Comic Book Resources

If the word Private still shows up in the title, it's not my usual sloppiness this time; I just couldn't get rid of it after I made it priavte originally. If not, then just go along ignoring me like I do your comments, puny plebes! Or, you know, pretend like your seeing a leaked, controversial draft of something if you like. It's up to you, really.

And now it doesn't say private, so that comment was pointless. I will now have to ignore myself for having typed two of these stupid things, creating a paradox that will doom us all.

This sounds familiar...

A Beau Smith article from... must be over a year ago now. Maybe two:
http://www.comicsbulletin.com/busted/11573599729614.htm

I see online and print media talking to their readers in a “dog pile on the rabbit” mentality of “let’s make fun of the fanboys so they won’t call us one.” all the time. I sure as hell hope they’re talking in a mirror when they do this.
...
The fanboy term has gotten so readers will even call themselves that name. I hope it’s meant that they have such good, solid self esteem that they really don’t care that the term isn’t that flattering to themselves. I hope that it’s not a case of them making fun of themselves first so they won’t have to hear it used on them by others.

There's also some sad stuff in there about people in the industry being... not so kind to their consumers.

I don't find anything inherently offensive about the "babyman" term as Manley uses it in his blog. I think it's quite effective in getting across the point that there is a subset of the comic-book reading population that is composed of arrested adolescents in their late twenties and their thirties whose only interest in comics is to vicariously live out their power fantasies from their pre-teen/teen years.

I don't see Manley using the term "babyman" as an all-encompassing pejorative for all adult males who continue to read and enjoy superheroic fiction. It seems to me (at least in the article you linked to), that he's referring to that unfortunately most vocal of sub-populations in the superhero comic book reading world, the grown men who insist that their four-colour childhood friends "mature" and age with them, while losing sense of the irony inherent in "mature" superheroics.

Also, comparing the term "babyman" to hate speech seems a bit much to me. It at once trivializes the experiences of people who have actually been subject to hate speech because of their race, religion, politics, or sexual orientation while at the same reinforcing the perception that you do, in fact, seem to take your superhero comics reading habit a bit too seriously, contrary to your claims.

So Manley's ragging on grown men for their choice of reading material. Big deal! Raging at the use of term, I think, actually encourages the stereotype.

I think the babyman-hate is just the latest in a long line of reflections of how self-hating comicdom is. So many fans are ashamed of being fans, ashamed of reading comics, ashamed of not being mainstream, so they always attack babymen/fanboys/gross fans/conventionistas/whatever, they decry the existence of comics and say the graphic novel is the only way of the future, they lambast superheroes to the point of hating Preacher and Transmetropolitan, they just try and try and try and try and try to remove themselves from everything that made comics what they are.

Sad.

I dunno, if you read both the article and Manley's comments in said article, the whole thing does come off as Brad said - "Some guys are saying mean things about the cartoon I'm working on! I'll show them!" Manley has some valid points (I for one would love to see a Dick Sprang inspired Batman, and yet I also loved the Dark Knight) but he comes off as such a petulant, whiney ass that it pretty much invalidates what he's trying to say. At least in his case the "babymen" or "fanboys" aren't the ones that provide a paycheck for him. I'm always amazed when you see comments from Queseda or Didio making fun of the fanboy crowd, since they're pretty much the only ones still reading American comics anymore.

And it might not be clear from the last line of my previous comment, but I'm not trying to say that I'm not one of the "fanboys." There is a lot of self-hate in comic fandom, and while I don't fit in with a lot of the fanboy stereotypes, neither do most people that read comics and are usually lumped into that group. No, I don't get overly upset when something happens in a comic book that goes against continuity or that I disagree with. But it very well might make me stop buying that comic. And asshole comments from creators will make me avoid all of their work, even if it might be something I would like.

I've got to say that it is a really good insult - catchy, doesn't need explaining & goes for most comic book reader's biggest fear, that they are really too old to be really superheroes.

Now that 'fanboy' and 'geek' have been adopted by so many readers and thus lost its power to offend, I think that there is a good chance that 'babymen' will soon be in common usage.

Oh, and if people have been blogging Manley and complaining that a Saturday morning cartoon isn't 'dark' enough, then they deserve to be insulted.

Ooops, the last comment should read, "they are really too old to be READING superheroes".

I think you're misconstruing the term. I don't think it's meant to tar "adults who take comics seriously", I think it's aimed specifically at adults who think superheroes comics should be written for adults now that they're adults.

I'm an adult who take comics seriously, but I'm no babyman. When I was a kid, superhero comics were written for eager-to-grow-up kids. Now they're written for desperate-to-not-grow-up adults. That's a shame.

