What Comic Forums, Conventions, Stores, Sellers, etc Have Banned You And Why? {SERIOUS} 6 6

[Cat]

On 7/28/2023 at 7:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Never meet your heroes, Cat. They're almost always tosspots.

I've had really had good luck, and only 2 bad examples, both the creators of my favourite run of X-Men, coincidentally; Claremont and Byrne. Everyone else I've met or chatted to has been wonderful. Those two though? Complete wankers.

[thunsicker]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:23 PM, CAHokie said:

I thought the Byrne Fantastic Four run was supposed to be great? I bought it years ago l to read but never got around to it. Why would he not appreciate fans of the early work?

I imagine it’s two things:

1st it show he peaked early.  No one wants to think their best days are behind them.

2nd his early work he was the penciller.  His later work he tried his hand at writing/pencilling/inking.  

[theCapraAegagrus]

I got banned from HFboards by a MTL mod because those losers can't handle criticism of their shoddy organization.

I think my comment was something along the lines of, "I had Kotkaniemi (Mole Boy) at #11 on my board."

[Happy Noodle Boy]

On 7/27/2023 at 3:21 PM, Cat said:

So what are your war stories. I've literally only been banned by one forum, and it's the John Byrne forum. I hadn't been there long (I was signed up under a false name, which passed muster, as I wasn't willing to have some of the opinions stated on there linked with me in a professional capacity should any employer be googling) and I'd already received PM's from concerned members telling me what I mustn't do to upset Byrne. 

Somebody asked a question: 'Are there any fans here who are fans of John's earlier work over his more recent material?' and straight away people acted appalled at such a thing. The Byrne of the past was such a savage, he basically drew with sticks in the jungle. How could one not prefer the refined current Byrne. Then Byrne himself comes on, and says that there is no true fan of his who likes his older work. I wasn't having the theatrics so I straight out said (paraphrasing) "Hi Mr Byrne, huge pleasure to 'meet' you. I do happen to prefer your older work. To be honest it just speaks to me in a way that your current work just doesn't quite manage to do I'm sorry. And please don't take that as an insult, I mean no disrespect." 

Which got a reply from him" I bet you liked my X-Men run with Chris."

Queue me " Yes sir, I love that run. Along with Lee/Kirby FF, Those two runs are my essential comics, the greatest of the great."

BANNED. Mocked by remaining victims and Byrne for what a double-tipped wanker I was for thinking it was subjective to like his old work over his never, when it is in fact objective that his new work is better. Then they all laughed and made jokes at my expense for pages. 

Byrne's a jerk.

Sad, because he did a lot to make me a comics fan back in the early 1980's. I was banned from his forum too. One day he was on a rant about how modern female superheroes are drawn wearing next to nothing for costumes and I mentioned that Storm's costume back in the 1970's and 1980's was essentially a garter belt. Banned.

[Cat]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:29 PM, Mark Warren said:

Byrne's a jerk.

Sad, because he did a lot to make me a comics fan back in the early 1980's. I was banned from his forum too. One day he was on a rant about how modern female superheroes are drawn wearing next to nothing for costumes and I mentioned that Storm's costume back in the 1970's and 1980's was essentially a garter belt. Banned.

You evil evil person! Ban him, CGC Mike, he's dangerous! Byrne was right! 

Or Byrne is a massive wanker with the ego of someone who achieved 10 times as much as he has in a far more worthy field. I don't know how the man still has a fan base. I also honestly don't like his new work, it doesn't appeal to me, irrespective of him banning me. I do honestly prefer his old stuff. He rushes it out these days, as though he's still in demand, when he's really not. 

[CAHokie]

On 7/28/2023 at 8:12 AM, thunsicker said:

I imagine it’s two things:

1st it show he peaked early.  No one wants to think their best days are behind them.

2nd his early work he was the penciller.  His later work he tried his hand at writing/pencilling/inking.  

That makes sense but he should handle it better and not take it so personal. If someone is a fan and enjoys one aspect of your work more than another, tell them thank you for what they like. They are a fan. Thats a good thing.

Something like…. “I am glad you enjoyed my earlier work when I focused solely on penciling. As I moved into adding writing and inking it had it’s challenges and I know it’s not for everyone but I love it.”

