Joe Quesada, giant hypocrite, plays dumb when confronted on other comic industry hypocrites

43 comments

1. Well said and well researched too. Ah, the one way street of “tolerance” and the constant hypocrisy to be found there.

   This gave me a chuckle, “It has never ceased to amaze me how some people, in defense of their favorite fictional characters or stories, treat creators…..” Apparently he has never read Stephen King’s “Misery”? In the movie Kathy Bates showed us all how to handle creators who mess with our characters. 😉

   In the bigger picture, this is a somewhat new thing, authors, creators interacting with their fans. It happens all the time these days because of social media. So many authors do not seem to understand the power dynamic, that they do not own the consumers. Some of them act like alien lizard over lords, as if they are above criticism and you are literally their followers, their minions. Today, an author will actually stalk a fan on social media or go after a critic. There’s just something all wrong about that.

   We now have the added element of identity politics, so an author will use their popularity as a platform for their politics, but act as if any disagreement over politics is a personal insult against their entire craft. This is the behavior of prima donnas and narcissists and I don’t care for it much.

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   1. Yep. This has come up before where the creators used to control the conversation. They had the “Letters to the Editor” page, and they could run it like North Korean state television and there was nothing you, the fan, could do about it. Suddenly the Internet explodes and changes everything. Marvel says “everyone loves what we’re doing!” and then you Google the storyline and find out that it’s the exact opposite of the fawning reviews you get in the “Letters to the Editor” section. D’oh! Then it becomes a question of how do the creators respond to this shift in power. Answer: Not well.

      These guys love when Entertainment Weekly interviews them (something unheard of years ago) because on page 10 you read an interview with Brad Pitt and then you flip to page 11 and they’re talking with [insert comic creator here]. That sort of thing inflates the ego. The powder-puff interviews with EW and Comics Alliance and i09 and others makes it all the more painful when a blogger hits the mark and brings them back down to earth.

      I can turn the other cheek on a lot of things, but sometimes you need to stand up for yourself and fight back. When these creators get political, they say incredibly mean things about Christians, conservatives, and anyone with an independent streak running through their bones. Dan Slott wants to tell me to go to “Christ-Land,” yet if I told him to go to “Jew-ville,” then he’d throw a fit.

      In Joe Quesada’s world, I’m the bad guy for blogging on Dan Slott’s hypocrisy. Sorry. I don’t think so, Joe.

2. I agree with you 150% but nothing’s going to get done unless you direct your attacks in places they will see it, call them out AT conventions, give them all kinds of hell at their own booths and make them feel miserable about their own bullshit, otherwise they will continue to hide behind their computer screens like any keyboard warrior would, young or old. Sometimes the only way to get the job done and give the people a thing I like to call “foot-in-ass syndrome,” where they need a swift kick in the ass, preferably at their own game, which in this case is a relentless vicious verbal assault recorded on camera to be then posted all over the internet until they crack.

   We can call them out all we like, but it won’t do any good over here in our corner of their bile. I tend to see myself politically speaking as slightly left of centre, but I wouldn’t lie and claim the pushing diversity and tolerance angle hasn’t crossed the line into a mutation of the same bigotry they try to fight against, because it has.

   It’s good for us to keep them honest, but the only way to keep them honest is to keep this, and other articles, spammed on their feeds, and in their faces. Payback is a bitch.

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   1. I do think it would be quite hilarious to one day approach some of these guys at a convention and say, “How about a hug, buddy?” while my wife films it. I wonder how Dan Slott would react? 🙂

      On a serious note, I love blogging because I can see what people are Googling to get here. I can see when certain posts bring in quality traffic. That Batgirl post from yesterday has generated over 200 views in less than 48 hours just from Facebook traffic. I really wish I could see who the heck shared it, but I guess Facebook didn’t want to play ball with WordPress on that level of cooperation.

      There are so many people out there who have never heard an alternative point of view that when they run across blogs like this they’re often like, “Hmmm, he does have a point.” I’ve seen other forums where people shared my posts and essentially said, “Yeah, I’m not conservative…but he totally nailed it on that ASM review.”

