Sun Spikes Smith Story

By John Freeman on August 5, 2009

Good news! Since downthetubes drew attention to British newspaper The Sun‘s out of date story about 2000AD artist Ron Smith’s trial, they have removed it from their web site.

Ron’s fans over on the official 2000AD web site followed up on our report, and their campaign should be given full credit for the article’s removal.

Responding to one complaint, Jane Hamilton at The Sun was clearly apologetic. “Having done some research this verdict was way back at the start of June and then only reported by a small number of local websites,” she explained. “I will need to find out why this is as no reputable new agency or freelancer has filed it to us. I will ask a reporter to check with the court.”

Now they’ve done this, the story has been removed from The Sun‘s site.

While it’s a shame they haven’t run a new story to point out he was totally absolved of some horrendous accusations, this is at least, a ghafflebette victory, as Tharg might say!

• See our initial story here)

(Thanks to Paul Rainey for the update)

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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.