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It was only days ago that Marvel writer Dan Slott talked to Newsarama about internet “dicks.” The comic book “news” site saw nothing ironic about asking the guy who regularly acts like an unprofessional clown on social media to espouse on his critics. That is probably part of the reason he has started up again with political attacks that would get him fired if he switched out subjects like “gun owners” with “Muslims.”
Take the following Dan Slott tweet: “Ever notice how every gun owner who tweets is a responsible gun owner? My theory: All irresponsible ones have shot up their keyboards.”
What would Dan Slott think of someone if he came across a tweet like: “Ever notice how every Muslim is a responsible Muslim? My theory: All irresponsible Muslims have prematurely detonated their suicide vests.”
That would be incredibly mean and uncalled for since the vast majority of American Muslims break no laws — just as millions of American gun owners break no laws. A tweet like that would be a low blow and the hallmark of a very immature man.
Ask yourself this question: Why is Dan Slott a “gregarious” guy when he slimes patriotic Americans who have broken no laws, when in your heart-of-hearts you know The Amazing Spider-Man writer would go off on an epic rant if you took his own tweets about “gun owners” and tweaked them to target “Muslims”?
Who said Mr. Slott was “gregarious,” you ask?
Answer: Newsarama (Jim McLauchlin wouldn’t want to risk losing his access to the writer, now would he?)
When it comes to the Internet and comic books, people can be d**ks. Obsessive d**ks. …
We slap labels on all things Internet. It’s a “virtual” world. But virtual can crash into real in a hurry when he Internet Rage Machine gets cranking. But what is the Machine? Is the Rage misplaced? And what fiefdom do you live in? …
Dan Slott, Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man writer, muses that “I could write whole books on this,” but gets very itchy, declining to cite specific examples.
“You never want to let that guy know he got under your skin, and you never want to show people examples of bad behavior to emulate,” he says.
Slott is a gregarious, friendly guy who’s always willing to interact with fans on Twitter and the like. It’s where he’s from.
On the whole, Slott tries to measure his online interactions. He recently called the aggregate a “heightened reality,” where the bright spots get brighter, but the dark areas show up so much darker.
Again, Newsarama found nothing ironic at all about the guy who can flip like a switch between opining on social media “dark spaces” and attacking Marvel readers who exercise rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
The reason why Dan Slott got “itchy” about citing examples of critics who get under his skin is because he knows this blog is one of the few places calling him out on his mean-spirited Twitter feed (it’s okay if he attacks the “right” targets — emphasis on “right”).
And remember: Dan Slott is done “wasting time on hate” — even though it’s obvious to any objective observer that he spends plenty of time dishing it out.
Perhaps it doesn’t count if you don’t agree with him politically. Once you dehumanize a person it’s okay to mock and ridicule them, right Mr. Slott?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch up on the latest Newsarama piece. It’s the one that is quick to call out internet “dicks” without ever asking unprofessional writers to explain their own troubling behavior.
Exit Question:
Consider the following from Newsarama:
The world is full of problems: Ebola, ISIS, potholes, global warming, and more. So you’d think people would spend their time doing something more productive than railing on about Spider-Man.
Newsarama — a site that depends on traffic generated by people who are interested in comic books — will immediately criticize Spider-Man fans who enjoy discussing Spider-Man, but it has nothing to say about Spider-Man’s actual writer for his unprovoked political attacks on entire groups of law-abiding Americans. At what point does Newsarama just admit its role as Marvel’s shameless handmaiden?
Douglas Ernst Blog 
Kind of weird how Newsarama is taking this stance and not the usual places like CBR. Newsarama was very critical of post-OMD Spider-Man for a time and are usually more pro-DC at a time where nobody is.
Politics for them Trumps any feeling they may have about his actual work. At the end of the day he’ll spout off about things like “global warming” ( thought it was Climate Change…) so his unprofessional antics will be overlooked.
Wasn’t Slott the basis for the Scott character on “South Park”?
As for the Newsarama piece itself, wow, what a lot of tripe. I could accept an op-ed piece where someone wants to complain specifically about treatment of comic creators, but the writer clearly has no clue on the facts and just compiled a list of “these people were mean to me” quotes from various creators. No rational person would condone crap like “comics would be better if you died” and so forth, but the writer makes it seem like comic creators are high school nerds getting ritualistically bullied by the football team. Newsarama is practically the MSNBC of comic websites these days; they’re like the pet dog that will debase itself to get table scraps.
Dan Slott gregarious and friendly? Really? I’ve never talked to the guy, but I’ve seen enough tweets here and at Colossus of Rhodey to get a good picture of how he behaves towards those he disagrees with. (Then there’s the whole Spider-Man Crawlspace stuff I heard about.) C’mon, this was the guy who harassed a random Twitter user for simply saying she didn’t like Superior Spider-Man. She didn’t even link to him; he apparently had a Google alert on his name. (On that note, everyone wave hello to Dan. He might be reading right now.) I grant you that there’s no way the writer of the piece could know that particular story off the top of his head, but I think it’s safe to say that Slott’s reputation precedes him. Hell, it’s pretty easy to check out his various scribblings; that’s the beauty of Twitter, isn’t it? If that’s “gregarious and friendly,” I’d hate to see what “obnoxious and douchebag” looks like, lemme tell ya.
