Honest opinion on Slott?

[Pav]

I'm sorry if my tone comes off that way, I tend to be very brusque and often blunt.

But still, what did you mean by nuance, if what I meant by nuance wasn't the same definition?

And what about wanting more from accepting the changes Slott made toe Spider-Man, so long as they are addressed as changes? Is that what you want from someone who doesn't like what he's done with the character, or does Spider-Man need to be accepted now as he is without questions (or these particular questions)?

No worries, my friend. It happens to the best of us.

So, are you focused on nuance in the comics? Like, wanting Slott to be more nuanced in his writing? Because my focus was on us, as posters, being more nuanced in the way we voice our opinions here.

Is that maybe what's going on? Because otherwise, I gotta say: I'm a little lost.

-Pav, who should maybe go back and read some past posts to figure things out...

[nose norton]

I haven't read much of anything post-Superior yet, keep in mind.

I'd probably go with a nice A-.

Superior ended more than two years ago, if you haven't favoured Spidey in all that time, I must conclude that an A means something different for you. I've never waited any time at all, to read a comic I think deserves an A. Then again, I'm less forgiving about faults, you're fortunate to be able to look past them.

[Pav]

Superior ended more than two years ago, if you haven't favoured Spidey in all that time, I must conclude that an A means something different for you. I've never waited any time at all, to read a comic I think deserves an A. Then again, I'm less forgiving about faults, you're fortunate to be able to look past them.

Well, I'm poor, so...

I wait.

Especially for Spidey comics: I wait until I can get the trades at a cheap price.

Unlike something like Weirdworld, which I bought monthly, I don't have to worry about Spidey getting cancelled.

-Pav, who buys almost all his comics once a year at the local con...

[Metamorphosis]

Well, I'm poor, so...

I wait.

Especially for Spidey comics: I wait until I can get the trades at a cheap price.

Unlike something like Weirdworld, which I bought monthly, I don't have to worry about Spidey getting cancelled.

-Pav, who buys almost all his comics once a year at the local con...

You could catch up with a majority of the last few years of Spider-Man for a decent price on Marvel Unlimited, if you don't mind reading on a tablet or computer.

[dimo1]

Well, my initial reaction hearing about Superior was utterly disbelief, nevertheless Slott really sold the concept of DrbOck being Spidey to me.
It still feels weird typing it in, but a writer who is able to achieve this gets my highest respect.

[Dog]

Something Slott doesn't get enough credit for (and, in fact, is often criticized for) is making sure Peter stays part of the zeitgeist and keeps up with changing social mores. Many might want to keep the character preserved in an "aw shucks" time capsule, but Slott has effectively brought him into the 21st century, while still preserving his awkwardness and "outsider" vibe. (Your mileage may vary, of course, but to most people in 2016, having an occasional hook-up doesn't make you a stud, and never doing it all is very unusual)

So for keeping Spidey relevant while still showing great reverence for continuity, Slott's been good-great. One area he seems to stumble on is finishing what he started. Not that the endings aren't there, just that they're underwhelming. It's not for lack of trying, with Sable dying in Ends of the Earth and the great moment with the Empire State Building lit up in Spider-Island, but they just never seem to stick with me for some reason. Seen plenty of others say the same.

Sorry if any of that treads familiar ground; haven't read the whole thread.

^ He also seems to take glee in trolling the Spidey fanbase whenever possible.

He corrects factual inaccuracies about sales and what actually appears on the pages. Pointing out the truth is not trolling.

[Metamorphosis]

He corrects factual inaccuracies about sales and what actually appears on the pages. Pointing out the truth is not trolling.

Not what I was talking about.

I was referring to scenes such as the one in #648--Peter is looking for a place to stay, and he and Mary Jane share an overdone uproarious laugh at the idea of them living together again (what a knee-slapper that little bit was).

All the way up to pranking Peter and MJ seemingly getting ready for a date together, only to have them go out separately while Peter assembles the rest of the longtime cast for a Coffee Bean meeting, in the most recent ASM issue.

As ever, YMMV as to how offensive you find these instances.

[Dog]

Did Charles Schultz troll Peanuts readers with Charlie Brown and the football?

