JD's Comic Book Thread

They've already been selling some multipacks like that, although they've been mostly older, like the New 52 #1s or similar issues.

 

Just giving an update, or rather some more information, as these cases are very, very different. Now, this is going by what I've read about these cases, there might be more that I'm not aware of, and with new facts, obviously my views on the matters could change.

Cameron Stewart, who is best known for his "Batgirl of Burnside" run for DC, has been accused by several women of grooming them when they were teenagers, soliciting naked photos and going on dates with them. He has already lost a cover gig for DC over this. There is some cultural points to this, the women were allegedly at least 16 at the time. Stewart is Canadian, and in Canada (as in many other countries), age of consent is indeed 16. Not illegal where he comes from, but still objectionable.

Now, Ellis has been accused for dating younger women, the youngest being 19 at the time (he, of course, being well in his forties then), using his fame to impress these younger women, and then being a shitty person, breaking up by ghosting them. He also has already responded and apologised, stating that he never viewed himself as a celebrity and therefore never seeing the women as anything but equals.
And, to be honest, while I do think he may have behaved shitty, this is not really a #metoo to me. Like, it feels like that case with Aziz Ansari back in 2018. Was he being an asshole? Maybe. Probably. Ghosting certainly isn't cool. But it's not sexual misconduct, either. Even if he did use his fame to impress women, my reaction is more like "Comic writers have groupies?". The women, while certainly younger than him, were all consenting adults, so barring any new information coming out, I personally consider this really as a private matter.

Now, what really pisses me off is that some people have tried to conflate the two cases, as if what Stewart and Ellis did was the same thing. Which it is not. Ellis was a shitty person, Stewart was grooming minors. The women accusing Ellis were consenting adults, and from what I've read, their main complaint is the ghosting. I mean, I'm all for believing women, and I actually believe these women. I just think calling consenting adult women victims is just infantilizing these women, and equalizing what Stewart and Ellis did is seriously trivializing the wrong-doing of Stewart.

Meanwhile, there are more cases, and more serious cases, coming out. Former Dark Horse editor Brendan Wright has been accused by a freelance editor of stalking and sexual harrassment.

 

Yeah, from what you said the Warren Ellis thing was definitely an asshole move, but as long as the women were 19 and consented there was nothing illegal about it.
The situations with Stewart and Wright, on the other hand, are definitely much, much worse and need to be dealt with.

 

I started the New 52 Aquaman series yesterday, so far I've gotten through all of #1 and started #2. #1 was a nice introduction, I especially got a kick out of the way they addressed the fact that many people consider Aquaman a joke character. We also got some nice references and flashbacks that have given hints to Arthur's backstory. We only got a brief introduction to the arc's bad guys, The Trench, but what we did get was pretty creepy.

 

Ellis' actions definitely weren't criminal, but I think it's trivializing and inaccurate to say it's primarily about him ghosting them, as if it's only how he ended the relationships that's the problem and it wasn't already creepy and sleazy well before that point.

I thought G. Willow Wilson explained it well:

 

Johns run on the series was excellent and did wonders for the character. The opening arc is really designed as a world building introduction although the Trench do return. If you saw the Aquaman film you are going to see a lot of the influence of this series.

 

Remember my disclaimer in my previous post, how my views there were built on what I'd read up to that point and there might be more I'm not aware of? Okay, well, seems my sources actually did not give the whole picture, and I've now read more about what Ellis' really did. And, yeah, it really does go beyond ghosting. This article by Rich Johnston for Bleeding Cool gives a good account.

Also, DC pulled a 2-page story by Ellis from an upcoming Death Metal tie-in book. It remains to be see whether they'll also cancel the Batman book Ellis is currently doing with Bryan Hitch, they recently released issue #7 of 12.

 

I miss the days when I'd pick up a comic, be amazed at the story or art and have no idea how it was put together. It just magically was.

 

Yikes, that does make the Ellis situation sound a lot worse.
All of this stuff coming out is making it harder and harder to find comics not written by people I want to avoid supporting. I already own his first Bond and Moon Knight trades, but I don't know if I'll get anything else he's written.

I loved the Aquaman movie, and I've been meaning to read this since it came out, but kept coming across other things.
I read issue #2 yesterday after my last post, and it was good too. After the introduction in #1 this one seems to be where the plot really gets started, with the Trench's attack on the town, and then showing up again after Arthur and Mera show up to help the people investigating.