      My favorite was when Dan Slott’s buddy over at Newsarama wrote “The Inferior Online Debate,” which attacked me. I started defending myself, and suddenly the hit piece backfired. I was winning over the people who were supposed to side with Newsarama. Then, when I was banned for no reason, people got annoyed and started to defend me. Newsarama’s response: shut down the comments section. Eventually they hit the kill switch on the whole piece and now you’ll get an error page if you try to find it. Dan Slott’s defenders go full-1984 when you make him look bad, I guess.

      I don’t really see my blog posts as payback, per se. I really just see many of them as a mirror that shows comic industry creators their incredible hypocrisy. The more they squeal, the more obvious it is that I’m on target.

      It’s funny you should mention how the SJWs use the very same bigotry they claim to abhor. They are often quick to make fun of religion, and yet they go nuts over female costumes that show cleavage. They want costumes to be reinvented so that women are all covered up. I’d love to debate any feminist on this blog for an hour, and it will soon be apparent that I, the conservative Catholic guy, am much more open-minded and tolerant than the so-called “tolerant” feminist. Tumblr is filled with socialists and junior Marxists who would fit in perfectly in the old U.S.S.R.

   2. fair enough, maybe I’m just a little more aggressive in my intolerance towards stupidity. But you are quite right: See I don’t always see your political views as something I would share, but that doesn’t make you a bad person, just one with an alternative point-of-view.

      I suppose these days when SJWs think of “conservative” these people, who grew up as ravers, nerds, misunderstood, gay, weaboo (anime fans who claim to be more Asian than actual Asian people even though they never go outside and thus are whiter than ghosts against a black wall,) and so on and so forth, they see “conservative” as the parent who never supported them, laughed or otherwise ignored their views, and only found solace in their peers. A problem with many facets.

      Now I myself didn’t have a great parenting model, or very good parents either for that matter, so I can totally see where that mentality comes from; but at the same time, there has to come a time when you’re out on your own, out of college, first or second apartment when you have to stop and go “okay, who am I in the world?” and if you’re really going to succeed, you need to define yourself by YOUR OWN ideals, not just because they are the antithesis of what you felt psychologically harmed you as a child, and not because your peers, many of whom aren’t even the same people you associated with in high school, think it’s cool, otherwise you become part of the problem, and not part of the solution (“A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky animals.” – Men in Black.) When “a more liberal” person can say that, then something is wrong.

      Now while some of these people are smart enough and savvy enough and stick true to their convictions and stay (relatively) informed on their subject matter, most don’t and would rather just go with the flow because “OH LOOK! KITTENS!” yes, rape-culture is real, but so is racism towards whites. Yes, police violence and excessive force is documented, but then again when the murders involve Arab college students, I don’t see SJWs rallying to their aid. Yes, Fox News is loaded with extreme levels of idiocracy, but then again one need only go to Tumblr and then the people who shit on Fox News suddenly don’t look so righteous. Yes, it is okay to express your opinion through art or press, but when you make your entire piece about the insulting of an entire culture and say and clearly state all kinds of horrendous things to said group (Charlie Hebdo), you should not be getting a hero’s rallying cry by politicians from around the world just because your dumbass paper got shot up by the same people you were insulting (“Don’t poke the bear!”)

      But why does any of this happen? Because nobody DOES anything about it. Over time I’ve begun to pride myself on the fact I don’t back down from something if I think that something is wrong. A trait I put into my own comic book hero in fact. If it is wrong, I will call them out, and make them feel like a pitiful excuse for a human being in the same way they feel justified in picking fights they are not qualified or educated or even morally justified in picking fights with, one of which, the blatant hypocrisy that many an SJW or Cosplay Bitch (oh and there are many of those too. Seriously ladies, this isn’t high school anymore and you are not in the movie Mean Girls, so please, stop, you’re embarrassing yourselves and me as a cosplayer who cosplays to PLAY, look great doing it, and have fun.) If more people actually did start calling them out like they do when they scream their little heads off, they would be less-inclined to post as well.

      But that’s my piece.

   3. There’s really not a whole lot I can disagree with there, so I guess I’ll just respond to this:

      I don’t always see your political views as something I would share, but that doesn’t make you a bad person, just one with an alternative point-of-view.

      Right there that tells me we are ideologically closer than you may think. 🙂 It’s been my experience that conservatives tend to look at liberals and just think they’re naive (e.g., “Iran has always lied about its nuclear program — what makes you think a president with a ‘D’ next to his name will change that, my good neighbor?”), whereas liberals tend to think that guys like me are actually bad people.

