F is for CKRS

It's all too easy to blame some abstract, toxic social media for recent events. That notwithstanding, this is what I wrote down in my private journal last year (August 31, 2023) about one very specific, concrete element within that toxicity:

I’ve withdrawn from the so-called “discussion group” Cartoonist Kayfabe Ringside Seats. According to its “About” statement, “For fans of Cartoonist Kayfabe to discuss Kayfabe creators, videos, and most importantly comics. Unofficial Fan group. Ed and Jim do not run this group.” In plain sense, what is implied is that this is group dedicated to discussing comics, creators, and issues raised on the Kayfabe YouTube channel.

One member of the group took me to task, asking how in the world I could read such a definition into the “About” statement. Several more members lied about me and trashed X-Amount of Comics without having read it. When I posted a link to read the work for free (all the original pages to X-Amount of Comics were scanned over a year’s time straight from the drawing board into a Facebook photo album), several people actually blocked me.

One moronic --- had the temerity to lecture me on creators’ rights—turns out that such rights only apply to Alan Moore, and that Alan Moore apparently has unlimited rights to --- all over his collaborators. He argued that when one co-creates something with Alan Moore, one gets what one deserves. (I replied that by the same logic, Alan got everything he deserved when he signed those Watchmen contracts; he was a big boy, and if he wasn’t happy, that’s just tough.)

Yet another person claimed my post were not “intelligent” contributions to the discussion; he also claimed I was a cyberbully for cajoling the --- contributors to get off their asses and finish their --- contributions and put the damn book out.

In sum, I found the group to consist of nothing by know-nothings airing their own prejudices and preconceived ideas, and fairly indistinguishable from toxic Alan Moore fan groups on Reddit.

What moronic, --- ---.

The group’s charter admonishes not to “cut promos” on creators and “don’t be a dick”; if those clauses were actually enforced by the administrators, several people would have to be removed for trashing my work without reading it (indeed, refusing to even look at it), repeatedly lying about me, mischaracterizing my work, willfully misattributing statements to me, lying more about me, falsely accusing me of any number of crimes, and more lying, lying, lying.

These are not in any way, shape, or form fans of Cartoonist Kayfabe; they don’t even aspire to the standards set by Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor, who bring massive thoughtfulness and historicizing knowledge to their videos and discussion of comics and creators—and to my knowledge have never once trashed something they haven’t read, or for that matter even voiced a negative opinion about something they don’t like. If they don’t like it, they just don’t talk about—unlike the --- morons who populate the so-called “discussion group” Ringside Seats, which apparently regards intelligent discussion as involving clueless --- morons voicing preconceived ideas about works they refuse to become in any way familiar.

The deeper problem, of course, is the toxicity of comic book culture, which has always been fannish and moronic and stupid in a multitude of ways but seldom as malicious as it has become now. I can’t imagine being a creator today in my twenties attempting to break into comics; I can’t imagine conceptualizing a comic book industry to break into. There is nothing out there, and even if one gets into print—either through a big company, a crowdfunder, or by indy self-publishing, there can never be a feeling of truly having “broken in.” There always has to be a persistent feeling of, “Don’t quit your day job, fella,” simply because the revenue streams are never certain or assured. 

All these people can hope to contribute to any discussion of the art form is, “I’m not going to read X-Amount because it’s a hitjob on Rick Veitch,” which saves them twenty dollars. What incredible --- ---. The level of discussion on offer makes a middle-school playground argument seem like a grad school seminar.

[Note: Swearing has been elided from the above.]

This was my subjective impression recorded on August 31, 2023, exactly six months prior to the tragic events of April 1, 2024. Admittedly, this was an intense, allergic reaction to a handful of individuals who, for me, spoiled the entire experience of a group - a few bad apples, as it were. But I can certainly see why the group's namesake channel sought to distance themselves from it.

The misleading former banner of CKRS.

