
Yet another woman has been driven off Twitter by misogynistic fanboy bullies angry that she had invaded their putatively male turf. This time, the arena is comics, and the woman in question is writer Chelsea Cain, a bestselling novelist who brought her feminist sensibility to the Marvel comic book series Mockingbird, which recently came to an end after eight issues.
Cain deleted her account on Twitter yesterday, after a series of tweets aimed at the misogyny that’s still rife in the comics world.
Cain’s resignation from Twitter prompted a flood of support, on Twitter and elsewhere, from fans and others troubled by misogyny online.
Her detractors responded by declaring that it was all a big hoax — that she’d made up the misogynistic harassment she claimed she’d gotten. And also that she sucked and feminism sucked and that it was a terrible thing that she and other feminists were ruining comics and that no, the harassment of her, which didn’t exist, had nothing to do with sexism, it was just because she sucked.
https://twitter.com/Taenner4Brump/status/791479331499315200
https://twitter.com/PrimitivPatriot/status/791496619837587456
https://twitter.com/ArchaicHipster/status/791549249976733696
https://twitter.com/MusouTensei82/status/791471542379089921
I dont #StandWithChelseaCain because there's no proof her harassment. Her comic sucked and she deleted her account due to her not accepting.
— Deadaccount (@smokedout5021) October 27, 2016
I don't #StandWithChelseaCain because everything Feminism touches turns to shit #MockingBird pic.twitter.com/eVNp3PJaF1
— BoneMan🐸 (@BoMa on GAB.AI) (@Bonefingerz) October 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/ZekeWars010/status/791440270885650432
To those who tweet "#StandwithChelseaCain:" #Mockingbird's failure and cancellation had nothing to do w/ sexism.https://t.co/OJImn4XmsQ pic.twitter.com/qVJJAKDH67
— Captain Hat (@CaptHat211) October 27, 2016
https://twitter.com/JamieAgathaRose/status/791585788320296960
https://twitter.com/Outlawdriver_72/status/791515636878807040
Gosh, what a shock to find Donald Trump fans mixed up in all of this.
EDIT: As several people have mentioned, Mockingbird Vol. 1: I Can Explain is currently the #1 seller in Marvel Comics & Graphic Novels on Amazon.
H/T — Thanks to everyone who brought my attention to this as well as to CBR.com and Willamette Week for screencapping and posting the screenshots of Cain’s tweets.
Woman comic book writer being harassed on Twitter…must be a day that ends in Y.
@Scildfreja
Southeast Asian Steampunk?
Ask, and ye shall receive.
Hello.
So free speech is ok, but free comic development is not ok. So selfawareness, and absolutely no double-standard. At all.
Maybe they think life will give them an achievment like a console, something like the “Whinning Achievment”, “Troll Achievement” or “Harassment Achievment”. From the bottom of her well, the frog is still complaining.
Have a nice day.
So, serious question, is there a handy list of every media property that may be worth a look because it caused tantrums in the manosphere somewhere?
Says it all, really.
Comic book fans, and many geeks in general, will claim that they were bullied in high school and grapple with trauma from insults and verbal harassment they received. Which may very well be true. But now those same fans and geeks, usually men, are telling women and people of color that insults and harassment are just words; toughen up.
Well, thank goodness they made sure to actually dump misogynistic harassment on her to retroactively prove her right. Good Samaritans doing good work is what they are. /s
It’s almost as if when a woman isn’t working within a box of behaviors acceptable to a specific audience, she’s torn down and all manner of harassment and threats are justified.
Which is a phenomenon that is in no way anything like the treatment of women who aren’t perceived of as sufficiently liberal. Nope. Not at all.
That’s a pretty cool idea. Easiest thing would be to just create one here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_media_that_provoked_harassment&action=edit&redlink=1
For all you guys wondering about Black Steampunk, its called SteamFunk (and a bunch of other names) and there are many different kinds, with anthology series, short films and cosplay. Its beautiful:
AFROPUNK – … the other Black experience
And visit the website Chronicles of Harriet, which deals with all things Steampunk, SteamFunk, Afro Punk, Afro-Future Punk, etc. in the Black community. It even has cosplay and costume segments for the Black cosplayer. They’re gorgeous!
https://chroniclesofharriet.com/2013/09/11/black-people-dont-like-steampunk/
As for Asian Steampunk theres:
Shanghai Steam anthology
Steampunk World anthology
The Far West anthology (its also an RPG)
Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff
And I am currently reading Toru :Wayfarer Returns by Stephanie Sorenson
The RPG:
Steamscapes Asia
*facedesk*
@FoxKit
I love video games, and I love the idea of this Zoe Quinn/Chuck Tingle collaboration. My concern though is that things that are made with the purpose of being so-bad-it’s-good tend to just be bad.
