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

[paqart]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:41 AM, Buzzetta said:

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. 

We disagree on the definition of the words we're working with. However, this is as far as I go on this subject.

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:19 PM, Dr. Balls said:

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.

There is a guy in Brooklyn that used to run a pizza place.  He used to have a cocaine problem and would scream, "Baaaaaaaaah" and throw napkins all over the place in while people were eating.  The place shut down because of his addiction but not because of a lack of customers as it became a novelty to be eating and have him throw napkins  .

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:37 AM, Buzzetta said:

There is a guy in Brooklyn that used to run a pizza place.  He used to have a cocaine problem and would scream, "Baaaaaaaaah" and throw napkins all over the place in while people were eating.  The place shut down because of his addiction but not because of a lack of customers as it became a novelty to be eating and have him throw napkins  .

I'm surprised that was not turned into a reality show.

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:41 PM, Dr. Balls said:

I'm surprised that was not turned into a reality show.

There is video floating around. The first I remembered was a couple of years ago at the feast he took his shirt off and starting spinning in circles twirling his shirt, singing, "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy".

He's a character. 

[The humble Watcher lurking]

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. 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.

 

Very interesting. Personally, I never thought Joe Linsner was the king of the Bad Girl art Craze,as  to me it was the late great Steven Hughes of Lady Death.

 

 

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by The humble Watcher lurking

[Ken Aldred]

On 7/28/2023 at 5:37 PM, Buzzetta said:

There is a guy in Brooklyn that used to run a pizza place.  He used to have a cocaine problem and would scream, "Baaaaaaaaah" and throw napkins all over the place in while people were eating.  The place shut down because of his addiction but not because of a lack of customers as it became a novelty to be eating and have him throw napkins  .

Sounds like an early attempt at creating a Karen's Diner type of atmosphere.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Ken Aldred

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/28/2023 at 10:56 AM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

Very interesting. Personally, I never thought Joe Linsner was the king of the Bad Girl art Craze,as  to me it was the late great Steven Hughes of Lady Death.

 

 

 

Boy, crowning a King of that craze would make for an interesting thread. Hughes is up there for sure.

[The humble Watcher lurking]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:04 PM, Dr. Balls said:

Boy, crowning a King of that craze would make for an interesting thread. Hughes is up there for sure.

That craze might comeback in the movies. We will see. Lol.

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/28/2023 at 11:15 AM, The humble Watcher lurking said:

That craze might comeback in the movies. We will see. Lol.

I hope so! I love me some Bad Girls!

[paqart]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:05 PM, Buzzetta said:

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. 

Well, since your example is totally unrelated to anything I've said anywhere, or even thought, it is wholly irrelevant. Besides, you asked the question: have you ever been banned, and why? Do you mean to imply that every person who answers, including yourself, is throwing a "pity party"?

[jsilverjanet]

The butthurt is strong in this thread

@greggy

[Buzzetta]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:29 PM, paqart said:

We disagree on the definition of the words we're working with. However, this is as far as I go on this subject.

Lies

On 7/28/2023 at 1:30 PM, paqart said:

Well, since your example is totally unrelated to anything I've said anywhere, or even thought, it is wholly irrelevant. Besides, you asked the question: have you ever been banned, and why? Do you mean to imply that every person who answers, including yourself, is throwing a "pity party"?

Actually I did not ask the question.  the board member, "Cat" did.   Try to follow along. 

 

[CGC Mike]

How about we stop the arguing.  

[paqart]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:42 PM, CGC Mike said:

How about we stop the arguing.  

Sounds good to me.

[Jesse-Lee]

I've shared this one before, but it fits here - I wasn't outright banned, but I definitely haven't set foot in the shop since (and never will). This was just over a year ago:

I was the only one in the store, and I was having a nice chat with the owner while I was digging in the bins. I had pulled a couple of books, including an X-men 244 newsstand - 1st Jubilee - marked $16 (but the owner said he gives 25% off any books over $11, so it would be a $12 book); and a Teen Titans 20 - 1st Crush - marked at cover price - $4.

So as I'm digging, the owner says, "let me do a quick lookup on the ones you have there, just to make sure they haven't gone up crazy recently." Now for me, that's the cutoff for me ever going back to a store. But obviously in the moment I said "sure, here you go," and handed him the books. His store, his rules.

He looks up the Teen Titans, and yells over to me, "Well, I'm sure you know this is the first appearance of Crush and it's a $20 book."

