The Four Color Media Monitor

Here's Busiek writing an ambiguous 2-in-1 about something he noticed at Salon:

A commenter at http://t.co/T3DIPlmwSm was wondering why liberals care about the government detaining people at whim. [1/2]
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) October 27, 2014

Apparently, freedom and liberty don’t matter so much if they’re being denied to, y’know, someone else. [2/2]
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) October 27, 2014

This sounds like a regurgitation of an earlier hint of contempt he gave to righties. The biggest problem is that he doesn't even tell what the issue is they were talking about at Salon. Could it be Guantanamo Bay? Was it potentially dangerous suspects in terrorism, and Islamists trying to head for Iraq and Syria to join the jihad there? He hasn't provided any clear info, so how can anybody give a clear evaluation whether his words make sense? That's surely the most serious flaw liberals like him have, that they don't want to explain anything clearly; only to declare that conservatives, in their opinion, are illegitimate.

And then, there's his weird allusion to the GamerGate issue:

But Thanos really stands for ethics in games journalism. Universe-wide.
— Kurt Busiek (@KurtBusiek) October 29, 2014

Is he comparing GamerGate supporters to intergalactic supervillain Thanos? That's pretty low, I'd say. And whether the 3 women involved in this affair were having trouble caused by the bunch, can Busiek really take the one working for Gamasutra seriously after she acted like Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy doesn't exist? Maybe that's why Sarkeesian didn't bother to go ahead with her lecture at the Utah university, because if anyone's familiar with the Lockhart heroine and Lara Croft, and brought along pictures to show everybody, they'd know Sarkeesian was a joke. In fact, suppose Busiek owned copies of Final Fantasy and Tomb Raider with all these leading ladies inside? Suppose tomorrow he got a job writing a comic book based on the former example, and wanted to prominently cast Lockhart as a star? Even he'd be hard pressed to take Sarkeesian seriously when he'd have all the software products contradicting her sloppy babble right in his disk cupboard.

Maybe the best argument about the issue comes from Cathy Young (via Breitbart):

...there are persistent rumors, backed up with screenshots and chat room records, that at least some of the harassment and threats come from trolls who go after both sides to stir things up, because that’s what trolls do. To some extent, journalists have been reluctant to look into these claims because they don’t want to be targeted, but blaming the threats on GamerGate is also convenient. Meanwhile, GamerGaters’ efforts to stop and report harassment have been only rarely acknowledged.

Yes, I think what happened is that a campaign beginning as a protest of bad journalism fell victim to a hijack/frame mentality by a horde of brain-dead troublemakers. And sadder still is that you could launch a similar campaign focusing on journalist ethics in comicdom, and the same situation could arise there too. It doesn't mean anybody who wants to develop a serious campaign should be discouraged, but they certainly should learn from this experience and try to shun any cybertrolls who might exploit their campaign for fun and sport.

For now, it's kind of surprising how we have leftists in comics turning against their fellow leftists who play computer games, and the only thing that unites one side is their dislike of attacks on journalism, even though J. Jonah Jameson was created as a reflection of exactly what they don't want being criticized.

Labels: moonbat writers, politics, technology