So What's Different?

Scott Beiser asks:

"What exactly is it that you're NOT going to do going forward that you WERE doing previously?"

-Seeing sexist crap and saying little or nothing because I was afraid of losing work (even from companies that didn't publish what I was criticizing), or being seen as a bitter old woman. I don't care. I didn't like it when I was young, either, but I said nothing.

-Going to comic conventions, at least for a couple years. I'm tired of going at my own expense to a stadium where I can be smacked repeatedly upside the head with images that tell me (me personally, your MMV), that I have little value to comics unless I am young, thin, and have big boobies. And there's plenty of attitude to go with the images that says the same.

-Pursuing work from comics companies, any comic company. No. Not gonna do it. Done with that. Besides now freeing myself from trying to be a pleaser for a fat (or miniscule) paycheck, that leaves me free to speak my mind. I'm free from "silence is assent." I'm free from not being "nice."

-I'm also free from worrying that I'm going to discomfit people who choose to continue on their career path, or their fandom, and ignore the huge problems that afflict most of the comics business, sexism being the biggest and worst, because I want to stay "friends" with the first and possibly sell books to the latter. As my UU minister was fond of saying, "Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."

-And if I don't work for the big companies, I don't have to deal with their frequently ass-backward editing and accounting. Some writers and artists can deal with ass-backward editing shit, they can deal with an editor or that editor's higher-up decision that a book needs a story element they find repulsive, or chopping a book's run in half, or promising they'll defend the creator and then folding on them.
I choose not to.

This is all for me, understand. This is how I choose to make comics and talk about them. I'm not saying anyone else has to be this way. I'm also keenly aware there's sexism "everywhere." That doesn't mean I have to continue pretending that it's normal, acceptable behavior.

"A Pretend Crusade"

EDIT: Comments are frozen due to drive-by assholes.

I'd like to thank Birds of Prey writer (and Killer Princesses co-creator) Gail Simone for stopping by and contributing to the If You Can Just..." comments thread.

In response to my question,
"In your opinion, is [the term "fanservice"] always bullshit self-hating, even when applied correctly? Is it always applied awkwardly?
Me, I don't think it's a "bullshit self-hating term", I think it describes something for the fans, whether it's a character's catchphrase that drives a studio audience wild, or a sudden explosion of Victoria's Secret in Batman."

Gail says,
"It assumes motivation in a juvenile way, for one thing. Me, I don't care so much what other people find sexy, and I'd prefer not having others tell me what I should feel is hot.
But that's just me, I'm not on a pretend crusade."

To paraphrase Jon Stewart responding to Bill O'Reilly:

"If Gail Simone needs to have an enemy, needs to feel persecuted, you know what? Here's my Wondercon gift to her. Are you ready? All right. I'm your enemy. Make me your enemy. I, Lea Hernandez, hate comics, comics professionals, the direct market, DC, Marvel, and fans and I will not rest until every year comics readers gather to spend a long weekend in July or August together at Wertham's homo-bitteroldwoman-manga-and-"real" books-fanserviceporium."

Administrivia AHOY!

I considered turning Anonymous posting off again, but nah. At long as the attacks stay personal AND entertaining, and people sign their posts, I'll leave it.

EDIT: Ooops, Lauren blew it for the rest of you.
Go to www.livejournal.com and register an account, please, so you can continue to post. Sorry about that, everyone who's got a million damn accounts already, but I'm back to preferring posters to have names.

Be aware, if you come from someone else's board just to be a drive-by dick, I will mock you. I don't have to be nice to you, I don't have to engage or entertain you.

Handy Tags for Following Quitting Comics:
All the recent posts related to "How I Quit Comics" have been tagged "quit comics" or "hurt comics."

Enjoy.

Look! Kittens!

No, not really. It's just a meme, found at zumfaerie's LJ:

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, running amidst the plains! It is Divalea, hands clutching buzzsaw hand extensions! And with an ominous grunt, her voice cometh: "I'm going to fuck you beyond the end of time!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys