The Four Color Media Monitor

The Comics Journal interviewed somebody who had some familiarity with the forums run by Warren Ellis, (the interviewer himself also went there), that shed light on what only now begins to draw notice, including from somebody else mentioned in the interview who's virtue-signaling:

Hi, Laurenn thanks for speaking with us. It’s wild! So, can you describe what your relationship with the WEF was? My recollection that the WEF had women moderators who were called the “filthy assistants.” (It was a comic book reference that perhaps lands differently now). Were you one of the “filthy assistants?” How far did you go beneath the surface of how things operated on the WEF, back in the day?

Laurenn McCubbin: I was never an FA, but I was friends with a couple of FA’s - I became closer friends with some of them right after the recent Ellis news came out. I didn’t really know much about the workings of the WEF, or any of the satellite forums.

Do you remember what your feelings were like at the time, when it came to the WEF and how younger women were being treated there? I’m asking because there was recently a sharply-written twitter thread that people noticed from G. Willow Wilson, which begins: “I don’t know how anybody who hung around any of the late 90’s-mid 00’s Ellis forums can profess to be surprised. It wasn’t even a secret.”

I hated the WEF. I hated the vibe. I barely ever went over there. The constant forum threads of men encouraging women to post photos of themselves flicking off the cameras were pretty creepy, there was a lot of little things that creeped me out, but more than anything, I just despised how they talked about comics. I always got this impression that everyone on that forum felt like comics history hadn’t happened yet-- comics had just been waiting for *them* to show up. The idea of comics being this great, weird thing that existed before us and will exist after us… it felt to me like that forum had no conception of that. And so, the way that exact attitude of “this is all for me; this is mine!” is now revealed to have this ugly sexual component…!

To me, the normality was that the WEF was “familiar” - I have never been a part of any kind of scene that didn’t have weirdo power dynamics and posturing, along with all of the good stuff that brought you into that scene.

I mean, seriously - from 6th grade mean girl clubs to being in the punk scene to doing stand up comedy to being a gallery artist - all of these groups of people have the same dynamics, just with different clothes on and different stakes. It gets fucked up when those stakes become about who gets work, but it’s all very, very similar.

The WEF was great for me - I met people who are still my best and closest friends, my career got a jumpstart, there were funny, fun times. The WEF sucked for me sometimes, too - I fought with shitty dudes (as I have in every scene ever), I was treated abusively by someone I thought loved me, I ignored bad behavior because I was suffering from the consequences of my own bad behavior…

It was special, and yet nothing new. It was a place and a time.

So the interviewee didn't think it was that bad, even though poor behavior was allowed there, right down to potential lawbreaking? While it wouldn't be a good idea if she took up what the left now calls "wokeness", that doesn't mean what was encouraged on the WEF should be regarded as acceptable, and decidedly, it wasn't. But why only now is it being noticed? Did even Wilson write on Ellis' dumb forums? That even a propagandist like her would only say so now just attests to her own hypocrisy, and the interviewer, come to think of it, is probably engaging in the same if he thinks Wilson makes the best "witness" to cite.

Labels: conventions, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, technology