First of all, of course I knew it's the first Crush, that's why I pulled it. Second, I didn't think it was a $20 book (and it isn't - I looked it up myself after and it usually sells for between $9-13).

I said, "oh yeah? I guess I'll pass on that then." To which he goes off on a rant. He says "I've been starting to look stuff up the past couple of months because everyone comes in here trying to 'screw' me (except he used a non-CGC-board-friendly word in place of 'screw')." He goes on to say, "I'm an honest person, and it seems like everyone else wants to be dishonest. How would you feel if you were selling something, and someone bought it for $4 and you found out it was worth $20? You'd be p-o'ed."

I told him, "I'm not trying to F you, I just went through and found stuff I wanted based on what your price was." He said that's being dishonest and looking to screw him over if I know that something is worth more than the list price.

I disagree on that point - I'm not his employee; it's not up to me to pull books that he can then reprice. I mean, it's his prerogative to do that - it's his shop - but that's the last time I'd set foot in there. The other point is - if he had a book marked $40 and I bought it, and then found out that it actually usually sells for $20, can I get the difference back? The answer to that is no.

So at this point he's turning red and I'm feeling my calm start to slip, so I say, "I guess I'll just take these two then." I had the X-men 244 and a $4 Wolverine run filler (which incidentally should have been a $1 or $2 bin book, but whatever.). He rang me up for $16, I told him to have a nice day, and I left, never to return. So he lost a repeat customer over what amounted to a $10 book he could have sold for $4. And he sold me a $30-40 book for $12, which is weird because he looked that one up too.

[CAHokie]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:03 PM, Jesse-Lee said:

I've shared this one before, but it fits here - I wasn't outright banned, but I definitely haven't set foot in the shop since (and never will). This was just over a year ago:

I was the only one in the store, and I was having a nice chat with the owner while I was digging in the bins. I had pulled a couple of books, including an X-men 244 newsstand - 1st Jubilee - marked $16 (but the owner said he gives 25% off any books over $11, so it would be a $12 book); and a Teen Titans 20 - 1st Crush - marked at cover price - $4.

So as I'm digging, the owner says, "let me do a quick lookup on the ones you have there, just to make sure they haven't gone up crazy recently." Now for me, that's the cutoff for me ever going back to a store. But obviously in the moment I said "sure, here you go," and handed him the books. His store, his rules.

He looks up the Teen Titans, and yells over to me, "Well, I'm sure you know this is the first appearance of Crush and it's a $20 book."

First of all, of course I knew it's the first Crush, that's why I pulled it. Second, I didn't think it was a $20 book (and it isn't - I looked it up myself after and it usually sells for between $9-13).

I said, "oh yeah? I guess I'll pass on that then." To which he goes off on a rant. He says "I've been starting to look stuff up the past couple of months because everyone comes in here trying to 'screw' me (except he used a non-CGC-board-friendly word in place of 'screw')." He goes on to say, "I'm an honest person, and it seems like everyone else wants to be dishonest. How would you feel if you were selling something, and someone bought it for $4 and you found out it was worth $20? You'd be p-o'ed."

I told him, "I'm not trying to F you, I just went through and found stuff I wanted based on what your price was." He said that's being dishonest and looking to screw him over if I know that something is worth more than the list price.

I disagree on that point - I'm not his employee; it's not up to me to pull books that he can then reprice. I mean, it's his prerogative to do that - it's his shop - but that's the last time I'd set foot in there. The other point is - if he had a book marked $40 and I bought it, and then found out that it actually usually sells for $20, can I get the difference back? The answer to that is no.

So at this point he's turning red and I'm feeling my calm start to slip, so I say, "I guess I'll just take these two then." I had the X-men 244 and a $4 Wolverine run filler (which incidentally should have been a $1 or $2 bin book, but whatever.). He rang me up for $16, I told him to have a nice day, and I left, never to return. So he lost a repeat customer over what amounted to a $10 book he could have sold for $4. And he sold me a $30-40 book for $12, which is weird because he looked that one up too.

Reminds me of the comic book shop that told me my pull list was too big when it was “surprisingly” missing Edge of SpiderVerse # 2.  
 

Let me get this straight…. My pull list is too big meaning I spend too much money there? I didn’t argue or say much until I got home and then it bothered me because I knew someone had (him most likely) taken it out of my list  bag to make a profit on.
 

I immediately switched to Midtown and had them mail them to me bi-weekly. They were always correct and with a discount. I would rather have supported local but couldn’t after that.

