For decades, comix
beat-up has been your source for finding out who will be rebooting West
Coast Avengers six months from now! But we’re much more than that—we’re also your go-to source for scandalous clickbait and clearinghouse for every raw tidbit of
industry gossip, rumor, and innuendo—which we carefully refine into potent, unregulated
batches of homemade Fentanyl we cook up in our unscoured bathtub of investigative
curiosity! So, if you’re an autograph-seeking comic book fan or—especially—if
you yourself are an aspiring industry pro, and an industry professional attempts to groom you, send your incriminating screen
caps to comix beat-up first! Frequently Asked
Questions Q: First of all, what is grooming?
Is there a workable definition? Is that like trimming your nose hairs, tweezing
your eyebrows, or plucking your ear hair? A: That’s the beauty of grooming—it
can mean almost anything you want
it to mean! You’re the babe-in-the-woods victim,
and whatever you say, goes! Pretty
much if anyone makes a suggestion to you that you do not consent to a priori,
they are grooming you! (And especially
if a comics professional wants to trim your nose hairs, tweeze your eyebrows,
or pluck your ear hair—they are definitely
trying to groom you!) Watch out. Q: So, I’m a wannabe cartoonist looking for a shortcut* into
the comics industry and a hand up the long ladder of success. To that end, I
struck up a correspondence with an established comics “pro” I ostensibly
admire, but I think this person is only interested in “going out for coffee”
and “exploring a relationship” with me. Am I being groomed? A: You most definitely are!
And you’ve come to the right place. Our experienced staffers at comix beat-up can turn your mildest
feelings of discomfort and paranoid suspicion into 100% bankable clickbait, generating
immense ad revenue and padding our retirement accounts! Most importantly, these
predators must be brought to justice—not
that we’re passing judgment. That’s not our role. Q: Like I said, I’m an aspiring artist. This person told me
if I visited them in their faraway city they would take me to a fine art museum
to look at naked statues, and if I played my cards right, we could also visit a
morgue in a medical school and watch them dissect human cadavers. Should I be
suspicious? A: Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da
Vinci were convinced that the clinical study of human anatomy was essential for
the figurative artist. Clearly, their investigations set their work apart from
any art since classical antiquity, a testament to the achievement of science
and the triumph of the humanistic spirit. No doubt, the knowledge you gain from studying the
human figure in all its intricacy and beauty will be essential in your career
as a professional comic book illustrator. If you can find an experienced tutor
in this endeavor, we at comix beat-up
say: go for it! Q: Same question. Only: What if that person asks to do some life
drawings of me—which means I would have to take off my clothes and pose for them?! A: That pervert is
definitely trying to groom you! —run for your life!! Q: I just looked at my birth certificate and realize I started
communicating with this established comics professional … A: predator! Q: … uh, predator,
when I was still a teenager. That was like four years ago, and I still haven’t
even met this person face-to-face. Are they the world’s worst groomer, or what?! A: This person did nothing
illegal. You were above the age of consent in your jurisdiction to send
and receive text messages. Q: You’ll be sure to mention that in your report, to mitigate
any undue sensationalism or hot-button controversy, won’t you? A: Are you kidding? Why would we wanna do a thing like that?!
No, we’ll just bury it somewhere in the comments, after the shit hits the fan. Q: You people must be lawyers, in order to be able to make
such a certain determination. A: comix beat-up
is just a transparent membrane—a mirror
held up to society—like a giant Marshall amp cranked up to eleven in a tiny
echo chamber. We give the comics industry what it wants—which is a vivid,
graphic account of itself blowing off its own foot. Q: What about the psychological trauma I’ve endured? Do you offer
counseling with licensed social workers? A: The psychological trauma you’ve endured up till now is nothing compared to the psychological
trauma you will endure by the time we’re through
with you! And good luck with those shrink bills. Q: At least you’re ethically-bound journalists, right? You all
have degrees from the Columbia School of Journalism and M.I.T. and the like, I
suppose. A: What do we look like, npr?
The Associated Press? We’re a comic book
blog—we report on who might be rebooting West Coast Avengers six
months from now, for Chrissakes! (We think you’re in for quite a surprise, too!) As
for journalistic qualifications, comix
beat-up staffers aren’t even qualified infotainers!
