Mark Millar Takes A Stand Against “Cancel Pigs”, Calls On Creators And Fans To “Never, Ever Appease Or Encourage Their Cruelties”
Spencer Baculi
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In taking a stand against the ever-growing wave of cancel culture that currently overwhelms the world of comic books, veteran industry writer Mark Millar has officially taken to calling out the self-serving and dishonest behavior of the many fans and writers who would seek to ruin another’s career over the slightest of (and often made up) sociopolitical infractions – or, as they have recently been colloquially termed, ‘cancel pigs’.
The Civil War’s stand against the cancel-happy elements of his industry first began on December 6th following his hosting of The Comic Palace store owner Glenn O’Leary on his personal Millar Time podcast to discuss the latter’s recent attacking by numerous comic book professionals over his opinion that “Writers nowadays, they don’t care about who or what the character is anymore. Most of these new writers don’t have a love of comics like these older writers had. All they care about is ‘How do I put myself in the book?’”
Sharing his interview with O’Leary to his personal Twitter account, Millar was met with a number of replies, some positive, some negative.
Among those who commented on the discussion was Cyberfrog creator Ethan Van Sciver, who praised his industry colleague, “Terrific job, Mark. Thank you.”
“I feel like you might be the only one who can destroy this…evil?” he added. “That’s what it is. It’s killing comics. I’ll get more eyes on this interview right now.”
In turn, Millar would thank Van Sciver for his kind words, offering back a simple, “Cheers bud.”
Unsurprisingly, given that Millar had interacted with an individual they perceived as one of comics ‘greatest evils, this friendly interaction was soon seized upon by ‘cancel pigs’ in order to try and bully the Superman: Red Son creator.
Replying to a tweet from @DarickR asking “Why exactly are people on here slagging Mark Millar”, QueerComix’s The Pride writer Joe Glass claimed, “Getting friendly with [ComicsGate], the latest is a fairly friendly response to EVS it seems.”
“Also,” he added, “highlighted and defended that comics retailer who basically said comics are dying because people are adding diverse elements to existing characters etc”.
Daniel Kalban, the writer of Band of Bards’ American Dreams, likewise decried, “Surprise surprise, M– M– plays to the far right culture warriors again by supporting the guy who just insulted his fellow comic book creators. Just more of him turning into a far right jerk….”
In a follow-up tweet, Kalban further steamed, “So, M M uses that store owner as a prop to feed red meat to reactionaries, gets kudos from CG weirdos, and enables attacks on his fellow comic creators…and I’m the bad guy for pointing that out?”
Noted industry influencer Lauren “Renfamous” Cooper started a Twitter thread collecting some of the more abrasive anti-feminist agreements given to a previous assertion by Van Sciver wherein he argued that because “most women don’t know how to write comics for its primarily male audience” their rising numbers within the industry’s writing roles ultimately led to the ongoing spike in retailers “going out of business and shuttering their doors” and invited Millar to “look through [it] and understand why people in the comic industry and fans are bristling at the push to blame comic shop problems on diversity of perspective from creators.”
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Met with a block from Millar a few days later, Cooper accused in turn, “Pointed out to Mark Millar that some of his recent commentary has resulted in a wave of virulent misogyny and hate speech from his fans and this was his response, so I guess he’s cool with it”.
Amidst this attempt to paint the writer as an ‘acceptable target’ for their attacks, some such fans began to claim that they always knew Millar was an inherently bad person because of the brutality and depravity with which he wrote some of his villains – chief among the eponymous protagonist of his Nemesis series.
This particular aspect of the cancel campaign eventually drew a video from noted comic book YouTuber Comics by Perch, wherein he recapped to his viewers, “Right now, there’s this kind of weird phenomenon where, you know, the video about the comic store retailer complaining about a lot of the comics, and it got dog-piled and a bunch other comic pros were like ‘Hey, hey, hey, hey, don’t s–t where you eat. And it seemed to quiet down and then Mark Millar comes in and does an interview with the guy and then everybody’s like “”A-ha! Can’t attack the retailer, but we can attack Mark.”
“So there is a barrage, I mean a lot, of people now posting about why Mark is a terrible, awful, ‘sus’, right-leaning, etc. person,” Perch noted in his December 10th upload. “But the common thread in all this, is stuff like this, and I’m going to read it to you.”
Pulling up a tweet from @UpToTask regarding the plot of Nemesis Vol. 1, Perch quoted, “Are y’all REALLY surprised about Mark Millar? This the same guy who wrote a story where a supervillain kidnaps a cop’s kids, threaten to reveal to the world the son was gay and the daughter had an abortion then injects sperm from the gay brother into the daughter to impregnate her”.
“Here’s another comment,” he continued, this time raising a tweet from an unknown user (due to their tweet currently being unavailable via Twitter’s internal search engine). “Mark Millar writes incredibly sick villains. Why are his villains so evil, as opposed to The Joker?”