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:35 PM, Cat said:

You evil evil person! Ban him, CGC Mike, he's dangerous! Byrne was right! 

Or Byrne is a massive wanker with the ego of someone who achieved 10 times as much as he has in a far more worthy field. I don't know how the man still has a fan base. I also honestly don't like his new work, it doesn't appeal to me, irrespective of him banning me. I do honestly prefer his old stuff. He rushes it out these days, as though he's still in demand, when he's really not. 

I try to stick to the old adage that if you can't say something nice about a person, say nothing.

But I've always been mystified by the appreciation of Byrne's work, more so given his well documented personality traits.

I rest my case on the floor.

 

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 9:31 AM, Slayah said:

 

[paqart]

I've been banned from quite a lot of websites for displaying the slightest hint of conservative affinities, CGC among them. I have learned it is best not to speak of such things, so I'll say no more.

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:12 AM, paqart said:

I've been banned from quite a lot of websites for displaying the slightest hint of conservative affinities, CGC among them. I have learned it is best not to speak of such things, so I'll say no more.

Please do not conflate conservatism with the actions of just being a distasteful individual.  

I did a deep dive.

You've been removed and been given time outs both here and from other places for displaying gross abhorrence where there is no place in well mannered society for your drivel. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

IBTL.

[paqart]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:23 AM, Buzzetta said:

Please do not conflate conservatism with the actions of just being a distasteful individual.  

I did a deep dive.

You've been removed and been given time outs both here and from other places for displaying gross abhorrence where there is no place in well mannered society for your drivel. 

And there we have it. Quick proof that conservatism is a disfavored viewpoint.

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:40 AM, paqart said:

And there we have it. Quick proof that conservatism is a disfavored viewpoint.

No, not at all. 

You conflate the two.  Your branding is a bit off.  Do a good look in the mirror why you have not been able to play nicely with others throughout the years. 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Buzzetta

[Dr. Balls]

So, the story about Joe Linsner is still archived in this thread here. My side of the story from 2014 is below in italics.

I'd like to explain a few points before I get to that: The counterfeit CFD thread isn't on the CGC boards anymore - I've rambled on in various posts here about my insights into offset printing, etc before - at the time, I had obtained a counterfeit CFD #1 to fill in my collection but also to analyze it and catalog the differences between that and an authentic one. Not for profit or celebrity status, but because I found it interesting and wanted to help people not get duped into buying a counterfeit. @Ryan. and I both had copies, and he was also nuked by Linsner, but I'll let him tell that tale if he wants to.

In the days following my post here on the Boards, Linsner did his level best to publicly run me down on his website with his minions also taking part - as a result, a great many people who had run aground of Linsner's Child Rage had reached out to me for support. These people who lent a sympathetic ear got treated far worse than I did - former business associates, people who he had screwed over on commissions, etc. It's my opinion that Joseph M. Linsner is one of the worst people in the comic business. He is a complete douchnozzle right down to the bone, and I'm sure nine years later he's squandered any sort of wisdom or virtue that life has put in front of him since.

My use of his work had been clarified to me as "fair use" by two Boardies who reached out via PM back then. My website was to show off my collection of unique CFD stuff, and the counterfeit thread was beyond a doubt: made for educating people. One of those boardies surmised that he and his wife were trying to lay the foundation for a lawsuit, claiming I was using his work to sell my work - which may have held up if I was actually selling my work (I wasn't, and hadn't for five years). I 100% believe that is what his initial attempt was - because he's a dirtbag - but likely gave up when he saw there wasn't much of a case. Especially since that isn't what I was doing. And honestly - he sold more of his artwork in one year than I did in my lifetime. I have no idea why he would be threatened by some digital artist from the past posting about a personal CFD collection. But, there we were.

Here was my initial story encountering him and his numbnut of a wife back in 2014:

 

Posted October 10, 2014

I'll try to keep this explanation brief, as I spent all of yesterday battling this stupidity and still lost.

After 20 years of buying Cry For Dawn and Dawn-related stuff - yesterday, I finally met the real Joe Linsner. Unfortunately, he decided to make me, my artwork and my Dawn tribute website the target of his ire regarding counterfeit books.

My role in all of this? Helping people identify how to spot a counterfeit. Yep. I spent the entire day fighting this guy and his wife simply because I posted information about comparing a real book to a counterfeit one. Here's the thread.

