berganza takes: a half-hearted roundup

Be careful out there, kids: the hammer finally dropped on Eddie Berganza, and it's motherfucking takes season. (What, you thought comics would stop being comics?) I mean, most people just seem glad, and if that's you, congratulations: your take is correct. But there's been a whole lot of "this is old news" type takes, and also "finally, real journalism, not another Trial by Twitter" type takes, and...look, I'm not even getting into it. Too dumb. That said, if every Comics Thing generates one exceptionally stupid take, I reckon we have a winner:

Alternatively, you could quit comics! lol

Definitely quit comics.

My favorite take, if you're curious, is Mark Waid's, who straight up wants to open a can of whoop-ass on that one goblin who made the "witch hunt" comment in the Buzzfeed piece. One of these days Mark Waid is going to die on the toilet, and with all due respect to his family, I am going to laugh and laugh. But before that happens I really hope he punches that witch-hunt guy in the face.

The Buzzfeed piece was extremely well done, in my opinion. There was a depth of understanding in the dynamics involved thanks to Jay Eddin. (Respect.) The anonymous DC male goblin quotes were quite artfully incorporated. The only note that rang false to me was Heidi MacDonald being made into the sort of hero of the piece. You know, Heidi's always got some heartfelt commentary on women in comics...and, well, women in comics have some equally heartfelt commentary on her, if you're paying attention.

Today the Twitter had a lot of "what of comics journalism" takes, and those weren't bad. They were fine, in fact. All the threads these screenshots were taken from are probably worth reading, if comics journalism is relevant to your interests.

I'm not going to say this on twitter because I can only invite so much unhappiness into my life, but part of the problem with "comics journalism" is fandom. Here I'm referring to both the fandom of the "journalists" and of their readers. The tweets above are talking about money, legal backing, retaliation from the Big Two, lack of training--and all those barriers are real. But what everyone seems to be forgetting is that we have at least one full-time comics journalist at a major U.S. magazine. Unfortunately he's very busy using bringing those resources to bear on literally stalking an 89yo cartoonist. And you ("you") pretty much universally linked to that piece and thought it was great...? That's my read, anyway.

Fandom--the way I think of that word--isn't about loving something, exactly; it's a form of entitlement. It's utterly ridiculous, but at the same time it's weird how consistently it's disrespected by the people whose bread is buttered by fans. Like...both of those things are deeply, fundamentally uncool. Maybe I dwell on it too much - maybe me blaring this horn is just a(nother) personal problem. (If it is? whatever. I make no apologies.) All that said, it's honestly insane to me that Comics Twitter is having a conversation about comics journalism and ignoring that entire situation.