“It goes on and on and on of people talking about how Mark Millar writes villains and these, including comic writers,” said Perch. “And that should terrify you if a comic writer is writing, ‘Hey, it’s really a problem if the villain is written like a villain’, because that layers into the problem that we have with comics today, which is that the villain should do horrible things. Say horrible things. All of that.”
Elaborating on the cause behind this phenomena, Perch lamented, “Writers are terrified of writing an evil villain because some dumbass will say ‘Yeah, I bet they’re like the villain,’
“This video by the way is not meant as a big defense of Mark Millar, he can defend himself, he’s perfectly capable, but it is absolutely weird that people are dragging out of the woodwork like ‘I always knew he was a bad guy because he wrote these villains that were bad’,” he told his audience. “We’re living in a crazy time, but there are so many posts and people crawling out of the woodwork now, just so thankful that Millar inserted himself into this so that they can stop having to attack the reseller, who is literally their channel of sales of comics, and get instead do a much safer thing which is to try and dog-pile onto Millar. Good luck with that one.”
And it was in response to Perch’s video that Millar would finally unload his rhetorical ordinance upon said cancel pigs.
Sharing Perch’s work to his personal Twitter account shortly after its publication, Millar declared, “This vid by @ComicPerch is perfect. When I tell pals Cancel Pigs equate the actions of a villain with the TRUE VIEWS of a writer, like Stan Lee siding with Dr Doom, they don’t believe me. There’s a light shining on these goons now & they look very silly.”
From there, the Kick-Ass creator turned to reveal, “We know, of course, what’s really going on here. Cancel Pigs hunt creators under the guise of virtue a) because many of them are sociopaths who take pleasure in hurting others and b) they really want their jobs. See the current situation at the Big 2 for how THAT worked out! :)”
“The most shameful episode in their little reign of terror was their hunting and marginalisation of Howard Chaykin, one of the nicest and most talented creators in the biz,” he recalled of this bitter demographic’s 2018 attempt to ruin the Blade Vol. 4 artist’s life. “They tried to destroy a man in his 70s for internet likes & pros must never be silent if this happens again.”
Referring to the aforementioned O’Leary’s viral push back against the industry, Millar then declared, “So many big name creator pals are buzzing about our big ENOUGH last week, but it’s honestly so easy. Just block them and laugh at them. It’s meaningless. These people don’t even READ comics. Never, ever appease or encourage their cruelties.”
Starting a new thread, Millar further charged forth upon his war path by next offering “Some genuine career advice for any wannabe Cancel Pigs”.
“A huge part of freelance life is your peers/ editors wanting to work with you,” said the man who helmed Marvel’s The Ultimates Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. “Everyone just wants to enjoy their job and have fun. If you’re toxic nobody wants to TOUCH you and many of you are in this place now.”
“You are absolutely not going to get Writer X’s job on Batman if you spend 6 months harassing him into suicide,” he then made clear. “You will only be remembered by his editor and peers as someone who tried to bankrupt their pal & they will never be there for you. Here endeth the lesson!”
A few short hours later, Millar would also assure a fan that despite their bleating and screeching, said cancel pigs ultimately held zero sway over the industry.
Retweeting @MidnightKingIII’s observation that It’s funny they are flailing impotently in all fronts trying to cancel successful blokes like Millar, [YouTuber] Wendigoon and [YouTuber] Internet Historian and all three are pretty apolitical at the moment,” The Flash Vol. 2 author adamantly declared, “They. Have. No. Power.”
“I spoke to one of DC’s biggest writers at the weekend and he told me he’s lived in fear of them for years, but I couldn’t emphasise this hard enough,” he explained. “Cancel Pigs hurt people for sport because they’re damaged personalities. You must never take em seriously.”
Understandably asked by @VicSelfie, “If they had no power, then why are you blaming ‘them’ for the decline of the comic industry?”, Millar elaborated, “They have zero power over creators, but writers and editors have made the mistake of trying to appease them for the past 7 years and it’s been fiscal suicide as they don’t really read comics.”
After spending the next few hours thereafter being inundated with insults and attacks from the very bloodthirsty fans he called out, Millar once again addressed his detractors, this time informing them, “Nice try to the Cancel Pigs trying to frame me as a Comicsgate guy so they can use their typical line of attack. I don’t believe in ANY factions. I’m my own man and I believe in GOOD COMICS.”
Taking note of his return to the topic, Twitter user @roontang95 used the opportunity to ask the Marvel Knights: Spider-Man Vol. 1 author if he could provide clarification “for people labeling you [as to] who exactly are these ‘Cancel pigs’, to which Millar obliged, “Twitter packs like the people who mobbed retailer Glenn O’Leary last week, mocking him and trying to destroy his reputation.”
“We’ve seen it happen with comic pros too like Howard Chaykin & many others,” he concluded. “Entirely for sport. The Cancel Pig exists to destroy because he cannot CREATE.”
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