Ask Me About My Broken Fandom

A few days ago while I was at home burning through some of my remaining vacation days there was a giant ass shit storm on comics twitter over Mockingbird #8, Chelsea Cain and comics fandom. If you want the full professional blogging experience just google it, since you're here though I assume you're not looking for any of that. Long story short Chelsea Cain noted novelist wrote a short comic book series about Mockingbird (as seen on Agents of Shield). When the last issue came out (it was canceled a little bit ago) she quit twitter and said something to the effect of comic books fans can be really awful. She specifically called out comic book fans saying she has been a bestselling author and never had to block anyone on twitter before writing Mockingbird.

Once she deleted her account that's when the real fun started. Any website with any sort of nerd leaning coverage picked up on the story. A hashtag on twitter was created in her support and it was one of the top trending tags for at least a day. Very quickly some in the comic book community started to push back. They wanted to see screen shots of the harassment or it didn't happen. They also wanted to remind you that Mockingbird was terrible and if you liked it you should feel ashamed. Also the last issue deals a bit with Mockingbird's history of sexual assault in (what I found to be) an awkward manner so if you did like the issue guess what? YOU ARE THE SEXIST NOW.

This story dominated comics twitter for about 48 hours. Most comic book professionals were very supportive of Chelsea Cain but a few wanted to make sure everyone knows the reason Mockingbird was canceled was because of low sales and you can't complain about a book being canceled if you're not buying it. One noted professional who is not new to controversy like this chose his words pretty poorly (again this is my opinion) by saying something to the effect of "hey, at least the trolls buy comics". It was sort of an admission no one wanted to hear while this was going on. Like when Tom Brady is in court because he may or may not be tampering with the footballs you don't need Bill Simmons telling you "say what you will about him cheating, but all Tom Brady does is win Superbowls!"

Yes, comic books are a business but no one wants to hear that Marvel is in anyway catering to the worst of their fan base.

Twitter and comment sections were filled with guys like my man Ry here who thinks that comics aren't for everyone. If memory serves me correctly he follows this up with some tweets about how comics were made for the male gaze and should be filled with hot ladies, not ladies who are hot to rage against the patriarchy.


I mean if I had a nickel for every time I've read SJW this last week I'd have like 20 Nickels, because after about 20 times I bailed on reading more about this and just focused on Overwatch. I don't know what to do about people being shitheels to each other, I'm just some schlub on the internet that thinks there should be all kinds of comic books for all kinds or people. When I read a comic I don't like I don't @ the author. I might say on-line why I didn't like it but I'm not here to try and make people feel bad for their work. What do people gain from that? And why are people so insane when it comes to characters and comics they don't own? You don't own Thor. You don't write Thor. You don't get to decided if Thor is a man or a woman. If you don't like it don't buy it, if someone else is liking it and you're not it doesn't mean one of you is wrong. Two different people can like two different things without it meaning anything.

Maybe we should invent a time machine and go back and warn Al Gore not to invent the internet. Or maybe we can hurry up the deal that will sell the internet to the Chinese my dad was telling me about. I cringe thinking about how my kids are going to handle stuff like this. The first time some slobbery gatekeeper tells my daughter that comics are for boys I hope she punches him right in the neck. BOOM NECK PUNCH! Don't worry honey, I'll bail you out of jail if I have to.