Absolutes are a fun way to obfuscate a point.

Moving on to the theoretical, I still think that if an artist’s beliefs are anathema to you, it’s difficult to objectively enjoy their work. Possible, but difficult. I’ve decided to call this the Byrne Conundrum.

Interestingly, it doesn’t work the opposite way. That is, just because someone’s views jibe with mine, that doesn’t mean I’m automatically going to love their work.

Yes, a lot of people are racists, going on about it on twitter is going to do what? You’re going to talk sense into them? No.

It’s like men who go on about being feminists, because most men are just pigs and oh my god am I the only man here that understands how much shit they have to deal with? No. No you are not the only one.

Yes, Marz. Racists are idiots and they won’t like white people being changed into black people. But you know what going on about it a lot does? Gives them attention. And that’s what the want. Marz LOVES feeding the trolls so he can have a go at them.

Not to mention his patronising stance of comic downloaders, comic book companies that don’t do books he thinks they should do, people who think this, people who do that.

He comes across as ridiculously smug, and I’d take five minutes of right-wing nutty Lobdell than one minute of condescending Marz, thanks.

Also, say what you will about the so-called Tea Party of old, racist wannabe-libertarians—seriously, say anything! Insult their spelling, lament their unfortunate influence on the Republican party, make fun of their personal appearance, it’s cool—but I’m actually kind of SCARED of the prospect of the writer in charge of shaping DC’s teen heroes for a presumably new audience and younger readers is defending the Tea Party.

Not that one can’t be sympathetic with the Tea Party’s lunacy AND be a good enough writer to fake authenticity at the same time, but, the Venn diagram of “has positive thoughts of any kind about the Tea Party” and “appeals to teenagers” has to have a microscopic overlap.

I don’t want to know that Bill Willingham and Ethan Van Sciver and Scott Lobdell are right-wingers. In the case of Willingham I’ve been able to overlook it because his Fables work is so damn fantastic. Van Sciver is very tough sell for me now given all of the asinine things he’s done and said. I was never a big Lobdell fan, but this makes it even less likely I’d try one of his new DC books.

Anyway, Marz is right. Anyone who is against the idea of a black Perry White or black/Latino Spider-Man is clearly racist, especially since the film and comic that features these characters have not been released and thus there’s no other criteria by which to judge. As for Marz’ Tea Party comment: To equate them with racists might be an overgeneraliziation. To equate them with other people who operate with a severely limited world view, well, that’s probably fair.

Just mostly racist (which is obviously so much better than being totally racist).

That is why I will no longer buy any of his work. Even if Scott is a tea party sympathizer, he has been respectful to every one who comments on his facebook and twitter. I’ve never seen him insult anyone or make broad generalizations of people. Nor does he openly discuss his political beliefs and say those on the other end are morons, etc like Ron Marz does.

Time to update the DCNu sub list:

Teen Titians – Gone
Superboy – Gone
Red Hood and the Outsiders – Gone

Thanks, Scott. I’d buy a Tony Daniel book before lending a cent of my cash to a Tea Party loon.

I was going to post the same tweets Robert did. It seems like that may have been the final straw. If you go back 5 days through Scott’s timeline there are a few political comments Ron made that Scott wasn’t happy with.

These might have something to do with it. Maybe Lobdell didn’t appreciate the insinuation followed up by even more comments on the situation? Lobdell certainly doesn’t come across like a douche, and he was one of many who was on @larryscomics case about his racist joke.