The funny thing is that they always use extreme examples of what shows up in their inbox to justify or excuse their own boorish behavior. Basically it goes, “I’ve received death threats! I receive repugnant emails and Twitter messages all the time. You just don’t know…”
Well, actually Dan, I do know. I worked in Washington, D.C. for a political nonprofit for years, and then I’ve worked in the media for years. I had weird packages mailed to my home, I had creepy emails sent to my personal account, I had a guy create a website dedicated to hating me, and I also experienced the friendly neighborhood death threat. In fact, Twitter banned me for awhile when I complained about it doing nothing to penalize the guy.
But at the end of the day, I do not conduct myself like Dan Slott or Nick Spencer or any of these other guys online. I rarely block a person — I ignore them. And then they go away. If they send me a disgusting email, I hit the delete button. If they sounds like a semi-reasonable person, I sometimes write back. That’s how you handle it.
Don’t you know? It’s cool to hate gun owners! Cuz we’re so evil!
There are millions of decent, law-abiding gun owners. And many of them read comic books. Shocker, Dan Slott. I know. But yet, Marvel has no problem attacking its customers and potential customers. There aren’t many businesses where they go out of their way to insult customers and then expect it not to hurt sales.
Yeah, if Slott was going to express his thoughts on gun control, why not say something to the effect of: “People who Tweet generally advocate responsible gun ownership. But is that an accurate representation of gun owners nation-wide?”
That, to me at least, is far more polite, expresses the same idea, and even invites more discussion instead of insult. If Slott applied this idea to his online presence in general, I think he’d have a lot more respect, even from “Spider-Man” fans who hate his take on the characters.
His jerky tweets wouldn’t even be as big of an issue if he wasn’t such a hypocrite. He’s quick to bash the online behavior of others — even though he does exactly what he claims to despise. For most creators I’d see some anti-Second Amendment tweet and I’d just roll my eyes. But with him you know that any time someone criticizes his work he scrolls through their twitter feed to see what sort of “gotcha” comment he could come up with.
Great article once again showing the hypocrisy of many of these comic writers. Just remember they talk like this to people and then they expect them to support them buy purchasing their products.
The Spider-Man Crawlspace has a new article about Slott and his behavior up now as well.
Spider-Man Crawlspace does earn some respect for its willingness to discuss Dan Slott’s behavior without putting its thumb on the scale.
Which is why I got chastised a little for being too sharp (I called DS a liar). Brad Douglas bends over backward to be civil. Which is WHY I said what I said about DS — him slandering Brad Douglas.
I can understand why Brad Douglas sort of wants to keep his comments section beyond reproach, but at the same time I understand your frustration. Dan Slott says disingenuous things about Crawlspace and its readers, and then the readers are not allowed to forcefully push back. One of the reasons why I write blog posts like this is to give fans like yourself an outlet.
When Mr. Slott lies and distorts the positions of others to make himself look better, he needs to be taken to task. I’m not sure why Crawlspace didn’t cover Slott’s recent stalking of the Main Event. Douglas’ post would have been an ideal place to mention it, but he didn’t. Again, I’m happy to pick up the baton and run with it if no-one else will.
Brad Douglas is a professional TV journalist IRL, and I believe he is applying rules that are expected for on-air discussion of topics. This is a good thing, and I understand it. What Slott does is treat people rottenly, then when someone finally tears into him, he clutches his string of pearls and shouts, “See, see? THIS is the sort of hateful abuse I have to put up with!!” But his own rants end up driving people over to Crawlspace, out of curiosity, and most of them end up figuring out that CS is nothing like how Slott paints it.
It’d be interesting to know if Slott was serious about his thoughts on gun ownership or purely trying to make a joke. If he was joking, it wasn’t very friendly (or funny). It is his own Twitter feed and he does have the right to his own opinion, but be respectful, please!
And about Slott’s comment about people worrying far more about a comic book series than real life events, yeah, that’s true, but when you’re interacting with people who patronize your work, they’re probably going to want to talk to you about your work. It’s like complaining about a “Star Wars” forum discussing “The Force Awakens” instead of baseball.
I do find Slott’s surprise (or acting surprise) that some people really don’t care for his work hard to believe. He’s working within the post-“One More Day” setting, which, while not is direct fault, is status quo change that’s a deal-breaker for many people. He loves doing unconventional stuff. The whole “Superior Spider-Man” thing and the reimagining of Spidey as an Iron Man knockoff are fundamental changes to the character (or at least the current version that was fundamentally changed by “One More Day”), that some people are not going to enjoy, simply because at the end of the day, the “Spider-Man” character has been transformed into something different that the character those readers became fans of in the first place.
