Bill Willingham and the girls of girl-wonder.org

[benicio127]

Cross-posted to No Scans_Daily.


First of all, apologies to nevermore999 for posting this from her LJ without asking first.

However, I really thought it was important enough to post.


Bill Willingham came in the panel, and ohmygod this really stupid guy bought up Steph, saying her death was poignant and he didn't think they should have bought her back because it was so important Batman kicked her to the curb and Leslie Thompkins (yes, he apparently liked THAT too) and Mom got all uncomfortable next to me...to Willingham's credit, he shut the guy down, saying the death was never his plan and he actually argued for Steph to live. Sattler said he wasn't around for it, and that the fans are really into Steph, and that he thinks it's important they redeemed Leslie Thompkins. Then Willingham had to ruin everything and say, and I swear to God this is a direct quote "I wanted to gun down those girls who kept asking about the (Steph's) memorial case."

My jaw just dropped open. I knew from interviews and shit that Willingham was an asshole- and I'm sorry, he is, for mocking people at panels, and mocking men for daring to cry over a comic book death- but that is just a creepy as fuck thing to say. I raised my hand and I wanted to say "Willingham, you're an asshole" but instead I just told him a) I hated Stephanie's death and b) You shouldn't want to gun people down for being passionate about a character.

Backpedaling time! No, see, those silly girls were just distracting from important issues at panels by asking the same question over and over again, andandand they just don't understanf how the comics industry works and then, I swear to god, he word for word said the "being hated is almost as good" quote. He DID. He and Sattler telled me that when fans hate a story, it's almost as good as if they love it, because at least they care.




So let me just lift the Internet veil for a minute. I am/was a journalist and I used to be a crime/court reporter. In my four years working for three different Canadian newspapers, I reported on a lot of incidents of violence against women. One of those was a four-part series on the high rate of domestic violence in a small community, for which I was nominated for a National Newspaper Award. So trust me when I say I have seen what violence against women does and how important a topic like this is to me.
So yeah, this comment disturbs me on many levels. It is truly an indefensible comment and the fact that it was made in a public venue with little discourse is disturbing. Serious props to nevermore999 for standing up to Willingham and pointing out his incredibly horrific and misogynistic comment. Young impressionable boys buy these comics and that writers who write them actually think these things and then say them outloud in a public venue is shocking to say the very least.





 

Comments

[rordulum]

"Willingham's been talking about how hard it is to be a conservative Republican in the comics business since he was at Comico, though"

Threatening to shoot people he doesn't agree with probably doesn't help in that respect.

Really though, I can understand the sentiment, even if it was expressed with such glorious clumsy asshattedness. It must be more than a little annoying to have people constantly questioning you about, and blaming you for, something you were told to do by your boss.

Especially if was to the extent that he felt it was obscuring the rest of what he was doing.

[stolisomancer.insanejournal.com]

Yeah, that's something I always have in the back of my head when I'm talking about or reading DC comics. They seem to have a level of editorial interference right now that's on par with or worse than late-nineties Marvel, so I'm never quite sure how much blame to place on a specific writer if I don't like the comic I'm reading at the time.

Witness, for example, the dramatic difference between Sean McKeever at DC and Sean McKeever at Marvel.

[fifthie]

I can understand the sentiment and yet, at the same time, can't understand the sentiment.

Like if your boss forces you to do something awful, get angry at your boss, don't lash out at the people who're upset at you for doing something awful.

[skalja]

I think everyone, even the people upset by this, understands the sentiment. We all get frustrated that way and many, if not all of us, have those kinds of fantasies. Most of us manage not to express those sentiments in a professional context towards our customers, however.

[kingrockwell]

Also, when something like that happens to me, sometimes I might even tell the customers it's how the boss wanted it. If you want to pass the blame, pass it to where the blame lies. It's still a little unprofessional, but at least it's accurate!

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, I can understand the sentiment--sometimes fandom can be an ugly, ugly thing. But yeah, saying you'd want to shoot the fandom is really the wrong way of going about it.