After the post on Monitor Duty yesterday about CrossGen’s C.F.O. leaving, I asked head writer (and good buddy) Chuck Dixon about it on his message board and it was moved to a new thread. Chuck has responded. It’s essentially a “no comment” but with an explanation as to why he’s not commenting.

I’m going to limit my remarks on this as I do not wish to throw high octane on the bonfire that’s already blazing.

The knives are sharpened for CrossGen. Each time we have a shift in personnel it causes an uproar. When we lost Steve McNiven our doom was proclaimed all over the ‘net. There was wild speculation as to why this happened and “what it all meant.”

Every move we make is analyzed, criticized and condemned. DC recently did a random (even capricious) musical chairs on its core DCU books that left many freelancers without work. Not one ripple did I find on the ‘net. No shouts of “unfair!” or “armageddon!” for DC.

It’s hard enough making headway in this screwy industry without these whisper campaigns dogging us at each step.

Certainly there is some truth to this, which is why we have our running gag “Is CrossGen In Trouble?” in response to any and all negative news about CGE. The company appears far more solvent than some others we could mention, yet it does seem as though every book shakeup, departing writer or staff change amounts to The Herald of Doom.

Why are the knives out for CrossGen? A good question. Let’s discuss it in the NEVER MIND – THIS LINK IS DEAD –Fuzzball Forum.

Chuck’s comments today are about what I expected because I’m familiar with his history of working with many small publishers who tried to be the #3 company (back in the days before the reign of Image and Dark Horse). CrossGen’s most recent hullabaloo was the financial shortage which left some freelancers unpaid for a month. Chuck once worked for a company which went out of business owing him enough money to buy a car, so he is sensitive to payment issues and wouldn’t be backing CGE if there wasn’t the assurance that the money will be there.

I remember the days when Chuck was a skeptic about CrossGen. At one of our Wizard World dinners, Chuck scoffed at the whole idea of moving to Florida. He was coming off an exclusive contract with DC, making big money from DC and Marvel, and wondering what his buddies heading to Tampa were thinking. Six months later, he was sold on the CrossGen marketing plan and relocating.

So you can take all of this as a sign of Chuck’s confidence in Alessi’s long-term plans, or you can dismiss it as the protests of a Kool-Aid drinker. Meanwhile, we’ll be following the news on this shake-up and see whether it amounts to anything or not.