Bad attitudes about comics

My love for comics is entwined with my love of rock, so I am going to use that to justify starting with a story that is not about comics.

It was about a year ago, and Fall Out Boy guitarist Joseph Trohman was asking people for the most overrated movies of the year. Someone suggested one that was actually a pretty good movie. I pointed that out, but he said it was still overrated, basically because people acted like it was great, when it was really just good.

This is the only time anyone in Fall Out Boy has responded to a tweet of mine, so that was kind of special, but I was sputtering with irritation. "This is how people become hipsters!"

And this is nothing against Trohman, whom I love. He is a great guitar player - underrated, I think - and smart and funny and his death in the last video made me very sad. (We'll be spending several posts specifically on Fall Out Boy when we get to music videos.) And, I haven't seen him tweet about overrated things lately.

It is an easy attitude to take of course. I did it too, with that crack about hipsters. Yes, people who are always thinking they are too good for everything would be annoying, but once I have that label in mind, it is easy for me to venture into Northwest Portland, see a bunch of people dressed in black and looking disaffected, and being annoyed, without really knowing anything about them, which is unfair.

So, this brings me to this summer, and a list of the Top 100 Overrated Comic Writers. Initially I thought it was a funny idea, especially seeing "Alan Moore's beard" at number 98. If you have seen the beard, it is really easy to get fixated on it, but I'm pretty sure it is not really its own entity. If you want to propose a theory about how the beard changes him or represents him, I'll listen.

Reading further into the list, though, you would find there are a lot of good writers on the list, and not so famous or highly-paid that overrated seems like a legitimate complaint. Then I started wondering if a top 100 would even make sense. I don't know how many writers are currently working in comic books now, but even if we accept that some of them are overrated, I don't know that there could really be 100. Rob Liefeld is listed three times though, so it is technically only 98. Hey, there's that sloppiness again!

Methodology was questionable as well. The post with the list says there were ballots distributed and they got back 3000, which would have been out of over 100,000 attendees. However, I read from someone else that they were holding up pictures and seeing if people recognized them. So, if anyone one in a comic-centric environment recognizes you from your work in comics, clearly you are overrated. There seems to be some self-loathing there.

And that was where it became really interesting. I recently finished a book on slut-shaming, and the double standard is a factor, of course, but another interesting factor is that most of the enforcement is done by girls. They could easily be the next victims, but by putting down someone else, it reinforces their secure spot. Since they are already marginalized as girls, any security they have becomes more important. Often the leaders are middle class (economic status is a huge factor), so their parents may have some anxieties about moving downward that they internalize.

(This is from Slut! Growing Up Female With A Bad Reputation, by Leora Tanenbaum.)

Sometimes the people who ended up outcast found it very liberating. I have seen tweets going around about how the metal people, with their tattoos and piercings, are the nicest people around. Some of them are, and maybe part of that is that they are free to be kind, having given up a place in the normal hierarchy.

Some of them can also be real jerks, which is another reason not to judge people. They could have some hurt and anger over being outcast, or they could also be setting up a replacement hierarchy where they can be the ones doing the rejecting.

Personally, my experiences in comics have been really positive, except for that Catwoman thing. Otherwise I have met really great, supportive people. I know there is a contingent out there that feels the need to play gatekeeper. What changed with the book is starting to see that maybe they feel really threatened, as a marginalized group, losing their one safe space. Or, they could feel so lacking in power and status they enjoy the chance to put anyone else down. It could go either way.

I do know that whether you are a teenage girl or comic-convention attendee (two things that are not mutually exclusive), you will get greater confidence and satisfaction out of being kind and inclusive. There can be an endorphin rush with destruction, but there is a lasting glow with creation.

That may sound pretty smarmy. I read a piece recently on snark versus smarm, and so I am sensitive on that. Also, this isn't that much different from my recent posts about writing and inclusion. And yet I keep doing it. Tomorrow there will be more, because it keeps coming up.