You can't really say he's "like Byrne" (I think each would consider that insulting), but wasn't that you on another thread cutting Peter David some slack despite his sometimes "prickly" personality and "sharp elbows"? Imagine if somebody started monitoring PAD's website and splashed every possibly harsh or controversial thing he writes all over the web?

I mean, it's not like Byrne is posting his supposedly offensive comments all over the internet or posting messages on other people's sites. He's got his own little corner to play in and you can probably ignore Byrne more easily than you can most other comic creators. Yet folks keep going to that site JUST to find more fuel to throw on the perpetually burning "John Byrne Internet Effigy".

Mike

For whatever faults he may possess, Peter's presence on his web-site is opinionated without being abusive or unpleasant towards folks who post there.

Even the folks who go there to harass the guy are given plenty of rope, and the rare banning is always due to abusive behaviour instead of disagreeing with Peter's opinion.

Yeah, Peter's prickly and doesn't always fight fair, and I have no problem calling him on it if I see it that way, but anyone who calls him regularly nasty or spiteful would be exaggerating. Calling Byrne those things is an accurate description.

I hope that you recognize that there's a difference.

In my defense, I'm busy calling Peter David on that very thing in another thread. Despite being one of a very small handful of people who just happen to think his recent tirade was unprofessional. I'd like to think I'm giving my opinion, honestly, while listening to the points made by others, trying to see both sides.

But here, according to Paul, any opinion I may have, is obviously JUST a symptom of group mind-think. As is any negative critique of John Byrne's statements or actions.

It's true that Peter David says controversial things on his Web site. I've only visited a few times, but he comments on politics, religion, sports and other topical issues. And he absolutely can be snarky.

I'm just speculating, but I wonder if the key difference is that David talks a lot about the outside world, while Byrne frequently hammers on comics-related subjects -- which publishers screwed him, which artists suck, which writers get it all wrong, which super-hero movie adaptations are a travesty before the eyes of God, etc., etc. He's crapping where he eats, for lack of a better phrase.

If I'm Joey Q, editor of Marvel, for example, I probably don't care that Peter David hates George W. Bush. Whatever. But when Byrne talks about the lazy work ethic of young slobs like me, Joey Q, and how I should have drawn enough pages in advance so that the death of one of my loved ones didn't delay DAREDEVIL for two weeks, well, now I'm pissed off.

Though I've apparently missed some of the biggest kerfluffles, I've spent enough time on the Byrne Board to see Byrne behaving completely reasonably with people who disagree with him. He's not all sweetness and light, but he's not a permanently scowling, constantly aggreived crawdad. Most of his comments on that board are in response to what other people post.

On the subject of nasty and spiteful, there's at least one creator I can think of to whom those words could be applied just as validly as to Byrne. Warren Ellis. Yet Ellis gets NOTHING like the treatment Byrne receives, even though both mainly keep to their own little corners of the internet.

I'm not interested in defending Byrne, but there's more to this dynamic than him being an ass occasionally.

Mike

I didn't even know Warren Ellis had a Web site.

What has Ellis said and done that was so outrageous?

Ellis used to have a Delphi forum. I'm not sure where he is right now. But wherever he is, if you go there I'm pretty sure you won't have to look very long to find him being nasty and spiteful to someone.

Mike

Warren Ellis' clique is larger, his tastes are more aligned with the mainstream comics audience. Hence the popularity and high sales of his books. I think if Warren Ellis' attitudes and declarations were as far out of sync with perceived reality as John Byrne's are, to the mass of online comics fans, you'd see a similar reaction.

Just look at Dave Sim.

I don't know anything about Warren Ellis' Web site. But Ellis and Peter David are both intelligent men and good writers, whereas John Byrne frequently can be a buffoon. The guy rants furiously about the questionable logic of Captain Carrot's world and whether Batman's cape is black with blue highlights or blue with black highlights. That might make it easier to laugh and point fingers at Byrne. He's ridiculous.

Something else worth pointing out:

While Byrne's peculiar personal manner has been well-known for decades, it is interesting that his rise to Internet infamy has coincided with the subsiding of his position as a comic book sales juggernaut.