CrossGen in court: Broken Frontier reports that former CrossGen-exclusive penciler and inker Andy Smith has sued the publisher in Small Claims Court for money owed to him:

"Trust me, I’ve said this and I mean it from the bottom of my heart: I don’t want to see CGE go down, I don’t want to see the doors close. I just want to see Mark Alessi out of there because I believe he’s the one that ran the place into the ground. He loves to spew that CGE is in the shape it’s in because of other people, but, in my view, it’s not because of other people. He didn’t listen to anybody. The most he knew about comics when he opened the doors was what he knew as a fanboy that read comics. That’s it. That’s what he knew. If it was me, I’d have hired people that knew the business, which he did, but then I’d listen to them, but he didn’t listen to them. So the company is in the position that it’s in now, money-wise, because of him and nobody else.

"All people who remained after the layoffs had their salaries cut. I was switched from penciling back to inking, even though I'd been promised a new book to pencil, and had $27,000 cut from my yearly salary. We were all told that absolutely everybody in the building took a pay cut. I think Mark referred to it as 'sharing the pain' in one meeting. But I've since learned for a fact that wasn’t true. At least one creator didn't take any pay cut, and some administrative people actually received raises."