Thursday, March 14, 2019

When a Creator Criticizes Their Own Critics

The comic cover that resulted in an enraged artist once it was questioned.
I am someone who often reviews and criticizes all kinds of work, including comics. I suppose this makes me a critic to some degree. It was dispiriting to hear another critic (Claire Napier) found herself angrily Tweeted at by an artist (Dan Panosian), who was upset she stated she disliked his cover for her own valid reasons. This artist thought he should explain what he intended and that would result in an apology if Napier was educated on how wrong he thought she was. Panosian claimed he did not even realize she was a critic as opposed to some random lady on Twitter whom he found rude, so the whole thing smacks of sexism. Oh, and then Frank Tieri piled-on this woman too as Panosian is a good friend of his and Tieri is, "Old-school," so he has to apparently attack others who question his friend's artwork? Seriously, what the Hell, people?

 Once Panosian looked into Napier he saw she was an artist as well so he was aghast at the idea a fellow creator would dare call him out as I guess people in your own field can't criticize you, counter to all logic (I mean, wouldn't a surgeon tell another surgeon if they were doing something that the other thought could be better)? A critic can have an opinion and if a comic-book writer or artist dislike it, too bad. I've given some creators glowing reviews as well as extremely negative ones and this has resulted in some thin-skinned creators no longer wanting to talk with me when I said anything less-than-glowing about their stuff, and others who realized as a critic I'll have my own opinions that could be positive or negative.
Critics have opinions. Deal with it.

When a creator of anything starts openly criticizing the critic of their work in many cases it just looks petty. Now, there are times someone might offer a thought-piece that is absurdly stupid, misses the point etc. and they should be called-out. For example, take the case of how movie reviewer/troll Armond White has always astounded me--but not in a good way--as he would always give good reviews to bad movies and glowing reviews to terrible flicks just to be a jerk and eventually was written-off by people as someone to simply be ignored (although I was curious whatever happened to him once we all quit listening and found a great piece about just that). but generally other people who actually understood a work will discuss how ignorant certain critic's hot-takes are, because if the creator just goes around yelling at everyone about how they are plebeian's who don't understand his genius, he just kind of looks like a jerk.

I've been (digitally) yelled-at for having an opinion before by people both publicly and privately. I have apologized at times when I felt I was wrong (Ed Benes and I are cool now, I enjoyed his Kickstarted comic too), and refused to budge when I've felt I was right. As a straight white male I know I get 1/100th of the harassment females or people of color receive when folk disagree with them online (the worst I've ever gotten is an empty threat of a lawsuit or a Jewish slur here and there), so I have nothing but respect for all my fellow critics who put up with a lot of shit all for the crime of trying to tell the general public their educated opinion on a piece of work.

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