Trolling B’Easy

Trolls. They are everywhere.

Recently Marvel has been facing a bit of backlash for their run of cancellations, fans are upset and their comments are not very positive. The trolling is coming from both sides of the industry, oddly enough. With Twitter and Facebook, fans are able to comment on creators work in a variety of new ways, and creators are able to respond to criticism and comments, sometimes fueling them in the process.

“A lot of people upset about books getting cancelled. The only way to support your fave books is by PREORDERING.” said Brian Bendis, and he has a point, to a certain extent. But in his messages that follow, where he blames piracy and readers for lack of interest, that makes this a case of trolling. Many creators have been highly defensive lately when it comes to canceled books, going off the handle a bit more than usual. Brian Wood on the Becky Cloonan art issues, Frank Miller on Occupy Wall Street, John Bryne on anything, Bob Layton on Iron Man and Marvel’s current editorial practices.

Fans counter saying that Marvel is only pushing books that are Avengers, X-Men and Spider-Man. This is true, and its starting to become more noticeable as Marvel launches a 3rd Bendis Avengers book, in the wake of canceling Ghost Rider, Black Panther and others. Double shipping is also an issue. This is not helping any fans get over the cancellations as Marvel chooses to ship any book that is making a profit. In February there are 13 titles double shipping. That is almost a 3rd of the publishing line.

Readers have a base for their comments, and the debate turns to when is the line crossed? At what point is criticism considered trolling and at what point is it now bashing?

Everyone has an opinion on certain books and publishing practices, and they are entitled to express them in a variety of ways. The issue becomes when is a comment or criticism too much? We can say “Creator X shouldn’t be on book Y.” But we cannot say “Creator X is total S*** and rapes the history of character Y and the book isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” At that point the line is crossed and too often fans are crossing over. Between the Marvel cancellations, the rise of the Architects, the relaunch of the new 52 at DC and some lovely comments from independent creators we are seeing a rise in very vocal fans commenting on creators.

But we cannot say “Creator X is total S*** and rapes the history of character Y and the book isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

There is a fine line between trolling and bashing and to often are we crossing that line because of what we consider entitlement. We buy the books, we pay the creators so we can say whatever we want. But this is not the case, we need to respect people regardless of if we like their work. Sure a book might not be good, it might change everything we know about a character, but regardless of that, the writer is trying their best to make a book that will not only please existing fans, but also draw in new ones. So if it’s controversy, sex, drugs, violence, females replacing males, etc. they are doing what the editors, publishers and themselves consider best for the book.

Yet readers do not consider this, they don’t think about the fact that a story may be editorially mandated, that from a business side, the book may have needed to be cancelled, that maybe the artist on a book really did want a new project. There are tons of things readers don’t take into account that happen behind the scenes on a book, instead they just raise the torches and start commenting on how bad things are.

We do this because it’s easy, it takes mere moments to type a comment on Twitter, Facebook or a message board. We rant and rave about whats going wrong, not considering all the factors, and not taking a few minutes to really go in-depth as to what we consider the problem to be, let alone offering solutions.  Trolling seems to be fans easy-access strategy when it comes to commenting on the current line of titles publishers release. For every one person who leaves a positive comment it seems like four leave a negative one. The question we are left with is, why even comment at all? If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all is the old adage, and some trolls should remember that.

Adam Schiewe

Trolling B’Easy