Journal SJS's Journal: WebComics
Fred Gallager needs to get some thicker skin.
Okay, so some backstory. Scott and Fred are both webcomic artists. Fred writes and draws MegaTokyo, while Scott does the same with PVP Online. Scott has a habit of shooting his mouth off, and Fred has a habit of collapsing from acute lack of self-esteem.
There's some backstory involved with a friend of both of them, and Scott tried to make a funny (or so he says) that (a) wasn't funny and/or (b) fell flat.
Instead of actually apologizing, he's decided that it's no big deal and all this has been blown up all out of proportion by the fans of MegaTokyo. See: [PVPOnline Forum] -- and if you poke around on his website, you'll see more.
Fred didn't really need to provide an impassioned defense of his side of the story -- and doing so apparently only indicated to Scott that he [Fred] is just a big whiner. I somewhat agree; I think Fred should have just said that Scott was trying to tickle his [Scott's] tonsils with his [again, Scott's] toes, again, and let it go at that. But he didn't, 'cuz that's not his way, and apparently admitting to failure in humor isn't Scott's way. No, it's that we don't understand his Italian-German sensibilities.
However, I think Scott is in the wrong here. He's basically accused Fred of stealing, in print, in such a way so as to damage Fred's reputation. That certainly looks like libel to me. I think Fred is legally and morally justified in taking Scott to court, suing for damages, and getting enough from Scott to retire on. (Of course, attempting that would only enrich the lawyers, so you can't really blame Fred for trying to explain. It won't work with the anti-MegaTokyo subset over at PVPOnline, and it isn't needed for the fans of MegaTokyo, but hey, Fred is just this nice guy.)
Scott has made a jibe at a guy who is too nice to take his words and shove 'em down his throat sideways. Picking on nice guys doesn't demonstrate a sense of humor. Quite the opposite in fact.
And another reason I think Scott is in the wrong has to do with his recent set of confrontations with "Wiley" -- the creator of the newspaper strip "Non Sequitur". Wiley has been taking subtle and not-so-subtle potshots at Scott, and Scott gets pretty wound up about it. You'd think that someone who gets upset about something might be a little bit careful about making someone upset in a similiar way.
This whole debacle has me thinking that Scott is just as much of a blowhard as he [Scott] thinks Wiley is. There's deep wisdom in "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" -- and it gets all the more obvious when it's not practiced.
All that being said, I enjoy all three artists. Non Sequitur is capable of some deep insights while making you laugh, PVPOnline is consistently amusing, and MegaTokyo has some of the best graphical storytelling I've seen since Sandman. All three are good, in different ways.
It's quite possible that I have the whole thing wrong-way-round; these are just my impressions from watching this mess take place. As a fan, I'm appalled at the whole mess. You'd think this was taking place on Usenet or something!