      I’ve found that the vast majority of conservatives just want to be left alone. The liberal, however, wants to control things. Sadly, both political parties in the United States have sort of merged into one big useless blob, so it’s harder for me to convince others that my observations are correct. Most ‘Ds’ and ‘Rs’ currently in Washington are unprincipled hacks seeking control, but each party for its own purposes.

      Long story short: In 30 years I will finally be able to retire to a far off corner Montana, where I will chop wood for the fireplace, read, write, exercise, eat, sleep, and repeat. I can’t wait!

3. Lol! Ironically up here in Canada, it’s the opposite, sort of; Stephen Harper, a conservative PM, pushes more and more surveillance that actually can be interpreted as not only un-constitutional, but infringes on basic human rights in order to “combat” terrorism in our country (because 2 soldiers killed by a drugged up homeless madman who ‘claimed’ with no substantial evidence of ties to ISIS and was shot to death by your own personal security TOTALLY justifies turning your spy agency into your private Ghestapo, when in actuality you really want to arrest those protesters who are protesting your pipeline, and all that.) and will happily sweep under cabinet and senate scandals under the rug if it involves his party “because it’s no big deal, these are good people,” (who stole 100K of government money to buy a personal item? You DO realize that is what got the mayor of Brampton ousted right?) but will happily make a big deal that Justin Trudeau, who isn’t even the leader of the political party that Harper needs to worry about, use to smoke weed in his youth. Wow. What the fuck. In Canada, the conservative government actually wants to control and pay themselves off and attack anybody who says otherwise.

   Now the Canadian liberal government? Not much better either. At the provincial level, Ontario is run by a liberal caucus who has put the province MILLIONS of dollars in debt over stupid things like cancelling a gas plant and trying to pay for their budget by taking from sick and disabled people so they can raise their welfare rate instead of finding a solution that doesn’t harm the people who actually NEED help because they physically no longer cannot work a full time job due to a severe debilitating ailment, or are mentally inept (ie. Autism) and thus do not have the mental capacities to even function in society! IDIOTS! Oh and then Trudeau, despite his misgivings, actually goes along with this dumb Secret Police bill (C-51) and in turn has lost voters left in right (and this is election season!) with the REAL opposition, the NDP (who serve more of a neutral party to the heavyweight Liberals and Conservatives, but won enough seats in the last election to become the official opposition over the Liberals) basically being the only one going “you’re both a couple of idiots! You Harper want to make 1984 a reality! It’s a book! OF FICTION! Also you basically gave our country’s laws to China, so you HAVE no right to speak. At all. Ever. and YOU Trudeau, you want to not only agree with this, but not turn to your constituents who are spending bucket loads of the annual funding they get every year and LYING about how they spend it? IDIOT!”

   You know for a country that is supposed to be in less debt than America, supposed to have a reputation of being “the nice guys” and “supports gay marriage” and blah blah blah, our political leaders seem to be a little ass backwards compared to Americans. Rich people want to stay rich and be left alone, and poor people want to shoot them all down and say “MINE BITCH!” and then proceed to basically do what conservatives are already doing, just with a bit more pretentiousness.

   *exhale*

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   1. It sounds like Canada and America have a lot of the same problems. 🙂

      I can’t speak for Canada, but in America is seems like the culture has been warped so that the quality of the candidates running for office tends to be of the power-mad clown variety. It used to be that someone would work for years in the private sector and then give back through a few years of public service. Somewhere along the line the career politician came into play, so you have people who are senators for 35-40 years. That sort of thing. That is not healthy. Anyone who wants to spend decades upon decades in Washington needs to be watched like a hawk, in my opinion.

4. I used to think the disdain with which folks like us were met by creators was due to them having to deal with real a-holes constantly. Y’know, like yammering fanboys going apoplectic over some superpower or something. But then again, even though we disagreed on many things, you’d think these creators would then be GLAD to have someone engage them thoughtfully and intelligently.

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   1. Sorry, Hube. Sadly, they’d rather have people argue with them over random superpowers. 🙂

      It’s easy to cast off some guy complaining about superpowers. It’s not easy to dismiss a guy like you, who can point out political bias, historical inaccuracies, a creator’s hypocrisy, etc.

