Friction at DC

[A beaker full of death]

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/20...iews/?src=recg

[Guy Gardener]

Interesting development.

Only 16 thousand signatures?

Orson, raises money for these people and shapes the message.

It's a hate group.

[Mr. Adventure]

Wow, the pendulum is really starting to shift on that issue. Funny to think when Ellen first came out it actually killed her TV show at the time and now she's huge on daytime TV no less.

[sidious618]

That's not friction, that's people hating Orson Scott Card. I bet DC hates him at this point, too.

[A beaker full of death]

Mr. Adventure wrote:

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Funny to think when Ellen first came out it actually killed her TV show at the time and now she's huge on daytime TV no less.

I don't think that's what killed it. It was very well known before that; they even joked about it. The show had run its course.
I think Ellen is so popular because she isn't all about her sexuality. It's just an aspect -- a mostly private aspect -- of her life.

[davejames]

I'm certainly not a fan of these anti-gay marriage groups, but signing petitions and trying to throw a writer off a Superman comic just seems silly to me, and makes the whole movement look bad.

[Professor Zoom]

First, good on Sprouse.

Second, I don't know how I feel about petitions either, but I personally no longer buy anything with Card's name on it. I don't want my money going into his pocket so he can continue to found organizations I loathe. Freedom of Speech doesn't mean Freedom from Consequence.

Third, I don't know why DC didn't see this PR experience happening.

A beaker full of death wrote:

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I don't think that's what killed it. It was very well known before that; they even joked about it. The show had run its course.
I think Ellen is so popular because she isn't all about her sexuality. It's just an aspect -- a mostly private aspect -- of her life.

OT, but: She's about as private with her sexuality as any normal celebrity (yeah, that is sometimes a contradiction in terms.) She and her wife go out to public events all the time, like anyone else. So, I don't think it's that she's private about it, it's that she treats her marriage as the thing it really is: normal, like everyone elses.

[Nagisa Furukawa]

The petition is sickening.

You don't like Scott Card's views on gay marriage*? Cool. Don't buy it. There's plenty of other Superman books by plenty of other people who are just fine with homosexual marriage. But to actively campaign for the man to lose his job because you disagree with him?? He has a right to his views and he has a right to make a living if he's good at what he does (having read Ender's Game but nothing else by him, I certainly would say he is going by that), just as you're free to not support him. And don't give me any of this crap about Superman being an icon and therefore, we can't have someone who doesn't have the same value system as us writing for him even though those views probably have absolutely nothing to do with the story whatsoever.

It's situations like this that make liberals seem as totalitarian and repressive as conservatives. Fight words with words. Make your point and make it clear; don't lobby for someone to actually lose their fucking job because you disagree with them. And because Sprouse has quit, not because he disagreed with Card, but because "The media surrounding this story reached the point where it took away from the actual work, and that’s something I wasn’t comfortable with," they actually succeeded in harming this man's job because they don't like his views on a subject.

*My own view is that the government should stay out of marriage period, but if they have to, then two men or two women (or three men, or two women and a man, or whatever any consenting, conscious adult wants) should be equal to anyone else who wants to. But that's irrelevant.

[Thomas L]

On the subject of Card, while I think that opting to not by his stuff due to his advocacy of certain policies is perfectly reasonable. and of course, all that these calls for boycotts and petitions amount to in the end, is essentially people saying "I will not buy this nor do I think you should do either".

but I'd say an equally good reason to want to avoid his comic book work is that his past material (Ultimate Iron Man) was not enjoyable (of course this is down to personal taste).

[DalekJim]

Wait. Has this guy even written any anti-gay Superman stories?

No.

So that'd be like getting a plumber fired for not agreeing with gay marriage. His view has nothing to do with the job at all. Do these people seriously believe those with minority views shouldn't be entitled to any kind of employment? What kind of vile view is that?

Modern liberalism continues to get more insane. Welcome to Obama's brave new world.

