The Four Color Media Monitor

Well it looks like, after artist Miller offered a mea culpa to anybody who took issue with his past arguments, the Grand Rapids convention was willing to reverse their banishing. First, there's Miller's statement:

After long consideration about how some of my words may have been viewed by people who don't know my true self, I'd like to issue a public apology to anyone who was personally offended by anything I've said, regardless of context. I never meant to disparage any race or gender. <3

— Mike S. Miller (@AbacusMike) September 20, 2018

And then, there's the convention manager:

@AbacusMike Hi Mike, thank you for the apology, we greatly appreciate and accept it as genuine. As a company, we believe in positive social discourse and open dialog, and we are very happy to see this. Re-extending invitation to attend. We would be very game for that... :)

— GR Comic Con (@grcomiccon) September 20, 2018

Honestly, I don't think Miller should have to apologize over his politics. But I'm willing to give the convention manager some credit for letting go of his earlier decision and reinviting Mike. However, they're going to have to cut out all the identity politics and if it really matters, just interview the creators behind the scenes before deciding if to invite them. That way, a lot of needless drama can be avoided. They should also stop letting Twitter troublemakers influence their opinions for them.

Since we're on the subject, a retailer in Australia took issue with one Miller's worst opponents, Mike Deodato, after he resorted to such crude, judgemental language, and provided the following statements:

“To clarify, we will still fulfill subscription orders for titles that Mr. Deodato is on but we will not actively promote or push his books to customers after his recent posts. We strongly believe that creators who are being overly political and are fighting with other Creators/Fans via FB and Twitter are causing great damage to the Current Comics Industry. This is reflected in subscribers dropping titles that these creators are on. This affects retailers like us and our bottom line, and a growing number more going by the amount of private messages I’ve received from fellow retailers stating the same. We are in The Comic Retailing business to make money but it’s getting harder to do that when customers are being turned off by politics in their books and arguments over politics by the creators.”

On this note, given how Deodato hasn't much lately to care about over the past decade (books with titles like "Dark Avengers" sure aren't my forte), I'm sure there won't much to miss anyway. He really has gone downhill in terms of ethics. The store manager added more on whom these policies have had to apply to:

“John Layman is one, Mark Waid another (Which is hard personally as I’ve always been a big fan up until the last few years) Robbie Rodriguez, Gail Simone, and Bill Sienkiewicz as well. When any creator blocks fans or runs block chains it hurts the industry and trust me we take notice. Those creators are the ones we tend to not actively promote and push their books hard. It’s easier to sell books by creators (like Sean Murphy) who go out of their way to promote their work on Twitter and FB instead of pushing political rants and feuds. They understand that comics is a commercial art form and sales matter, thus they act in a professional manner. It’s not smart business to actively offend or ostracise potential customers but that seems to be lost on a number of current creators.”

On Waid, I can agree based on that his Flash work circa 1992-2000 was good, but still one of the few books he really did well in a bygone era (I think the last time he worked at DC was in the late 2000s, and in his return to the Flash, he didn't manage so well), so naturally, it's a shame when a once well regarded writer goes downhill becoming a terrible troublemaker, and I may have spotted signs that he caused trouble for Crossgen's original publisher, Mark Alessi, as well. I think it's mentioned in this podcast interview (and over here) that Waid insulted Alessi at the time of closure, and the details are pretty disturbing. Some of the others don't have enough on their resumes to care about, so it's not like I'm desperate to try out whatever they have now.

But the point is, when you start taking alienating actions on social media and such, you're taking divisive steps that not only cost one their fanbase/customers, they also cost retailers even more. To be sure, mainstream bookstores are also hit hard, if they keep the paperback collections around and can't sell them due to the creators' social media antics. Sooner or later, somebody will have to contact the upper echelons at the conglomerates who own the Big Two, tell them about the embarrassments on the lower floors, and demand something be done to put a stop to it. One way is to set a policy for creators signing contracts for freelancing making clear they expect them to avoid all politics and just stick to promotion (which Waid actually seems to be doing lately, having reopened his Twitter account). And if they don't cooperate, simply don't renew the contracts; few seem to care if they come and go at this late stage. It's the same with interns who make fools of themselves online to boot. As the old Spidey adage goes, "with great power comes great responsibility". A fact that must be made clear to the chief staffs of the companies, if they really don't want to lose sales and business.

And if the Grand Rapids comicon is smart, they won't trouble any right-wing creators ever again over partisan politics.

Labels: conventions, dc comics, good artists, indie publishers, marvel comics, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, politics, sales, technology