I created a site back in February that featured a lot of the hard-to-find CFD books, including a detailed post (taken from my thread here) for collectors to be able to spot a counterfeit. I wrote Joe about the site, asking for his "blessing", which I never got a reply. Seeing that it was a tribute site, and I wasn't selling anything - I made it anyways, and loaded it with plenty of references that this was a tribute site for JML with links to contact him on every page. Here's a screen cap.

The site was hosted on the same server as my own website, which meant it carried my name in the URL along with the name of the site: jasonbeam.com/churchofdawn. Despite explaining how this worked to his wife, she refused to accept that, and continued to insist I was using Joe's name to somehow confuse people about my work and misrepresent it as his - and most insulting of all, that my work is derivative of his art, when it's clearly not - unless Joe has figured out a way to copyright scantily-clad women.

There are many other points to the conversation I won't get into. It went on in public most of the day, with this wife threatening to "release information" about me and so forth. When I asked his wife if it could be a private conversation, she responded with a statement along the lines of that I was "harassing" her. So, with that comment, I blocked her, Joe and blacklisted his emails coming in on my server. And from her threats, it sounds like they will be releasing a "Part Two" to his blog, which will likely contain more smearing about me, my work or the website (which has now been removed).

The sad part about all of this is that the entire situation could have been resolved in a professional manner simply by asking me to remove the content, or hell - maybe just asking me about what was going on! The last thing I intended was to trample on another creator's rights - if they felt that way, I would have gladly complied. I like to think the people who know me here on the boards can at least attest to the fact I'm not the kind of guy who goes around with the intent of ripping people off.

What's truly unfortunate is that this guy had inspired me as an artist since I first saw his work. And while most of us here can relate to finally meeting your hero only to find out they are a colossal , it's even worse when you find out your hero is not only a colossal , but tries to destroy your reputation simply because he's having an online temper tantrum. It was a sad display of complete unprofessionalism that I would have thought was far below the kind of artist that JML was.

I was simply a fan. All I really wanted to do was create an online resource where there wasn't any for people to find out information on Cry For Dawn books. What I got from the creator and his wife was a smear campaign against me while expressing thier distaste over counterfeit books, which I had nothing to do with other than offering people a way to identify them. They were insistent that I was intent on ripping them off or scamming them - and when presented with my side of the story, they flat rejected it and continued on badgering me about it.

For the record, I understand how he feels about counterfeits. Now. Personally, I see both sides of the argument - but he never gave anyone a chance to hear his POV and make changes to their viewpoints or beliefs. He just ragged out his fans, and singled out one in particular: me. I have a counterfeit in my collection, because I'm a completist. And, had he framed his POV a different way, I could see myself changing my views on it - I respect creator rights; had I known he was so vehemently opposed, I'd like to think that I would have given it some thought about owning one.

So, I guess we'll see where this all goes - It's very likely that they will show up here to continue the fight - after all, it is Friday.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Dr. Balls

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:40 AM, paqart said:

And there we have it. Quick proof that conservatism is a disfavored viewpoint.

So, basically you used what was a fun thread to throw a pity party for yourself because over the years multiple forums and venues have booted you or looked at you with cringe and disgust because of the things you have said.   Why not take a good, long, look in the mirror and realize that this is a "you" problem wherever you go.  You mean to tell me that everywhere you go is too opposite the spectrum?  Maybe you are just an awful individual?  

There was a guy that was mouthing off his perceived injustices and his thoughts on gender and individuality and what it means to be a man on the subway after this woman avoided his advances.   You see a lot in NYC.  An iron worker asked him to stop.  He refused and said blah blah blah and freedom of speech.  The iron worker smacked him.  Guy runs off to get the cops on 34th at Penn as they are there every afternoon on the uptown platform bye south side by the steps.  Other iron workers and passengers walked by the guy and the cops loudly saying, "You see anythng?  I didn't see anything" and things like that. 

I went blind that day.  So did everyone else.  Nobody saw nuthin'. 

Maybe keep your thoughts in your manifesto. 

[marvelmaniac]

When I was bracket racing back in the late 80's/early 90's (87-93) I was suspended for one month by the owners of Atco Raceway for using my 1st amendment rights and they countered with " we have the right to refuse service".

