How did AiT/PlanetLar head honcho Larry Young develop such a hard-on for bloggers?
(Larry’s own blog, which is exactly what it is, doesn’t have individual-entry permalinks, so check out the entry for March 10th. Link courtesy of Graeme McMillan.)
I don’t get it–it’s not like he’s a publisher people tear to pieces on a daily basis, like Marvel or DC or CrossGen. As far as AiT/PL books go, everyone seems to like True Story, Swear to God, and while Brian Wood’s work is somewhat polarizing, I feel like his hit-miss ratio as far as bloggers are concerned is pretty respectable. Compared to the treatment various bloggers have given Mark Millar, Chuck Austen, Lee Loughridge, Gary Groth, Matt Brady, “Jess Lemon,” Jeph Loeb, Craig Thompson, Joe Quesada, Mark Alessi, Tony Isabella, Brian Bendis, Bill Jemas, Warren Ellis, Grant Morrison, Dave Sim, Mike Dean, Kurt Busiek & George Perez, Seth, and so forth–not to mention other bloggers–Larry and his stable have gotten off comparatively easy.
I guess he was tangentially involved in that old blogosphere dust-up with James “The Comics Pimp” Sime, but reacting to that teapot-tempest in the fashion Larry has (if indeed that’s the impetus behind it) would be similar to someone on the other side of that argument deciding that because they disagreed with the point of view espoused by one retailer, all retailers are idiots. And that, of course, is just plain dumb (especially considering that even the retailer in question is himself not an idiot).
Finally, I suppose Larry could legitimately believe that the comics blogosphere as a whole isn’t any good, but that’s even dumber.
If the majority of comics bloggers really are such lousy writers, then there shouldn’t be much harm in Larry actually naming the bloggers he thinks are so bad, rather than continuing in this passive-aggressive vein.