Once again, a phony comics fan talks out of both sides of his mouth

I found some more, quite fascinating drivel and double talk coming out of the mouth of one Andrew Smith, who's written the Captain Comics columns for various newspapers in syndication for a quarter century, and isn't doing any better now. Let's first begin with what he said on a topic about Muslim artist Ardian Syaf, who was caught sticking his subtle propaganda into a new X-Men series:

I'd have fired him, whatever the message, even if it's "Hi, mom." Slip a personal message into a newspaper sometime, and see how fast security is at your desk. Publishers have to have zero tolerance for this sort of thing.

Given the content, though, this is extra wrong. It's exclusionary and offensive to X number of readers, and whatever "X" is, it's too high. The correct number of readers who should be offended by your publication is "zero."

Outside of all that, I was amused at Syaf's response that the insertions were messages of "justice" and "love." The inquisition used love as an excuse for forced conversion to Christianity, as have many other religious movements. And one man's "justice" is another man's "oppression," so Syaf could use a little self-examination.

I think Mr. Smith could use a bit of self-examination himself, after discovering the following retweet he posted on his Twitter page, which can be seen in the following screencap:

So he was casting his support for somebody who believes being a Muslim makes them fully qualified to be in the USA? (His Twitter profile said he's also a Black Lives Matter supporter.) Yawn. What else is new? Why should we believe somebody who's basically giving his approval to the Religion of Rape really has a problem with putting quranic verses into the backgrounds of mainstream comic books?

And note to Mr. Smith: if you really recognize it's not the 1950s anymore, then wake up and smell the coffee. We live in a world where bad ideologies, religious or otherwise, has taken a terrible toll upon the world. Who's really missing the numbers here? On his own site, he continued with:

And that is why, if you're the editor, you have to have a zero-tolerance policy.

Since I've been an editor for 30 years, that's really the only viewpoint I know. I can see as a reader that it might be fun, or funny, to allow inside jokes and the like. But as an editor, you just can't let it happen. You can't open that door, even a smidge.

As soon as you let, say, Neal Adams put in something not approved through editorial process, then it becomes a judgment call. Why can't Adrian Syaf put something in, when Neal Adams can? Why, because what Syaf did is "bad," whereas what Adams did was "funny."

Who says? Well, I'll tell you: a judge. Because if you let Adams do it, then Syaf can do it. If you say Syaf can't but a white guy can (with a wink and a chuckle all 'round), then you've got a lawsuit. And it's a valid one that you will probably lose.

If you're a professional, you can't get sucked into the "subjective" game. Either you allow it, or you don't.

And unfortunately, Marvel did, well before Syaf was discovered. They've allowed not just G. Willow Wilson to push a false portrait of Islam, they've also enabled other writers to do the same (Mark Waid wrote a Daredevil story doing this, and also a book called "Champions", which was just as defeatist). When you have a whole company management allowing taqqiya to prevail in terms of writing, it's no wonder the actual abominations could ultimately find their way into books too. So what's this hypocrite's point? Some of the leftists on his site have been upholding the insults to the intellect as well, and Mr. Smith once wrote a fawning review of the Green Lantern issues introducing the Muslim member named Simon Baz. If they didn't have a problem with Islam before, I doubt they actually have one now. The topic will probably be allowed to slip into the past, and when they think the time is right, Mr. Smith and his fellow leftists in the press will go right back to apologia as before.

I don't see any serious change in Mr. Smith's conduct, and if he really understood why the quran is a bad influence, he wouldn't be going miles out of his way to support its advocates.