A dustup in the comic book world reminds us — as if any of us needed reminding — that the world of comics fandom is filled with a lot of the same sort of garbage people who’ve been harassing (mostly) women in the name of #GamerGate.
The sightly confusing story: On Friday, a bunch of “variant” comic book covers featuring The Joker alongside an assortment of other DC comics characters were posted online, with DC planning on releasing two dozen more “variant” covers for June.
One of these covers, intended for Batgirl #41, featured The Joker and a terrified-looking Batgirl, an unsettling reference to an quarter-century-old graphic novel called The Killing Joke, in which the sadistic Joker crippled Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl, with a shot to her spine. The Joker’s sadism was highly sexualized, with the graphic novel strongly suggesting that she had also been sexually assaulted.
Well, a lot of Batgirl’s present day fans were upset by a reminder of this dark storyline, in part because, as Jude Terror writes on The Outhousers, a cover referencing sadism and sexual assault is a bit “contradictory to the lighthearted tone” of Batgirl comics today.
After hearing this criticism, the artist behind the cover, Rafael Albuquerque, asked DC Comics to pull his artwork, noting that he never meant “to hurt or upset anyone through my art.”
DC Comics granted his request. But DC’s official statement also alluded to “threats of violence and harassment,” which many people took to mean that Albuquerque and DC Comics had been bullied into pulling the artwork by, you know, those evil “social justice warriors” we hear so much about.
Nope. It was the” antisocial injustice warriors” all along. Albuquerque made clear that he hadn’t actually gotten any threats. As Batgirl writer Cameron Stewart noted, it was the people who criticized the cover who were getting threats.
That’s right. Albuquerque and DC took down the artwork because some of the DEFENDERS of the artwork were harassing critics in their name.
Ethics!
Naturally, the people who previously brought so much ETHICS! to the world of gaming have some highly ETHICAL opinions on this controversy.
On Kotaku in Action, Reddit’s home for the #GamerGate crowd, commenters complained that Albuquerque and DC had given in to “a bunch of screeching hens on Twitter.”
“Another win for the feels-censors,” one commenter lamented. “Yeah for moral panic and outrage for they win the day!” another commenter remarked sarcastically.
“I say fuck ’em,” still another commenter defiantly added. “Be as fucking edgy as you want, and if anyone complaints, just tell them “don’t buy it moron”.”
But my favorite comment is probably this one, not just for the “let me explain to you how art works” stuff but also for that slightly ironic bit at the very end.
Dude, I hate to have to tell you this, but you’re part of a movement whose main goal is to shut down peope who disagree with you.
#GamerGate has spent the past, what, six months, harassing and threatening and trying to ruin the lives and the livelihoods of game developers and journalists and cultural critics for the terrible crime of … saying things you don’t like about gaming culture (sometimes even while being female).
Indeed, #GamerGaters have managed to convince themselves, if very few others, that it’s somehow “unethical” for journalists to publish anything #GamerGaters don’t like. And then they complain about “censorship?”
H/T — Big tip of the hat today to Skiriki, for alerting me to this and providing helpful links, and to lifestyled on GamerGhazi for a post highlighting some of the best — i.e., worst — comments from GamerGaters on Reddit.
Wow. I saw some people yelling on Twitter… and poof! WHTM covers it! Something something sacrificial mammoths!
I’m mostly just confused why DC’s staff seems so fixed on Batgirl’s part in The Killing Joke, since even its author has shown regret for how he handled her and recent developments have put the character far, far away from that ghastly incident.
2 things come to mind:
1- These idiots are coming to the defense of someone who does not want them to fight for him because they think it will accomplish something. Being a white cisgendered dude who makes his pro-equality ideals known on the internet I get accused of doing exactly that all the damn time. In other words:
IT’S LIKE RAAAAAAAIIIIIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY
2-Like many previous attempts to expand GG beyond their borders, once they have to play by rules other than the ones they laid out, they get squashed like the bugs they are.
Oh just wait ’till David reads the next tip. Lulz are going to be off the chart.
This has been blowing up all over my frequented sites, too.
What’s really odd to me about this whole thing isn’t DC; I can see all the jangling lines (and I’m willing to take what the parties involved have said on good faith) that would lead to this kind of mismatch and retreat.