You’d be an idiot to rely on us for the time
of day! In fact, our only qualifications for our self-appointed jobs seem
to be failing at every other job in
comics—especially writing and editing actual comic books, which isn’t exactly rocket science, if you’ve
been paying attention. That and our reserve of bitter
career resentment and professional
jealousy—which enables us to identify with you, the innocent victim
of those successful, talented pros!† Q: Still, I’m worried that my petty grievances will come off
as too innocuous. Are you sure comix
beat-up can turn my singular awkward experience into scandalous clickbait
that a general audience of nebby nerds (or nerdy neb-noses) will find
compelling? A: With any luck, an old hook-up will also come forward to allege
that your groomer “likes them really,
really young”—imperceptibly turning one instance into a completely fictitious
plural—then, our crafty headline
writers can go to work—deftly transmuting this passive exaggeration into “multiple victims” who’ve come forward (with countless more to follow), alleging ambiguous but highly-charged
“sexual misconduct” against your
de facto groomer! Before critical thinking
can kick in, our readers will have formed the unmistakable
impression that this person has gotten
away with murder for years and is just
now being found out. Before readers get half-way through
paragraph three, half the internet will have blocked
this person, convinced they are already a convicted
sex offender!‡ (Even though—wait for it!—they’ve done nothing illegal!!) By then, it will be too late—damage done. That an entire industry could so misguidedly rush to judgment is certainly regrettable … we’ll be crying about it all the way to the bank! Q: That sounds pretty drastic. I really have no desire to destroy this person’s career. I just want to send them a message … A: You let us
worry about threading that
particular needle! It’s up to the wisdom of the community
to determine the appropriate punishment—whether it’s outraged approbation, diffident
disdain, nervous hand-wringing, shits and giggles, voyeuristic rubbernecking, or
simply masturbatory cheap thrills. If the community
resorts to torches and pitchforks, well, the groomers
brought that on themselves, didn’t
they? Q: I could understand if I were seeking a monthly penciling
assignment from a big company editor—sexual harassment of any kind in the workplace would likely
violate corporate policies as well as U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission guidelines and federal law. But what if this person is a freelance,
independent cartoonist and all I’m looking for is entrée into the world of
celebrity cartooning and something as vague as a longshot recommendation to
an agent or publisher, who after all will make up their own minds whether they
want to risk repping or publishing my work? Does that make a difference? A: These so-called geniuses owe you their time and contacts. Just
because they are talented and accomplished (unlike the staff here at comix beat-up), that’s all the more reason
to take them down a peg or two! Who do they think they are, anyway?! At the very least,
they should offer to put a ring on it—although, again, we’re not judging. That’s not our role. Q: Come to think of it, I’ve never really told this person point-blank
that I’m not interested in them or their work (because I’m holding out for
those industry contacts, like I said). Maybe I should do the grownup thing and
just tell them straightforwardly that I’m not interested and to stop bugging me. Also, that their most
recent work is kind of lame. Won’t that do the trick? A: You definitely do
not want to do that! Your “no means no” message will have more impact when they read it for the first time on comix beat-up—along with their fans, friends,
colleagues, relatives, and professional contacts—who will express their indignation
and approbation according to their own sense of outrage—after comix beat-up has whipped them into a
frenzy with our hyperbolic, prejudicial headlines and slanted, nigh-libelous coverage! Q: But what if the “community”
changes their minds and decides to turn on the accusers?! We’ll be up shit’s
creek without a paddle … A: Of course, we will do everything in our power to protect the
innocent. That’s our brand! Everyone knows the community
is nothing but a toxic mob of bloodthirsty rabble, easily manipulable by
our clever and devious comix beat-up
staff. … Naturally, we will demurely redact your names from the story after the
fact. Q: What earthly good will that
do?! Our names will already be all over the internet! Do you offer a witness
protection program, at least? A: Did we mention our predictions for who might be taking over West
Coast Avengers in the next six months? Boy, will you be surprised! Q: I get the feeling comix
beat-up exploits alleged victims even more than the alleged predators,
and all for your own gain. In fact, you’re guiltier of grooming than the alleged groomers—you’ve
trained the entire comic book industry to attack itself, like cancer or rheumatoid
arthritis does with the human organism … A: That’s a good analogy. Q: How much is one destroyed career worth to you people? Just
one toxic story must account for a sizeable portion of your annual revenue. How
many comics careers do you suppose you can afford to destroy before you’ve
completely decimated the artform
you cover, if not (presumably) love?! A: Kid, you’ve got a lot to learn about the business of comics.
It’s not about love, but power. power, power,
power! Ever see The Third Man? That scene up in the Ferris wheel
where Harry Lime and Holly Martins are looking down at the people on the
ground, and they look like little, tiny dots? And Harry says to Holly, “Don’t be
melodramatic. Look down there. Would you feel any pity if one of those dots
stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot
that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you
calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man;
free of income tax.” We love that
speech. We had it engraved on a bronze plaque and have it hanging next to a
framed portrait of Orson Welles in our comix
beat-up kitchenette … right next to a caricature of Michael George we got
off of DeviantArt. Q: I don’t think you’re interested in making comics a better,
safer place at all—you’re nothing but ghoulish
parasites feeding on the half-dead carcass of a dying artform! Why should anybody turn to you for news and
information when all you do is traffic in vituperation
and misery?! A: Good luck with all your comic book career ambitions—and that
new identity and minimum wage job at a Walmart in Indiana! And thanks for
outing your groomer with comix beat-up! Stay tuned for our predictions for who we think will be taking
over West Coast Avengers in the next six months—our big reveal may astonish you!
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For information on what real grooming is—how to spot it, how to prevent it, how to report it—please read this authoritative Psychology Today article, or simply Google the words “grooming sexual misconduct” (which is more than what our staff here at comix beat-up could be bothered to do!). You will find a wealth of authoritative resources from the National Institutes of Health, parenting groups in the U.S. and U.K., and other professional mental health advice. If, after digesting all this information, you can you honestly still find these terms applicable to any recent events in comics, you may have the makings of an ace comix beat-up staffer! (In which case, you may want to Google the words “cognitive dissonance”!)
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*You could just sit your ass down and draw, then find an
audience for your work—since printers, shows, websites, crowdfunders are all
open access. There are no gatekeepers in comics, and if you think otherwise, there’s
a Brooklyn Bridge I’d like to sell you, too. Or maybe go to college.
†In fact, we’re pretty sure the grooming starts when you first
lay eyes on those shiny new comic books. “You had me with a bold new jumping on point that will forever
change your understanding of the mealymouth universe!”
‡The other half of the internet, of course, will be too paralyzed with fear to come to the defense of our hapless target—we mean, guilty predator (that’s by design!). Shame on them!
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