mrlogical

April 10, 2013 10:40 pm I agree that people acted too quickly, jumped to incorrect conclusions, and said things that were foolish. I must respectfully disagree with Josh about regarding the following paragraph, however: "It seems like every week, there’s some 'this is the evil thing in comics'. Yes, there is sexism, and homophobia, and there is a preponderance of dumbasses, and they are the people running comics. But if we need to throw a virtual protest march every time someone makes a societal misstep, we’re gonna be wasting a lot of keystrokes." First, I would point out that, although the bases for many of the complaints about the "banning" of this issue of Saga were not well-founded, those keystrokes spent complaining do _not_ appear to have been wasted. On the contrary, the attention brought to this issue forced Comixology to own up to its role in the matter, and apparently prompted Apple to reach out to Comixology and let them know that they were being too strict in applying Apple's policies, excluding some content from the apps that Apple would not have them exclude. That's a win for the comics-buying public. Would this have happened without all the Internet outrage, even if that outrage was based on a false premise? I suppose we can't say for sure, but the fact that Sex #1 is suddenly available for sale through the Comixology app, a month after it was released to the general public but excluded from the app without an accompanying Internet furor, suggests probably not. Certainly I don't suggest that people should intentionally get outraged about things when they're wrong about the underlying facts. But the outcome in this instance leads me to wonder if this is really a problem that needs fixing. Just as you can not buy products from a company you dislike, as Josh advocates, surely you can just ignore and/or unfollow people who express their rage about those things which you consider non-problems, right? There seems something contradictory in complaining on the Internet about people wasting their time complaining on the Internet. The recommendation that you should simply passively disengage from everything you disagree with seems contrary to the notion of a fan community website. Second, I disagree with the quoted paragraph's suggestion that the prevalence of homophobia, sexism, and general dumbassery on the Internet should lead us to ignore all but the most egregious cases thereof. While some of us may self-select into reading content that does highlight each and every of these missteps, the fact that those missteps continue to occur with such great frequency demonstrates that people who notice and care about cultural insensitivity are not in the majority. Even if many of the people who create comics for a living and those who write about comics for a living may tend to be open-minded, progressive people, great swaths of the comic-reading public vigorously defend their parochial straight white male viewpoint, and loudly shout down any criticism that they perceive as threatening. To the extent that Josh's premise is that you should make sure you know the facts before you start to condemn people, I entirely agree. To the extent Josh's premise is that too many people are too eager to stand up for equal treatment of all segments of our society, that's where we part ways. If the cost of an open and inclusive community is that occasionally people get carried away in response to a problem that might not have needed fixing, I'm willing to pay that cost.

March 25, 2013 9:32 pm I like this book a lot! More people should be reading it.

March 25, 2013 10:24 am I really liked the first couple of issues a whole lot, but I can't do the irregular schedule. I'm looking forward to a nice collected edition of this.

March 25, 2013 10:23 am "With great power comes great responsibility, okay?"

March 19, 2013 12:35 pm Got it now! Yay!

March 19, 2013 11:47 am I wish I could buy it--I just tried a couple of minutes ago and received a PayPal error -- "This recipient is currently unable to receive money." Hope they get it fixed soon!

January 18, 2013 3:10 pm Wow. Congratulations on the new job, Ron, and thanks for all your years of great content. Paul is a worth choice as a successor. I look forward to seeing how iFanboy adapts in going back to independence. Best of luck.

December 6, 2012 12:44 am Did anyone else attempt to use the Marvel AR app on this book and find that all of their icons linked to the wrong video? Three Marvel AR logos, each one linked to a video about a *different* page with an AR logo on it. So, e.g., I use the app on the page in the middle of the book where hulk is in the foreground as the Avengers are coming out of the ship, and it shows a video of the pencils and inks for several pages later, where Cap has been strapped to a rocket ship. Frustratingly, when I used the app on that page's logo, it read to me the whole "Assemble at dawn" sequence before I had even read it myself. It's already of questionable use to anyone, but when they can't even connect you to the right content, this AR stuff is worse than worthless.

November 16, 2012 2:41 pm I'm totally okay with more time-travel fun (I see the general similarity to the Avengers setup, but I sincerely doubt the stories will be going in similar directions). I was, however, annoyed that Bendis couldn't resist another Back to the Future shoutout. I have had enough pop culture references and winking in-jokes in my comics for a lifetime.

November 6, 2012 5:32 pm (also, it's real good, but that was never in doubt)