[Nagisa Furukawa]

DalekJim wrote:

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Do these people seriously believe those with minority views shouldn't be entitled to any kind of employment? What kind of vile view is that?

This is precisely the issue for me.

I have no problem with any individual who refuses to buy something Card's written (actually, I have no problem with any individual refusing to buy anything they don't want to for any reason).

I don't have a problem with someone expressing their views on Card and recommending to others that they not buy it either.

I start to have a problem when we get petitions, as the article says, "calling for DC to remove him from the book." That is crossing the line. Don't like his Superman story? Don't buy it. But to lobby for him to lose his job? Sickening, just sickening.

[Christopher]

Nagisa Furukawa wrote:

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But to actively campaign for the man to lose his job because you disagree with him??

You misunderstand the situation. Card would not "lose his job," because he's not an employee of DC nor is he the regular author on the Superman comic series in question. The series is an anthology, and Card was a guest author who wrote a single story for it.

Also, assuming that comics writing contracts work the same as the prose contracts I get as a tie-in writer, then Card would have already been paid for writing the story. Once the story is written, turned in, and paid for, the publisher is free to do whatever they want with it, including choosing not to run it. After all, Superman belongs to DC, therefore any Superman story written for DC is their property, not the author's, and they get to decide what to do with it. That happened to me and several of my colleagues a few years ago when Pocket Books decided not to publish the novels we'd written as sequels to the 2009 Star Trek movie. The books never saw print, but we didn't have to return the money we'd been paid for writing them, because we'd fulfilled our contractual obligation.

[Nagisa Furukawa]

Christopher wrote:

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You misunderstand the situation. Card would not "lose his job," because he's not an employee of DC nor is he the regular author on the Superman comic series in question. The series is an anthology, and Card was a guest author who wrote a single story for it.

Also, assuming that comics writing contracts work the same as the prose contracts I get as a tie-in writer, then Card would have already been paid for writing the story. Once the story is written, turned in, and paid for, the publisher is free to do whatever they want with it, including choosing not to run it. After all, Superman belongs to DC, therefore any Superman story written for DC is their property, not the author's, and they get to decide what to do with it. That happened to me and several of my colleagues a few years ago when Pocket Books decided not to publish the novels we'd written as sequels to the 2009 Star Trek movie. The books never saw print, but we didn't have to return the money we'd been paid for writing them, because we'd fulfilled our contractual obligation.

It's not the money that bothers me.

The article says the petition is "calling for DC to remove him from the book." To actively campaign for someone to be removed from the book for disagreeing with his personal view. Not buying it is one thing. Boycotting it is one thing. Not wanting ANYONE to be able to have his story because you don't like what he does when he's not writing comics is over the line.

[Sindatur]

Nagisa Furukawa wrote:

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This is precisely the issue for me.

I have no problem with any individual who refuses to buy something Card's written (actually, I have no problem with any individual refusing to buy anything they don't want to for any reason).

I don't have a problem with someone expressing their views on Card and recommending to others that they not buy it either.

I start to have a problem when we get petitions, as the article says, "calling for DC to remove him from the book." That is crossing the line. Don't like his Superman story? Don't buy it. But to lobby for him to lose his job? Sickening, just sickening.

Yea, I'm Gay and I agree. Boycott (as I would), tells others to Boycott, but, you can't call for him to be fired for a "thought crime".

Now, if he put out a story that specifically portrays those views, then certainly complain and let the Publisher know you were offended and therefore will not be purchasing any more, but, until he commits that "Attack", you can't punish him by calling for his termination.

[Hound of UIster]

^Good chance of that. If you read his Ultimate Iron Man there are antiabortion themes in the first issues.

Now he is already removed from the book since the artist, Chris Sprouse, quit and DC decided to run another story there. They are not going to use the story. They have tons of these shelved stories.

Professor Zoom wrote:

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Third, I don't know why DC didn't see this PR experience happening.

The editor that got Card didn't know about his extracurricular activities.