Comicsgate
 

Yeah, I know I know, this thread is "stirring the pot", only no, it's not. I'm shocked at what I'm reading on Twitter.
Guess I've been out of the loop.

I've been reading tweets from both sides, and I'm stunned by the ferocity and hatred. Creators and "fans" are at each others throats, with black lists and secret groups and mantras like #movetheneedle.

What happened? How did this happen? WHY is this happening?
Trying to get a better handle on where all the hate stems from, maybe people can talk out their positions here, without getting into blowouts.

The comics community is in trouble. BIG trouble.

Like all things ending in the suffix -gate, it's just unbridled entitlement.

Is it? I don't understand the hate. i just don't. Where does all of this come from? Why are guys like Vegital-san and Sumac so angry? They seem to be part of a growing wave of hatred for women, and the LGBTQ community.

Guy's? Real talk. Why so much anger? I really don't think you need a dick to play ghostbuster, do you?
It don't make sense.

Peopel write crappy SJW comics. Customers get mad. Creators tell customers they're pixels that don't matter. Customers revolt.

Customers are always right in the end.

But see, that doesn't explain anything to me. "People write crappy SJW comics". What does that even mean? Why is it crappy?

I really don't get it. Can you give an example of why you think a comic is crappy?

All I care about is having decent comics to read every month, and the only Marvel series I followed last year was unceremoniously cancelled in the wake of all this. The LCS in my neighborhood also closed due to the sales slump.

Why do people feel such a

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/79/ff/0b/7...im-do-want.jpg

to politicize every aspect of the comics industry today?

Superman beat up corrupt people, punched Hitler and kicked KKK's ass. Captain America punched Hitler, abandoned his America moniker and became Nomad when he was disillusioned with the US government. Kirby was ready to fistfight bigots who took offense when he drew Cap kicking Nazi ass. Black Panther writer was nagged by editorial to include more people which resulted into the Black Panther vs. the Klan arc. Most of Gerber's work.

Superhero comics have always been about politics and especially about social justice. And that bother bigots who now have a more vocal medium to whine on compared to a pre-twitter age where hatemail would either be trashed or get a snark Stan Lee reply in the letter column.

Then there's the entire run of the X-Men and their various spin-off titles.

EDIT: LOL The answers above mine were way better.


What was the book that was cancelled?

Or the Batman comics, which tell us that the rich are better than us at everything and we should just punch mentally ill people well.

I understand the arguments about the political basis behind some of those classic arcs and such, but those were competently told stories by creators who valued their craft as a means of direct cultural discourse. They believed in the intellect of their audience and the possibility of persuading them towards a more tolerant attitude, rather than talking down to them about what terrible racists/sexists/homophobes they are.

Also, there's a big difference between a snarky letters page reply and the pure autism that manifests on people's Twitter feeds--for both creators and the fans.

People have opinions. Nothing new.

Sometimes, I'm thankful just being a dude who buys some comics and nothing more.

EDIT:
Well... I passed on the most recent Ghostbusters mini-series inspired by the new movie in part because some of the creative team was linked to this debacle. And also due to the fact that I just don't care for the new movie characters.

Agreed.
Which is why I used the term entitled. It covers both the fans who believe they're owed a certain kind of story, as well as the authors/creators who believe we should be thankful to be gifted a particular kind of story.

That said some of the things I've seen levied at creators reads more like they were penned by her:
https://media.giphy.com/media/rpRmBGR3xaAZa/giphy.gif

I assume we're talking about Marvel? They're generally not crappy, people just paint them that way because they don't like what's going on for other reasons I won't mention. The problem, I think, is Marvel deciding it would be a totally rad idea to replace f***in' everybody at near the same time.

To run it down, at the moment, the list of the replaced are, off the top of my head, so it's not complete: Iron Man, Thor, Ghost Rider (though, to be fair, Ghost Rider changes hosts like we change underwear), Hulk, Wolverine and until recently Captain America. Marvel's always had the catchphrase of being the "House of Ideas" but in the past two years it's felt like they're the house of "one idea". The replacement storyline. I like that in spurts - it's aged and long as hell, but I still get a kick out of Knightfall and Superior Spider-Man is probably in my top five favorite Spider-Man runs/series - but not all at once. They don't have the excuse of "legacy" and "passing down" DC used to use.

