All I can say to PAD is "You are dead wrong." I didn't read any spoilers for The Other. It still sucks. If you knew every spoiler for Lord of the Rings (and people who read the books did), the movies would still rock. Suspension of disbelief is all well and good, but this isn't the sixties. Get over it. The hippies all sold out to the Man, John Lennon is dead, and Nixon resigned.
And guess what? Go back to the sixties and read Spider-Man and I bet a few issues after that hundredth issue, you'll find a LETTER COLUMN where people tear into the four arms thing, while other people praise it. Believe it or not, back in the day not every comics development was greeted like nectar from the gods. There was *****ing, there was moaning, and people pointed out mistakes so much that they gave out things called No-Prizes to the guys who caught them. The only difference I can see is that in the old days, when someone didn't like what Stan Lee did, he didn't call them
overly dramatic little girls.
We're more cynical nowadays? Tough. You writers have more freedom than ever. You want to publish books where the characters swear and have anal sex? Slap a MAX label on it and you're good to go. You want to kill off a character for cheap shock value? You can do that too. You can even launch your own independent comic book and own the whole kit and kaboodle. Hell, if you're lucky, they'll even make a movie of your work. If, with all that creative freedom, you still can't write a good book, don't blame it on the Internet.
The Internet HELPS YOU. Think Runaways. Think She-Hulk. Think Invincible. When people like something, they talk about it to their friends, they post scans of it, they SPREAD THE WORD. That's word of mouth you could never get in the sixties. And if they use that word of mouth to warn other people to stay away from bad comics, more power to 'em. I know a lot of guys here and on other communities whose judgement I trust to tell me what comics I might like better than Wizard magazine.
I know there are people who nitpick every little detail. I don't think I'm one of them, although I will call it like I see it when I come across a comic I don't like. The majority of the Internet says "Don't hire Rob Liefeld, we don't like his art. Don't hire Chuck Austen, we don't like his writing. Don't make everything dark and gritty, we don't like that."
So maybe people would buy more comics if A. They weren't drawn by Rob Liefeld B. They weren't written by Chuck Austen. and C. They weren't all about people being raped and murdered while everyone else naval-gazed angstfully about how people were being raped and murdered.
So don't blame us for your shortcomings. The majority of fans I've met are fun, courteous, polite, friendly, good people who really want to read a nice yarn and talk about it afterwards with other people who GET THEM. We're not the enemy here. Your objective is not to shock us or to fool us or to make us angry (although you can do all those things). It's to tell us a story that we'll pay money for. Something that we can pick apart and examine and call bull**** on and criticize and gush over and REMEMBER.
And you writers love it. You worship it. It's why you write (that and beer money). You put in in-jokes and references to Greek myth and subtext and layers upon layers of characterization in the hopes that someone will pick your story apart and analyze it and post essays on how Superman and Batman respect each other, but can never be friends because of X while you go "Yes! Yes! That's it exactly! You got it!" or "I never thought of it that way, but now you've given me an idea! To the writing-mobile!" or "Wow, he's right, that *did* suck, I'll have to remember it for next time."
You've got the best job in the world. You're writing modern mythology. You're continuing the adventures of the characters you grew up with. You are the music-makers and you are the dreamers of dreams.
Don't **** it up.
?
and all it did was fill me with rage 