And, as a general rule, announcing to the world that a particular epithet really gets under your skin? Not the best way to discourage use of that epithet. I've had several people patiently explain to me how offended they are that I use the term "torture porn". Every time they do it, I think to myself, "Score!"

Truthfully? I kind of like it. I don't use it, because I think of it as Mike's word, and I define it in my head as "the kind of fan Mike Manley's sick of dealing with."

Reading his blog entries I can hardly blame him. I've been to conventions and I see that stereotypical fan all over the place. In fact, he helpfully illustrated himself exactly who he meant. I won't put the link in because the comment hangs up in the queue when you do that-- damn WordPress-- but Google the word "babymen" on the image search and Manley's drawing is the first thing to come up. If you've been to a con then you've seen that guy, and he probably annoyed you, too.

What strikes me most about the term is how totally inept it is as an insult. If someone called me a "babyman", my feelings wouldn't be hurt- I'd laugh. It's like the insults first graders make up. Certain types of comic fans, well, it's very easy to find them unpleasant, but if people going to pick on what has to be just about the easiest target in the entire world, I would have thought they could do it with at least a tiny bit more panache than "babyman".

Personally, i agree with Mike- I firmly believe, for example, that the fun (and sense of safety) has been drained from DC comics these days because of the "babyman" (as he puts it) mentality of Didio (and probably other people in there) have. And the Spider-Man un-marriage probably has some of it as well.

I admit, however, that it IS a stupid-sounding word. Let's come up with a better one, OK? (Cynical fans, maybe?)

the fact that it boils down to “Some guys are saying mean things about the cartoon I’m working on! I’ll show them!”

That's not it at all, he's commenting on the idiocy and sad entitlement of adults who complain that a program for kids doesn't appeal to them.
As always, The Simpsons show us the way:

DOUG
Hi. Question for Ms. Bellamy. In episode 2F09, when Itchy plays Scratchy's skeleton like a xylophone, he strikes the same rib twice in succession, yet he produces two clearly different tones. I mean, what are we to believe, that this is some sort of a... (sniggering) magic xylophone or something? Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

BELLAMY
Uh, well, uh...

HOMER
I'll field that one. Let me ask you a question. Why would a man whose shirt says "Genius at Work" spend all of his time watching a children's cartoon show?

DOUG
(embarrassed) I withdraw my question. (eats a chocolate bar)

The derivation of "geek" comes from a "wild man" in a circus who typically bites a head off of a live animal (such as a chicken) as part of his act.

Thus, I don't think it's insulting at all, especially as the definition has flipped at least 90 degrees (maybe 270) and the irony inherent in the term has been lost to most people. Needless to say, I use it to define myself all the time.

"Nerd" either comes from Dr. Seuss or a predisposition towards not binge drinking (says Wikipedia) which are both things I can sympathize with. "Dork," a lot of people fail to realize, is a reference to the naughty bits and thus really shouldn't be used so lightly as it is.

"Fanboy" while not a particularly offensive term, still probably isn't a good thing to be, as it implies a certain narrow-mindedness and tendency to take things seriously.

"Babyman" is somewhat evil, but at least easy to debunk if you can prove the ability to do things requiring a Pre-K mindset or above.

Is there any way I can label myself as a Nintendo-playing Galactica-watching anti-social comic reader who attends movie marathons, without people thinking I'm insulting myself cause I have low self-esteem? Will such a term ever catch on? Is this a problem that only I have?

What strikes me most about the term is how totally inept it is as an insult.

It's not an insult. It's a sociological term.

And I think it's pretty apt.

It is absolutely intended as an insult, and has been coined due to large numbers of comics readers adopting geek and fanboy for themselves, so those wishing to insult comics readers need a new word - an analogy would be the gay community using the word queer, robbing it of its power.
While there are indeed people for whom this word is apt, the intention of the user is to tar us all with the same brush.
What really annoys me though is that the author of the blog is saying not only that "there should be comics and superhero cartoons for kids, not just for the fanboys" but that "there should be NO comics or superhero cartoons for adults at all". Sometimes it feels like the last 30 years worth of intelligent, well-written comics, including superheroes, never happened.

And also:
"Curran! Curran! Curran!"

It's not a novel, but one of my favorite prose super-hero stories is The Velvet Marauder. It was a super-hero blog, told in first person by the Velvet Marauder himself. This was written by Dave Campbell, who is probably better known to comics fans for the (sadly) now-defunct Dave's Longbox comics blog.

Putting links in the comments around here just seems to make the comment disappear, so instead of a direct link, here's how to find the VM:

velvetmarauder dot blogspot dot com

And, that's the downside of having several CSBG tabs open in Firefox at the same time - sorry about posting on the wrong column.