What’s strange is the way that dudebros who don’t read Batgirl are now up in arms because “art’s being censored” (totally missing the point, as usual) – while simultaneously lambasting those weak-kneed sensitivites who can’t walk past a Den of Man ™ without being offended.
Like, the irony’s right there on the page. “I’m deeply offended that someone’s voicing how they’re offended.” A few months ago, I would have been flummoxed by the fact that the guerre du jour is made up, too … but repeated exposure has allowed me to get my head around that one these days.
Is there actually a need for artwork like this? Its good, a little too good.
It’s the same crap they pulled with Dr. Taylor – a man has the temerity to admit he made a mistake, so obviously he’s being bullied by teh evil feminists.
It never enters their mind that the man could have a sense of empathy, and is actually being sincere.
Clearly Rafael Albuquerque asked DC to pull the cover because he was bullied by screeching Twitter harpies, not because he’s a decent person who thoughtfully considered other people’s feelings and opinions and decided to act accordingly.
/sarcasm
Bear:
I’ve had people tell me that even the artist reconsidering others opinions is bad because it alters the artist’s original intention. It’s like some quantum thing. By talking about it, you have the risk of changing it, so you must MUST be silent or you’re being an unethical censor.
Tessa, you remind me of a guitarist my husband knew, who refused to listen to music because it would ‘taint his artistry’.
He produced work about on par with the average GGer, and would get furious because no one took him seriously or liked what he did. There was a conspiracy, you know.
@Tessa
Not sure if I’m using the right word (not a native English speaker) but, the irony.
As a comic book fan of many years now, I can say that I’m not all that much a fan of the Killing Joke, and frankly there’s more to Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle than what went on in that book. As for these clowns threatening critics, that’s what art does, it draws criticism. There’s a world of difference between censoring art and criticising it. these guys want to censor art. Art can’t stand on its own merits or fall on its own merits, it in their minds falls to their politburo approval board of misogynistic douchebags.
And going back to the Previous post the USSR was Hella sexist after Lennin’s death, gamergate should love them.
>GGers and whiny dudebros whine about SJWs saying that art reflecting the book where the Joker sexually assaulting and crippling Barbra Gordon/Batgirl is totes fine and people should get over it.
>Previously whined about Gone Home and how they didn’t like it because it had lesbians but no lesbian sex/no “gameplay”/was all about feelings instead of “real gamer stuff”/”wasn’t that good but everyone’s saying it is and I don’t like it WHY DO YOU?!”
Oh the IRONY~
The IRONYYYYY~
It’s fucking HEAVY with these shitlords~
I was just flipping through one of my favorite comic blogs (it’s about Deadpool, but the author reads multiple comic books and is a disabled woman), and she was bringing this up. One of the things that really soured her to DC was how they “cured” Barbra of her paralysis, which is disabled erasure.
Oh, and I read another article on the Outhousers where they talked about how DC fumbled transgender people with the hokey, hurtful, nasty ol’ “Men who dress as women are deviants who are out to hurt women!” trope, and that smacks of even more bullshit because Barbra has a transgendered woman in her close circle of friends.
The comments did devolve into an argument about Barbra stating that the villain dressing up as her was a man in surprise (Which I think it’s fine she was surprised about it, it’s what happened later that I take issue with), but it’s a good look at how DC can’t help but get a nice thing, and throw it on the floor at some point in their possession of it.
As a comics fan, the only thing keeping me at all up to speed with what DCs doing is Wonder Woman, and anything good involving Harley Quinn (and the Injustice: Gods Among Us comic arc [based on the game by the same name] is quite good, actually. Harley gets some AMAZING characterization).
You know, The Killing Joke was the first comic book I ever bought myself, when I was 14. It will always hold a place in my heart for that. But, while it’s got some good iconography and cute lines, it’s a really awful book in the way it just blithely uses sexualized violence and the incapacitation of women for the plot—both a horrible Batman book even in terms of characterization, and just a really awful unoriginal book.
So but as a huge fan of both characters portrayed here, it bugs the crap out of me that THIS IMAGERY IS WHAT THEY ALWAYS RETURN TO. This frightened de-powering of Barbara.