      I think when they’re alone with their thoughts at night these creators know when you’ve hit the target and, to some extent, you probably move the needle. Even if it’s only a few degrees, you’re still pushing them toward something that resembles professionalism. They know that people read our blogs and that the internet lasts a long time. Can you imagine what they’d be like if they thought no one would be out there holding them accountable? Yikes.

      There’s a reason why Dan Slott can’t stop reading my blog posts about him or the comments section. There’s a reason why Ron Marz does the same with Colossus of Rhodey. They dress up their tweets like they’re making fun of critics, but in reality they read because we’re doing the work so-called industry “journalists” won’t. Deep down, we all seek the truth…

5. Well this wasn’t the only stupid thing Joey Q said..I’m not normally one to spit coffee or cola out at the computer, but if I were drinking at the time I read he thought that no other writer besides Stan Lee could top what’s being done with Spider-Man comics NOW…I’d have one sticky screen. The man is completely out-of-touch with reality and unable to see merits past his own fraternity.

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   1. When Quesada was writing Iron Man in the early 2000s, he included a bit of narrative about the “US conducting extensive atomic bomb testing during WWII.” Yeah, one actual test, followed by two actual uses of the device. I actually got a letter printed in a follow-up issue (amazingly!) correcting him.

      He also once said the “a majority of the US military is black.”

      What a genius.

   2. Poor Joe. If the majority of the U.S. military is black, then my infantry battalion in the 90s must have been one crazy outlier. Heh.

      In all seriousness though, black people rarely join the infantry. You even have top military brass fretting about it. Why? I don’t know…because it’s an all volunteer force. If they don’t want to go in the best MOS (yes, I’m biased), then that’s their problem.

      USA Today reported Sept. 11, 2014:

      Irving Smith remembers his parents being “heartbroken” that he chose infantry.

      “African Americans have historically used the armed forces as a means of social mobility,” says Smith, who joined the infantry, has risen to the rank of colonel and now is professor and director of sociology at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “That is certainly true for African Americans who have used the armed forces as a bridging opportunity (to new careers).”

      Parents, pastors and coaches of young black men and women considering the Army often don’t encourage them to join the combat specialties.

      “Why would you go in the infantry?” Smith says of a common question. “Why would you want to run around in the woods and jump out of airplanes, things that have no connection to private businesses? Do transportation. Do logistics. That will provide you with transferable skills.”

      I think it’s a shame that more black communities can’t see all the “transferable skills” a man can learn in the infantry. Regardless, Joe Quesada needs to stop listening to guys like Michael Moore, do a little research (I know it’s hard to use Google, Joe), and get accurate data.

   3. Hey actually said that? Haha! How many times would a man have to tell himself that lie before he actually believed it? 500? 1,000? 10,000? I’d like to see what happens at these annual Marvel retreats. Do all these guys give each other weird back massages while whispering, “You’re so smart, Joe. No, really, you’re a genius. It’s so stressful having to deal with fans who don’t appreciate your Stan Lee-esque brilliance. Relax.”

6. Dan Slott is stalking me!

   http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Zarius/media/slott%20is%20stalking%20me.jpg.html

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   1. Dan “Rockwell” Slott strikes again! They should just rename the old hit song “Dan Slott is Watching Me”… 😉 That’s creepy.

      Why can’t he just respond to the argument at hand? Oh wait, then he wouldn’t be able to resort to ad hominem attacks, appeals to emotion, red herrings, etc.

7. Update: Well…that escalated quickly. Slott went full Shatner, told me to get a life, said screencapping conversations where he makes himself look like an overeactive fool wasn’t “normal”, and accused me of housing decapitated Barbies.

   Yes. You heard right. Decapitated. Barbies.

   I’ll let that sink in.

   The thread has since been purged. I’m probably a goner, but eh, like that’s ever stopped me.

