I sometimes regret…

Quiet mode. For someone who makes their living by putting marks on paper and pixels on screens I sure do hit quiet mode a lot.

When I was a kid I had an opinion about *everything* and was always ready to share it. As I’ve gotten older I’ve grown to distrust such people, as represented by the pundit class. I try and value *understanding* above *being heard* but it means that I’ll stay out of conflicts because I don’t feel like being part of a pile-on.

This past week the right-wing concern troll campaign in popular culture made a pit stop in my beloved comic books. The target was DC Comics for appearing to respond to a progressive outcry against a variant cover of a Batgirl comic that painted the heroine into a victimized role.

The art was an extremely effective piece executed well by one of the industry’s best cover artists. It also happens to have been something that was commissioned by the *marketing* department without consulting the creative team. When the team saw the cover they objected too: the tone of the art was diametrically opposed to the tone of the book.

Sure, you could point out that variant covers often have nothing to do with the tone of the book: but that makes this bad variant covers. Variant covers are a sad part of the industry anyway: they wouldn’t be necessary if comics sold in the high-six figures of copies like they did 20 years ago.

Regardless of the creative team — or the actual artist’s feelings — the right wing concern trolls took it upon themselves to wage a PR war because it made for a good proxy in their endless battle to stem the tide of progress.

I didn’t stand on the metaphorical ramparts and metaphorically kick any of them in the face this week. So that’s my bad. I regret that. I hope that if I *did* that I wouldn’t let my anger with their goals and tactics get the better of me.

Because I don’t trust that I won’t get all Bruce Banner I stay out of these things. Yelling at people who are predisposed to not see the points you’re trying to make because their identities are wrapped up in a diametrically opposed viewpoint isn’t my idea of fun, or healthy living.

But not engaging also means they get to fill up the space you’re not holding. So I’m damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

The main thing I know is this: no one who is a fan of the Stewart/Fletcher/Tarr run on Batgirl could feel anything less than nauseous looking at that cover. Given that *we’re* the target demo for that book it makes every kind of sense to swap it out for something else.