[Metamorphosis]

Did Charles Schultz troll Peanuts readers with Charlie Brown and the football?

Did he let the football get farmed out to another comic strip?

[Mister Mets]

Not what I was talking about.

I was referring to scenes such as the one in #648--Peter is looking for a place to stay, and he and Mary Jane share an overdone uproarious laugh at the idea of them living together again (what a knee-slapper that little bit was).

All the way up to pranking Peter and MJ seemingly getting ready for a date together, only to have them go out separately while Peter assembles the rest of the longtime cast for a Coffee Bean meeting, in the most recent ASM issue.

As ever, YMMV as to how offensive you find these instances.

Did you personally find those instances offensive?

[Phantom Roxas]

He corrects factual inaccuracies about sales and what actually appears on the pages. Pointing out the truth is not trolling.

No, that's not what he does. People criticize what is actually on the pages. However, Slott disagrees with those pages being criticized. This is why Slott typically calls his critics crazy. They made a judgment based on what was printed, but that judgment is a negative one. In order to invalidate their criticism, Slott claims that the critic was not actually judging the book itself, but something that he claims only exists "in their head". He makes ad hominem attacks so that by claiming that what they're criticizing is only imaginary, he can both call the critic crazy without explicitly using the word "crazy", as well as negating the criticism because his argument assumes that the story being criticized is supposedly not the same as the one he wrote.

He doesn't actually "correct factual inaccuracies". At most, he tells someone "Not what happened", and then tells them to read it again. All he does is suggest that someone's interpretation of what happened is actually "Not what happened." It's like if you did something wrong, but the person who tells you that you did it wrong doesn't actually tell you what was wrong. I understand circumstances where it's better if someone figured it out on their own, but I cannot recall Slott actually "correcting" someone. The closest I can think of is when someone was talking with Slott on Twitter, and even though Slott has me blocked, he tagged me. I was completely unaware of the conversation, and I only noticed it because a few of his followers favorited his tweet. Anyway, what happened is that someone expressed appreciation for how Slott wrote Silk, and then Slott said "You would NOT believe the people that go on-and-on-and-on about that and get it flat-out wrong. *cough* @PhantomRoxas *cough*" Again, I was not involved in the conversation prior to that, so he was initiating contact with me.

For reference, the particular issue was regarding this scene. Since Cindy and Peter had both been compelled by their spider-pheromones to make out with each other, I thought that it was inappropriate for Cindy to actively try to compel other Spider-Men by using the pheromones. Since she was aware of their effects while someone like Kaine was not, my interpretation was that Silk's intent could be best described as sexual assault. However, after Slott tagged me in that conversation, he directly tweeted me, saying "Your lack of reading comprehension-- and the need to bounce something around your echo chamber till it becomes the scene YOU want -- says more about YOU than it does about me. You're arguing about a scene that did NOT happen that way. Fine. Whatever." Okay, then in what way did it happen? Because what he said was not "correcting" me. That is Dan Slott directly insulting my reading comprehension because my interpretation of a scene did not align with… I'm not sure what the proper word here is. Intent? What I'm saying is that while I could understand if Slott wanted a scene to come across a particular way, I also think that what was printed on the page did not accurately represent that intent.

[Scarlet Spider-Man]

My honest opinion of Dan Slott is that he does an excellent job in brainstorming ideas, but a poor-to-mediocre job of executing them. I'm always left feeling disappointed at the end of his story-arcs.

He's also pretty weak at creating characters (though I do like Paper Doll). Remember Alpha? Yeah, I wish I didn't, either.

He relies too heavily on super-powered supporting casts. A Spider-Man/Avengers team-up should be a special event, not an every-issue occurrence.

And what he did to Felicia is borderline criminal.

[Phantom Roxas]

Phantom, the grad program that I'm in right now requires us to meet with a psychoanalyst, and I recall him saying much the same thing: it's not wrong to feel certain ways, but it is wrong to act upon certain feelings.

(I'm paraphrasing, of course.)

I don't mean to say that feelings have no value. They do, and they are part of human life regardless of how we feel about that.

I just wish people cared more about logical reasoning than "what they feel in their heart."