[Dr. Balls]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:03 PM, Jesse-Lee said:

I'm not his employee; it's not up to me to pull books that he can then reprice.

That's a great way of describing that scenario. My friend owns an LCS and he has a distaste for people who buy comics and then sells them online. He says that "it's taking comics out of the community", which makes no sense to me. He's my longtime buddy, but I find myself not going to the shop to look around because he vocalizes that philosophy as a way to let me know that he knows I'm there to look for stuff to sell (which I am, because he doesn't have any GA books anyway).

[Gonzimodo]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:03 PM, Jesse-Lee said:

I've shared this one before, but it fits here - I wasn't outright banned, but I definitely haven't set foot in the shop since (and never will). This was just over a year ago:

I was the only one in the store, and I was having a nice chat with the owner while I was digging in the bins. I had pulled a couple of books, including an X-men 244 newsstand - 1st Jubilee - marked $16 (but the owner said he gives 25% off any books over $11, so it would be a $12 book); and a Teen Titans 20 - 1st Crush - marked at cover price - $4.

So as I'm digging, the owner says, "let me do a quick lookup on the ones you have there, just to make sure they haven't gone up crazy recently." Now for me, that's the cutoff for me ever going back to a store. But obviously in the moment I said "sure, here you go," and handed him the books. His store, his rules.

He looks up the Teen Titans, and yells over to me, "Well, I'm sure you know this is the first appearance of Crush and it's a $20 book."

First of all, of course I knew it's the first Crush, that's why I pulled it. Second, I didn't think it was a $20 book (and it isn't - I looked it up myself after and it usually sells for between $9-13).

I said, "oh yeah? I guess I'll pass on that then." To which he goes off on a rant. He says "I've been starting to look stuff up the past couple of months because everyone comes in here trying to 'screw' me (except he used a non-CGC-board-friendly word in place of 'screw')." He goes on to say, "I'm an honest person, and it seems like everyone else wants to be dishonest. How would you feel if you were selling something, and someone bought it for $4 and you found out it was worth $20? You'd be p-o'ed."

I told him, "I'm not trying to F you, I just went through and found stuff I wanted based on what your price was." He said that's being dishonest and looking to screw him over if I know that something is worth more than the list price.

I disagree on that point - I'm not his employee; it's not up to me to pull books that he can then reprice. I mean, it's his prerogative to do that - it's his shop - but that's the last time I'd set foot in there. The other point is - if he had a book marked $40 and I bought it, and then found out that it actually usually sells for $20, can I get the difference back? The answer to that is no.

So at this point he's turning red and I'm feeling my calm start to slip, so I say, "I guess I'll just take these two then." I had the X-men 244 and a $4 Wolverine run filler (which incidentally should have been a $1 or $2 bin book, but whatever.). He rang me up for $16, I told him to have a nice day, and I left, never to return. So he lost a repeat customer over what amounted to a $10 book he could have sold for $4. And he sold me a $30-40 book for $12, which is weird because he looked that one up too.

I hate stores like that.  The hope of finding underpriced gems is one of the main appeals of actually taking the time to search through back issue bins.  If I want to pay FMV for something, I can go to any of a dozen different places online and order it.  It's the store owner's job to find those books and price them accordingly, not the buyer's to do all the work and then pay above the marked price. 

[Jesse-Lee]

On 7/28/2023 at 1:33 PM, Gonzimodo said:

I hate stores like that.  The hope of finding underpriced gems is one of the main appeals of actually taking the time to search through back issue bins.  If I want to pay FMV for something, I can go to any of a dozen different places online and order it.  It's the store owner's job to find those books and price them accordingly, not the buyer's to do all the work and then pay above the marked price. 

I agree - so far it's only the second time it happened to me, which is good. The first time, I went back to one of my favorite stores from when I was a kid (it's the store where I first bought The Killing Joke, Year One, TDKR, etc.). I was pleased to see it was still there, and I went in and it looked a bit like the beginnings of a hoarder situation. But I dug through piles - not bins, actual piles - of books for about an hour and pulled 15-20 books. Nothing was priced, so that was a red flag. I took them up to pay, and the guy at the counter said, "oh, glad you found some stuff - the owner will be back in about 45 minutes, so you can either wait around for him to look them up or you can just come back later to pay." I just laughed and said thanks anyway. It was a huge bummer.

Edited July 28, 2023 by Jesse-Lee

[thehumantorch]

On 7/27/2023 at 5:43 PM, MattTheDuck said:

I was suspended from a bowling alley once.

Oh the inhumanity...