[Ken Aldred]

I'd never particularly enjoyed going into my city's longest-running comic shop, and when I got back here after finishing my degree in London I didn't feel particularly motivated to pick up where I'd left off. The only real reason I went back there was because a couple of comic nerd pals wanted to go each week, and I'd accompany them. It was also during the 90s speculator boom when tons of drek was being churned out and  very little of the material was actually worth buying, anyway. I did pick up one or two comics here and there, but this turned out to be inadequate for them, as I was banned because "'I wasn't buying anything" and wasn't meeting their extreme sense of retailing entitlement, so my bovine teats were clearly much too dry and unproductive.

One of the owners did relent a year or two later and 'kindly' allowed me back in, but the attitude of some of the staff soon motivated me to go shopping elsewhere after competing stores opened up, and many other comics geeks defected away for exactly the same reason. I'd still buy one or two comics occasionally, or use them for certain issues I couldn't find elsewhere, but given the dire level of service, courtesy and the atmosphere in the place that was really as much as they deserved. 

By the early 2000s, with some verbal abuse I'd had from one or two of the staff, I'd gone back into the same frame of mind and underperforming, apathetic behaviour that had got me banned a few years earlier.  A clerk had apparently reported this to the former owner, now reduced in status to shop manager, a small man who one day escalated from banning me to facing me down and slap-assaulting me.

I sent a very long bridge-burning letter to the company's director, making it quite clear that I had never had any respect for this sad, narcissistic, self-important, delusional, angry and thuggish pamphlet vendor.  No response or apology, not that I really required one, and I suspect I would've been banned for life in feeble retaliation by his diminutive and irrelevant Comics Nazi colleague. But, over the 20 years since then I haven't cared enough about them or even once needed to find out.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:58 AM, Dr. Balls said:

So, the story about Joe Linsner is still archived in this thread here. My side of the story from 2014 is below in italics.

I'd like to explain a few points before I get to that: The counterfeit CFD thread isn't on the CGC boards anymore - I've rambled on in various posts here about my insights into offset printing, etc before - at the time, I had obtained a counterfeit CFD #1 to fill in my collection but also to analyze it and catalog the differences between that and an authentic one. Not for profit or celebrity status, but because I found it interesting and wanted to help people not get duped into buying a counterfeit. @Ryan. and I both had copies, and he was also nuked by Linsner, but I'll let him tell that tale if he wants to.

In the days following my post here on the Boards, Linsner did his level best to publicly run me down on his website with his minions also taking part - as a result, a great many people who had run aground of Linsner's Child Rage had reached out to me for support. These people who lent a sympathetic ear got treated far worse than I did - former business associates, people who he had screwed over on commissions, etc. Joseph M. Linsner is one of the worst people in the comic business. He is a complete douchnozzle right down to the bone, and I'm sure nine years later he's squandered any sort of wisdom or virtue that life has put in front of him since.

My use of his work had been clarified to me as "fair use" by two Boardies who reached out via PM back then. My website was to show off my collection of unique CFD stuff, and the counterfeit thread was beyond a doubt: made for educating people. One of those boardies surmised that he and his wife were trying to lay the foundation for a lawsuit, claiming I was using his work to sell my work - which may have held up if I was actually selling my work (I wasn't, and hadn't for five years). I 100% believe that is what his initial attempt was - because he's a dirtbag - but likely gave up when he saw there wasn't much of a case. Especially since that isn't what I was doing. And honestly - he sold more of his artwork in one year than I did in my lifetime. I have no idea why he would be threatened by some digital artist from the past posting about a personal CFD collection. But, there we were.

Here was my initial story encountering him and his numbnut of a wife back in 2014:

 

Posted October 10, 2014

I'll try to keep this explanation brief, as I spent all of yesterday battling this stupidity and still lost.

After 20 years of buying Cry For Dawn and Dawn-related stuff - yesterday, I finally met the real Joe Linsner. Unfortunately, he decided to make me, my artwork and my Dawn tribute website the target of his ire regarding counterfeit books.

My role in all of this? Helping people identify how to spot a counterfeit. Yep. I spent the entire day fighting this guy and his wife simply because I posted information about comparing a real book to a counterfeit one. Here's the thread.