   Might want to make this an article on to itself

   http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Zarius/media/slott%20is%20stalking%20me%20too.png.html
   http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Zarius/media/dan%20slott%20get%20a%20life.png.html
   http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Zarius/media/normal.png.html?filters%5Buser%5D=505873&filters%5Brecent%5D=1&sort=1&o=0
   http://smg.photobucket.com/user/Zarius/media/PUNK.png.html?filters%5Buser%5D=505873&filters%5Brecent%5D=1&sort=1&o=0

   (click on the magnifying glass option to enhance viewing)

   GUEST STARRING CM PUNK….BETTER MAIN EVENT THAN LESNAR VS REIGNS

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   1. That’s the Dan Slott MO right there. He doesn’t like when someone tactfully takes him on, so he makes it personal and acts like a baby until the thread is killed or the moderators ban you because they don’t want to upset Dan “go to ‘Christ-Land'” Slott.

      The guy who stalked a random woman on Twitter — the guy who is obviously obsessed with your commentary — has the nerve to crack jokes about you cutting off Barbie heads in the basement? He has the nerve to tell you to “get a life”? Classic.

      Here’s an idea: You’re a comic book fan who handles himself with quite a bit of class, and maybe it bothers you that you can’t talk about comics on CBR because every time Dan “piece of the pie” Slott’s sensibilities are shaken he needs to get his moderator coddle drones to ban you. Just a thought.

      You’re allegedly the weird one, and yet Dan Slott was the guy who had to apologize to countless Twitter followers because he accidentally auto-blocked a ton of them who talk about Gamer Gate online. He’s so incredibly fragile that he has to resort to using auto-blockers. Shall I go on, Dan Slott? I know you’re reading this. Heck, I may have to write another blog post about this since the moderators at Comic Book Resources will go to great lengths to shield you from criticism.

      Unreal. Thanks for sharing, zariusii.

8. You’re welcome Doug. I read on the Crawl Space that CBR admin Mister Mets is trying to play it down as “Slott goes up against muli-time ban evader that noone should take seriously, and anyone who befriends said troll is obviously not going to be on his side”…well would ANYONE be on the side of someone who posts accusations that I’m some Twilight Zone reject? I have multiple accounts on CBR because I’m a little OCD, like to speak my mind, and go back just to have that voice be heard regardless of the standing I have with the admins. It’s sad they purged their forums back in 2014 to avoid this madness and it’s the professionals that continue to bring up painful memories of the climate of that forum from 2007 to 2013

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   1. The whole thing is ridiculous because moderators like “Mister Mets” have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to banning anyone who can tactfully but forcefully expose Dan Slott’s never-ending supply of logical fallacies. So they ban you for some ridiculous reason because they don’t want you rocking the boat, all so Dan Slott can have his little CBR “safe zone.” It’s a big joke.

      You should avoid their ban because, like Comics Alliance, only certain voices are allowed in the room. If you go into a lot of these comic forums you better have a left-of-center ideology and be ready to tell Dan Slott what a superawesomegenius he is. If you don’t, then you’re always one wrong word away from being banned.

      Thanks for getting me fired up. It’s helping my workout! 🙂 Time to finish up.

   2. Zariusii, that reminds me of the time on the Marvel forums when the mods tried to cover for Slott and removed my posts that were facts to protect Slott. I called out Slott for many contradictions “in a polite way” and he went to his insane mode. I was then temporarily banned and my friend and co-worker Spider created an account and called them out. Slott went on for pages with senseless attacks as well, Slott even followed him to CV and went after him there for over 6 pages. Eventually Slott admitted he was wrong but he did it in his condescending way to save face.
      Slott thinks his words are more important than others he is either purely crazy or he is a narcissistic. Spider thinks he needs serious mental help I am on the fence if he really needs help or if he is kissing his bosses ring and trying to get promoted by abusing consumers since it now seems to be the Marvel way.

   3. On a side note if you call Marvel they are some nice people working there, they apologized to Spider and I for Slott’s behavior and made sure our accounts were no longer banned. There are some people still there that do not believe in the Slott style of business. With that said Marvel removed their forum shortly after….hmmm wonder why, it was supposedly down for updates but it has been down for over a year.

   4. I think that was when we first met, Truth. Marvel was deleting your posts and Dan Slott was simultaneously saying mean things about you while making time to rant about me. I can’t quite remember how it all unfolded, but I’m glad that his bizarre online behavior helped bring two like-minded comic book fans together. 🙂

   5. Yeah, it can be dangerous to “diagnose” people when trying to justify their behavior, and not just because it’s fuel for the fire on the end of the author who can sit atop their soapboxes and proclaim “you never know what’s in my head” either…just the decent thing to step away from.