I intend to pledge as a Spaghetti Sweetie, and recommend the same to others, because “spaghetti” is tied to a bunch of memes on 4chan and I expect a significant number of awful people will feel upset about “their” jokes being appropriated.
@Tragedy of the Commas
1st: AWESOME username. I’m 1,000,000% jeally. Respect!
2nd: Your article link from the TheEstablishment.co is FANTASTIC. This quote, in particular, is well worth sharing:
This is the first I’ve heard about this. Am I living under a rock inadvertently, or is this not something that has been reported sufficiently? To me, if someone hobnobs with a prominent white nationalist and former grand dragon of the Klan, this immediately calls everything about that person into question. I suppose that may be the fallacy of the poisoned well, but racism is SUCH a noxious, ubiquitous, and pernicious toxin that frankly I’d like to be a few counties away from the well at this point.
Really quality share! Thank you for enlightening me today 🙂
@Lkeke
Right on, sista!
*digs thru links*
@ axe
There was something I wanted to run past you, but I’m not sure if it’s a bit weird. But as we’re speaking about comics. For various reasons I’ve been on a bit of a nostalgia trip in regards to some Brit comics of my youth. You’ve mentioned you’re a fan of The Wall so there’s one character I thought you might be interested in. She was the first black woman main character with her own strip over here. The backstory behind how she was created is, I think, quite interesting in itself. But I’d be interested in your take on her. Please tell me to stick if I’m being out of order, but if you wouldn’t mind having a look let me know. Cheers.
@Alan
Ominous af, but whatever. Go for it, bruh
@ axe
Here we go, meet Ms Ebony Jones.
http://static5.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/8/80884/1580231-crunch54.jpg
First perhaps a little background as to how she came about. Back in the 70s IPC publishing brought out a comic called ‘Action’. It was phenomenally popular. Unfortunately it got banned and was effectively relaunched as ‘2000AD’ (the theory being that they could get away with the themes if they presented them in a sci-fi/fantasy context). IPC’s main rival DC Thompson created a comic called ‘The Crunch’ to compete with Action/2000AD. IPC then created a distaff version of 2000AD called Misty. So again DC Thompson set out to create their own version. The rule was ‘no ponies, no ballerinas’. Unfortuately the project was abandoned. However Ebony was one of the stritps they’d created and they though she was too good to waste so they published the stories in The Crunch.
As to Ebony herself, she’s the daughter of an ex British army officer and works for the special missions section of MI6. Apart from her name and her ‘She’s black, beautiful and deadly’ tagline, her ethnicity didn’t appear to be a major feature of the stores themselves; although she wasn’t a fan of racists. Anyway, I can dig a bit more stuff up if you’re interested.
@Dalillama, of course the Girl Genius would be first to bat with exactly the steampunk I was looking for. Thank you 😉
Gotta say though, Steamfunk? My god that sounds awesome. Reading that article I can understand the issue – Steampunk generally has this Victoriana bent to it that hauls a lot of colonial and imperial visions which clash with a lot of, well. With a lot of humanity. Still, I’m super pleased that it’s being chewed up and digested by other cultures, making it into something new and unique.
(I’d really, really like to see some alternate history fiction where the Kingdom of Mali/Songhai was able to fend off the colonial powers, and where Ethiopia managed to fend off the Italians and reclaim old Abyssinia. That would make a great story, I think. That’s just me though!)
The video game Guns of Icarus was made by a team of British people of Asian ethnicity, IIRC. Given that it’s a game about steam-powered airship combat in which you can dress up your characters in waistcoats, corsets and goggles, I defy anyone to say that it’s not steampunk.
The band Sunday Driver do a fusion of steampunk folk-rock music with traditional Indian music, based around steampunk themes and played whilst wearing goggles, so I would argue that they count too.
(They’re completely awesome, by the way. Just saying.)
Guns of Icarus
yessssssss
pew pew pew!
@Alan
Ha! Perfect
http://cdn1.sciencefiction.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Luke-Cage-Misty-Knight-Simone-Missick.jpg
Left: Marvel’s Misty Knight. NYPD detective turned private detective with a super fantastic, golden robot arm. The fro is righteous
Right: Simone Missick. Portrayed Misty in Netflix’s Luke Cage, a comic in which Misty was regularly featured. Great casting
@ axe
Indeed. Although forgive me if I recycle an old joke.
Agent: “Congratulations Simone! I’ve got you the part of Misty. It’s a three year contract, you get star billing and you’re on $100,000 an episode. You start on Tuesday.”
Simone: “For that money I’ll start on Monday!”
