"I never liked his work."

Ed Piskor, author of such works as X-men: Grand Design, Hip-Hop Family Tree and Red Room, has been accused of being abig old creep by alt comix artist Molly Dwyer. A few other women have made statements about his behavior as well. Doesn't seem like a great situation and there will probably be more people with lots to say...but you know who we don't need to hear from?

The people who just want to air our their worthless opinions on some dumb comics.

This happens whenever a dude in comics gets aired out for being a creep behind the scenes. A bunch of clowns  pop out of the sewers and stake a claim to the revelation that this person is a sexpest as de facto justification for always hating their run on Gargling Glup Shitto. It does a startling disservice to the bravery of women willing to come forward about this behavior to turn it into your chance to let everyone know you hated a comic book.

There's always level where it feels as though artistic output is weighed against the allegations being made. As if there's a comic book someone could create that's so good, you'd just have to defend its creator for DMing high school girls. 

Just stop for a second and think about the kind of environment that creates for other people coming forward in the future. Would you really want to risk the kind of ostracization and harassment that is often paired with speaking up on these matters if the only thing you might bring to bear on the person you're accusing is a YouTube level drive-by on their comics? Folks, there has got to be a better way to support women willing to speak up about this. 

Folks have a lot of feelings about Piskor due to controversies he's been involved in,
statements he's made, and for being a white guy who wrote a comic book about hip-hop history. All of those feelings are absolutely fair, but what's not is turning what could be (yet another) conversation about predatory behavior in the comic book industry into a chance to share your truncated goodreads review. Keep that shit in the group chat. 

I could probably say a little more about all of this - don't even get me started on the people's whose first impulse to crack open trades and find printed evidence of creator perversion - but I run the risk of doing a version of the very thing I'm complaining about. 

All the props in the world to Molly Dwyer for being willing to come forward about this.