I created a site back in February that featured a lot of the hard-to-find CFD books, including a detailed post (taken from my thread here) for collectors to be able to spot a counterfeit. I wrote Joe about the site, asking for his "blessing", which I never got a reply. Seeing that it was a tribute site, and I wasn't selling anything - I made it anyways, and loaded it with plenty of references that this was a tribute site for JML with links to contact him on every page. Here's a screen cap.

The site was hosted on the same server as my own website, which meant it carried my name in the URL along with the name of the site: jasonbeam.com/churchofdawn. Despite explaining how this worked to his wife, she refused to accept that, and continued to insist I was using Joe's name to somehow confuse people about my work and misrepresent it as his - and most insulting of all, that my work is derivative of his art, when it's clearly not - unless Joe has figured out a way to copyright scantily-clad women.

There are many other points to the conversation I won't get into. It went on in public most of the day, with this wife threatening to "release information" about me and so forth. When I asked his wife if it could be a private conversation, she responded with a statement along the lines of that I was "harassing" her. So, with that comment, I blocked her, Joe and blacklisted his emails coming in on my server. And from her threats, it sounds like they will be releasing a "Part Two" to his blog, which will likely contain more smearing about me, my work or the website (which has now been removed).

The sad part about all of this is that the entire situation could have been resolved in a professional manner simply by asking me to remove the content, or hell - maybe just asking me about what was going on! The last thing I intended was to trample on another creator's rights - if they felt that way, I would have gladly complied. I like to think the people who know me here on the boards can at least attest to the fact I'm not the kind of guy who goes around with the intent of ripping people off.

What's truly unfortunate is that this guy had inspired me as an artist since I first saw his work. And while most of us here can relate to finally meeting your hero only to find out they are a colossal , it's even worse when you find out your hero is not only a colossal , but tries to destroy your reputation simply because he's having an online temper tantrum. It was a sad display of complete unprofessionalism that I would have thought was far below the kind of artist that JML was.

I was simply a fan. All I really wanted to do was create an online resource where there wasn't any for people to find out information on Cry For Dawn books. What I got from the creator and his wife was a smear campaign against me while expressing thier distaste over counterfeit books, which I had nothing to do with other than offering people a way to identify them. They were insistent that I was intent on ripping them off or scamming them - and when presented with my side of the story, they flat rejected it and continued on badgering me about it.

For the record, I understand how he feels about counterfeits. Now. Personally, I see both sides of the argument - but he never gave anyone a chance to hear his POV and make changes to their viewpoints or beliefs. He just ragged out his fans, and singled out one in particular: me. I have a counterfeit in my collection, because I'm a completist. And, had he framed his POV a different way, I could see myself changing my views on it - I respect creator rights; had I known he was so vehemently opposed, I'd like to think that I would have given it some thought about owning one.

So, I guess we'll see where this all goes - It's very likely that they will show up here to continue the fight - after all, it is Friday.

 

There are many people that do what you did.  Almost every major toy collecting group focused on vintage Star Wars, current MP Transformers, and vintage Transformers have purchased what are known in toy collecting as K.O.'s (knockoffs) to study and create guides to illustrate the differences between the original and the knock off.   There is nothing wrong with that and even Hasbro has been okay with that. 

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:10 AM, Buzzetta said:

There are many people that do what you did.  Almost every major toy collecting group focused on vintage Star Wars, current MP Transformers, and vintage Transformers have purchased what are known in toy collecting as K.O.'s (knockoffs) to study and create guides to illustrate the differences between the original and the knock off.   There is nothing wrong with that and even Hasbro has been okay with that. 

Very true. He's got to be one of very few people on planet Earth who takes issue with people posting up their collections of his work. He somehow equated that publicly admonishing me for posting my CFD books would in turn generate more sales

I'm no Jeff Bezos, but I somehow managed to grasp the idea that if I yell at my customers while eating at our restaurant, they'll probably not be back for another meal.

[Ken Aldred]

On 7/28/2023 at 5:19 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I'm no Jeff Bezos, but I somehow managed to grasp the idea that if I yell at my customers while eating at our restaurant, they'll probably not be back for another meal.

Absolutely. And yet in dealing with comics retailers and employees I've experienced far worse social skill impairment than that on occasion.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Ken Aldred