Just as a follow-up to my earlier missive about diversity in geekdom, particularly comics geekdom. Today, DC Comics released a Batgirl cover they had planned. The Batgirl cover was meant as an homage to the joker, and in particular his role in paralyzing Barbara Gordon – the original Batgirl, in The Killing Joke. Unfortunately, the cover was largely tonally dissonant from the new more fun, less dark Batgirl.
Anyway, the internet did not respond well to this.
The “Batgirl” #41 variant quickly received criticism for highlighting a dark period in the character’s history, especially when juxtaposed with the current youthful, more optimistic direction of the series under the creative team of co-writers Cameron Stewart & Brenden Fletcher and artist Babs Tarr. Multiple websites ran editorials critical of the image, and the hashtag #changethecover drew dozens of posts on Twitter and Tumblr asking DC to not release the variant.
The creative team behind Batgirl quickly realized that this was not the direction they wanted to take Batgirl and backed off. Here’s the author of the piece.
For me, it was just a creepy cover that brought up something from the character’s past that I was able to interpret artistically. But it has become clear, that for others, it touched a very important nerve. I respect these opinions and, despite whether the discussion is right or wrong, no opinion should be discredited.
My intention was never to hurt or upset anyone through my art. For that reason, I have recommended to DC that the variant cover be pulled. I’m incredibly pleased that DC Comics is listening to my concerns and will not be publishing the cover art in June as previously announced.
DC added this to their commentary.
Regardless if fans like Rafael Albuquerque’s homage to Alan Moore’s THE KILLING JOKE graphic novel from 25 years ago, or find it inconsistent with the current tonality of the Batgirl books – threats of violence and harassment are wrong and have no place in comics or society.
Yes, enthusiastic anti-SJW forces proceeded to jump down the throats and attempt to intimidate and harass the cultural critics to the point where DC had to remind them that they were being, ultimately assholes about the whole thing.
This assholery is continuing now, with a full-on ragefest of Twitter (including many names you’d recognize from the constant #GamerGate debates). They can’t believe that the authors caved – and refuse to believe that the authors simply realized they misstepped. They insist that authors should never recieve pressure or feedback from fans or press of any kind (um, yeah, right). The fans that complained were not *true fans*. No one liked the new batgirl anyway, and the author was rumored to be a progressive (*gasp*). Why can’t DC make both available?
The truth of the matter is that content creators fuck up all the time. We make mistakes. We don’t understand the impact some of our decisions have. And good content creators look for outside feedback in order to get more opinions on their art before they unveil it to the whole world. And sometimes when you do, you realize that your art said something that you never intended it to say. If the artist realizes that he’s done that, then the artist desperately WANTS to be able to change his message. This isn’t just about commercial viability – it’s about being sure that your art is actually being recieved and understood the way you intended it, and not being clouded by unrelated bullshit or divergent messages.
Judging from the tweets from the creative team, this is exactly what happened. The team realized that the Batgirl cover didn’t fit with the direction they were trying to take Batgirl, and backed off. They didn’t have to. Lord knows, there is racier stuff on the shelves. So it mattered to them. And now, the anti-SJW forces are angrily, ANGRILY blasting at a creative team who used their best judgment about what they wanted their art to say.
So much for the idea that these guys have content creators’ best interests in mind.
The gist I get from the “fan oriented journalism” advocates is that reviewers and critics should be dishonest and not criticize something like a comic or video game if it’s popular among enough fans. In my experience, though, fans will get really irrational if you say anything remotely critical about something they like, which can feed into undeserved hype. The GGers add to “fan oriented journalism” by demanding that no reviewer should criticize a work for being problematic from a “social justice” perspective. But all this amounts to setting up an anti-intellectual “echo chamber” in which reviewers don’t give their honest opinions on art.
Rich Johnston of Bleeding Cool breaks it all down.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/03/17/the-batgirl-joker-variant-issue-goes-global-as-savethecover/
Bonus Adam Baldwin.
I can only assume that these defenders of “the artist’s right to self-expression” who are screaming against the (falsely) perceived “censorship” were also vigorous defenders of BioWare during the Great Gamer Meltdown that was the reception to Mass Effect 3’s ending…
Oh no doubt.
The creator’s desire is sacred and shall not be abridged, provided that the creator is wise enough to only listen to the “right” fans. Should the creator listen to the wrong fans, the right fans will promptly apply corrective encouragement until the creator realizes the error of its ways.
In other words: “It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
Just to clarify though, the creators of the actual comic didn’t make or chose this cover. Variants are normally chosen by the company with little to no input from the people writing and drawing the comic itself. So it’s not the “author” who apologized for the piece but the artists who drew the specific cover. From what I’ve heard, he actual creative team hated the cover from the very start … which makes the whole “you’re crushing artistic expression” argument that much sillier.