What's With Comic Book People?

I haven’t been the target of much hate in awhile, but I was talking with a comic professional this morning who’s dipping out of the industry and working on other things simply because he takes so much abuse he doesn’t want to be around comic books.

The guy’s a mega-talent, does amazing work, but it’s a constant bombardment to the point where it impacts his health.

This doesn’t seem to have to do anything with one group or another, politics, comicsgate or not, it just a a major issue throughout the industry.

You say the wrong thing, you get blasted. You associate with the wrong person, you get blasted. You produce the wrong art, you get blasted. There’s no win. It’s just anger after anger, hate after hate and it never stops.

The worst part of it all is the abuse comes from the lowest of society — obese males who are horrible with their hygene and really haven’t grown up at all even though they’re in their 40s.

This is crazy when you think about it, being a professional, getting nagged day in and day out over and over to the point of exhaustion by people like this and then having to put on a smile through the situation or they’ll shout out “he’s rude to customers!”

How did it get like this? In other countries, comic books are just another normal artform. They make beautiful works in Europe, and of course we know Japan, and the artists and writers don’t seem to be subjected to this American destructive culture.

It needs to change, and it means finding folk who are not “comic book people” in general to be readers. Of course, it’s hard to get those people to be readers because they see how horrible the comic book culture is. A catch 22.

I don’t have a solution, but I love the medium, so I’m going to keep beating my head against a wall and trying. Maybe I’m crazy.