A tale of two spectacles: In this week's "Permanent Damage," Steven Grant addresses the Micah Wright controversy, and offers an interesting look at CrossGen's downward spiral:

"Where Alessi really went south from the beginning was his insistence on being the company's creative force.

"Not that Crossgen produced bad books. They just weren't good enough to stand out. Alessi's core concept – the Sigil that gave people on various worlds in the 'Crossgen Universe' superpowers – was intended to be a unifying element to disparate books, but the underlying question, apparently never asked, was whether disparate books needed a unifying element (not to mention one that pegged them as superhero comics when the company was marketing itself as not producing superhero comics). Creating 'fantasy' comics wasn't necessarily a bad idea in itself, but failing to successfully market them to the audience that buys fantasy material was a major error. (Which may explain the superhero element; Crossgen targeted the direct market, which almost never does serious marketing for anything but superhero comics.)"