In any event, Chuck, if you wish to categorize it as "upset," that's your right, but I, naturally, do not see it as so. Heck, I even recommended the issue in question. I just thought the "idiots" shots were kinda mean and unnecessary.

As for the "repeatedly" part, I am only responding to people who "repeatedly" take issue with my point. If they were to drop it, so would I.

Instead, we have random drive-by comments like yours and Evan's.

"We have different sensibilities" definitely seems like a fair way of describing it.

And again, the biggest, broadest, and most specific shot is taken at myself. So I think that buys me a little leeway.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I didn't find the issue too harsh. To me, the word "idiot" isn't like dropping the f-bomb. Idiot. Say it with me a few times. It's not all that harsh. If the word has more weight to you personally? Then I'm sorry if I offended you-- or took away some of your enjoyment of the issue. Different people have different "hot buttons" and that's cool.

Case in point:
Years ago I was doing a Ren & Stimpy signing and a young boy handed me every single R&S comic, special, and trade paperback I'd ever written. And every issue in the stack-- save one-- was all weathered, cracked, and beaten up from being read over and over again. The boy was very shy and as I signed all his copies, his mother went on and on about how this was his favorite comic in the world, how he carried them around with him wherever he went, and how she was so glad that these got him into reading. Suddenly, I hit the ONE comic in the stack that was pristine and in mint condition. I'd been joking with the boy, getting him to laugh a couple times, so I leaned over and kidded, "Hey, what's the matter? Did this one stink or something?" And, bam, the mother went off on me.

It was a total Jekyll and Hyde moment. She was frothing mad and told me that when her son read that comic he cried and cried-- it made him feel horrible-- and how could I WRITE SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! And that the ONLY reason her son kept it-- the ONLY reason that she didn't throw it into the TRASH WHERE IT BELONGED was because he wanted to keep a complete set. I was TOTALLY confused. I know I hinted at some off color stuff (usually "bathroom" humor) in the book. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of ANYTHING offensive in that issue. (And keep in mind, on top of Marvel approving everything in the issue, squeaky clean Nickelodeon kept an even tighter watch on us before ANYTHING saw print).

The pristine copy in question was R&S #11 where Ren was learning stress management techniques for controlling his anger, Ren learned a bunch of silly yoga positions, with each one getting him into more and more knots. They were: the monkey, the ostrich, the watusi, the dislexic pretzel, the incontinent flamingo, and the spasmatic jelly roll.

Well... It turns out that the boy was dislexic. He was very self-conscious about it. And he thought that this meant that Ren and Stimpy were making fun of his condition. And it was all my fault. I created this thing that broke this boy's heart and made him cry about one of his favorite things. I was devestated. The following Monday I was trying to sanitize ALL of my scripts. I didn't want to produce ANYTHING that might offend ANYONE ever again! And it took some good friends-- and sensible editors-- to knock me out of that!

Look, you're always going to offend SOMEBODY or land on the wrong side of someone's sensibilities. That's the nature of the game. Sorry a gruff character saying "idiot" was one of your tipping points.

Again, the point I THINK I'm making is valid. If you're a writer in this industry, if you're working in a shared universe, you owe it to the fans-- and to the writers who went before you-- to at LEAST do 5 minutes worth of research on the characters you're using. If not? Why not make up your own? Bendis and Jenkins have shown through fan-favorite characters like Jewel and Sentry-- that it's possible to CREATE brand new characters with previously "unseen" histories. I think it would be GREAT if creators had a need for a character to fulfill a specific story need-- make one up. Think of all the cool NEW characters we'd get!

And, you know what? Even if someone does HOURS and HOURS of research-- mistakes are still going to happen. We're all human. I'm just saying a LITTLE bit of research-- 5 minutes-- isn't going to kill anybody. And that should be part of our job.

Whew!

There it is again. “For the most part.”

Are there any shots in the book that are not A) general or B) directed at Slott himself? If there are, you may not be overreacting.

But if there aren’t, your complaint unfairly puts Slott in a negative light. “Allowing for the possibility” that you misinterpreted his intent is not enough…it’s a total misread on your part. Don’t make Slott look careless if it’s just your weird interpretation. And it’s beginning to look that way, as your “harshest” shot is not that harsh, and directed at nobody.