 

Bleeding Cool has a report about an Instagram Livestream Kelly Sue DeConnick did on the subject.

DeConnick used to be on Ellis' message boards (and met her husband there), and has since occasionally worked with Ellis. They point out that there will be more stories of sexual misconduct of other people coming out in the near future, similar to what was going on with the film industry following the Weinstein revelations. DeConnick talks about her personal guilt, having only benefited from her relationship with Ellis, while all these other women suffered.

What really makes this worth reading (and/or watching the Instagram video) is her talking about one of the systemic reasons behind this, the absence of representing agents for newcomers, something DC and Marvel actually tried to avoid in the past as they viewed newcomers having agents as a sign of an upcoming creator already being difficult. This is what leads to personal relationships with already established figures in the industry being pretty much the one and only way to get into the business. And DeConnick (and an unnamed second female creator) are currently trying to get the Big Two to shift their positions on this and make agent representation mandatory for new talent.

 

I can't get over the fact that she is married to Matt Fraction, that is one hell of a pair.

 

I finished up #4 of Aquaman, which ties up The Trench arc. It was a good ending to the arc, with some cool action and imagery down in The Trench.
Overall I really enjoyed this arc, it was a great introduction to Aquaman and Mera, and The Trench were a cool enemy. So does Dr. Shin pop back up at all later? He seemed like someone who could continue to appear and potentially cause problems.

 

And the next #metoo in the comics industry. Not so much a famous creator, but still a very important figure, Charles Brownstein resigned from his position as director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a position he held for 18 years, after an incident from 2005 was made public. At a comic convention, he sexually assaulted writer/artist Taki Soma.

Cheyenne Allott, a former employee of the CBLDF has now come out claiming that her departure after only six months were due to Brownstein's behaviour towards her, suggesting it was similar to what he did to Soma. She had to sign a NDA, though, or pay back her relocation fee (or so the CBLDF claimed at the time), which would have been $ 5,000.

Now, the CBLDF's mission is important, it is an activist organisation fighting censorship in comics. Just recently I heard of a case of them helping a political cartoonist who was fired from the newspaper he worked for over a cartoon criticizing President Trump. So, yes, their work is important. That said, they really need to account for what Brownstein has done, apparently not just in the one case from 2005, but repeatedly. And that an organisation advocating free speech would have departing employees sign NDAs is also not a very good look.

 

God, that kind of thing is bad enough, but to me it's even worse when the person who does it is someone who is supposed to help people.

 

Yes, Shin returns. That first arc was really world building for the series and we learn that Shin played a more complicated role in Arthur's past.

 

Dark Horse editor Scott Allie has been accused by former editor Shawna Gore of repeated sexual abuse. As a result, first long-time collaborator Mike Mignola refused to work with Allie again, then Dark Horse cut ties completely with Allie.

Meanwhile, writer Marghread Scott complained on Twitter about being excluded from Batman writers summits during her time on Batgirl, resulting in her having to do heavy rewrites on short notice without pay, which led to her quitting.

Now, Scott claims sexism for this, which is entirely possible.

However, this situation reminded me of the situation of Ben Percy leaving Nightwing, saying his planned story would go unfinnished. This was just before Tom King had Dick Grayson be shot in the head and losing his memory over in the main Batman title, starting the terrible Ric Grayson thing that's still going on. I also remember Dan Abnett's Titans book ending soon after that.

So, my suspicion is that it is really about the writers of the main titles getting their way and the writers of the spin-off titles being treated badly.

Of course, both could be true, where sexism only added to the situation, and it's also worth noting that the main Batman titles have been almost exclusively written by men (the only woman I can come up with writing regularly on a Batman book was Devin Grayson on "Batman: Gotham Knights" which was almost two decades ago, and even calling GK a main Batman title is a bit of a stretch on my part).

In any event, I'd really hope there to be better communication among the writers on an equal playing field, regardless of which title they are working on.

 

See nu52 Superman and Action.
This happens even between male superstars in the field. It's definitely a thing, but not sexist or anything nefarious like that.

 

Yeah, that seems to be a pretty normal thing in the comics industry. Either way it's definitely shitty behavior.

 

Mike Mignola posted a statement on the Scott Allie situation on his website.

And for something nice for a change, here's a great watercolor piece Jim Lee did for his charity auctions: