Daniel, when I read your first blog post, I thought, "His heart might be in the right place, but this is a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about."

After your second and third blog posts, I thought, "This is a guy who's arguing in bad faith and making wild assertions with no factual basis."

And then this:

Gerry Turnbull has informed me that I'm being attacked over at the Masterworks forums, not that I'd know as I don't visit there, nor know where it is. I might though, just to see what's being said.


To which I reply:

Daniel Best
#40 [-]

Posts: 31
(07/15/08 1:39 AM)

I never made the connection that you were Daniel Best, registered Masterworks forum member in good standing since January of this year. I really don't know what to make of your commentary I've quoted. I really don't. As written on your blog, that quote comes off as an airy dismissal of Masterworks readers and persons directly involved in producing the Masterworks that are more well informed than yourself. (When I read the aside "not that I'd know", I hear it in the voice of Marie Antoinette.)

But it turns out that you "do know", that you do "visit there", that you have always "known where it is". Again, I really don't know what to make of this, especially after your extensive quoting from multiple interviews posted on my website to make your case against Marvel and Mike Kelleher. You know about my website. You know about this message board. You've actively used both, one to cite from as an authority, the other to post personal comments and take part in discussion since you signed up in January.

I do think that in trying to take umbrage at alleged "personal attacks" being aimed at you, you're doing so disingenuously. I think it reveals you as out of touch with the kind of rhetoric you were dishing out in your blog posts, which certainly amounted to an indictment of Mike Kelleher and Cory's approach to Masterworks. Rich Johnston didn't link to your comments because they were bland and uncontroversial, after all. He linked to them because there was a heavy element of "attack dog" in them, which is good stuff for pulling in readers as far as he's concerned.

With no doubt plenty of knowledge of comics and comic art, your opinion ought to carry some credibility with it. This is why it's so troubling that you've engaged in what amounts to a very sloppily considered hit job against people who you never made a good faith effort to contact before publishing your comments. (And no, recently disguising yourself as merely an interested buyer of Mike's art to try and get Hyaena to admit Mike drew that Avengers #1 splash doesn't count as 'good faith'. Nor does contacting Mike by email only after posting your comments about him.)

If you want to fashion yourself as some kind of 21st century investigative reporter, some kind of "comic reprints muckraker", then you're going to have to at least stick to the facts.

Speaking of facts, Mike Kelleher has been chomping at the bit to reply back. He wants to take the high road, but he also wants to defend his reputation - a reputation you casually use to taint published work and arouse suspicion about the veracity of original art sales - attempts to compromise. Mike forwarded me an email he wrote asking if I would mind him posting it. He doesn't want to start a "flame war" on my boards, and while I respect his caution and think it speaks very well of him as a person, I think he has every right to post his refutation of your uninformed observations. To a degree, I think he honors you too much by taking time out of his busy schedule to do so. But it is important to give balance to the record and allow impressionable readers of your blog and these threads to have a firmer grasp on reality than leaving your wild assumptions and assertions uncontested.

So I'd like to invite Mike to go ahead and post his further comments here.

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