      He and I have had spats on CV also. You can try to be civil and joke about with him, but for a writer known for injecting Spidey with touches of “comedy” , on forums he has a huge by-pass in that department. That will always lead to a deliberately awkward tone and the conversation can never really go anywhere else but downhill from there unless you agree with his viewpoint or something, he always wants to be the man who tames the animal house. Mr. Belding waltzing in on a good time and saying “WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?”

9. I treat this as part of a greater issue along the lines of a social disconnect been creators and consumers of comics.

   At the moment you get this weird situation where the creator feels they “can do no wrong” and the consumer is “raging against the machine” because the creator isn’t listening or being consistent with the product. It’s a far cry from TV/Films where audience feedback directly governs the next instalment (e.g. the second Hobbit film having a faster introduction due to criticisms of the first one having a very slow introduction).

   My recommendation: Listen to the consumers they know what they want to buy, its capitalism 101.

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   1. I do find it incredibly bizarre how Tom Brevoort and Dan Slott have adopted a business model where ignoring the customers’ wants is a viable option. Can you think of any other company where the business model seems to be “Tell the customer they’re kind of stupid, make fun of their politics, and then lecture them on respect when they don’t take kindly to the company’s habitual condescension,”?

   2. “At the moment you get this weird situation where the creator feels they ‘can do no wrong.’”

      You could not be closer to the truth, and my friend Spider has a letter that proves it.

10. I love how the hypocrisy just comes naturally over at Marvel. And this is coming from a guy who genuinely loves their films (even Iron Man 2), and who’s all time favorite superhero is Spider-Man. Goes to show you how intolerant I am of their proverbial BS.

    Also I find it peculiar how literally NO ONE in the mainstream comicbook news sites even touch upon these events. Course if they did, I suppose it’d be bad business for Marvel and other companies of the like.

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    1. I think the guys behind Marvel Studios know that the stakes are too high to blatantly tick off fans like the comics division does. So far they’ve navigated the cinematic landscape quite well. In some way the success of the movies gives the comic writers and artists more leeway to act in an unprofessional manner.

       And yes, the comic industry “journalists” definitely go out of their way not to hold these guys accountable. Great reporting, guys! I guess they don’t want to bite the hand that feeds…

    2. Ain’t that the truth.

    3. It is sad that you grow to dislike a company that you truly want to like.

    4. Y’know, it’s funny, but despite of it all, I still don’t quite dislike Marvel. the comic aspect is going through an unpopular phase, but all phases eventually pass. So long as the medium exists, it will always be prone to incredible scorn and surprising bursts of renewal. I look to that era yet to come like, as Stan would say, a “true believer”.

11. If Stan was in control I would believe. With the current group in control I have little faith.

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    1. Agreed, Truth. The current cadre of lemons in charge can’t hold a candle to Lee … in terms of creativity AND professionalism.

12. Okay, wow, just wow. I tried to find a facepalm picture to adequately describe my reaction to Quesada’s hypocrisy, but the job was just too big for Patrick Stewart, Godzilla, and that crowded classroom. His general attitude, though, doesn’t surprise me. There are lots of cases of people in the entertainment industry (comics, movies, and TV alike) being thin-skinned about criticism. You were right, Doug, when you said farther up the thread about how the Internet took away the creators’ control of the conversation. It’s easier to ignore a letter sent to the office than a tweet appearing in a feed. Kinda makes ya wonder why they got into this business if they couldn’t take the bad with the good.

    Look, there’s no question that fandoms have genuine a-holes with anger management problems. There are a number of cases where a creator was on the receiving end of genuine hate–not “I don’t like your work,” but “I hate you and wish you were dead.” The mistake a lot of people in the business make is thinking that’s the rule instead of the exception. Unsurprisingly, some comic creators go even farther than that. I’ve seen writers of, say, “The Simpsons” get petty about criticism of current episodes, but I’ve never seen any of them flip the hell out like Slott or Waid have. (If I may digress for a moment, it was really telling that Waid was so hyper-sensitive about disagreement on Obamacare that he actually told dissenters not to buy his books. Quesada might feign ignorance on that (then again, maybe he’s not pretending), but I’d wager there were a couple of Marvel executives who had words with Waid about that fiasco–not because of his conduct but because some of his titles weren’t selling that well to begin with.)

