[B5JMS] Message to JMS about ASM #511

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: jhammond54 at yahoo.com (James Edward Hammond)
Date: 28 Aug 2004 16:06:02 -0700
Lines: 48

> These vicious posts have alienated at least one potential reader -"

Make that at least two.

I'll tell you the one that really got me (though the rest of them
would be enough to do it on their own): when he asked Johanna "who are
you again?"

I wonder exactly who exactly she'd HAVE to be to have a right to an
opinion on a comic book by his lights.  Like so many others, she was
being absolutely civil at the time and he down on her with a hateful
and awe-inspiringly condescending personal attack.

Which is nothing compared to last year when that kid - literally kid-
said his comics were boring (not even to him, or in a thread involving
him!) and Joe (a grown man and a professional!) took time to look up
the kids fanfic, and give him a public thrashing about how bad *his*
writing was. (Do a search in this group for "boring pretentious and
qualified" to read the whole appalling thread there.) I wonder if he
punches 5 year olds who tell him they don't like his tie, too.

I guess any of us with the temerity to speak other than praise risk
this treatment, but I'll take my chances. Because yes, you can
probably find all sorts of information about things I'm embarrassingly
bad at, but I, for one, doesn't think that means I'm out of bounds to
say whether I like a comic book (or not, actually- apparently only the
"not" part requires special credentials) on the internet.

So yeah, apparently your sky is a different color, or you're a retard,
or on and on if you don't like what he does. What I'm not sure he
doesn't get is how many of us who *did* like what he's done he
alienates with this bullying prima donna behavior. You say turn about
is fair play, Joe...yeah, it is. If you're gonna constantly claim to
be the bigger man, BE the bigger man and don't act like a spoiled 4
year old on the playground who thinks beating up the kids who disagree
with him makes him right. Especially when most of the other kids
*weren't* picking on you, just talking about comic books. We can still
do that here, right? Or only about comics other than yours, written by
creators old enough to tolerate dissenting opinions without having to
call somebody a name about it?

Amazes me that the gifted mind that came up with Babylon 5 is capable
of this kind of petty, childish, and ugly behavior. And even if he is,
that he hasn't got the business sense to keep it to himself.

He's certainly lost my patronage- and my respect- by it.

James Edward Hammond

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Lines: 50
From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 28 Aug 2004 23:21:28 GMT

Nothing like a little misrepresentation to make one's day.

>I'll tell you the one that really got me (though the rest of them
>would be enough to do it on their own): when he asked Johanna "who are
>you again?"
>
>I wonder exactly who exactly she'd HAVE to be to have a right to an
>opinion on a comic book by his lights.  Like so many others, she was
>being absolutely civil at the time and he down on her with a hateful
>and awe-inspiringly condescending personal attack.

There was no personal attack.  I simply asked one very simple question, the
question that I think anyone who runs a site called Comics Worth Reading should
have to ask: what are their qualifiations, and who are they?  Once she
answered, I did not attack, I did not call her names, I did not say one other
thing than to simply ask the question.

Because a site with a name like that is not a matter of saying "This is my
opinion about comics," but rather "If I don't like it, it's NOT WORTH READING."
 There's simply no other way to interpret that.  Which is, at best, a rather
grandiose thing to say, and I think it's fair to ask, okay, if that's your
stance, what are your qualifications to make that assertion?  

Every good critic knows and understands the difference between constructive
criticism and destructive criticism.  Good crticism weighs the good and the
bad, and carries with it the implicit understanding that while this may not be
to one person's taste, it might be to someone else's.  In other words, a book
might not be to her liking, but it may be to someone else's, so that to say
that, by implication, a book is not "worth reading" because she didn't like it
means that it's fair to ask who's making that assumption?

Show me one post where I attacked her.  Show me one line where I said anything
bad about her.  You won't.  I asked a question.  I asked who she was.  

So your assertion that I attacked her is simply untrue, unless it is an attack
to ask someone's qualifications...in which case the term attack no longer has
any meaning.



accountable for theri actions
 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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