I’m almost impressed by how awful the Alan Moore/Jason Aaron thread on Robot 6 has gotten. Pure sociopathy by the bottom of it. Moore should have known better, Kirby should have known better, Siegel and Shuster should have known better, etc. Forget “truth, justice, and the American way” or “with great power comes great responsibility”—FUCK YOU, PAY ME is the motto of superhero comics fandom. It’s a grotesque agglomeration of moral monsters, vicious little philistines anonymously spewing Randian bile from the safety of screen names like “techjedi.” No wonder Moore wants nothing to do with any of it anymore.
Tags: comics, thought of the day
You mad?
Actually, “Fuck you, pay me” would appear to be the motto of the superhero comics industry. Well that, and “go fuck yourself”, if course – that’s practically their new “excelsior”! Fans (and blogs) just cheer them on and give them a platform from which to spew ignorant venomous bullshit.
In what way is “Go fuck yourself” the superhero comics industry’s motto? Because Dan Slott said that to a fan who said his career as a creator was just a paycheck to him? Team Slott all the way on that one.
The payment demanded by fandom is uninterrupted access to stories featuring their favorite powerful person in a gaudy outfit. Feel like the creators or their families should be better reimbursed for their work in creating those people/outfits? FUCK YOU, PAY ME. Question whether those stories are any good? FUCK YOU, PAY ME. Stick up for yourself in any way? FUCK YOU, PAY ME.
Remember, it’s not “with great power comes great responsibility,” it’s ““with great power MUST come great responsibility” – power doesn’t automatically endow responsibility, and just because it should doesn’t mean it does. There’s another clause implied by the “MUST” that begins with “OR . . .” and it’s that “OR” that gets to the bottom of every abuse of power. It’s very possible to be powerful and totally irresponsible, which is the guiding theme for the whole Lee / Ditko run. Most people forget that – I didn’t even realize it myself until I read a DeFalco Spider-Girl comic where he pointed out the difference, but once you remember that the whole dynamic of the series changes.
And therein lies the rub for generations of creators: with great power there is, sometimes, no responsibility at all. Generations of corporate oversight of the evergreen superhero properties pretty much puts paid to the notion that power implies responsibility in any way.
Maybe it’s just the cynic in me, but “Go Fuck yourself pay me” seems to be the general attitude everywhere these days, not just comic industry. The vitriol that gets heaped on a creator for daring to do anything that doesn’t appease the fans is repellant. Witness the reactions the creators of BSG, Lost, and so many other works that somehow failed a segment of the fan population. I’m also a big fan of Billy Corgan (who I realize is a difficult personality on his best days and has made some bad decisions), but when I go to message boards devoted to The Smashing Pumpkins or Corgan’s facebook and see the hateful comments being posted, I just have to wonder at what passes for fandom these days.
As a creator, I’d rather my work engenders some kind of reaction and I’d be okay if someone didn’t like something (them’s the breaks) , but when dislike of a work goes from just that to active animosity and entitlement, as seen on so many message boards and blogs nowadays, it’s as grotesque as you are pointing out.
Agreed 1000%.
Sean that CBR post of yours just seems like throwing water on a greasefire to me. Did the Comics Internet really need another reason to snipe at creators for… whatever?
I think it’s worth calling attention to the sensitivity of today’s big-name writers to criticism, even indirect criticism from industry legends who’ve likely never heard of their work, or anonymous trollery from messageboard creeps.
I’m probably not thinking clearly because I spend CR Holiday interview time doing nothing but eating Carmello bars and drinking orange soda, but Aaron making that statement didn’t strike me as too weird. I mean, I think it’s wrong, and a dim reading, but I sort of get the pride involved. I’m much more disturbed by the fan reaction that adopts that same point of view or an even harder, less kind point of view along the lines described by Sean. All the murrays, not the carvelli, in this case anyway.
The spin-off debate over whether or not Moore or Aaron suck and to what degree seems to be the open display of a pathology so ridiculous that to study it further might send me back in time to 1994 to kick myself in the balls until I agree not to move to Seattle. Is it a side effect of American exceptionalism-by-volume-proclaiming same that people have to figure out the relative merit of anyone doing any criticizing on the most narrow of terms. It’s everywhere.
This is a thing I’ve been struggling with a lot, not only the iller aspects of our community, but the usefulness of calling attention to those elements, and/or conflicting motivations for that. I’ve been writing this MAMMOTH blog post about comics criticism and the superhero genre, but it just keeps coming off negative and I keep asking myself, “am I writing this to hear myself talking/drive traffic to my site, or because I think it’s really useful?” It’s not so much that I think repeatedly posting about this Jason Aaron/Alan Moore thing is useLESS, but I think all of us are prone to the danger of stirring the pot for reasons other than cooking.
I bet if you traveled back in time you’d find all kinds of people who got pissed at Edmund Wilson for dismissing Lovecraft just because Memoirs of Hecate County was turgid.