How can a general shot be harsh? It’s like a non-lawyer getting offended on behalf of lawyers when someone makes a joke.

I do not think it makes a difference whether Slott identifies "the idiots" or not, as I think the sentiment itself is kinda mean, whether generalized or specified, but if you really think it makes a difference, then sure, here are some writers being identified as "idiots" (and this is just off the top of my head, I'd have to reread the issue for more):

Chuck Austen (She-Hulk in Uncanny X-Men)
Warren Ellis (Monica Rambeau in Nextwave)
Brian Michael Bendis (White Tiger in Daredevil)

And as for Slott's intent, my point was that I will certainly allow that Slott did not intend for it to come out as mean as it did in the comic book. That does not mean that I do not think that it did come of as such.

ll that matters is Joey’s pals have work, no matter how much research they do, or how responsible they are at making deadlines.

That's just sad, dude.
I'm not a big fan of the direction Marvel's books have gone lately, and so I don't read as much of them, but to blame it on Joe Q just giving his friends jobs is ridiculous - the comics are selling more copies than they did when he took the current teams on.
Marvel may be where your imagination likes to play, and you've got a strong sense of identification with the characters/'universe', but MArvel's a compnay - on the stock market at that - and so their duty, first and foremost, is to make money.
Joe Q and Dan Buckely have actually done that, so cries of nepotism seem oddly out of place.

Are there any shots in the book that are not A) general or B) directed at Slott himself? If there are, you may not be overreacting.

But if there aren't, your complaint unfairly puts Slott in a negative light. "Allowing for the possibility" that you misinterpreted his intent is not enough...it's a total misread on your part. Don't make Slott look careless if it's just your weird interpretation. And it's beginning to look that way, as your "harshest" shot is not that harsh, and directed at nobody.

How can a general shot be harsh? It's like a non-lawyer getting offended on behalf of lawyers when someone makes a joke.

In fact, that line is the basic punchline of the entire gag.

All the set-up in the issue leads to that joke.

It is quickly followed by the "a-hole" line, which he does use his characters to demonstrate, but as I said before, I do not think including oneself alleviates shots towards others, even if, for the most part, the other shots are general.

That being said, as ALSO noted earlier, I certainly allowed that Slott very well could have intended it all to be good-natured fun, and I was reading it as meaner than intended.

This seemed well-settled, so to then see some nonsensical "he's right, you're wrong" comment was quite irritating.

Or are there more specific shots geared directly to one creator that nobody has mentioned yet?

If not, I'm afraid you haven't got a leg to stand on. Without more evidence, you just sound uptight.

And I refuse to believe that you, Brian Cronin, are uptight. I REFUSE!!!!

Right, yeah. Slott’s right, Cronin’s wrong.

I disagree.

But thanks for the scintillating, well-reasoned comment.

What’s a poochie guarantee, already?

When they got rid of Poochie in the episode, they had a signed guarantee that he would never return. Here, Slott basically had a signed guarantee that the Pug/She-Hulk romance was not going to happen.

"Everybody Loves Raymond" is family fare? I know it was the most popular sitcom in America for several years, but the two episodes I watched had to do with Raymond obsessing over his wife getting breast implants, and the second obsessing over the hot girls that lived in the apartment complex his brother was moving into.

It just shows that the common value or what is considered acceptable in society slips a little bit each decade. A decade or two earlier and the perfect family show was considered to be the Cosby Show. The Cosby Show could be Ozzie and Harriet for all it has in common with what is today considered family entertainment.

If they're not registered, they're either fugitives or retired.

What's a poochie guarantee, already?

It wrapped up off panel. He won, apparently.

Look at it this way, a whole story smeared out across, say, 6 issues. Just one story, not a storyline, it's ONE DAMN STORY, padded to hell. Each issue tells part of it, none actually being internally sound enough to stand on its own. The bigger problem is, it makes focusing the on the mistakes so much more unavoidable. You take a one issue tale and stretch it out to last six months or more, it's like dwelling on a single panel or two for a longer amount of time. So many readers are looking for sustenance to the issue that they aren't getting because the writers are spreading things out as lazily as possible, like watering down Coke at a Burger King to save money, that the wrinkles and blemishes in the story get all the more highlighted.

But what the hell do I know? I actually give a damn about continuity, so that immediately rules me out as being listened to.