Well, good morning.
Implausibly, the big-ticket item in comics news last week was…Will Smith at the Oscars. Not because it affected any comics projects or anything, no. It was because once it happened, everyone and their mother had something to say about the incident and the fallout. How does that relate back to comics? Well.
Marc Andreyko, writer of comics and creator of the Kate Spencer Manhunter, opened after witnessing that event on TV with the announcement that he was blocking anyone who supported Will Smith’s actions. After many people responded unfavorably to that, Marc made the above (now-deleted) tweet, asking whether, by the same rules, trans people should have the right to “beat the shit out of dave chapelle.” When people also did not respond to that as he wished, he informed one person that laws need to “apply to everyone or not at all.”
It was at this point that I became involved. I questioned writing about this, because here’s the point where I was part of the news instead of simply reporting it. In response to Marc, I questioned what he was doing about the fact that it’s still legal to kill a trans person in a majority of U.S. states. Marc then proceeded to declare “If you know anything about me it is that as a gay man I stand 100% with my trans brothers and sisters.” After further certifying his bonafides by invoking the anthology he headed at DC (which included a one-page story by Patch Zircher about the time he disowned his child as well as one by James Robinson, noted for previous transphobic comics), he intimated that I must not know anything about him (rest assured, Marc, I do). Credentials thus established, Marc followed this up first by attempting to say he was, in fact, defending trans people, then by blocking me and anyone else who questioned his use of the stereotype of violent trans people, including my fellow WWAC editor Cori McCreery and color artist Tamra Bonvillain.
Marc "trans ally" Andreyko pic.twitter.com/R8IZ8KvsMm
— Tamra Bonvillain (@TBonvillain) March 30, 2022
Now, look. I will freely admit that Cori and I can be…confrontational on the social medias. The thing is, we have to have the kinds of altercations we had with Marc a lot. No matter how many folks we educate, there’s always another one, and frankly? We can’t always tell off the bat who’s speaking in ignorance and who’s speaking in malice. So I get it. You might want to cut off communication with us when we’re riled. But: look at the words Tamra used above. Look at the measured response she gave Marc. Then look at the outcome.
Marc has since apologized, and claims he has unblocked the folks who corrected him. I remain an exception to that list. That’s simply for the record, I do not require Marc to unblock me, and frankly, it feels silly that I have had to type the word “unblock” more than once. The silliness of it all is perhaps the frustrating part for me. This altercation happened during Trans Awareness Week, a few days before Trans Day of Visibility. The awareness, the visibility, they didn’t mean a thing in this instance.
The awareness, the visibility, they didn’t mean a thing in this instance.
It’s frustrating, and it’s tiring. If it’s not invoking trans identity like this, it’s calling us rude for pointing out other ways in which the marginalized are overlooked. Claire was rude, I was “condescending.” It’s Patch Zircher (the same one as above, yeah) wasting no time speaking up in defense of Cameron Stewart, Warren Ellis, or Eric Esquivel, saying he doesn’t believe the accusations against them—accusations they themselves have admitted to. It’s Brett Booth continuing to get work despite a well-documented history of his behavior.
It never fucking stops. It’s exhausting.
