Tom Brevoort considers perspective:
I can see why so many creators flame out from time to time when they’re interacting online. How can you help it? For every hundred or thousand people who are cordial and well-behaved, there’s one ignoramus that delights in getting under people’s skin, or behaving badly in public without fear of reprisal, or who simply lacks the emotional maturity to separate the fictional world of costumed heroes and villains from the real world of hard-working writers and artists trying their best to create interesting stories. And it can taint the pool for everyone.
Let’s be clear about this: Not liking a comic book story isn’t a license to wish ill upon an actual human being. Killing off a fictional character doesn’t warrant wishing for a public flogging of the creators involved. The arrival of a creator on a given title is not a sign that you should wish for them to contract a venereal disease.
Okay, so now I feel slightly guilty for those “Jim Shooter, you should get the venereal disease of your choice” t-shirts I was printing up for San Diego.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:13 am
*snort*
This sounds almost like an overreaction to a bunch of overreactions.
A big part of the problem is that the internet is such a casual place to say whatever the hell you want–so people have no set decorum and there is no formality to it.
Blatant hyperbole and guys doing that “shit talking” thing that we all do (and I’m sure some girls do some shit talking too) mixed with the anonymity of the internet…
…it’s a pretty hefty shit storm and, of course, some somebody somewhere is going to take offense because how dare some snot-nosed nobody wish gona-sypha-herpa-litis on them for killing Monkey Boy, Bringer of the Banana Apocalypse.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:52 am
How quaint. He pretends to take the hyperbole seriously, or alternatively, strives to construct some moral high ground from his attention to a select few debating tactics (incidentally wholly unrelated to their actual negative impact).
Anyway, I suppose it’s ok to wish a migraine or an ulcer on him for being a snot-nosed condescending cunt. If he were to develop same in response to the preceding uncivility I can live with that just fine. If OTOH he were to call his mom …
June 25th, 2007 at 10:51 am
I love how Brevoort frames it in a way that makes it seem these creators have no choice but to lash out at these dark forces that are “wishing ill upon an actual human being” (cue torch and pitchfork-brandishing crowd).
I think for every over-the-line threat from a demented fan, you can also find some pretty off-the-wall stuff from pros as well (such as one pro’s occasional threats of physical violence). Some of these people are ridiculously thin skinned, and a few of them don’t deal with it in a very healthy way.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
So, the best way to respond to immature assholes online is to be an immature asshole online?
That’s kind of like the current administration’s policy of “The terrorists want to take away your freedoms, so to fight them, we actually will take away your freedoms.”
I’m not necessarily defending every immature asshole comment that gets made online (not even my own), but I seem to remember a time as far back as, oh, a few years ago, when being a writer somehow didn’t require you to spend 18 hours a day online, either arguing with or getting fawned over by your own fanbase.
Getting upset over the worst insults the Internet has to offer is like reading the equally juveline writings on a bathroom wall and saying to yourself, “‘Screw you’ … screw ME? How DARE they?”
I mean, quite seriously, if you ego’s that fragile, how the hell did you even get through high school?
June 25th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
This all sounds like the “hey, they started it” argument that ceases to be suitable after kindergarten.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
I still hope Bendis and Millar get syphilis. Preferably from each other.
July 1st, 2007 at 9:35 pm
Does anybody really care what Brevoort has to say anymore?