show some have made it out to be, I'd have found a way to shown solidarity with/in the spirit that the questions put forward are valid.

I was becoming somewhat confounded this past winter, the journo in me dieing of curiosity with all the talk about this reaction to Marc's essay. I'd hear about this thing often from folks I know via the MMCJ, but still none ever seemed able to follow up their kvetching or preening with a copy of the text to read on them, or ever sending me one as I requested so I could find out what all the fuss was!

It was getting to be enough to make a guy paranoid really.

This much I'd gleaned along the way; there was a rather intense rant heavy version early on, penned by Rick Gagnon – well know to be, frankly, a bit of a cranky opinionated guy.

This was shown to a few people, those who had seen it and found it objectionable that I know personally via the MMCJ told me that it was an unfortunately negative rant, that didn't spend to much energy actually doing what it accused Marc of failing at, talking about what IS going on in Montreal.

More colorful language than mine was used often to communicate this.

There is a sentiment amongst many who don't like the tone of Rick's rant that we should not be airing our differences so publicly, and certainly not to the benefit of the TCJ's circulation. I will say that I agree with the second sentiment. By the end of this post it will be clear I hope that my greatest disappointment in all this is with the editorial actions of the TCJ.

Back to Rick's rant and the story of how I didn't get to read it till now: Recently through an unlikely 3rd degree connection to an old hometown friend of Rick Gagnon, I confirmed that an edited and much more constructive draft of his letter had been completed. I'd heard of the intention to do this but was told by some they had seen a 2nd draft and found it still negative or otherwise we're not pleased with it.

And still I couldn't get a copy out of anyone to read.

Now keep in mind that in my experience and dealings with him, Rick is prone to some very uncharitable character assaults in casual conversation, and seems at times to be either a friend or foe to people largely based on interactions other's are unaware of, until he lets you know that is.

In my own experience I've had Rick approach me in a vary formal manner at the jams to tell me if he approves of something I've done or not as though it had been a point of contention between us for some time, or that his opinion of my carrier choices really maters much to me – often in fact, till that moment I was oblivious to it.

He's admitted to me himself to being an opinionated person, and I would say prone to strong judgments and strong expressions of them. He is also very much prone to thinking in terms of cliques and clubs, but in this he's not alone in Montreal at all. This is one of my least liked things about this town. A lot of 'us and them' going on all over.

I draw no judgments of Rick on all this as I really don't know him as a privet person well enough to know what goes on in his head, but as a result of his public persona and actions I worried that his letter may be needlessly harsh and perhaps personal where it would not be warranted.

ED: Also it's been pointed out that the final draft of the letter was in fact a group effort, and not by Rick's pen alone so I'd be aims in putting it all on his shoulders - he can only share the credit and blame for it. I don't know if all those named signed had a hand in, or only a few, but at least a few others in the group had a go at it. I was aware that something like that was going on, but as to what extent i didn't know for sure. But i think that much of the worry i heard expressed about the thing this winter, and indeed what became my own to some extent, was due to framing concerns about it with the thinking that Rick's was the main hand behind it.

In the end I felt it all maters little though, this is after all a tempest in tea pot folks, a debate over the correct history of events now long past, by people who are at best small to mid sized fish like myself, in an otherwise very big pond that will happily not care about our communication issues and old vendettas.

But, in so far as I care about the promotion of my medium on the public stage I had hoped that whatever got printed would be at least somewhat constructive.

Well, in the end, thanks to being the publisher and thus first to be notified of posts on Sequential, I got the links to the letters.

In the end I found it to be a good read on the whole, as a dissenting & questioning voice of contrast.

What I've seen here seems well thought out for the most part. Granted it's laced with sarcasm and raises many questions about the propriety of Marc's actions in the past. I can see how Marc may take some offence to it. But as a journalistic exercise I think the questions are fair to be asked – and it's not exactly the visceral blood letting as it was characterized to me by some in town.

All In all the degree of negativity here is to be expected in a critique.

Id have wanted to do some serious research myself to verify the claims concerning conduct, but if they are true then in abstract principal I'd have at least considered singing this first piece. However, in the end I'd have declined because as a personal letter, or critique and work of journalism, signing would be an editorial stance.

Why would I, a peripheral player to the debate have any reason to sign it?

That's the job of the editor and authors only really.

My name and any others not involved in penning or proofing the work do not belong there.

So while I support the questioning and the right of those asking them to do so, I don't feel my name is needed.

