Whenever I log onto Twitter, I often think of the film Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome. There’s that scene in the film where Tina Turner forces Mel Gibson (pre-blatant anti-seimtism, so it’s ok for me to watch) into a steel cage where TWO MEN ENTER – ONE MAN LEAVE! That, in a nutshell, is what Twitter is.
Or rather, what it was yesterday, when Red 5 and Brian Clevinger (writer of Atomic Robo) decided to share with you that Atomic Robo will be available for digital download. It seems that some other shops, with one in specific, took offense to it. Which shop is that? Larry’s Comics in Lowell, MA. For those of you that don’t know about Larry’s yet, it could possibly be because of all the LCBS Spotlight’s I’ve done in Massachusetts, I haven’t bothered to share any info. Why? Because the folks over at Larry’s are rather notorious in being vocal about anything that disagrees with them, and I am in no mood to fight.
It’s a good thing that Brian Clevinger is. Clevinger originally made a name for himself with online comics, which then transfered into print, and he’s a big supporter of trying to find the happy medium between print and digital if only to make comic fans happy. Which is… you know… completely understandable. As Clevinger said during the Twitwar, “All I hear from are people who say “I discovered your comic on iTunes. Then I went to my shop and ordered them all.” Or I hear from people who go digital because they don’t have a local shop.” In fact, I could even point out here that staff writer Joshua Mocle first read Atomic Robo on the iPad (despite me hounding him for months to do so), and now he’s out hunting for the trades on weekly LCBS trips.
Of course, Larry has his side as well, along the lines of “I have but one humble request: BALANCE your social media energies. Don’t forget who brought you to the dance. you NEVER seem as orgasmic when the new “real” Robo comic hits the shelves as when it hits the new digital I-douche.” Which I suppose is fair, but last I heard Brian Clevinger doesn’t like to dance (although that’s an uncofirmed water cooler rumor at this point).
Never the less, if you want to read the entire transcript of the rather hilarious/interesting back and forth between Clevinger and Larry, go to a Bleeding Cool dot com and prepare for both chuckles and face palms. It was definitely one of the more interesting articles I read today. Although it reminds me of one last thing – if you’re going to berate someone over the internet, you could at least use proper capitalization and grammar. 140 characters and all that aside, you don’t get non-local people to come to your store by not forgetting punctuation.
