Former IDW Editor-in-Chief Tells His Side of the Aubrey Sitterson Situation
Former IDW Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall who recently stepped away from the position after 14 years confirmed that Aubrey Sitterson’s Scarlett’s Strike Force was cancelled because of poor sales. Interestingly enough Ryall even says he thought about defending Sitterson.
Ryall chatted with ComicsBeat where he addressed the Sitterson situation:
“The story has gotten spun in such a way that makes us look like the bad guy and it kills me that that’s the case. Because that all came about because somebody said things that companies (that I don’t own) took exception to. But I and a of couple others really staked our jobs on not making a rash decision on having that person removed and keeping the book going and even rewarded that person with a new series. Ultimately that new series didn’t sell. I’m sure there’s all kinds of ideas of why it didn’t sell but the fact is it didn’t sell right from the start and so it had to go away. But somehow rewarding somebody with a new book and not giving in to these idiots who were trying to put pressure on things, got spun to being that we didn’t support this person. That I think is the thing that hurts, because we did. We supported him, kept his job, gave him a new book and it killed me that it didn’t work.
Also at times I was going to go out there and try to defend it, trying to say no, no you’re wrong. And keeping the conversation going and giving a forum for people to say more terrible things just felt like a losing battle. My entire time at IDW I’ve always approached things as the air is much fresher on the high road.”
Aubrey Sitterson found himself at odds with many fans of G.I. JOE when he tweeted out what can only be described as disgusting.
https://twitter.com/aubreysitterson/status/907263899992416256
But Sitterson wouldn’t stop there. He would post another sickening Tweet.
https://twitter.com/aubreysitterson/status/907266792703197184
That’s when the fans had enough and popular G.I. JOE fan groups decided to boycott IDW Publishing while Aubrey Sitterson had a job.
Sitterson would then do an interview with Bleeding Cool where he played the victim claiming, “IDW told me that if I wanted to stay on the book, I couldn’t do interviews or anything to promote it, and IDW PR even shut down a podcast interview I lined up.”
That story doesn’t really match up to Ryall’s explanation. Ryall claims it was outside companies involved which most likely means it was Hasbro who controls the licensing for G.I. JOE and not IDW.
However, Sitterson wouldn’t stop there. He would blame the cancellation of the Scarlett’s Strike Force on “Alt-right extremists [that] didn’t want a leftist writing G.I. JOE, so they demanded I be removed. IDW then canceled the book.”
Once again this doesn’t really fit with Ryall’s explanation, “the fact is it didn’t sell right from the start and so it had to go away.” In fact Ryall would go on to say pretty much the complete opposite of what Sitterson claimed, “We supported him, kept his job, gave him a new book and it killed me that it didn’t work.”
And the numbers don’t lie, Sitterson’s Scarlett Strike Force #1 only shipped 3,852 units. Issue two would only ship 2,726 units.
With Ryall’s new account and the shipping numbers from issue one and two it appears Aubrey Sitterson was spinning his own tale that simply doesn’t add up to the facts.
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