Though I've always liked Amadeus Cho and enjoy his antics as Hulk, from what I've read, more than a lot of Banners, so that was always fine with me.

There's also a dearth of big name writers there, these days. A lot of the big names they had propping themselves up for years and directing the universe - Fraction, Hickman, Brubaker, etc. - packed bags and left for creator owned. Hell, Bendis just left. They've got Jason Aaron and their stalwart mid range names like Pak and Waid and that's about it right now. So interest's kinda waned.

Yeah, that's never getting any better. Barriers of interaction are gone, so anyone upset about a story can just go yell at the person responsible on social media. You get enough of them and then, surprise, the creators get sick of fans. Happens in plenty of other forms of media too, from music to books to TV. It's a downside to social media, but that genie's not going back into the bottle.

Not to say some creators can't just be @$$holes, though, but you either take it and enjoy their work or leave it.

Supermans very first issue was literally him roughing up corrupt senators trying to start a war in South Africa to force a confession, coming to the aid of a woman getting abused by her husband, rescuing Lois Lane from a gangster she rebuffed who didn't take it well, and so on.

Captain America and Hitler punchin' was a couple of Jewish mens reaction to a war America wasn't even in yet and seemed like it wanted to stay out of.

I'd agree with you and go so far as to say it's in the very DNA of comics.

The most sense I've been able to figure is that "fun things" for the most part are "supposed" be a "boys only" club... :roll: If it's fun and/or cool, it inherently belongs to males (or so some people would like to believe); of which girls will ruin by being any part of it. (At least not in a way that isn't pre-approved and titillating.) :trolleye:

That said though, I'd rather new inclusions (awesome ones) vs gender swaps. (i.e. Next generation of Ghostbusters vs reboot.)

The thing is, I've never seen any of that Twitter/4Chan level of toxicity in any of the actual comic shops I've visited in either of the two cities I've lived in over the past six years. I've even met owners and clerks with neon dyed hair and hipster glasses who looked like your stereotypical "Tumblr in Action" types, and they were always civil to me.

If someone picks up an issue of their favorite comic and they find they don't like the script, the art, or the creative direction, guess what? They can drop it from their pull list until it improves or they find something better. Caterwauling and harassing someone on Twitter doesn't stop terrible stories from getting published. Refusing to purchase or read those stories does that.

Those "Diversity & Comics" or "Capn Cummings" types of people who have made a career out of b*tching about "muh SJW Marvel" on Twitter and YouTube are still buying all these books they hate in order to show how bad they are in front of a webcam. There's a certain irony there...

Where's the passion? Where's the joy? These characters may serve an allegorical purpose from time to time, but at their core superhero stories are supposed to represent escapism and fun. Reading "God Loves, Man Kills" isn't supposed to be the same experience as reading "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

Maybe the echo chambers of the Internet have imbued both creators and fans with a false sense of self-importance. While both sides of this so called debate whinge about free speech and tolerance, it's hurting and shrinking the industry as a whole.

DC seems to be trying that right now - and it's the form I prefer for a multitude of reasons - but I also understand why the other way is employed, because historically it can be really tough to get people attached to new characters no matter how well they're written.

The industry has been shrinking for a long time now, it's not really a new phenomenon based around recent attitudes. Mark Waid will even tell you he was ringing the alarm bells about that in the late 90's. They've yet to really figure out a solution to the problem. Digital will likely help a lot in the future, but growth has been too slow for it to take over as the primary platform any time soon or as a way to grow the business. That one's going to take time.

Exactly.
There were tricks the industry used in the past that aren't working the same way they did before, because the market has changed. The fanbase has changed.

All of those things are good things, but the growing pains are very real and very noticeable.

Sorry, barking at the wrong tree, little flea.
I don't hate women and LGBT, only small subsets of the latter who are attacking women and generally act like religious zealots.

As for comic books - receipt for success and to calm down fragile "progressives": create new characters, instead of replacing old one for "token minority of the year" and find good writers to write compelling POC / LGBT characters, not ham-fisted parodies with horrible dialogue and the like.