    I mentioned “The Simpsons” because this episode reminded me of a clip from Morgan Spurlock’s 20th anniversary documentary. James L. Brooks said, “There’s nobody who ever went online to read comments about anything they’ve done that doesn’t come away with one sullen *BEEP* someplace who says a thing that you’d have to have surgically removed from your brain.” He’s not complaining when he says this; he’s laughing. Brooks doesn’t treat criticism as some kind of condemnation of his very existence; he can take it, likely because he knows that his work can speak for itself and will be remembered long after he’s gone. Hmm, perhaps that explains why the likes of Slott and Waid are always so unhappy.

    There’s one thing Slott, Waid, Simone, and the other usual suspects have in common above all else: they’re yesterday’s news. When was the last time they did anything truly notable and beloved? Waid did good work for the Flash and Simone got notices for Birds of Prey, but that was over a decade ago at least. The last couple years? Waid’s titles need to keep being rebooted to new #1s to boost sales, while Simone wrote an “1%ers are bad” Occupy-inspired book for the company that’s infamous for screwing over Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Oh, yeah, their best days are definitely behind them. But at least they had good days. Slott’s piss-poor writing and online conduct over the years have alienated many a fan. He’s a footnote (albeit, a very vocal one) during his own run and that will never change. He will never share the stage with Stan Lee, nor with Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Bill Mantlo, Roger Stern, Tom DeFalco, Peter David, and others. No one will ever say “I’d rather read a Dan Slott issue than one by one of those other guys.” ‘Nuff said.

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    1. Waid telling fans not to buy his work over political differences is a great example. When that happened I just thought, “What the heck?!” I think Hube may have covered that over at Colossus of Rhodey.

       For a writer or an artist to tell people not to buy his work over something that is totally unrelated to the project telegraphs just how detached these people are from common sense. Like you said, one would hope that a few people with their heads on straight pulled Wait aside and said, “Our business model is not to tell people to avoid our product. Knock it off.”

13. You never want to tell people not to buy your product especially when you realize that even successful products often have more people that do not like them than do like them. Take a hit album or song, look how many people chose not to buy it compared to sales. They should be more professional and say things such as “sorry you did not like the story, I hope you will try it again later”.
    How hard is that? Instead fans get responses such as “you are not the market”
    Clearly they do not know what the market is.

    Reply

14. “Y’know, it’s funny, but despite of it all, I still don’t quite dislike Marvel. the comic aspect is going through an unpopular phase, but all phases eventually pass. So long as the medium exists, it will always be prone to incredible scorn and surprising bursts of renewal. I look to that era yet to come like, as Stan would say, a “true believer” -Zariusii

    Thanks Zariusii. I needed that. Good to know there’s always someone out there who can bring something positive into situations such as this.

    Reply

15. Reblogged this on Patriot News II.

    Reply
16. Pingback: Joe Quesada, giant hypocrite, plays dumb when confronted on other comic industry hypocrites | Patriot News II

17. Marvel and DC have sucked since the late 1980s. Why does anyone read them?

    Reply

18. I think you’re being disingenuous about Waid’s “Republicans should XYZ” statement. He delineates in his first 5 words that it’s a subgroup of Republicans who claim POTUS is a time waster while themselves engaging in time-wasting. You might not agree their activity is time wasting, but Obama’s people might not agree that a half day spent on a Netflix program to reach an audience who does not watch pressers is ‘time wasting’.

    Huah?

    Reply

    1. Unfortunately, Christopher, history has shown Mark Waid to be a naked ideologue who defines pretty much any Republican who disagrees with him as someone who should “f**k themselves.” In fact, his behavior was so bad that he literally deleted most of his Twitter feed and did the same for his Facebook page. He also finds himself in a federal lawsuit because he weirdly had to stick his nose into another man’s publishing contract. That plaintiff (who has a multi-racial family) was accused by Mark Waid at a convention of forwarding “white supremacy” and now the remarks are a part of the federal lawsuit.

       So, no, I’m not being disingenuous. I’d go through a mountain of ideological bilge spewed by Mark Waid but, again, he made sure to hide the evidence down an Orwellian Memory Hole after his behavior got him slapped with a very expensive lawsuit. Telling.

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