The upside is that it pads Brad's comment counts.

"Curran... Curran... Curran..."

Anyways, shouldn't the term be man-baby, rather than babyman? The latter sounds really awkward, even if it's correct in terms of syntax.

To stealthwise:

"Man-baby" does seem to roll off the tongue more easily, but I think it's too close to "man-child," which is the exact opposite of what Manley wants to suggest, as it refers to a particularly precocious male youth (because of the modifier-precedence in the word order, as you suggested).

I think it's a good term. It encapsulates what he's talking about.

Babies have limited thought processes. They eat nothing but gruel and they can't chew. They are easily confused and frightened by new things and anything that confuses, frightens and discomforts them is met by a wave of incoherent screaming.

Adding men as a suffix implies that here are self-actualized human beings who can process, think, make decisions and fend for themselves, and yet, prefer to exist within a comforting womb of familiarity, willingnly surrendering their higher thought processes for a world of comfort where all decisions are made for them. And if these decisions displease them, are to be met by incoherent screaming.

I think this sense of self-centredness and entitlement is far more obnoxious than any term. In a baby, you can forgive it. It's young and NEEDS attention, care and support to survive.

The Babyman, on the other hand, has voluntarily crippled himself. He's thrown up his hands and decided that life is too hard, and that he wants everyone to just help him or he'll scream and scream until he turns blue.

Manley is absolutely right!
This entire industry has suffered and been driven to near extinction because the fanboys/babymen have taken over. The foundation of comics were laid by Men. Grown men, who raised families, fought in wars, travelled and in general lived fully formed adult lives. Now, the industry is driven soley by grown up fanboys who spent thier entire lives dreaming of the day they could get a job at Marvel and do a story where Wolverine kills Cyclops and bangs Jean Grey on Professor Xavier's desk. It's really sad that babymen can't grow up and move on to other genres (or books without pictures) and leave superheroes to the kids.

Stereotypes exist because they're true. But for some reason every fanboy/babyman out there, no matter how comic obssesed, thinks it doesn't apply to them. I attended a convention once where in the span of minutes I overheard three different groups of people commenting on the unbelievable number of geeks in attendance. No mirrors in thier homes apparently. After working in a comic shop for a number of years I've seen fanboys of every stripe, from the ones who would only buy soap if it came with an action figure (and then keep it in the package, mint condition) to very nice normal folks who enjoy funnybooks. The term fanboy or babyman doesn't bother me, because it doesn't apply to me or many other comic fans.

As far as the fat, obssesive, smelly, ill-mannered, basement dwelling freaks that foam at the mouth at the very idea that superheroes be confined to the kiddy-fare they were meant to be. Well screw them, no derogatory term is sufficent if you ask me.

What the heck, maybe I'll post something on this thread that's actually on-topic.

I think it's pathetic that so many people have to be so black and white about this. "Superheroes are for kids!" or "Superheroes are for grownups!"

Can't we have both? Seriously, the idea that superheroes are only for kids, and that liking the adult versions is a character defect is a stupid idea. Not misguided, not different, just stupid. I'm not saying that you have to like the non-kid versions, but to somehow discredit all of the brilliant work that's been done with adult versions of superheroes (in both comics and other media) just doesn't work.

But, at the same time, acting like all superheroes have to be written for the adults? That doesn't make sense, either. They started out for kids, and some of the biggest superhero fans I know are the 3- and 4-year old kids of my friends.

This creator didn't like the complaints he was getting, so he rather childishly lashed out at an entire group of people, many of whom have never heard of his show, and probably don't care about his show. Everyone should just take a deep breath and realize that they can ignore his cartoon if they don't like it, just like others can ignore the grim-n-gritty versions they don't like.

And Oldtime2001?

Stereotypes exist because they’re true.

I hope this doesn't really represent your thinking, because it makes you sound like an ass. Stereotypes exist because it's easier to dismiss whole groups than it is to rationally consider and deal with arguments from people with whom you disagree. If I lump you in with a stereotype, I don't have to listen to anything you say, or care about any concerns you may have - you are of less worth than me.

That's ultimately the problem with the term "babyman" - it's a way of dismissing a whole group of people. Using this term (or any stereotype) is essentially an admission that you can't engage in rational, respectful discourse. It says a lot more about the people using the term than it does about the people to whom it is applied.

Manley is dead on and you just a sad little crying baby man. Is he nice about it? No, but it's mockery, not hate. Change your little plastic poopy pants and read a book without pictures. Most of all you whining baby men need a fucking sense of humor about how embarrassingly seriously you take children's entertainment. Most you people are jerking off in the same house your mother is how can you judge others? Please for God sake sober up and grow into men.