Sean Blythe wrote: How about some perspective?

I'll allow for some perspective if you'll stop painting the board with the broadest brush you have available to you.  It's a running theme in your posts recently, one I've wanted to comment on and now am taking the time to do so since your above post perfectly encapsulates your opinion.  For example, you say...

Sean Blythe wrote: meant it as it relates to a persistent theme in these parts, namely that everything in the past is noble and beyond reproach, and everything that exists today is evil and cynical.

That brush couldn't get any more broad if you tried.  John regularly castigates much of Marvel in the 70s.  The new comics thread is filled with people reading, yeah, new comics. There are dissenting views on the Nolan Batman films on the Movie board, dissenting views of original Star Trek vs Abrams Trek on the Star Trek board and ditto the first STAR WARS vs the prequels on the Star Wars board.  Even a casual perusal of most threads here will see that there is hardly a uniform board mentality when it comes to any discussion.  People regularly disagree; with their peers as well as with John.  This notion that everyone sees the past through rose-colored glasses while casting the present as evil is patently wrong.

As far as this comment...

Sean Blythe wrote: I know this rant will be met with "well, if you hate this forum so much, why are you here."

Stay as long as you like.  Debate people on the merits of your position.  Disagree with those you don't see eye to eye with.  All fine and good and, in fact, encouraged.  What I can't put up with, however, is this absurd notion that if you don't tow an imaginary forum line, then get out of town. There is no forum line to tow.  That people of a similar bent find a forum of a creator that speaks to them both in creation as well as opinion, it really shouldn't be any surprise that there will be many who find common ground on which to vent.  That doesn't mean that there isn't room for disagreement, that we will only tolerate someone who agrees with every single thing that John Byrne utters.  I am most positive that the last thing John wants or needs in his life are magpies.  The only thing we ask is that you're a fan of the work of John Byrne.  This is, after all, a fan forum.  I don't think that's too much to ask, do you?

 I meant it as it relates to a persistent theme in these parts,
namely that everything in the past is noble and beyond reproach, and
everything that exists today is evil and cynical.

Nostalgia can definitely be a trap. That being said, I realize intellectually that stuff from my childhood may not be as sophisticated or well produced as today's product. Emotionally, I appreciate the entertainment value that I can still gleen from old stuff.

Personally, my distaste of most current comics isn't primarily 'old-fart syndrome', but merely reflects the fact that I simply don't like them.

Maybe some of the old stuff really IS better than today's books, isn't that possible?

Of course! Some of the older stuff is better. And some of the newer stuff
is better. And yes, permissiveness in terms of language and subject
matter has changed, and that's led to some stuff that — to my well-over-
30 eyes — seems odd. It's also led to some pretty obnoxious storylines,
from what I hear. But isn't that as it ever was?

If I had grown up in the 60s reading X-Men and you'd have told me that
Marvel Girl would someday have a different name and different powers
and be a bad guy and be depicted dressed as a dominatrix on the cover of
a comic, I could reasonably be very taken aback. But as a kid, X-Men 134
was one of my first Marvel comics, and I just though "this is great!"

Were standards different? Yes. Were the creators depraved, or
inappropriate, or wrong by the day's standards? I don't think so. Should
they have been taken to task because they were implicitly saying that Lee
and Kirby got it wrong? No. But I bet if I'd have shown my grandma that
comic, she wouldn't have let me read it.

And to be clear, I actually agree with a lot of the specific complaints about
comics voiced here. It's the blanket "everything new is worse because it's
not like it was when I was a kid" statements that I take issue with. In part
because that's not true, and in part because a lot of what people perceive
as being "new" isn't all that new at all. A lot of it is just new as it pertains
to an individual.


Edited by Sean Blythe on 18 November 2010 at 12:30pm

Yeah, I have a problem with modern comics not being all ages appropriate. I don't just want them to be like when I was a kid, I want them to be FOR KIDS. 

--------------------

Nuff said!

The sad thing is that kids today are more sophisticated, and comics today are LESS.  They deal with adult topics in wholly childish ways.

I think you make some very valid points. I didn't intend to paint the entire
forum with the same brush — you're right, that isn't fair. You're also right
that that's been a persistent theme with a lot of my posts here of late.
Honestly, that's because — as someone who has frequented this forum for
a long time — I think it's gotten less hospitable as a whole.

That is, absolutely and without a doubt, my problem, not the forum's. I
can't change the way people react to stuff, but I wanted to voice my
opinion on the matter.

I don't like trolls any more than the rest of you. I hope my posts haven't
come across as such. I don't post here just to be disagreeable, but I do
post when I disagree. That may be the very definition of trolling, and I
may need to rethink that.

Also, post 252. Palindrome.

Edited to remove a remark I didn't know enough about to comment on in
the first place.

Edited by Sean Blythe on 18 November 2010 at 1:09pm

Sean, I would hope no one is discouraged to post here if they have a disagreement.  There's a big difference between disagreeing and just trying to stir shit up.  Of course, you can disagree AND stir shit up!  But that doesn't make you a troll.  I would say if you're sincerely trying to further the conversation, you're okay in my book.

It's the people who will post shit that even they don't agree with just to watch everyone get pissed off that I don't understand.  I imagine it goes all the way back to about the second usenet post ever, but I'll never "get it".

Except EVERYONE agrees that Star Trek: Nemesis sucked and that Greedo shot first.