by Kris@WLP » Sun May 17, 2015 8:52 am
And meanwhile I've just had a couple of long-time readers tell me via Twitter that they're stepping away from the comic over this page.
Urgh.
The main difference between myself and Ben is that I loathe Internet drama, whereas Ben thrives on it. He finds SomethingAwful, EncyclopediaDramatica, the 4-channers and GamerGate funny as hell. I've never seen the humor value in making other people angry merely for the sake of offending them. Add to this the steep political differences developing between the two of us, and you'll understand why I've been trying to bite my tongue a LOT, and why I've come to dread every moment I see Ben's name on a Facebook post.
The hell of it is, I've had people drop my works based on what I believe before, but this is the first time they've done it because of what my creative partner believes, and it's a frustrating experience. I can't tell these people, "This is why I believe X," nor can I say, "I try not to put my personal beliefs ahead of the story I'm telling," because in this case it's not my beliefs causing the problem.
And although I can (and do) speak up when I believe someone else's beliefs are wrong, I cannot and will not order anybody to stop believing X, or expressing their belief of X, simply for my own convenience.
For my part I thought Shirtgate was a tempest in a teapot (you wore that shirt when you knew you were going to be on worldwide television? When you know women are strongly discouraged from pursuing scientific careers, especially in physics and space sciences? That makes you an idiot, but not a misogynist, and you shouldn't be hounded out of science for it).
I think (and evidence backs me up) that GamerGate began when a creepy stalker broke up with a female game designer and decided to punish the woman he saw as his property by spreading false statements about her on the Internet and encouraging others to stalk, harrass, and terrorize her and other women in video games. I thought the Manara comic cover was stupid and a little insulting (what serious superhero would seriously go out on patrol wearing nothing but body paint and a mask- I mean outside a WLP comic that is?), and I thought Frank Cho's responses to the overblown response were nothing more subtle or artistic than an upthrust middle finger.
I think a lot of my fellow liberals have a tendency to overreact without thinking, and I think a lot of conservatives have the notion that freedom of speech means they can criticize others, but that their critics should be silenced.
I think that it is not censorship to point out that men outnumber women ten to one or more in the games industry, that most mainstream video games restrict female characters to the roles of victim, sex object, or reward for the male hero to claim, or to suggest that game developers are missing a trick by not offering independent female heroes or non-blonde, non-bikini female avatars for MMOs and the like.
And mostly I think you're not here for any of that; you're here to read a story about silly, sometimes sexy werewolves; and so I put that priority above having a drag-out political argument with the artist who is just as much responsible for the creation of the comic as I am. In the current political climate such things usually end with burned bridges and dead projects, and PitW is too important to me to risk that.
That said: you've probably seen the last GamerGate joke in PitW. The only reason I didn't say no to this one was that it's perfectly in character for Carla Goodwin to use the fourth wall to troll other people for her own amusement. Hell, she trolls her own DAUGHTERS, and her younger daughter is following in her footsteps. Carla herself isn't a GamerGate person by any stretch of the imagination, but she doesn't see it as important either- just Internet drama and fluff that will be forgotten a year from now, in her mind.
So, yes, we did this filler. No, we probably won't do it again. But no, neither Ben nor I are going to shut up about what we believe in venues outside the comic. You, the readers, are free to do what you feel you have to do.
Sorry for the rambling, but I've been upset and stressed over this sort of thing for months now, and other factors in my recent life are NOT helping.