Needless to say, one reason I have kept a journal in recent years is to let off steam rather than post hot takes directly online. Sometimes it has worked and sometimes it hasn't.

Flash forward six months later: One commenter on my Facebook page (whose comments and my replies he seems to have deleted) argued in April 2024 that Ed Piskor had somehow laid the groundwork for the social media pile-on in late March in part by incurring the wrath of certain members of CKRS. According to this person, Ed had suggested ("given marching orders" was the commenter's phrase) to some members that they should create a fanfic comic based on corporate-owned IP that they obviously didn't own and had subsequently distanced himself from the group because they had gotten out of control. 

Apparently, such behavior was viewed as egotistical.

(Let me stress that since I was only briefly and am no longer a part of the group, I have idea whether this was true in whole or in part, or not at all.)

I replied with excerpts from my journal (above), and added that, given my own wariness of the group, what was being described to me didn't sound like anything but a creator making a rational decision to disengage from something that had grown apart from the spirit of the Kayfabe channel, and in any case had grown beyond something any sane person would want to be identified with. Further, I wrote, if a bunch of pathetic losers were waiting around for suggestions to invest their time creating fanfic they could never monetize, it was the most pathetic thing I had ever heard in my life—perhaps they needed to get lives for themselves. Or at least try their hand creating original material they would own, for better or worse, like Ed had done with his career.

Also, since I had independently come to the conclusion the group was toxic, or at least a certain element within it, I certainly couldn't blame a busy professional creator with his own career to run for disowning it, distancing himself from it, disowning it, or otherwise ignoring it.

[Note again: Since my original replies were deleted by the commenter along with his comments from my Facebook thread, I can only reconstruct and paraphrase my thoughts here.]

Needless to say, that individual unfriended me!

I have written elsewhere that, having known Ed from before he ever broke into comics, I found him to be the least changed by fame of any successful individual in comics I have ever known.

Although my exchange with the former Facebook friend is now lost to the ether, I wanted to record the interaction here for the record. 

Since I am no longer privy to the group's activities, I have no idea what role if any this or any other Facebook group, or certain members of it, played in the recent tragedy; I was merely going on the description of one commenter who claimed that Ed's deteriorating relations with the group had somehow set the stage for what followed. Which I consider categorical nonsense.

In fact, I understand there have been several posts concerning Ed's passing linking to the Piskor family's Instagram and other fond remembrances.

It's pretty clear, in any case, that a kind of pack mentality of toxic fans, on that cut across groups and affiliations, exists online, ready to tear down creators they feel they own and that have betrayed them.

If anyone held a grudge against Ed for a reason as silly as the ones proffered by my former Facebook friend and thought late March 2024 was the perfect occasion get back at him, well, I hope they are pleased with the outcome. Seems like their grievances were rather trivial to me, and if their hissy ax-grinding factored into the pile-on, it only adds a further layer of absurdity to this tragedy.

Toxic fans who feel they have ownership and control over creators because they've read a stack of comic books and liked a bunch of videos and posts are a growing problem, no doubt.* The extent to which their free-ranging hostility may have contributed to the recent tragedy, I can't speak to, but reports like the one by my former Facebook friend are surely distressing. I'm an old guy and I've learned to shut out most of this kind of negativity to a great extent, but creators younger than me don't have the armor. I hope people who want to grow old will also learn to shut it out whenever possible.

One can only hope that groups like CKRS -- whatever they may have been in the past or hope to become in the future -- and online comics fandom in general -- will turn its energies to more positive pursuits going forward. Authorized or not, Cartoonist Kayfabe set a better standard and deserves to be revered as a more positive influence.

Megaton Man page in progress.

*Historical Note: Toxic fans and commentary have been with us since at least the AOL Comics + Animation Forum, to which Peter David was a frequent and caustic contributor; that was enough for me. One could even go further back, to the letters page of The Comics Buyer's Guide, to which I was an occasional, if vehement, contributor.—Dr. Don.