I'm reminded of something Newt Gingrich said lately. He was talking with a reporter about Donald Trump's claim that crime is becoming a bigger problem; the reporter said that, statistically speaking, crime has actually been going down. Gingrich responded, "The current view is liberals have a whole set of statistics which theoretically may be right, but it’s not where human beings are.”

So, even if the truth is that crime has become less of a problem, it doesn't matter because people feel more afraid than ever (supposedly).

This kind of stuff alerts me to the irrationality of human beings at a deep level.

As an educator, I'm torn: on the one hand hand, Emerson said that we must listen to our inner selves to find peace and goodness and truth. On the other hand, I think it can be dangerous when people stop listening to others, stop caring about science/math/logical reasoning in favor of what they "know is true in their hearts".

We're animals. And we need to realize that truth, so that we gain some perspective about our role on this world.

(Maybe, despite what Natalie Imbruglia sang, it IS right to feel torn. Too much confidence - too much ego - can easily slip into foolishness, y'know?)

I really like how John Oliver shut down Newt Gingrich's "feelings" logic as though they were more important than the actual facts. However, Gingrich's mistake was assuming that feelings causing one to believe something that is the opposite of what is true falls under what I've been trying to criticize here. If you criticize Slott's work, you are told that a story you are character did not happen in the way you claim it did. In other words, critics of Slott's work are treated as though they made the same kind of mistake as Gingrich.

I repeatedly say that Slott calls people "crazy" or "zealots" for criticizing some book that supposedly only exists in their head because they imagined something different from what was printed on the page because I've found that those responses are Slott engaging in ad hominem attacks. As I was telling Dog, he does not actually refute criticisms of the book. He makes things very personal, so criticisms of the book are not actually proven wrong. I understand that someone's interpretation of the book is a subjective matter, but Slott takes it a step further. By telling a reader that something did not happen in a particular way, that is implying that the critic was objectively wrong, because they are judging something that, according to him, does not exist. This suggests that there is a "correct" way to read a story, but I have no reason to believe that claiming that there is a "correct" way means anything more than making a plea for readers to stop realizing that there are flaws in the story. I had to look up the context of an earlier part of a conversation on Twitter that I was only involved in because I was tagged by someone who had blocked me in order to realize the "correct" reading of Silk encountering Kaine. Likewise, readers had no way of knowing that Mary Jane could "sense" Peter until Slott posted the explanation on the previous version of this forum.

There is a disconnect where information is provided on social media, but that information is not present in the story itself, and readers are subjected to insults and personal attacks because they did not read the story with an understanding that the information was true. If Slott's response to readers is that the book they criticize "only exists in their head instead of what was printed on the page", it does not make sense to criticize a reader who forms judgment based on what was actually printed on the page, yet favor a reader for being "right" for forming a particular interpretation even though that interpretation is not printed on the page. The dichotomy of "what is in your head" vs "what is on the page" only seems to be a source of conflict when a member of the audience criticizes the book. If what is "in your head" leads you to praise the book, but it's not on the page, then there's no issue. However, if you examine what is on the page, and make a negative critique of the book in response to that page, then you are told that what you are referring to only exists in your head. That seems like the perfect example of making a strawman against your critics.

[Pav]

I really like how John Oliver shut down Newt Gingrich's "feelings" logic as though they were more important than the actual facts. However, Gingrich's mistake was assuming that feelings causing one to believe something that is the opposite of what is true falls under what I've been trying to criticize here. If you criticize Slott's work, you are told that a story you are character did not happen in the way you claim it did. In other words, critics of Slott's work are treated as though they made the same kind of mistake as Gingrich.

I repeatedly say that Slott calls people "crazy" or "zealots" for criticizing some book that supposedly only exists in their head because they imagined something different from what was printed on the page because I've found that those responses are Slott engaging in ad hominem attacks. As I was telling Dog, he does not actually refute criticisms of the book. He makes things very personal, so criticisms of the book are not actually proven wrong. I understand that someone's interpretation of the book is a subjective matter, but Slott takes it a step further. By telling a reader that something did not happen in a particular way, that is implying that the critic was objectively wrong, because they are judging something that, according to him, does not exist. This suggests that there is a "correct" way to read a story, but I have no reason to believe that claiming that there is a "correct" way means anything more than making a plea for readers to stop realizing that there are flaws in the story. I had to look up the context of an earlier part of a conversation on Twitter that I was only involved in because I was tagged by someone who had blocked me in order to realize the "correct" reading of Silk encountering Kaine. Likewise, readers had no way of knowing that Mary Jane could "sense" Peter until Slott posted the explanation on the previous version of this forum.

