Patrick Zircher says something sensible for a change about relations with consumers
He seems to be coming to terms with how unproductive his past conduct was, with rightists or otherwise:
The article, if I'm correct, came from Bleeding Cool, and Bounding Into Comics has more on the subject. Well that's good he's coming to his senses and realizes that negative attitudes towards the audience doesn't help the medium one bit as a whole. I still wish though, that he'd apologize for upholding Identity Crisis and that embarrassing variation he was the illustrator for in Nightwing about 14 years ago. Simply put, it does no favors for his own reputation, and Devin Grayson's disowned the story, so I believe it could do Zircher a lot of good to follow her example, and not serve as an apologist for Brad Meltzer's offensive farrago either. A good way to repair a reputation is to distance oneself from distasteful projects.
Anyway, this latest news involving Zircher apparently came on the heels of an announcement by DC calling on their freelancers - and hopefully internal staff - not to engage in "mean spirited" comments online. It possibly came as the result of the whole controversy involving Ethan Van Sciver, and the letter says:
In fact, here's one writer who hasn't been working for DC lately who's not taking the news kindly:
Well, I guess so, if only because if that's how it's gonna be, DC won't be able to offer Hine any assignments again for quite a while, because they [hopefully] don't want the controversy he could wind up causing. Which, now that I think of it, could explain why Dan DiDio scrapped the Twitter account he once had, as people who recognized that he was mainly responsible for devastating the DCU in the mid-2000s surely condemned him on the platform, and he just couldn't take it any more than he could requests that Stephanie Brown be restored to her role as Spoiler (and Chuck Dixon should be rehired for regular assignments without question over his politics). Hine's the writer who crafted that Islamic propaganda in one of the Batbooks, and if he's not sorry, then he won't be missed. Somebody else told him he lost respect for Hine over the political tirade he posted. And IMO, Hine deserves to lose a lot of respect if he keeps this up.
Augie deBlieck, who may or may not still write for CBR, had a better comment on the topic:
Exactly. If it's online and accessible in any way for public reading, then it's not personal but public. And so many left-wing comics writers have made asses of themselves online over the years - far more than any conservatives combined - that it's advisable for any business to set guidelines for what can and can't be done on the web. IMHO, it'd be better to just run accounts on social media sites like Facebook and not Twitter, because a character limit of 280 is little more than an excuse to write utter nonsense, rather than something intelligent.
That said, DC's own executives still have to be held accountable on their own part for serious errors made in the storytelling they produce, and on that, they cannot be ignored any more than Marvel's.
I read an article today that said I fraternize with the alt-right.— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) February 14, 2018
I'm a Dem.
What I did do was unblock everyone & suggest we stop fighting with readers, I didn't specify right or left, certainly not alt-right.
Such an article is irresponsible and more than a little vicious.
The article, if I'm correct, came from Bleeding Cool, and Bounding Into Comics has more on the subject. Well that's good he's coming to his senses and realizes that negative attitudes towards the audience doesn't help the medium one bit as a whole. I still wish though, that he'd apologize for upholding Identity Crisis and that embarrassing variation he was the illustrator for in Nightwing about 14 years ago. Simply put, it does no favors for his own reputation, and Devin Grayson's disowned the story, so I believe it could do Zircher a lot of good to follow her example, and not serve as an apologist for Brad Meltzer's offensive farrago either. A good way to repair a reputation is to distance oneself from distasteful projects.
Anyway, this latest news involving Zircher apparently came on the heels of an announcement by DC calling on their freelancers - and hopefully internal staff - not to engage in "mean spirited" comments online. It possibly came as the result of the whole controversy involving Ethan Van Sciver, and the letter says:
Dear DC Talent Community –Well I'll give them credit for recognizing that both freelance and staff attitudes have been out of control for some time now, and that's why it's vital for both divisions to simply refrain from serious interactions with the audience. Thus, it leaves the query: is Marvel going to ensure the same be done at their end of the spectrum? After all, Dan Slott for one acted so embarrassingly bad over the past few years, that's why anybody as far-left as he is has to be reined in and told they cannot keep doing this anymore. And while Ron Marz may not have worked for either company of recent, he's lost his mind many a time too over awful leftist politics. Thank goodness IDW had the brains to discipline Aubrey Sitterson for causing them bad publicity with his 9-11 comments, and they finally parted with him by the end of the year, as the GI Joe spinoff he wrote turned out to be a disaster.
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In fact, here's one writer who hasn't been working for DC lately who's not taking the news kindly:
DC guidelines to freelancers on using social media "...comments that may be considered insulting, cruel, rude, crass and mean spirited are against company policy and guidelines."It's been a while since I worked for DC so I guess I can still say "Fuck you, Trump!"@bleedingcool— David Hine (@HineDavid) February 13, 2018
Well, I guess so, if only because if that's how it's gonna be, DC won't be able to offer Hine any assignments again for quite a while, because they [hopefully] don't want the controversy he could wind up causing. Which, now that I think of it, could explain why Dan DiDio scrapped the Twitter account he once had, as people who recognized that he was mainly responsible for devastating the DCU in the mid-2000s surely condemned him on the platform, and he just couldn't take it any more than he could requests that Stephanie Brown be restored to her role as Spoiler (and Chuck Dixon should be rehired for regular assignments without question over his politics). Hine's the writer who crafted that Islamic propaganda in one of the Batbooks, and if he's not sorry, then he won't be missed. Somebody else told him he lost respect for Hine over the political tirade he posted. And IMO, Hine deserves to lose a lot of respect if he keeps this up.
Augie deBlieck, who may or may not still write for CBR, had a better comment on the topic:
Reading DC's social media guidelines is just a good reminder that there no longer exists a line differentiating your personal and professional lives anymore.— Augie De Blieck Jr. (@augiedb) February 13, 2018
Exactly. If it's online and accessible in any way for public reading, then it's not personal but public. And so many left-wing comics writers have made asses of themselves online over the years - far more than any conservatives combined - that it's advisable for any business to set guidelines for what can and can't be done on the web. IMHO, it'd be better to just run accounts on social media sites like Facebook and not Twitter, because a character limit of 280 is little more than an excuse to write utter nonsense, rather than something intelligent.
That said, DC's own executives still have to be held accountable on their own part for serious errors made in the storytelling they produce, and on that, they cannot be ignored any more than Marvel's.
Labels: dc comics, indie publishers, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, technology
You have to be careful about Chuck Dixon. When it comes to things like government regulation and political party loyalty, he is right wing to the max. But when it comes to diversity and comics, he is very liberal. This is the guy who killed the Ollie Queen Green Arrow and replaced him with a younger Eurasian version; who replaced the British, upper crust Anglo-Saxon Black Angel with an African-American one; who brought in a female Hispanic disabled version of Sky Wolf; and who rewrote a caricatured evil Japanese World War II aviator to turn him into a hero. He may have killed off Ollie for political reasons, but still, when it comes to diversity, he was the precursor to the movement. Who knows what he would do with Bruce Wayne if you gave him half a chance?
Posted by
Anonymous |
12:24 PM
I remember in 2005, he also wrote a short-lived series starring Richard Dragon that ignored past continuity, much like the Doom Patrol series they published at the time. And his treatment of the Alison Pierce character seen in the Outsiders volume of the time was questionable too, no matter how poorly developed she was when Judd Winick first added her. You've got some good points, and Dixon does have to be held accountable for some of the works he did in the past.
Posted by
Avi Green |
12:56 AM