On the other hand I would have gladly and certainly signed this.

As a overview of the creative communities and individuals active in the local scene I think it's very good, and exactly what should have been published in the first place along side Marc's photo essay in the special edition of the journal that claimed to contain "a major survey of the Montreal comics scene, with profiles of all the major participants".

Knowing the authors of both letters I suspect a fair bit of time was spent doing the fact checking - and to the point, even if there are details they missed, the point they are making is that the Journal didn't fact check Marc's piece, and could have using their own archives!

Rick and co' did for them here, and list a number of places where even as 'A Personal History' Marc needs to get his story strait. Being personal dose not free us from the sin of miss representation, the attitude that it does is simply lazy.

Before going on I should make clear where I'm coming from, what my bias is. I am a more recent arrival and member of the local scene. And I was in Marc's Comics Journal profile.

I was shown in a small photo making hand gestures and in passing credited as one of the new wave, an 'Organizer' of the Monthly Jam's, which Marc had attended a few times and represent his only real connection with me.

It amused me and confirmed my suspicion that TCJ editorial was not all that involved or on the ball when I saw my small mention and credit. I can only surmise no room could be made in the pristine white negative space of the special edition's lovely presentation for the words 'Artist', or 'Creator', along side my name. Title's I've earned professionally for 17 years next to the 4 as host & 'Organizer' of the Jams.

This omission despite a long afternoon spent with Marc in my studio as he snapped his photos, and remarked frequently and positively on my work – as an artist that is.

So yes, I can attest, the TCJ feature was disappointingly utterly devoid of fact checking or fullness of information on its subject.

I was not so offended by this as amused - though my partner at the time raised quite a fuss about how I was being overlooked. For my part I shrugged and had harsher thoughts for the editors than anyone else.

I kept in mind something Marc said to me in my studio that summer afternoon. That it had been a while since he was actively involved with local scene [as a new father he had been busy raising a kid] , and was finding it had exploded with a lot of new activity and players since his hay day.

He said it would be impossible for him to cover it all in the space he had allotted, and was going to have to overlook a lot of what had been going on to get it done in time for the deadline.

As a dabbler in journalism myself, I understood his dilemma, and in the end I find more fault with the supposedly professional editors and journalists at the TCJ for not doing their jobs here than I do with a creator and promoter doing what he could with the time and energy and knowledge he had at hand.

Having known this a full year before the publication was completed, I wonder if Marc communicated this limitation to TCJ editorial at any point. And if he did, why did they not accordingly make room for a few more pages, or ask someone else in town with a different point of view to write an accompanying side bar to attempt to at least do what the cover claimed, truly spotlight the whole local scene?

Again I have some small inside info here – a year before Marc was in my studio taking my photo, TCJ editorial posted an inquiry on the TCJ message boards looking for up-to-date info about the Montreal scene, to do the feature [at that time it was to be in the regular issue but I know through my conversations with Marc this is the same project that got moved to the special edition].

This posting on their boards followed a solid year of my own promotion of the local scene to get the word out that things were still hoping here, even if it wasn't the same kind of singular community it had been in the early 90's.

I think that between my efforts, those of D&Q which are far more substantial and wide reaching, and those of a number of others localy who put the time in to get the word out about what goes on in town, TCJ came to realize they had been ignoring things here since their personal darling talents had become less active in the late 90's.

Upon seeing the posting on the message boards I contacted them offering my knowledge, and I suggested to everyone at the jams that they do the same, giving TCJ editorial the widest bounty of sources to pick from – any true journalists dream.

I know that for his part Marc, a now long time associate of Fantagrafics, contacted them and pitched his photo essay at this time as well, in response to the solicitation on the message boards.

After that, to my knowledge no one else here was asked after that to provide additional input or content other than art. No other points of view were solicited or enquired about beyond that time.

I do not know Marc well enough to speculate much on his intentions beyond those he expressed to me in my studio that afternoon. But i think he ment only the best in his efforts

Nor am I an expert on, or even witness to much of the history either he in his photo essay, or this letter talks about. I arrived here in Montreal in '97 after a great deal of it had already come to pass.

I only know about his involvement with ACIBD, the International Salon of Cartoons or the Gogo Guy Collective through old fish tales told at the jams that I take with many grains of salt as rumors and speculation.

