Douche of the week.

The net has been ablaze with this story in comics:

Apparently, at WWCHICAGO recently, a fan went up to renowned (and despised) artist Rob Leifeld and demanded an "apology" for his work on such and such a title. Rob professionally said "nice to meet you kid." and left it at that. The kid went on to purchase a copy of "HOW TO DRAW COMICS THE MARVEL WAY" and write inside that if Rob wanted to apologize to him for his work on the beloved title for the kid, he could contact him at such and such an address. He walked by his table and tossed it at him and ran away. And while doing this, his buddies all filmed it, like some JACKASS or PUNK'D stunt and he posted it boasting on his blog all about it.

Once news of this spread, the whole comic artist community came down on this kid who did it. Not in defense of Rob because we are all fans of his work (far from it actually). But because we could easily see ourselves in Rob's place and its up to us to show that behavior like this from fans is not cool. In fact, its cowardly, rude, and slightly scary. I mean, it could have easily been a gun instead of some stupid prank. "Oh, you fucked up Captain America for me so I'll make you pay!" BANG BANG! Scary.

But its not a far off thought. I mean, look what happened to Dimebag Darrell of PANTERA. I guess seeing this incident go down really woke us up to the fact that there are douchebags out there who think just because we're at this public setting that we are playthings. But artists are human beings and should be treated with equal respect.

Like, if PARIS HILTON were at a convention I was at, I wouldn't toss a dictionary or thesaurus at her. I just wouldn't go to her table or acknowledge her. I may wish negative vibes to her from afar, but thats my right. Ya'll get my point.

Anyway, there's been verbal battles back and forth and its blown up all over, this thing. and I won't document it all here. I just wanted to give my two cents:

--We artists use conventions as face time to put a face to our products and to gain new fans. We love (repeat) LOVE doing conventions. But when there are arseholes like this out there, it makes us scared and fearful of what may happen. Thank god I don't work on a property with longstanding status that anyone out there things I could ruin for them. I don't want to put myself or my family in danger from some nutball like this guy.

In this day of the internet, its quite easy to lambast someone and be a total stranger while doing it. Just check the message boards at any website. Especially AINTITCOOL.com. I've never had anyone come up and say they hated my work or verbally tried to dress me down. But then again, I'm not as well known as someone like Rob Leifeld. but I don't rule out that possibility one day. But if some kid tries to punk me, I hope I find the strength to be as professional and nice as Rob was in this situation. My first instinct would be to jump the table and chase the fucker down. Cause if you are gonna criticize someone and their work, thats fine. But nut up and do it in the proper way. Discuss. Don't play tricks on them and then brag about it on the internet. that doesn't help the artist to learn (if they even need to). It just makes you look like a frickin' bully. and a coward.

So fuck this fan. Believe me, his face is burned into my brain. And apparently he lives in the area I live in and may hit shows I go to often. So I will be on the lookout for this guy. And if he asks me for a comic or a drawing, my store is CLOSED to him. As far as I am concerned, I don't want his business. He might as well stop going to shows altogether, because all of us artists are gonna say the same.

So, just wanted to fill you all in on this bile and let you know that we are artists! Hear us roar. We're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore!

(we're not gonna take it... NO! We ain't gonna take it!)

T