Agent: “You can’t; Monday’s when they’re taking your arm off”
(I’ll get my coat)
I wish the TV Misty Knight had a golden arm and a fro
Mercorgies?! *dies*
@Tashilicious
I’m sayin! I waited 13 episodes for that arm, and they dare to deny me!? The fro woulda been sweet too, but her poofy curls are cool too

Apparently, she was explicitly told not to straighten her hair 🙂
@Axe
I know!!! I was so excited when they teased it; when it didn’t actually happen I was so disappointed. Much muttering at my computer transpired after that.
@chesselwitt

It better happen in the Defenders show. And a Misty/Colleen team up too. The debt must be repaid, Marvel!
I am sort of dreading this happening to my sister now that her comic is out.
Yeah, I was waiting for that arm and to come off and didn’t care too much for that tease later in the series. Marvel owes me a golden arm!
A Misty/Colleen teamup is the ONLY reason I’m going to watch Iron Fist.
I love Iron Fist in the comics, but I’m angry because once again we’re getting a Might Whitey in Asia trope from Marvel (on top of Dr. Strange, already) and I really stanned for an Asian American to play either of those characters rather than reproducing the same Yellow Peril narratives that ruined Daredevil.
Anyway, for the poster above there is such an African inspired Steampunk novel. It’s brand new, EVERFAIR, written by Nisi Shawl, about how The Congo had defeated being colonized by Belgium because they discovered Steam power first.
Incidentally ima huge Steampunk fan. I try to stay up on my sh*t!😄
@EJ (The Orphic Lizard) & Scildfreja Unnýðnes
Agreed, Guns of Icarus is awesome. I can’t wait for the new adventure game mode/spin off to launch.
@lkeke35, thank you! Everfair looks excellent, and the whole Belgian/Congo thing is something of a blank spot in my knowledge, so I really should pick it up! I really hope I get the time to do some more recreational reading soon. Sounds very up my alley! I’m not huge into steampunk but I do really enjoy the optimism of the genre.
And the style. Oh god the style. I would be a very happy pony if I could just design funky clothes all day. So good.
@Ikeke35
I’ll thank you, too. PZ Myers recommended this one a while back and I hadn’t put it on my library list. I’m gonna swing by tomorrow and check it out.
@lkeke35
My understanding is that Misty’s not going to be in Iron Fist, just Colleen. We’re probably going to have to wait for Defenders for their teamup.
have you even tried to talk to her instead of making shit up atleast? https://chelseacain.com/blog/140-characters-plus-few-thousand-more-twitter-hubbub
She’s said it was not harassment but an overwhelming amount of detractors
But if they were calling her comic terrible I can see why with these modern jive talking pirate skeletons
There’s just one problem to your claim, David.
Chelsea Cain herself.
chelseacain . com/blog/140-characters-plus-few-thousand-more-twitter-hubbub
Quote:
…
…
…
…
Listen and Believe.
@Nice Guy David
Here’s what she said:
Here’s what I said:
There’s no contradiction here. Bullies drove her offline.
Wait, so 3 muffugas showed up to prove the point, all thinkin they had the smoking gun? And the “listen and believe” shit? What is it with these people and using SJW terminology they clearly don’t understand? Oh, this is just beauteous!
So the people who drove her off are now here trying to divert attention to the fact that they drove her off?
Is that what I’m reading here?
Are they really that upset that she deactivated her account so they cannot harrass her any more?
Poor babies. My heart. It bleeds for them.
Hey, I can do the blockquote trick, too:
I mean, I don’t know why somebody wants to come here saying, “No, no, ‘bullying’ / ‘sexist’ is too strong a word! You’re wrong, David! It was ordinary daily abuse.”
@Axe
I’m actually kinda glad they did, otherwise I’d’ve missed lkeke35’s book recommendation.
I guess misogynistic abuse is okay as long as it’s not a rape threat and she’s not doxxed. You learn something new every day!
@Dali
And lo, everyone wins 😀
lol
Nice Guy David, I’m not sure how you got from “She was so harassed that she didn’t even read all of her tweets, just shut down her account” to “She wasn’t harassed”, but I suggest you examine the path you took ’cause it’s off the edge of the dock. You want us to throw you a life preserver?
@Scildfreja Unnýðnes:
Dunno if you’re into miniature wargames, but just such a Kingdom of Abyssinia is going to be one of the playable factions in the upcoming game “The Other Side,” set in the Victorian/Gothic/Steampunk/Wild West setting of Malifaux. We don’t know much yet except that they are going to be more technologically advanced than the other factions, while remaining steampunk.
Hey, that’s me! I’m in an article. Of course in a negative manner, but hey people understood what I was saying.