There is a disconnect where information is provided on social media, but that information is not present in the story itself, and readers are subjected to insults and personal attacks because they did not read the story with an understanding that the information was true. If Slott's response to readers is that the book they criticize "only exists in their head instead of what was printed on the page", it does not make sense to criticize a reader who forms judgment based on what was actually printed on the page, yet favor a reader for being "right" for forming a particular interpretation even though that interpretation is not printed on the page. The dichotomy of "what is in your head" vs "what is on the page" only seems to be a source of conflict when a member of the audience criticizes the book. If what is "in your head" leads you to praise the book, but it's not on the page, then there's no issue. However, if you examine what is on the page, and make a negative critique of the book in response to that page, then you are told that what you are referring to only exists in your head. That seems like the perfect example of making a strawman against your critics.

I understand your perspective, but I guess I just don't have much to add, one way or the other.

I've had little to no contact with Dan Slott, and when I have I've experienced no negativity. In the few threads I've seen here that he's joined, I didn't think he acted any more out of line than did some of the fans. And if maybe he did actively "rile up" some people, well... I might do the same in his place, honestly. (Especially in this day and age, when people seem more interested in hating things than liking things.)

I will say that I think a lot of fans DO get upset because they have ideas about what a character is supposed to be like / how a character is supposed act / etc. and when a writer chooses to go a different path they have a hard time letting go of their views in favor of what this new writer has chosen to do. (That's not to say writers don't ever make "bad" choices.)

Mostly, I just don't get why people want to spend their time being negative - and not just once! But over and over and over again, about the same topic.

If I felt that negatively about something I read, I wouldn't read it anymore. And I wouldn't even spend time discussing it anymore. Why choose to spend time dwelling in negative thoughts/feelings? Take a post, explain why you didn't like the comic/writer/whatever, and then move on. Read something else you like and talk about that, y'know?

*shrugs*

I dunno, man.

I take my comic reading as seriously as anyone - from an academic sense, I suppose - but people need to chill out a little bit, I think.

And if a writer or artist is a jerk online, well... people are jerks.

-Pav, who has his moments just like anyone...

[Moral_Gutpunch]

[QUOTE=Scarlet Spider-Man;2207049]My honest opinion of Dan Slott is that he does an excellent job in brainstorming ideas, but a poor-to-mediocre job of executing them. I'm always left feeling disappointed at the end of his story-arcs.QUOTE]
This is him in a nutshell mostly. He'd be better off as the idea guy on a team and someone else fixes up the timing of his jokes and another person handles female characters for him.

If I felt that negatively about something I read, I wouldn't read it anymore. And I wouldn't even spend time discussing it anymore. Why choose to spend time dwelling in negative thoughts/feelings? Take a post, explain why you didn't like the comic/writer/whatever, and then move on. Read something else you like and talk about that, y'know?

This would work great if they didn't get this response:

*shrugs*

I dunno, man.

That's dismissive. It invalidates anything someone has said by going 'that's nice' or 'look a distraction'. Just because people finally stop and give up or move somewhere else to voice these things doesn't mean it's a victory in any way. Or that a real point has been made. You still say people get mad when a writer goes in the wrong direction according to their likes and this is a very bad thing, but you've dismissed that I, and others who are less vocal, had a completely different problem than 'it's not what I want'.

It's no wonder people repeat things. If all they get is 'that nice, go play' like a child, of course they're going to repeat it in hopes that someone will finally listen. That's excluding the fact that many points people have, good or bad, are important. Slott brings up issues of mental and physical violation, violence, abuse of power, invasion of privacy, allowing torture, hypocrisy, and police brutality whether he intended to or not. Saying those issues aren't important because someone doesn't like how the story was presented is insulting to someone's intelligence because you are saying agreeing with you is more important than the discussion and principle it's about.