This happened last week during the 9-11 Memorial, and it's very disgusting. Sitterson, the writer IDW's currently got assigned to script one of their GI Joe comics,
posted some very selfish tweets that outraged quite a few caring people who were devastated by the tragedy in 2001. Here's 3 of his most telling posts:
Yikes...look who's talking. Somebody who obviously wasn't around during WW1 and WW2 in the past century, and likely never traveled to Israel when there
were suicide bombings striking the place, or to
France and
Britain when they had terrorist attacks in more recent years. And probably wasn't even around Fort Hood in Texas when
Malik Nidal Hasan murdered 13 people there. And Sitterson shamelessly claims nobody living outside of New York City has the right to feel terrible when mass murder is committed? Sick. I was already discouraged from wasting time on his output after I discovered the artwork was horrible, and this only compounds my viewpoint. He doesn't even consider that the Pentagon was also attacked at the time, or Flight 93's crash in Pennsylvania either.
Sitterson's already caused some fallout: shortly after his comments were discovered,
the webmaster of YoJoe announced they won't be promoting any of IDW's Hasbro-licensed books, and reveals that Sitterson's craziness goes back quite a bit:
"Previously, the G.I.Joe community had an issue with the G.I.Joe Collectors Club and the design of a third-tier but beloved character named Salvo. A large muscular character with a big missile launcher, the club's design was more of an average person's build. The Club took this constructively critical feedback and released a figure more in line with fan expectations. This is relevant because not long after this event, Aubrey changed everything about the character when Salvo debuted in issue #3. Instead, the character was a large, woman of color. Considering that the community had just gone through an episode with this character's design, most in the G.I.Joe community felt that Aubrey's changes were less story driven, and more of a way to illicit a reaction from the core fans. And that was in fact what occurred, when people questioned why Salvo was changed, they were accused of being bigots, just for wondering why a major change to this character occurred.
"This was our introduction to his personality, of Aubrey Sitterson the Wrestling fan, with a heel persona. We get it, he likes to be tongue in cheek.
"This hit a peak in June, when a cover variant had some subtle support for Pride month. Feedback was negative not because of the subject matter but the consensus was that the art just wasn't that good. Aubrey took great offense, and began calling members homophobic or other such slurs, regardless of how clearly users would articulate their opinions that it was about the technicalities of the art, and not of the pro-LGBTQAAIP subtext.
"That didn't matter. Aubrey took screenshots out of context of long discussion threads, and labeled the G.I.Joe community as nothing but white male, Trump supporters, to his Twitter following.
From that point to September, the community at large had completely dismissed Aubrey as nothing more than an antagonist and provocateur, for the amusement of his Twitter following.
"Then the more generic but offensive Tweets began, first with the burning of people's employers in effigy, and what really set our community into full outrage was his callous comments on 9/11 followed by half-hearted backpedaling and the rest is the little drama we have today.
Wow...he sounds reminiscent of Dan Slott. And the next thing you know, Marvel will probably be scooping him up for a contract to write Captain America even after he's nullified his qualifications to work on that. I took a look at the art by Milonogiannis, and it sure looks like the character designs were deliberately meant to resemble transvestites. All that aside, the art is just plain horrible. And IDW/Hasbro allowed this ungrateful screwball to mess with their products? This is very sad.
Generals Joes and
Hiss Tank have also joined the boycott of Sitterson's work, and much of the rest of IDW's output. And it looks like
Larry Hama's stated he's furious at Sitterson for making such nasty comments. What's really sad is that Hama apparently got cursed at himself for daring to disagree.
The good news is that IDW, after initially standing by Sitterson, seems to have listened, since
they published a statement in response. Unfortunately, it also looks like
some SJWs in the comics medium have decided to support Sitterson. Most likely all the people who never gave a damn about A Real American Hero until now. And that makes this whole debacle even more of a disgrace. One example of hypocrisy here is
Bleeding Cool:
I have generally opposed boycotts against all sorts of people and products. If Hasbro and GI Joe fire or suspend Aubrey Sitterson from the upcoming relaunch of GI Joe in December, Scarlett’s Strike Force, it sets the most dangerous precedent and emboldens a certain section of the fanbase who, having been granted one scalp, demand another. [...]
No kidding! If you're against boycotts, how about petty censorship? I seem to remember this guy
sided with Marvel after they censored Milo Manara and J. Scott Campbell, for example. And this was despite the fact the SJWs who started all that mess in the first place didn't actually seem to be calling for a clear boycott. BC is just another weak news site whose contributors can't bring themselves to take the fans' side, let alone veteran contributors with better manners than today's dismal bunch. I think a boycott of BC should be in order, because they're not helpful at all. (By the way, why does he say GI Joe and not IDW, since they're the ones holding the comics license at the moment?) The attacks on Campbell, for example, only embolden many SJWs who're unlikely to be part of any fanbase, yet it doesn't seem to matter to him.
The main reason Sitterson should be let go by IDW in the end though, is because by the end of the day, his books evidently aren't selling, and the
charts show they're only selling a few thousand, so it's clear that from a business viewpoint, the book is otherwise a failure, due in part to marketing. And Sitterson's attitudes will only ensure they remain that way if they keep him on. So IDW and Hasbro are going to have to make some serious choices now. Either they distance themselves from a repellent personality who's only alienating the fanbase for the Real American Heroes, or, risk putting all their sales in the toilet over degrading politics.
It's stunning how IDW has otherwise abandoned quality of artwork and writing to writers/artists only desperate to make a name for themselves by controversy. For all we know, they could end up costing themselves the possible success they might've enjoyed earlier by trying to duplicate Marvel's SJW pandering, which does seem to be the case of recent. How can they conclude Marvel's steps were a runaway success when it should be painfully obvious they're not? I'd also suggest they'd do better by moving away from the pamphlet format and switching to trade formats instead if they want to set a better example. For now, so long as embarrassments like Sitterson are kept around, they're bound to gain more trouble than they need. I'm proud of the major GI Joe fansites for taking a firm stance on this. If only some major superhero fansites would show the same guts and announce they're boycotting Marvel and DC's output until they quit with the political correctness and SJW pandering, then there might be a better chance of improving superhero comics too.
