(Disclaimer: I’d like to point out that I mean no disrespect to the parties involved, and that the ones I’ve spoken to are actually really swell guys. And I’m sure the ones I haven’t spoken to are also. Because so far, a vast majority of webcomic people I’ve met are nice people, so I believe that all webcomic types are inherently nice.)
This is giving me a headache. The argument is still going on, and has devolved into a cesspool of “He said, She said…” (granted, there aren’t all that many “she’s” involved). Again, I’m not going to link, because I don’t want to fan any flames.
We live on a planet filled with over 8 billion people. A million or two of them read webcomics, maybe. That’s still a lot of people. And when there’s a lot of people involved in one community, things get rough. People rub each other wrong, or even go as far as to lambast each other vocally, for all to see.
We’re watching another battle between the proverbial titans. We’ve got major players on all sides of the issue, the artists, the business men, and the ones in between. We’ve even got the critics and the newsguys covering an argument. A spat. Someone made fun of somebody else, that somebody else and their friends took offense and demanded an apology, and the first party won’t. And they shouldn’t have to. Because they were simply stating a fucking opinion.
Now the first party isn’t blameless. Part of their job is to satirize, and satirize scathingly. That’s what they do. To everybody. Even themselves. Few have ever been safe from it. So when the target du jour has powerful allies and a large audience, they retort with a fiery vengence.
Now we have legions of people, who are truthfully not involved in the argument, fighting each other in the name of their leader. We have a war now. We have public battles between people. On blogs.
There’s a reason I felt so indifferent to what was going on before. I think I’ve finally nailed it.
I am not involved.
I am not Gabe, Tycho, Scott Kurtz, Cat Garza, John Barber, or Scott McCloud. I am not the man who assembled the trailer, and I do not work on the staff of that production. That being said, there’s a lot of us who aren’t those people. Probably a good 99.9995%. So as the figures indicate, there’s a very miniscule portion of the webcomics reading community who are those people. The people who are directly involved in the argument.
Let’s make a good analogy for the situation. You’re walking down the street, any street, anytown USA. On the corner of the street, there’s a man who is standing on a box, beating a holy text with his fist, and declaring each and every person he sees as a heathen. Because they are doing things that he thinks are evil. You stand there, and you hear his argument, and naturally you disagree.
What’s the mature thing to do? Go over to his face and say he’s the one who’s wrong? Or turn the other cheek and walk away?
Let it be known that I am fully aware that the argument at hand is no where near as severe as the argument in the analogy. But for the purpose of argument, I think it illustrates my point.
Everyone is fighting because someone disagrees with another’s method. Disagreeing vocally, being his right as a human being, while being semi-slanderous in the process. Victims of the disagreement have retaliated, and that has catipaulted the argument into a fight. And like Kurtz said, if it was anybody else, we wouldn’t care. If, one day, I am on the recieving end of the satire, I’m going to smile and laugh. Because I know that it’s just a joke.
I feel like I’m repeating myself here. Which I believe I am. Just like everybody else. Because there’s a whole lot of us in this community, and everyone’s up in arms because the celebrities are squabbling. Regardless of the squabble, it is still their squabble. So I’d rather the folk who are not involved in the argument stop acting like they are. There’s ways of showing support for your side without increasing the intensity.
But again. This is a big community we have. There’s bound to be people who disagree with eachother. There’s always people who just don’t like each other. That’s natural. That’s human. Feathers are ruffled, egos are bruised, and feelings are hurt. I recognize feelings are hurt. Mine would be too. And if I were involved in this situation, I might hold an entirely different opinion of what’s going on. But I’m not. I’m in my chair, watching. And I’m tired of it.
So I want to publicly request that every body calm the fuck down, and realize this isn’t that big a deal. No one’s right here. No one. Everybody’s done something, wether it was right or wrong, and everyone’s at fault because rather than turning the other cheek, they propel the argument further.
And the rest of you. I’m sorry, but this is not a media event. This is an argument between a specific group of people, and media outlets covering it are turning it into a damned reality show. Don’t prove that real life interpersonal drama is entertainment, don’t prove the network executives right. It needs to end now.
So guys. Stop. Please?
I had no idea what you were talking about until the 9th paragraph.
Websnark overreacting to Penny Arcade’s harmless joke does not equal webcomic drama.
No you see, there’s been many many developments since then. It’s about the situation at large, rather than any individual’s action.
I think, frankly, that everyone WANTS it to stop, but that it hasn’t reached a mutually-agreeable stopping POINT yet. If one isn’t reached within like a month or so (towards which it will rapidly peter down into a peep) it will just be tossed to one side. It’s gone from a general statement about theory vs. practice to something very specific, pointed (as you said) at just a couple of people, and I don’t blame certain people in that mess for feeling that they need to address charges levied at them. Some heavy charges are being passed around, indeed, some low blows are being made.
