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What does it mean to be a comics industry “journalist”? Does it mean finding and reporting good stories that readers would be interested in, or does it mean reporting only the happy-happy-joy-joy “Ren and Stimpy” versions preferred by publishers? Consider the dead silence over Marvel’s Dan Slott, who cyber-stalked a Philadelphia YouTuber and then exploited the man’s charity event for digital butterfly kisses.
Two years ago the Spider-Man scribe was verbally lashed by “The Main Event” after stalking him. Then there was a lull — again, for two years.
The Main Event asked fans on Tuesday to vote on the shirt he would wear for a 3-day Marvel/Disney-sponsored charity run (5K, 10K, and half-marathon), which set in motion one of the most bizarre chain of events comic fans will see from a creator in recent memory.
Dan Slott pounced. He exploited a charity event to receive pats on the back and plaudits from his Twitter followers.
Did a close friend request The Main Event use a Superior Spider-Man shirt? Did he even know it was the new costume used by Doc Ock, or did he just think of it as one of 1,000 Spider-Man costume variants created in recent memory?
It’s a trick question — none of it matters, because the guy was running for charity and hasn’t said peep about Dan Slott in years.
What followed was a YouTube video that comic book “journalists” would swarm like bees on honey if The Main Event were a Lena Dunham lookalike who openly shared LGBT struggles on Twitter. Masculine pro-GamerGate YouTube guy who can eat cyber-stalkers for lunch? Nah. “Journalists” don’t want to jeopardize their access to Marvel writers.
The Main Event delivered a rant for the ages on Wednesday. There is a mushroom cloud where Mr. Slott’s head once rested.
Here is just a snippet of his righteous indignation:
Piece of s–t, Dan f–king Slott. I see we meet again. … So let me get this straight: You’re going to sit here … and tell your fans half-truths, because that’s what you’re doing right now. You’re sitting her saying I’ve bagged on Superior Spider-Man for years. I haven’t even talked about the f–king thing in years! After those videos, that was it. … This man just exploited a charity — a charity — because he wants to fish for compliments! That’s the kind of piece of s–t he is. … There is no excuse for this.
The entire response is worth watching, especially since there is an embargo at Comic Book Resources on legitimate news stories that make Marvel editors uncomfortable.
Remember: Media bias can present itself in print, but it also is part and parcel of the power to ignore. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along. Move along.
Enjoy.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
Wow, Dan has issues. Attack a guy doing something for charity, class act.
Once again Dan shows his true self.
I just wish that websites like CBR would actually do their jobs. This is a legitimate story they should be covering. The Main Event has close to 20,000 YouTube subscribers. He’s had a history with Dan Slott. What Mr. Slott did was unprofessional and downright creepy. He needs to be called out for it by people within the industry.
They won’t touch it, they do not want to piss the writers off because then the will lose interviews and support (less clicks and therefore less revenue). My pal CF told me that they are nothing more than a marketing wing in disguise for the companies.
The Beat tries to act like they are different yet I know for a fact there is some special treatment there as well.
This is why the product continues to slide. The creators don’t really have the necessary mechanisms to encourage professionalism and weed out subpar work because they’re all buddy-buddy, and the “journalists” who typically would be tasked with pushing the industry in the right direction are, as you say, little more than a marketing foot soldiers.
I would say it barely seems like comic book news…
HOWEVER
Given the usual state and selection of stories places like CBR usually run, you’re right, they’ve set the bar & standard low enough that this is now part of their jobs and should be covered.
That is why I like my friend’s website: thehenchmenslounge.com.
Shameless plug for him there!
You don’t think writer on one of Marvel’s key titles cyber-stalking people should be covered by a website like CBR? How is that not newsworthy or appropriate for industry websites to cover?
Eh… maybe I’m just different, Doug. I’m just not one convinced that personal lives are ever newsworthy is what I think I was getting at. (obviously if the person wants to make their personal life newsworthy…)
But that’s more philosophical musings about the nature of news, obviously not where we are now.
If Dan Slott was in a grocery store and he bought out its stock of [insert embarrassing product here], I would hope CBR would NOT take someone’s cell phone picture and write a story about it. However, if Dan Slott habitually cyber-stalks people online, lies about them so he can be showered with praise, and generally acts like an unprofessional loon on Twitter, that is newsworthy.
Likewise, a creator who tells political opponents to go to “Christ-land” should be covered. A writer wouldn’t last 24 hours if he started telling people to go to “Jew-ville” or “Muslim-world,” so I’m not sure why “Christ-land” gets a pass… Oh, I forgot: Some groups are more equal than others.
As I asked at the start of this piece: “What does it mean to be a comics industry ‘journalist’? Does it mean finding and reporting good stories that readers would be interested in, or does it mean reporting only the happy-happy-joy-joy ‘Ren and Stimpy’ versions preferred by publishers?”
In the pre-internet days, it was all about the comics. There wasn’t a platform to behave in ways to really distract from the art. Now, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. exist. The creators’ online behavior should be analyzed when it brings shame to the industry. That is certainly newsworthy.
Slott even took a jab at the CBR forum members who are actively critical of him….IN AN INTERVIEW CONDUCTED BY CBR!
Feel free to share the link in case anyone would like to check it out, Zariusii.
I honestly can’t get over how he saw The Main Event’s tweet and really thought it would be a good idea to mock the guy. What is going through his head when he does this kind of thing? Why doesn’t anyone at Marvel pull him aside and tell him it needs to stop? It’s so weird.
Do you have a link for that?
Here. “Read the CBR message boards…oh why won’t he leave”
Although it’s been said, many times, many ways: Slott needs to get a life.
How many more years of stories like this will we get? To be continued…
He says “….there are all these stories that work like movies within that premise….”
