Probably I shouldn’t go into this, but what the hey.

I’d thought I’d found all the blowback from the 100 Bullets brou-ha-ha, but stumbled on one more thread at Dick Hyacinth’s blog. Dick starts out by saying that Mark Waid (who said mean things about me) should grow up; and then he goes on to say that I was wrong to review Waid’s comic negatively

As long as this thread’s still active–I’ve got to say, I’m kind of disappointed that Noah has gone into full-on troll criticism. I would bet good money that he’s absolutely right about that Waid JLA thing he reviewed, but he’s clearly not operating completely in good faith anymore.

I don’t really get this. I mean, I posted my whole exchange with Waid before I did the review. The review was clearly part of our back and forth. That may be trolling (though can you troll your own site?), but it doesn’t seem like it’s in bad faith. I wasn’t pretending to be objective…though, really, I would have been just as happy to have found that I enjoyed the comic, and to have used it as a transparent ploy to demonstrate my generosity of spirit, rather than as a transparent ploy to insult Waid.

Also (and as I mentioned in the comments, I think…) I did actually enjoy the back and forth with Waid. Dick’s hand-wringing — oh, it’s horrible when comics professionals say mean things about critics…really, come on. Who cares? Waid said some harsh things, I responded; it was entertaining (to me, at least), nobody got hurt, and I think we actually ended up more amused by each other than insulted or pissed off (that’s where I ended up, anyway.)

I found Heidi’s comments a little ridiculous as well. First she says I haven’t made as much of a contribution to the comics industry as Mark Waid has (since, after all, aesthetics is a zero-sum contest) and then she fulminates:

For the record no one is a sacred cow, and on the internet everyone can defend themselves. However, taking pot shots at professionals (in any industry) just because they show up to comment is a common internet respone. And yes I’ve seen the opposite of obsequious groveling as well, and guess what — both are childish.

Holding up Noah as some example of grown up behavior is, in my mind, ludicrous. I really don’t care if he doesn’t like Risso, Johnson or Hugo Pratt. But he made a bush league mistake, and instead of just owning up to it did backflips to explain why making a mistake like that didn’t matter. And then he insulted people on top of it. You can not like Mark Waid’s writing — I don’t like most of it — but insults are not criticism.

I didn’t make fun of Waid because he showed up to comment. I made fun of him because he was deliberately and hyperbolically rude in my direction. Does that mean I was mad and offended? No; it just means I was replying in kind. I like a good troll slugfest; I also like having reasonable and respectful discussions with people. I’m less into the righteous indignation, but if that’s where you’re at, so be it. It takes all kinds to make the blogosphere go round.