Just so we're clear
Chuck Dixon's politics aren't my politics. barrysarll and other areas of the comics blogosphere inform me that he had Connor Hawke sleep with a lady ghost just to prove the character wasn't a poof. I'm also aware he's made some pretty damning comments in interviews regarding how the ghey is disgusting. there are a couple of issues in his run on Robin that were so heavy handed I had to go for a walk and come back to them - notably Ariana almost being raped as a direct result of dying her hair blonde, and the anti-choice pro-abortionist doctor that Stephanie Brown encountered.*
However, there are lots of writers whose politics aren't my own: Terry Pratchett writes about racism from a position of condescending benevolence and wipes his privilege over everything (just read his comments trying to justify why he arranged for Sean Astin to play Twoflower). Supernatural is one of my favourite programmes despite the overarching message of the only good woman is a dead woman and the same for the coloured folk. And don't even get me started on Arthur Conan Doyle.
My point is, I would almost certainly never ever get on with Chuck Dixon on a personal level. In fact, every time I read something non-fictional that he's written, I want to punch him in the face.
BUT. The only issues of Robin I find readable - more than readable, in fact - are the ones he wrote. As pointed out elsewhere, he shaped the Tim Drake character into the person we know. He did the same for Stephanie Brown. he brought Stephanie back - no, we don't know how much of that was editorial mandate, but he was the one who wrote it so well. He rescued Dinah Lance from languishing in forgotten character limbo and restored her Canary Cry. He (presumably inadvertantly) created Babs/Dinah and made a thousand comic femmeslashers happy. His work is the reason I even started reading DC comics.
What I'm trying to say is: the guy can be the biggest arseholish bigoted gitmonkey and I'll bitch about it when he is. But I'm still sad that I won't be getting any more issues of Robin or Robin/Spoiler penned by him. And I damn well won't bring politics into my speculation until there is a reason to.
Anyway, he's published a 'statement' on his own forum, and there are some very scathing comments penned by him on a speculative post on comicbookresources. Everything's very rumour-y, and his vague comments aren't exactly helpful.
---------------
And in other "IB gets upset over fiction" news: Why the hell did no one warn me about this? Were you all trying to protect me? Because the first I heard about it was a poster of Brendan Fraser's oh-so-punchable face and a theropod dinosaur of all things on the side of a bus this morning.
First The Lost World, then I, Robot; I am Legend, now this. Is nothing sacred?
*Quick footnote: that doctor - the one who pressured Steph into having an abortion so strongly Steph stormed out of the clinic is not a complete fabrication. Anti-choice pro-abortion people do exist and they do exist in a medical capacity which they can use to bully vulnerable women: I encountered one while contemplating the IUD as an emergency contraception device after being raped. But I have no doubt that Dixon wrote that scene because of his own anti-choice pro-life views; it was that heavy-handed.
However, there are lots of writers whose politics aren't my own: Terry Pratchett writes about racism from a position of condescending benevolence and wipes his privilege over everything (just read his comments trying to justify why he arranged for Sean Astin to play Twoflower). Supernatural is one of my favourite programmes despite the overarching message of the only good woman is a dead woman and the same for the coloured folk. And don't even get me started on Arthur Conan Doyle.
My point is, I would almost certainly never ever get on with Chuck Dixon on a personal level. In fact, every time I read something non-fictional that he's written, I want to punch him in the face.
BUT. The only issues of Robin I find readable - more than readable, in fact - are the ones he wrote. As pointed out elsewhere, he shaped the Tim Drake character into the person we know. He did the same for Stephanie Brown. he brought Stephanie back - no, we don't know how much of that was editorial mandate, but he was the one who wrote it so well. He rescued Dinah Lance from languishing in forgotten character limbo and restored her Canary Cry. He (presumably inadvertantly) created Babs/Dinah and made a thousand comic femmeslashers happy. His work is the reason I even started reading DC comics.
What I'm trying to say is: the guy can be the biggest arseholish bigoted gitmonkey and I'll bitch about it when he is. But I'm still sad that I won't be getting any more issues of Robin or Robin/Spoiler penned by him. And I damn well won't bring politics into my speculation until there is a reason to.
Anyway, he's published a 'statement' on his own forum, and there are some very scathing comments penned by him on a speculative post on comicbookresources. Everything's very rumour-y, and his vague comments aren't exactly helpful.
---------------
And in other "IB gets upset over fiction" news: Why the hell did no one warn me about this? Were you all trying to protect me? Because the first I heard about it was a poster of Brendan Fraser's oh-so-punchable face and a theropod dinosaur of all things on the side of a bus this morning.
First The Lost World, then I, Robot; I am Legend, now this. Is nothing sacred?
*Quick footnote: that doctor - the one who pressured Steph into having an abortion so strongly Steph stormed out of the clinic is not a complete fabrication. Anti-choice pro-abortion people do exist and they do exist in a medical capacity which they can use to bully vulnerable women: I encountered one while contemplating the IUD as an emergency contraception device after being raped. But I have no doubt that Dixon wrote that scene because of his own anti-choice pro-life views; it was that heavy-handed.