Sorry, but Slott’s stories are so amateurish, they’re nothing like movies. They’re not even close to having any form of cinematic narrative. At best it’s just fan-fiction.
He certainly does need to get a life, or some sort of counseling.
Dan Slott’s ego tells him he is some kind of comic book celebrity worthy to be praised.
Dan Slott’s ego tells him quantity of sales proves he is a good writer.
Dan Slott’s ego doesn’t understand why some comic book fans don’t like his writing style.
Dan Slott’s ego has made him so insecure, he can’t take constructive feedback.
Dan Slott’s ego has turned him into a creepy internet stalker.
Dan Slott’s ego clearly exhibits narcissistic behavior.
Y’know, I’m a co-host on a small time podcast where we discuss weekly news on comics movies games, etc. and I think this may be a good story to put into this week’s episode.
You may have to edit around some of the expletives depending on what your podcast is rated, but The Main Event certainly has some good lines you can grab!
If you cover this story on the podcast, feel free to circle back with a link. I’d like to listen to that.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be doing a direct quote from EventStatus, we try to keep it somewhat PG-13, which is tricky since I’m former Army and the host is a former Marine, off-mic our dialogue is a little…coarse.
Exactly right. I’ve even alerted the Crawlspace guys to this on their facebook page
When reading this article, I was reminded of a scene from an old “Firefly” episode where Mal Reynolds cuts off one of Jayne Cobb’s less-intelligent ramblings by warning him: “Jayne, your mouth is talking. You might want to look to that.” Evidently someone really needs to do the same for Slott.
I’m really starting to wonder if Slott has some kind of diagnosis, just based off of how he flies off the handle and harasses people over the most irrational things. I mean, here he is cyberbullying a guy about a post that didn’t even mention his work, much less critique it. It’s embarrassing, especially since it’s possible for someone in this kind of industry to be professional when interacting with fans online. TV animation producer Greg Weisman comes to mind (and he’s both well-respected by fans and is good at his job). So, why the heck hasn’t Marvel intervened and told Slott to shape up? Both as a professional cooperation and general human decency, they have no excuse for letting him cyberbully people expressing their opinions of his work, much less people minding their own business.
If Marvel’s afraid of loosing him, all I can say is: “He’s not worth it.” Slott is hardly the best modern-day “Spider-Man” writer there is (Brian Michael Bendis, Geg Weisman, and Sam Raimi — with David Koepp and Alvin Sargent — easily surpass him in “getting” Spider-Man and in crafting good stories to boot), and seems to mistake changing the character into something completely different for progress; whenever I’ve read or tried to read his stuff, my assessment is: “This is not real Spider-Man, any more than Velveeta is real cheese” (“Renew Your Vows” is the only time I’m aware of where the real Spider-Man and company showed up under Slott’s direction).
In all honesty, I’m sick of it all. The cyberbullying, the toxicity, the fact that my favorite characters in the genre has been mutated into something unrecognizable without any sort of continuation that preserves the elements that made me a fan in the first place (c’mon, Marvel, a “Renew Your Vows” ongoing please; I’ll buy it).
I think that it’s high-time for Slott to move on from “Spider-Man” (and for Marvel to re-introduce the pre-“One More Day” Spider-Man in some shape or form). But, regardless of what Marvel plans for the future and whether or not there’s a piece of it I’ll be able to call my own, they need to pull Slott in line and not let him get away with stalking and antagonizing people if he can’t control himself. It’s wrong, reflects badly on them, and is frankly flabbergasting that we even need to be talking about this.
Dan Slott’s childish antics bring to mind the wise words of Buzz Lightyear:
Much as I mock the guy, I really do feel sorry for him. Hube hit the nail on the head over at his site; Slott needs professional help. I think we all know what it’s like to hold grudges and to entertain thoughts of telling off people who have wronged us (whether genuinely or–as is so often the case with Slott–simply by expressing a dissenting opinion), but it’s ultimately self-destructive. Why waste good time being bitter and angry, especially towards someone you don’t actually know and over something as trivial as a dissenting viewpoint (one that hasn’t even been expressed for years, no less)? Slott reminds me of a line I heard on DS9: “You broke the cardinal rule of our profession. You allowed business to become personal.”
The sad thing is, Slott repeatedly fails to grasp how much worse he makes it for himself. I doubt most people would have half the dislike they do for Slott if not for the way he carries on online. I bought a lot more Slott comics before he discovered Twitter than I did afterwards. ‘Course, given the obnoxious way a lot of Marvel staffers conduct themselves (be it the condescending editors or writers like Mark “stop buying my books” Waid), Slott’s a microcosm of a much larger problem in this regard.
It’s funny should you mention the grudges thing, because I just said something similar for a podcast over at The Henchmen’s Lounge. (It’s not live yet, but will be soon.)
This issue constantly stresses the virtue of forgiveness. It espouses the importance of second, third, and (yes) fourth chances. Dan Slott, in real life, kind of gives zero chances. He blocks people who retweet things he doesn’t like. He hangs on to things people said years ago (e.g., The Main Event), and can’t let it go. It’s like Dan’s subconscious is screaming the life lesson he needs to learn, yet he doesn’t get it.
The Henchmen’s Lounge was kind enough to have me on its regular podcast to talk about Dan Slott, Nick Spencer and the comics industry in general. If you ever wondered what it would be like to have a beer with yours truly, then check it out. 🙂
http://henchmenslounge.podomatic.com/entry/2015-11-13T10_41_11-08_00
I love how Slott didn’t even mention the guy. Because God forbid Slott’s followers be given the full context and he be allowed to defend himself. Seriously, Slott is an amazingly petty man, it seems.