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Warren Ellis

Started by CalHab, 13 July, 2020, 01:49:32 PM

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CalHab

The allegations about Warren Ellis' behaviour that have been on social media for the last few weeks have now reached the mainstream press:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/13/women-speak-out-about-warren-ellis-transmetropolitan

There have been an awful lot of these stories. The comics industry seems to have a consistent track record of tolerating and enabling exploitation and abuse.

IndigoPrime

#1
Scott Allie also. And quite a lot of people going down the "open secret" route, like in other media (see also the latest allegations about Walliams). These people were known arseholes and yet so many turned a blind eye.

Reading through the Guardian piece, these two lines stick out:

QuoteEllis insists that the problem was relationship trouble, "not predatory behaviour"

and

Quoteit appears he was maintaining at least 19 relationships simultaneously at one point in 2009.

None of them knew about the others, natch.

CalHab

The Comic Book Legal Defence Fund (CBLDF) also seems to have been ignoring the behaviour of its Exec Director:
http://www.tcj.com/no-oversight-leads-to-a-history-of-sexual-misconduct-and-bullying-at-the-cbldf/

The Comics Journal also managed to make a hash of reporting these allegations and made light of them at the time, so its an industry-wide problem for publishers, creators and the comics press (such as it is).

CalHab

#3
Quote from: IndigoPrime on 13 July, 2020, 01:51:16 PM
Scott Allie also. And quite a lot of people going down the "open secret" route, like in other media (see also the latest allegations about Walliams). These people were known arseholes and yet so many turned a blind eye.

I note that Image have taken down their hagiographic and ridiculous "An Oral History if the Warren Ellis Forum" where many of the creators who now admit that Ellis' behaviour was an open secret, prostate themselves before him and launch into nausea-inducing tributes.

It has aged like milk, but here's a cached version for those who want to read Kieron Gillen et al overlook the exploitation that was apparently rife:
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:X_ciXNjOkYMJ:https://imagecomics.com/features/an-oral-history-of-the-warren-ellis-forum-part-i+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

IndigoPrime

Heidi MacDonald: The other very important thing about the WEF was just that there were women there. It wasn't equal, but women were very common and were allowed to speak. And I remember there was even a special thread that was just for women—men could read it—and like, I would go in there and post about makeup, you know?

Kieron Gillen: As far as comic spaces circa 2000 went, the WEF was an accepting and welcoming place for women, and that speaks for people who were there, the creators who came out of there, and the work we do.

Oh my. Mind you, the Guardian piece does suggest that women moderating the forum made it a broadly safe space. The main problem is they weren't safe from Ellis himself.

CalHab

The Guardian piece seems to seriously understate the allegations about Ellis.

IndigoPrime

Might have been nice for the Guardian to commission a women to write the piece, but, well... sigh.

CalHab

I agree. It's also not a good piece of journalism, in my opinion.

Link Prime

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 13 July, 2020, 01:51:16 PM


Quoteit appears he was maintaining at least 19 relationships simultaneously at one point in 2009.

None of them knew about the others, natch.

Got a regular Alex P. Keaton on our hands here.

sintec

#9
Testimonals from some of the women involved https://www.somanyofus.com/

CalHab


Tjm86

A few things occur to me reading through some of these articles.  Not as justifications or explanations, just as observations and thoughts.

Quite a bit of this dates back to the nineties, it seems.  My recollection of comics during that decade is of one that was flirting disturbingly at times with puerile sexuality of a kind that was actually quite commonplace.  The seedy 'top shelf' magazines had migrated to lower shelves and morphed into titles like FHM. 

A lot of the female characters in comics at the time conformed to highly sexualised archetypes.  Marvel ran a 'swimsuit' issue of X-men for instance, the first issue of Lee's FF for Heroes Reborn featured Sue Richards in a powerfully submissive pose.

Even Tooth itself was not immune to the influence.  Remember the 'sex' issue?  Much of the early Dante strips could be seen as overtly and exploitatively sexualised.  As for "Space Girls", well, the less said the better.  Not to mention the rampant homophobia of "Big Dave."

This is without going anywhere near the sort of masculine culture that has found a different outlet on the internet these days with the INCEL movement where the 'involuntary' part could perhaps be easily remedied with a bit of appropriate education and guidance (okay, maybe 'easily' is the wrong word ...).

As I say, I'm not trying to 'justify' behaviour.  Then again perhaps it is worth thinking of it as a cautionary tale.  How will our behaviour be judged in a few years time?

IndigoPrime

I think the point women are making is that this is endemic throughout media, and enough's enough. This isn't about comics, but about men getting into power, and then taking advantage of women through a mix of coercion, gaslighting, and worse. And, yes, the comics industry in terms of its output was arguably more generally toxic and hostile back then for women; but the point today is that lessons still haven't been learned, and there are plenty of lessons to learn.

This is, in part, why I bang on all the bloody time about representation in things like Judge Dredd. No, having more female judges won't fix the world. But it would in that strip normalise women. Then you do the same in other strips. Simultaneously, you normalise women creators in the comic—something the editorial team seems to be trying very hard to do.

Little things: take action: Big things: take action. And if there's no direct action you can take, support those who need support.

Funt Solo

I'm no saint, and would certainly not enjoy being judged against my more immature behaviors in interpersonal relationships of the past, but it would seem odd to write all of this off as something that happened in another time and in a different society. Because:



and




If you read their article, the call is not for punishment, but for acknowledgement of wrongs done, and of an acceptance that change would be beneficial.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

CalHab

Exactly. This isn't the dim and distant past, it's happening now.