But in the end that’s another day in the trenches. I know whom I’m agreeing and disagreeing with, and beyond a single long snipe in my rant I’ll say nothing more about it (and er – beyond this, I mean). Shit is going down, and like a grand PVP battle between a handful of level 60 players in WoW, this little level 20-something is content to sit on a nearby ridge and watch the shitstorm unfold and root for my team quietly. A fitting comparison, I think (silly ninja that I am) because like the Horde and the Alliance, there seems to be a language barrier – ideology and theory more than anything else.
(but quiet you. I like my analogy the way it is. I may have been playing too much World of Warcraft but shhhhh. Shoo, shoo!)
I think this reiterates your analogy of webcomics to a high school community.
I have no idea what Blue just said.
Anyway, I think this is the first time Tycho got called on being an asshole by one of his peers with a bit more credibility than he has. Really, he could have easily deflated this entire thing by owning up to something that was entirely his fault. Kurtz sort of half-assidly did so. Instead we’re treated to a foaming at the mouth rant that reads like some diatribe from the Westboro Baptist Church. There weren’t any armed camps to begin with. But he seems to have gone out of his way to set them up by stirring up passions on both sides of the fence.
And the reason people are getting hyped over it is because webcomics is a tiny, inbred little community. When PA attacks some aspect of the gaming world, they have the luxury of not giving a fuck. Because Nintendo or whoever know that they could crush Penny Arcade like a roach, should they decide to do so. On the otherhand, no one in webcomics has the luxury of ignoring them, because what they say influences potential readers.
On the nosey, Nick.
Annie, I’m no longer taking sides. I don’t think I can justifiably do so.
Will, that’s all the more reason it needs to just stop.
Oh, I agree. But this is a gulf of ideology over the motivation for making comics, and it’s a gulf that wont be bridged until some sort of agreement about the value of comics is made. Some see them as part of an over all marketing plan: The Marvel Method if you will, and some see them as the product itself.
I think it’s best described as starry-eyed dreamers (comics themselves are valuable) vs the cynical tee-shirt salesmen (the comics are part of marketing plan). There’s room for both, but it’s the starry eyed dreamers that only get the props from the “scholars”, their peers, and other respectable folk. Teeshirt salesmen only get props from their customers.
William: I think you’re doing an injustice to those out there who are making a living from their webcomics by calling them all “t-shirt salesmen.” There certainly ARE those who make a living off of their comics, and they’re not all of that stripe – and conversely, there are those who aren’t making a living off of their comics (and sometimes claim they’re doing it “for art’s sake), and they explicitly ARE using them to move merchandise.
It’s not even about the “motivation for making comics,” but more about the method and its turnout. It’s become about micropayments vs. legwork, and inherent beliefs about the nature of each type of comic, the alternative vs. the mainstream. It’s an argument over ideologies, certainly, and we’ve seen it before. I think at this point everyone’s said something they’ve regretted, and instead of sitting back self-importantly and saying “mmmm yeah, I told you so, I knew I was right,” we should focus on getting a more open-minded dialogue going, bury the hatchet (in the GROUND, not in anyone’s BACK), and get on with things.
ONE THING THOUGH: I don’t think anyone in all this has said that comics _aren’t VALUABLE_. That was never said by _anyone_. It was about how one could make a LIVING off of them, and that both varieties are equally worthy, but understandibly one will get more attention than the other – this is nothing new in any medium. It was the reaction against any one side acting as if they were the penultimate expression of the medium, I think, that spurred this along in part.
I know this is in no way relevent to the issue at hand, but there aren’t eight million people on the the planet. There’s six and a bit.
Hmm… I thought there was probably 8 billion by now. Whatever. Like you said, that isn’t really important.
As an aside. I really like American Chopper.
You realize, by making a long, involved post about how it should stop, you’re contributing, right?
(Same way I’m contributing by grousing about it. I really need to just shut the hell up and go back to enjoying the ready availability of Dasani.)
The bottled water?
The thought did of course cross my mind, Weds. The irony was not lost on me.
But I still felt like it should’ve been done.
William: Yeah, the bottled water. They stopped selling it in Britain ’cause bromide(?) levels were too high for UK bottled water standards (albeit OK for the EU, IIRC) in the first batch, then couldn’t relaunch it because of PR issues. So I’m all, dude, they have Dasani at the White Hen down the block. Life rocks.
Sooo … who exactly started the whole? Google isn’t helping.
At the risk of ressurecting any sort of drama out of this, I’m sorry. I can’t tell you.
I’m sure there’s tons of other people you can ask.