Thursday, January 22, 2009

Top 8 Most Hated People in Comics


8) Kevin Huxford

This guy would be higher on this list if more people knew who he was. I wasn't even sure that I should give him any publicity, but I just couldn't ignore this piece of work (you'll thank me for not being able to find a larger photo of him).

Kevin Huxford is a blogger/internet troll who calls himself a "journalist." 

What he manages to do is piss off everybody he comes in contact with. He stalks and insults Marvel writer Dan Slott any chance he gets. This stems from when our mild mannered "reporter" decided to report TV/comic book writer Marc Guggenheim to the Writer's Guild of America, even though Marc had done nothing wrong. Marc laughed the whole incident off, but when Slott stood up for his friend, Huxford became obsessed with Slott.

It was in this exchange that we found out that Kevin's activism with unions comes from his time working as a grocery bagger. This man is a hero.

That is, until you see his shirtless vlogs on YouTube. *shudder* 




7) The Sentry

The Sentry is the only fictional character on this list (unless Grocery Bagger Union Buster isn't real). 

The Sentry's story begins as a hoax between Marvel and Wizard Magazine. The two companies "revealed" in a story that a lost Silver Age character created by Stan Lee had been found in some closet or something. A fairly successful series was then created by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee. That should have ended the story of Marvel's Superman who had the "power of one million exploding suns" (whatever the hell that means).

But then Marvel went overboard. The Sentry joined the Avengers. The Sentry saved the day in World War Hulk. The Sentry was EVERYWHERE, being crammed down fans' throats.

Now The Sentry just needs to die.




6) Rich Johnston

Rich Johnston is a necessary evil to people in comics. He is like the paparazzi to celebrities.

Rich writes the popular gossip column "Lying in the Gutters." Through his "sources" he breaks stories that many in the comic industry aren't ready to reveal yet. But what Rich does is create buzz for these stories as well. So while many comic creators and execs publicly state that Rich is "harmful to the industry" and my personal favorite, "a vulture," these same people sometimes let things "slip" on purpose as a way to get publicity through LitG.

So in a way, Rich Johnston is the man that comic professionals love to hate.

P.S. - He is also a shameless self-promoter and will probably link this post to his column. *Crosses fingers*




5) Jeph Loeb

He's on this list because he writes crap like this:


'Nuff said.




4) Dan Didio/Joe Quesada/Anyone else who's in charge

These guys are all lumped together because it stems from a hatred of authority. Keep in mind that both Dan Didio and Joe Quesada have been in charge of their respective companies in one of the most successful periods for both DC and Marvel.

But somehow, both Dan and Joe have managed to "rape the childhoods" of countless comic book fans. Every decision these guys make is met with cries of outrage. 

If message boards are to be believed (which they never should be) Joe's decision to undo Spider-Man's wedding to Mary Jane almost created a string of mass suicides. 

He even got shit for wanting to take smoking out of comics, as if the Hulk lighting up would change the story in any way.

Dan is just maligned for ordering the death of a new character daily. It's not like anybody is going to miss Sue Dibny. Lately, "reports" that Dan Didio will be fired do to tension in DC's offices were obviously off the mark.




3) Chuck Austen

Chuck Austen was so hated that it drove him out of the comic industry. Austen was a mediocre writer who had stints on both Avengers and X-Men. That could have been the end of the story, but for some reason Chuch Austen collapsed under the pressure.

The more he was pushed by his critics, the more he pushed back. It became really heated when Austen was called a misogynist who hates women and is obsessed with sex. Austen kept fighting back, but it just got worse. He was replaced on Action Comics by a ghostwriter as fans panned him for making Lois Lane and Lana Lang fight with each other.

Honestly, the things Austen was maligned for was being too open with fans. He was crushed under the weight of not taking criticism well and hasn't written a comic in 5 years.




2) John Byrne

What the hell happened to John Byrne? At one time, he was the #1 creator in comics. His runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four are two of the all-time greatest on any comic book ever. If John Byrne was taking over a series, you just knew it was going to be amazing.

Then one day, John Byrne went bat shit crazy. 

There was the time he compared the theft of intellectual property to rape.

There was the time he called Steve Irwin "an asshole" on the day he died.