The creators (and a lot of fans I guess!) love it! They can’t get enough of it! They seem preoccupied with it to the point of obsession. It’s so disingenuous to not examine WHY. It’s boring and disgusting and alienating. And yes, this image is intense because it’s not just the pose or the expressions, it’s the larger sort of semiotic frame the image is operating in. Plus, you would never see this so gleefully done to Batman on a cover.
It’s the sort of attitude that has me not buying comics anymore, even though I still love the characters.
So while I’m glad they took it down, I’m also just sad they chose it as Batgirl’s variant cover to begin with.
(Also, the harassers might wanna choose the hill they die on a little more discerningly. Jeez.)
Shorter Gomers: Emotions bad! Unless OUR emotions. Then emotions good. Our emotions the only valid emotions! Oogh oogh oogh.
So hey, SaveTheCover people, how many of you actually BUY Batgirl or were going to? This is a trick question because it’s targeted at teenage girls and twenty-somethings on tumblr., You are not buying it and never would. The people complaining at the actual customers of this comic.
That’s a problem across all aspects of character development in comics; Status Quo is God. It negatively impacts minority issues in a big way, because they’re so underrepresented in the first place; so when a topic finally comes up, it only lasts a short while before it’s undone in a return to the way things were.
It does cut both ways though. One of the few mainstream disabled characters in superhero comics, Professor X, has regained the use of his legs several times. But he always loses it again, either through a reversal of whatever happened, or a new injury resulting in the exact same condition.
With precious few exceptions, able-bodied characters don’t get permanently disabled, and disabled characters (when you can find them) won’t be made permanently able-bodied. Or, indeed, significantly changed in any other way.
Oh hey, Adam Baldwin has decided to throw his weight in here too.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/03/17/the-batgirl-joker-variant-issue-goes-global-as-savethecover/
The people who constantly police what is and isn’t a real game and who is or isn’t a real gamer are complaining about someone criticizing a drawing? Huh.
I love how the argument is “Well, now that you’ve complained about it, people are seeing it everywhere and you’ve given it more exposure! HA!”, when that’s not what people had their beefs with.
For me, it’s a wonderful piece of art, and it fits within the canon of Batgirl, and it’s important to her history, but it’s not suitable for a cover on the current Batgirl series. The current Batgirl has a different audience now and it’s far more upbeat than that particular artwork portrays. It’s not a good fit. The writers even said this before the cover was shown.
For others, it’s a brutal reminder that Joker sexually assaulted Batgirl after shooting her in the back and paralyzing her from the waist down, but never were any arguments made (from what I’ve seen) for it to be “censored” or “erased”, only not put on a variant cover. Which isn’t even the real damn cover. It’s a variant of another cover.
Again, Gomers and their fellow dildobros are all screeching about “censorship” when that’s not even fucking happening. If they want to support the artwork or the comic, How about y’all respect the artist’s and the writers’ wishes first and foremost and let them take it down because it’s not a good fit for this series.
Stop talking over the people who made this decision, and their reasons for doing what they’re doing, and let them fucking do what they feel they need to, for fuck’s sake.
And they’re discussing this right now on the Geek & Sundry Twitch channel: http://www.twitch.tv/geekandsundry
I realise that’s useless information, as by the time anyone follows that link they’ll have moved on… but I thought the timing was notable.
If I remember I’ll come back and post a link to the relevant stream archive once it’s up.
It’s sad because there’s a lot of brilliant progressive and progressive friendly people making comics. And indeed there has been for quite some time (even Alan Moore, the inspiration for this piece. He frequently fails and refuses to listen to critics but his heart is in the right place).
But these dudebros are always hanging on trying to drag comics into the swamp of T&A and white male power fantasies.
Ironically, the controversy has probably brought the cover to more people’s attention that releasing it w/o any controversy would have. And I agree–it is not bad artwork, just a bit icky and a apparently a bad fit (I’m not reading Batgirl–should I start?).
Bear:
Yeah, you used irony correctly. Another common thing is for them to say that “the artists should be able to create what they want without having to worry about people making them feel bad.”