DC or not DC? Is that the question, now?

I WAS going to blog all gushingly about Green Lanterns, Booster Gold, and all that other good stuff, but I got distracted by something that, perhaps irrationally, annoyed me a tad.

There's been an interesting post here at Dick May or May Not Read Your Blog in which he calls Ragnell, me and Dorian out for our stringent defenses of DC. He mentions my response to Occasional Superheroine's article specifically as "total wishful thinking (exactly what she accuses D'Orazio of!) combined with willful neglect of certain realities of corporate culture."

Of course, the evidence for that is again the Mother Jones article. Which is a criticism I'd directly addressed in the piece and I stand by that. I hardly think Time Warner is going to care about what one fringe publication thinks, as influential and valuable as said publication is in some circles. Especially not in comparison to positive publicity from CNN and the New York Times. I'm sorry but New York Times trumps Mother Jones any day.

I don't know, personally I think anyone can read both articles and see where wishful thinking truly lies. Especially as even if Dick's claim that "firing DiDio would be the clearest way for Time Warner to send the message that the content of DC's comics must be more sensitive to women" is true, there's still the assumption that Time Warner actually cares to send that message. (Not to mention there's no guarantee that Jann Jones, should she succeed Didio, would actually be any more transigent on the specific problems Occasional Superheroine mentions in her article. Not every female fan supports Stephanie Brown getting a case, for example, so why should we immediately assume a female editor would?)

The criticism of that post isn't what gets my goat though. Dick has every right to disagree with my interpretation, just as I have every right to disagree with his and Ms. D'Orazio.

What gets me is how he introduces the whole segment:

But here's the thing: many of the most prominent voices advocating diversity and sensitivity in superhero comics are dyed-in-the wool DC fanatics. I really should point out that this is not so true for those bloggers who focus on race; Brothers is clearly a Marvel dude, while I can't really detect what, if any, allegiance Cheryl Lynn or Rich Watson hold. I know Guy LeCharles Gonzalez was very critical of Dan DiDio back when he was still an active online presence. His and Loren Janvier's absence, however, seems to be tipping the balance towards DC partisans.

I wonder to what extent this influences Lisa Fortuner, Melissa Krause, and Dorian Wright to defend DC against (apparently) irrational fan behavior. 2007 has not been a great year for DC, sensitivity- and diversity-wise (it hasn't been great for Marvel either, but there was a two or three month period where DC just seemed to have one controversy after another). I haven't read the comic alluded to in the posts above, and I sure haven't read any online reaction to it. Maybe these responses are justified; maybe I'm just not invested enough in DC's crossover wrangling to care about these overreactions; maybe there's a shared fear that these particular overreactions are vastly overblown, and exactly the kind of thing which will undermine the cause of feminist superhero fans. But I found it a bit odd that all three would devote so much time to overheated fan rhetoric. Fortuner in particular dwelt on the subject for a number of posts.

Okay, first of all, it's factually inaccurate that DC's been one crisis after another while Marvel has been more sporadic in its offenses. May I gently remind us all how the Mary Jane Statue fervor had only JUST died down when the Heroes for Hire controversy popped up? What has DC done to quite equal that? The Power Girl cover was pretty bad, sure, but it didn't get nearly the press. While the major offenses DC is still criticized for seem to be Sue Dibny's rape and Stephanie Brown's lack of memorial. Both issues are several years old.

The Amazons Attack fervor is comparitive to the aftermath of Civil War fervor at the most. The only real gender tie in is that it's tied to the premiere female superhero. Few people are actually attributing sexism to the claim when they scream "this is ruining Wonder Woman". (c.f. "This is ruining Cap/Iron Man/Spider-Man!")

I should point out that while making a true comparison of this sort of fan reaction is all but impossible, Ragnell and I ARE the compilers for When Fangirls Attack, and thus probably as qualified to judge this sort of thing as anyone else. I respectfully submit that Dick must have got his companies confused, because the only multiple-month outrage that *I* remember chronicling was centered around Marvel.

The thing that gets me though is that if you look at that set of paragraphs, Dick doesn't ask why David Brothers is more inclined to read Marvel. He doesn't appear like he's questioning why the bloggers that focus on race might or might not like a certain company over the other.

So why is he questioning Ragnell, Dorian and my willingness to defend DC? Is it because of our gender focus (extending that umbrella to both sexism/feminism and sexual orientation/homophobia issues)?

Is THAT why we're suddenly "influenced" by much of anything beside the simple fact that, hey, maybe we actually LIKE DC? Maybe we, *gasp*, even LIKE Dan Didio?

Or maybe it's just that we prefer and support a company that Dick does not.

Regardless, while I appreciate the kind words that Dick has to say about Ragnell and my contributions toward the internet discourse surrounding women in comics, I dislike the thought that we have to explain ourselves to Dick and to others about why we may, individually, I might add, support a company or even a person that they don't think warrants it.

Maybe, we don't actually think there needs to be a conflict between our fan-preferences and our politics. MAYBE, we're seeing something that you're not.

We might be right, we might be wrong, but I think that's our business and our decision to make. And if you do respect whatever contributions you think we've made to the internet-comic-feminism-whatever-it-is, maybe you ought to trust that we might have some idea of what we're talking about.

I'm not saying you can't disagree with us. Just please, respect our right to disagree with you.

(Edited to say: I hate when this happens, but after a bit of sleep I ended up with a much better summation of what annoyed me about Dick's post here. It's the comment to Thom. It's quite a bit more coherent than this post.)