While I’m sure some of his critics are out of line, Slott seems to pretty much dismiss everyone, even critics who are making constructive arguments without malice (for example, I’m a Trekkie, but I’m not going to pretend that the franchise has never made some awful episodes), and even people who simply want to read new “Spider-Man” stuff that is consistent with the version(s) of the character the matter to them. (As I’ve said before, Marvel, a “Renew Your Vows” ongoing, if you please; you’ve made a big point out of saying that there’s a “Spider” title to appeal to every fan, why not live up to what you say and produce aeries for the fans you’ve disenfranchised over the years and follow up a series that was well-received across the board. If Cindy Moon got her series “because the fans wanted it,” why haven’t you done something that fans have been wanted for eight years?)
Regardless of politeness or not, what is Slott’s excuse for being a jerk? I don’t work in the comics business, but I know at my job treating customers with respect and treating their business as your highest priority is within our top rules. Why would writing be any different? I mean, what has Marvel got to gain from Slott bullying their customers (or potential customers)? At best, the paying customers will be less kindly disposed to Marvel, at worst, they’ll stop buying entirely, possibly even a full boycott of anything they produce.
Look, I know that he’s stated he has plans for years of “Spider-Man” stories (heaven forbid), but when I look at his past work, in my opinion, I see a guy who doesn’t really know what to do with the character, doesn’t hold a candle to the work his fellow “Spider-Man” writers have turned in, and treats his employers customers very badly. Mr. Slott, you may love your job, but I think it’s time you moved on. If what you saying is true, then neither you the creator, nor we the readers, are benefitting form the current arrangement and might be happier if you found another series to write (if I understand correctly, a lot of his non-“Spider-Man” stuff is generally well-regarded).
To briefly play devil’s advocate: I have noticed that here we’re all pretty quick to assume that everyone praising the current Spider-Man material online is probably sucking up to the bosses, so to speak. While I’m sure that some are, is it remotely possible that some of them genuinely like the new direction that the franchise is going? I mean, even “Spider-Man 3” has its fans (like your’s truly).
I think a reader’s like or dislike of the book will typically hinge on their fidelity to Peter Parker’s history. Newer readers do not have the number of reference points of, say, a guy who has read since the 80s. If all the newer reader has known is Post-OMD Peter, then there’s really nothing special there. Turning the character into Peter Parker-Stark may be a departure, but it isn’t likely to offend.
If you read a review by, say, Stillanerd, and then the guys at most of the mainstream comics websites, you will see big difference. It is obvious that Stillanerd is trying to thoughtfully analyze the work, while the other guys typically seem to look for anything good to latch onto and then highlight that at the expense of plot holes, etc.
I’ll always respect a reviewer (pro or amateur) who’s able to discuss the qualities and flaws of something fairly regardless of whether it appeals to them or not. I also respect people who simply like something (or dislike it) regardless of whether they have thoughtfully analyzed it or not, if they’re content to talk about, explain, and defend their views without being jerks to people who disagree.
Case in point, although I think calling his current comic book “Spider-Man” is false advertising, I’d respect Slott a lot more if he accepted that not everyone likes what the franchise has become. It’d help if I had a sense that he trying to do something more worthwhile than simply: “What unexpected, big, new thing that’ll completely change Spider-Man can I do to top the last one?” and that Marvel didn’t seem to regard the elements of the franchise that define the world and characters for me as an embarrassment that needs to be purged from memory “1984”-style.
While I’ll concede that your attachment to the characters affects what you don’t mind being affected, it does seem to me that the majority of average paying comic book readers are people who grew up with the pre-“One More Day” version of the franchise and most new readers are likely to have encountered the character through any of the movies, cartoons, etc, which are heavily influenced by either the traditional, pre-“One More Day” version or the “Ultimate” version (which basically took the important stuff from pre-“One More Day” and put it together in a leaner package). So, wouldn’t you want to set-up the series in a way were it had as much universal appeal as possible.
(Marvel seems to like the idea of being “new reader friendly” by way of making the different media of the their franchises similar, but the utilization seems inconsistent. I mean,they twisted “X-Men” into pretzels to make comic book Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver more like the MCU versions for…reasons, while they’re cheerfully sending “Spider-Man” down a path where he has few parallels with the versions that newbies know about. What’s there to gain in either case?)
And just how sustainable is the Iron Man-clone Spider-Man (or any of their shuffled up post-“Secret Wars” stuff, for that matter?)? It’s like those parallel universe or alternate future stories sometimes used in sci-fi TV shows, like “Star Trek.” It’s fun to see how things could be different and play with new takes on the characters, but, at the end of the day, we need to get back to the “real” version. So, no matter how “cool” the new status quos are, what’s it all going to mean when it’s (inevitably) reset so traditional stories can be told?
I think right now, I’m just tired of it all. I’m tired of the vitriol on both sides, being treated like a second-class citizen by Marvel, and the fact that there isn’t a new piece of”Spider-Man” to call my own. Hopefully the movies will create something that’ll please everyone.