But I have seen some of the old PR text's in question in Rick's critique [which extends past the contents of Marc's photo essay to attack Marc's PR and organizational habits going back to the late 80's] – Along with much of what was written about Montreal by locals in the past, it reflects a common tendency to talk in the third person about their own activities, and hype hype hype. I'm no fan of this tactic/style of press, and find it insincere and false.

And I do think it true that some of these writing habits worked their way into "The Montreal Comix Scene, When Solitudes Unite: A Personal History". It does seem evident he was not at his most journalistically rigorous with this effort, instead writing a somewhat glossy over view of his own memories in a strangely third person stance, about many things he was more intertwined with than he indicated.

An oddly dissociative voice for a Personal History really.

In the end I personally have no harsher words for Marc other than I would have only given a B for effort, and an A- for visual style. And if I had been the publisher, I'd have checked the facts, and asked for a re-write where Marc clearly failed to use the first person singular or 'we' when it was called for.

I also feel that the first letter accurately describes a thread of cultural stagnation in one particular wave of the local scene - of which Marc is a part but far from the sole member or responsible for the actions of - which seems to for the most part have given up on really seriously exploring comics as anything more than a hip vehicle for pop art and self promotion.

It's unfortunate that TCJ chose to explore the local scene in their special only through this one contact, to one thread of the local scene, and no others.

Given their love of dedicating reams of pulp to covering every nauseating detail of a subject in their 'scene', they seemed really rather lackadaisical in this exploration of something 'foreign'. Shocking news, an American press is more or less self-involved. Oh well.

This editorial choice provided for limited window on things, further hampered by the very limited effort represented by "The Montreal Comix Scene, When Solitudes Unite: A Personal History".

I think some people in Montreal have had a sacred cow reaction to having this article attacked.

They cower at the idea that we will be seen to be dissenting in front of the neighbors.

I will agree to only one idea along this line that was expressed to me last night.

Isn't interesting how the journal has - perhaps unknowingly i'll grant - manufactured the conflict?

First they solicited for the feature, then ran it with no fact checking or true effort to make a balanced presentation, then they run these letters and I'm told a few others that are less fair or sane in their Blood and Thunder section, with the title "The Quebecois cartooning scene dukes it out in our pages. Yes, all of them."

All of them? REALLY?!! Bull shit.

Precisely because this hubbub is in a US publication in English it's a forgone conclusion that the majority of the Quebecois cartoonists out there are oblivious and likely indifferent to it. At best a portion of Montreal creators are involved here, and only a portion.

Yes, I do think it's very likely that planed or not, TCJ is now running with the conflict their own lame editorial efforts helped to generate, and are now trying to make a bigger stink out of it. Sensationalist and opportunistic manipulations of the first degree I say. The Journal is acting like a RAG. Fortunately it seems that in truth, as observed by Billy Mavreas on the tcj.com messboard, "outside our l'il circle : not much caring" about it all.

But despite that, it's just as well that the feature was critiqued [ed:though yes it could have been done less adversarially, its true]. It represents a phoned in effort that fails to really do the Montreal scene justice.

I have great respect for Marc Tessier's work in many areas of his career as I'm aware of it, but here I think he did need an editorial kick in the can that he clearly didn't get.

But far more than he, I think TCJ editorial deserves to be taken out and given a bitch slapping for negligence [humorous exaggeration of course, such actions might get one taken out to the shooting range i dare say], making false claims, and opportunistically feeding conflict to create a story.

The greater oversight was never that Marc wrote a personal history that was sold as "a major survey of the Montreal comics scene, with profiles of all the major participants".

It was that TCJ editorial took a personal history, and sold it as such.

And now continues to grossly generalize and BS their way though the story with shit like "The Quebecois cartooning scene dukes it out in our pages. Yes, all of them.".

Lamo.

This continues in the comments....

A last note: In describing the events surrounding the letter here, leading up to when I finally got to read the letters, I was not trying to put the events on Rick’s shoulders. I was trying to describe the interpolation of events that was depicted to me second hand by a handful of people who had read the first letter and were the most vocal to me about their worries about it and him.

I could not frame a personal thought on the letter myself then, not having read it – neither the worried or the authors would provide a copy when asked – and with only my own past interactions with Rick to go on I could not discount that the tone of things might reflect his debating style. He’s not any kind of ogre at all, far from. But he is as I said, a man of strong opinions and sometimes the expression of them. It should be kept in mind by anyone looking to take what I’ve written and interpret it as a inditement of him, that he worked with others on the letter that was published, and showed his capacity for moderation and maturity in all of it in the end.