There are his views on terrorism: "The only acceptable response, now that we are officially in a new world, is for the American government to go Old Testament on these motherfuckers. 

Operation Flaming Sword. Find them and kill them. And kill their wives, their children, their mothers, their fathers, their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers. Go Super-Israel, and let them know what it feels like to be "at war" with the United States."

His views on the comic industry: Face it - for the most part, when you say "comic book professional" what you mean is "unprofessional yahoo who is more concerned with making a name for himself and masturbating all his emotionally retarded fans than paying attention to the history of the titles, the characters, or the work done by other creators."

On Christopher Reeve (after his death): "I've gotten tired of people calling Christopher Reeve a hero. A really terrible thing happened to him and our society can't deal with it when terrible things happen so we try to make out that it isn't a terrible thing - 'It's an uplifting thing. He's a hero.' He's not a hero, he's in hell."

I won't even get into his racial slurs here. Check out this site for his Greatest Hits: en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Byrne.

He has fought with fans and comic pros alike. His feuds with Joe Quesada, Erik Larsen and Peter David, among others, are epic. Even his message board is run like an internment camp.
It's surprising to even me that he isn't #1 on this list, but somehow the following name on this list is hated even more.



 
1) Rob Liefeld

Where do I begin? Rob Liefeld is definitely the most hated person in the world of comics. Mention his name anywhere and it turns into a bitchfest.

"The guy can't draw feet." (Which after so many years is bizarrely true. Why doesn't he take some lessons?)

"The guy has problems drawing anatomy." (Which Captain Booberica below probably agrees with.)

"His books are always late." (Also true. According to Wikipedia, his Youngblood series was up to 9 months late.)

"He plagiarizes." (Yup.)

But Rob is not some innocent victim. He finds a way to piss people off at every turn. He posts on message boards arguing with anyone and everyone, from guys named Doombug to artists like Rags Morales (Rags completely embarrassed Rob in that thread with the now classic line, "And as far as being me? I'm sure you'd lop off you right wrist to be me. If you knew what a wrist looked like.")

Basically what it comes down to is this. Rob was a superstar at Marvel, even co-creating my favorite character Deadpool (though he looked very similar to DC Comics' Deathstroke). He became very famous, very fast and even did an ad for Levi's 501 jeans. He left Marvel and became one of the founders of Image.

It was all downhill from there. He alienated the co-founders of Image and was eventually removed from the company. His books never came out on time and they were garbage. He was basically phoning it in. To top it off, his arrogance rubbed a lot of comic fans the wrong way and put him at the top of this list. 

Rob Liefeld brought this upon himself. He, along with his 4-5 disciples who go to different message boards claiming that Liefeld is the next messiah, should spend less time fighting with fans online or falling asleep during meetings, and instead work on his craft and learn to be more humble. Then maybe one day people will like Rob Liefeld.

8 comments:

  1. No Winick, Morrison, Johns or Bendis?

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    1. Morrison? Em, Grant Morrison? Sorry but no, most of the work he puts out is amazing, he has a deep love for his craft and he listens to his fans. Just because you don't like him, doesn't mean the world doesn't like, maybe stop reading things like Youngblood and you will appreciate the work Morrison does.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Jeph Loeb looks kind of like a perverted Bob Newhart.

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  4. What about Micah Ian Wright? He falsely claimed to be an Army Ranger in order to sell his book "You Back the Attack, We'll Bomb Who We Want!"

    Claiming to be a solider to sell books, that is far worse than anything done by the people on this list.

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  5. No one "loves to hate" Rich Johnston. He's just a time wasting dick who never checks his sources.

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  6. To me the more hateful are doubtlessly Nick Spencer and Tom Brevoort. They have reducted our favorite characters such as Captain America into jerky douchebags. They try to make their stories sold and in commercial cover without listening to their fans and to fans's dismay. Even Bendis is on the same schism he has tried to erase popular characters like Thor Wolverine Fantastic Four to replace them by female or foreign persons which he calls that the "progress". Yes Marvel marketing but not moral progress. These three writers scramble their stories by addin' bad twists character changes (poor Captain America he was my favorite) or kill shamelessly others like Hulk. To me these are the worst writer havin' not Stan Lee's genius and just making their stories unpopular to catch benefits much to fans's dismay and grief.

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