AndyB

November 21, 2017 4:27 pm ChinoBo37: Yeah, I hope you're right.

November 21, 2017 3:21 pm phillosmaster: I'd agree with you 100% if we weren't watching similar situations unfold over and over again in the news. You might still be right, because you can't generalize specifics, and maybe this specific time it really is only a few women somehow making it seem like there's more noise than there really is, and these women are either emotionally unstable enough or vindictive enough to want to exaggerate or lie to hurt Ron. But the pattern we see most frequently is vague accusations are made, the guy denies it, more accusations or more specific accusations are made and eventually the guy admits it or the evidence becomes so overwhelming that it doesn't matter that they're still denying it. That obviously hasn't happened here yet and maybe it never will (I hope it doesn't!), but this will be the first case I've been following in a long time where it didn't play out that way. (The last example I can think of was when Conor Oberst was accused of statutory rape and the woman was outed as a liar.) I guess what I'm saying is that in light of new evidence about how sexual harassment is perpetrated at large in America, what once sounded reasonable to me (basically what you're saying) now sounds spurious. Again, I hope I'm wrong and for some reason it's all a misunderstanding and Ron doesn't have a history of harassment, but we can't be dismissive of women when they make accusations right now, even when they're vague, made on Twitter and we like the guy they're accusing. Comics has been a boys club since the beginning. It's an industry ripe for misogyny. As fans, we've got to take this issue seriously even when it hurts. I'm not asking anybody to assume Ron is guilty based on what's come out so far, but I don't think people should be dismissive of the accusations. That approach has not been working out for people lately.

November 21, 2017 12:30 pm "The most disturbing part of all this are the people who want Conor and Josh to just throw Ron under the bus. Apparently people think 20 years of friendship should melt away due to vague accusations." For the record, I don't believe this. Not sure if you were talking about what I said or something you saw elsewhere. Frankly, I think they should remain friends with Ron, even if he's done everything he's accused of and lots more. I don't think the solution to sexual abuse is for the accused (or even the guilty) to be abandoned by all the people who love them. But if there does end up being more to this, I think Josh and Conor are going to have to address it more thoroughly, and it's not going to look great that they were initially so dismissive.

November 21, 2017 9:41 am Sorry, didn't mean to be pithy. 1985, because random year I imagine it was easier to get away with toxic BS in the workplace. If I said the stuff Ron's accused of having said and it got back to management, I'd be out on my ear. That's my 2017. I don't know where you're at. We'll see how it plays out. When institutions ignore women accusers, those accusers tend to get louder and more specific and they tend to multiply. (That is assuming there's truth to the accusations.) So I expect we'll either see Marvel respond or the chorus will intensify. One woman has said she's talked to the press, so it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of that. Or maybe I'm wrong and the whole thing will just go away. I know that's what Josh and Conor are hoping for. Speaking of the ifanboys, I did not like the way their statement ended with a declaration that they won't be discussing this any further. Ostrich with head in sand... not a good look.

November 20, 2017 9:14 pm I think we’re all going to be experts before this wave of accusations finishes breaking. Unfortunately, we’ve all had plenty of opportunities of late to watch these situations play out, and what I’m learning is that when multiple women who have no reason to be in collusion describe a man’s pattern of abusive behavior, we have good reason to take them seriously. I don’t think there’s ever reason, as you say, to pass FINAL JUDGEMENT without first hand knowledge of a situation, but until someone presents a credible explanation for why multiple women, both inside and outside of the comic industry, all have it in for Ron, to the extent that they’d lie and try to destroy his career, well, I’m probably going to lean pretty heavily towards believing them. And if we did the same googling and your conclusion is that these are problems for HR to resolve, then I feel like I have to warn you for your own good, it’s not 1985.

November 20, 2017 4:24 pm Um... I Googled the stuff with Ron, and based on what you guys said, I assumed it was going to be an isolated accusation from an ex-girlfriend or something. It's actually more like a pattern of misogynistic behavior that seems to have touched dozens of women in both Ron's personal and professional lives. I understand that you've been friends for 20+ years, so I don't expect you to grab your pitchforks and join the mob, but, as a listener, I can't say I'm super comfortable with the situation.

April 11, 2017 5:41 pm You know, it seems like you guys do the no-marriage/no-kids-for-superheroes rant every time Josh is out. It's suspicious. I mean, you don't have to be a psychologist to make assumptions.

June 5, 2016 10:39 pm I don't think you guys are as lost as you think on the plot of "Hellboy in Hell", because it was pretty basic. Hellboy has been told over and over that one day he would rule Hell and lead its armies to Earth to trigger the apocalypse. We obviously knew he wasn't going to do that, because he's been breaking his own horns off of his head since "Seed of Destruction." But he does conquer Hell while he's at it. It turns out that the whole thing is an anti-climax, because the monsters and demons of myth and legend have been rotting down there a long time. He quickly dispatches Satan and then roams around Hell hunting down all of Satan's lieutenants. When they're all dead, he finds a quiet, peaceful corner of Hell to rest in. He's Hell's conqueror, but not its ruler. But what you guys DID miss, which is a huge part of the emotional impact of the ending is the references to "The Magician and the Snake." If you've never read "The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects," then you need to read that right now. Talk about story telling and comedic timing in comic book form... It's one of the best collections of comic books short stories ever imo. Anyway, in brief, the story of "The Magician and the Snake" is that the Magician makes three solid objects disappear to impress a king and become known as the greatest magician in the world. His friend the snake is thrilled until the magician tells him that some day the shapes will reappear and on that day the Magician will die. They decide to live life to the fullest in the meantime, but one day the shapes do reappear in the sky and the snake rages at them from the pinnacle of a tower. Mignola says his daughter came up with this story when she was seven. It's hard not to read it as a child's way of dealing with the concept of death, and if the magician is anyone, it's her father, who as an artist, of course, is a master of shapes. Connecting the dots, when I turned the page and saw those three shapes hovering there, I felt like the snake.