Agreed. EVS is too fucking stupid to realize that WC is his biggest Achilles Heel. EVENTUALLY they are gonna go too far with something and it is gonna have bad consequences for him and cost him a lot if not everything. All of his support will come back to haunt him. Because people are not reasonable on the internet to suss out who is actually responsible. They will just attack the biggest target which is him.
I get laughing at people sperging, but these guys seem to be escalating beyond the line of what you should or shouldn't do to people IRL.
I remember hearing EVS defend them saying that they are just internet bants. I don't see posting something on someone's shop, stalking someone and trying to intimidate them at a Con or showing up to someone's house as internet bants.
The issue is that you seem to be approaching this from the perspective of the internet skeptics scene which emphasized cogent arguments that could stand without the use of organized groups or force. Kraut and/or Sargon would be caught doing some gay shit behind the scenes and this would compromise the validity of their political stances. Ethan van Sciver however relies on his own three decades of experience within the comic book industry and specifically how things work in comic
fandoms, which are not arguments and often not even based on anything rational.
I can't speak for EVS obviously, but I can rattle off some stuff he was connected to in his mainstream career that is definitely relevant when it concerns fandoms.
25 years ago, some storyline was published where Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern's girlfriend was murdered and stuffed into a refrigerator. This set off a number of very early Web fan communities and the like, headed by fanfic writer Gail Simone who started writing a column called "Women in Refridgerators", which mobilized fans against the comic book establishment on grounds of misogyny. DC decided the best way of managing this problem was taking on Simone as a low-level writer where eventually she would be paired with Ethan van Sciver on
Firestorm in the late 2000s. Simone opened the gates for a number of incredibly shit writers from fanfic communities like Mark Waid's ex-girlfriend Devin Grayson (who legally took on Dick Grayson's surname and went on to write a bunch of stories of women fucking and sometimes raping Nightwing) to retarded hacks who would waste two decades aping Kevin Smith and Joss Whedon to try and get a movie optioned (Brian Michael Bendis). Left unaddressed for an entire generation of readers, the damage these people did to the main franchises is very likely irreparable in my opinion, despite the well-intentioned riticism like the OGCG set.
Crucially, Gail's argument that it was misogynistic for peripheral characters to die to serve the plot was never actually proven one way or another. The mob made noises and they got want they wanted - that's what mattered.
At around the same time of WiR in the mid-90s., there was another uprising going on in comics fandom. I speak of course of
HEAT (Hal's Emerald Advancement Team). HEAT was formed by the neckbearded vanguard of fans of the established Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, who was effectively destroyed by Ron Marz and replaced with the aforementioned Kyle Rayner. By your standards, these guys were fucking nuts and, while organizing mainly online, thought nothing of bringing Hal Jordan-based activism to conventions and signings. Groups like Warcampaign were nothing compared to these guys, who developed in a time before there were a mass platform to call people out or shame people on. These guys complained and raised so much noise that, eventually, Hal Jordan was brought back in the early 2000s., handled expertly by writer Geoff Johns and... EVS. The work was in fact so good that DC is reprinting the issues to this day and selling them for a dollar as the flagship of the Green Lantern franchise when seeking out new customers. So, Ethan came into the mainstream industry surrounded by mobilized fandoms and it's obviously something he's put some thought into.
So sitting here and telling this guy that a fandom can be too vitriolic, too passionate to get him what he wants, or wishing him to disavow it or dispel it by edict, is going to fall on deaf ears. Experience tells him otherwise. After a lot of consideration, the main problem with WC as
I see it is their reactionary and aggressive tendencies repelling turning off people with resources within CG, inflaming conflicts and people curious about signing on. Haranguing people like Preston or this Atomic Basement guy into fucking off doesn't even factor into it.
Edit:
Oh right Geek, since we're on the subject of Panboy...
He managed to get on a livestream with your boy Warski last night where they bonded over committing crimes broadcasted on the internet and built a sort of tard synergy between them. Also, Warski seems to be fishing for information on Comicsgate outside of you. Might want to look into that.
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