Woah now, DC has a huge Women problem too. Remember they created Women in Refrigerators and raped Big Barda. One of the worst EIC cut his teeth at DC (Jim Shooter) and they routinely devolve all female characters into horny models.

Also, think really hard, how many people in the DC universe are married? No just heroes, literally anyone in the universe, like maybe 20? DC is a messsssssss.

also the punishing of supergirl for being a better comic in the golden age, the glossing over the feminist and freedom messages in wonder woman and washing her out, hell, what happened to Renee Montoya?

@1 It depends on when the proposal comes. But then again, that's why we shouldn't be fucking with the creative team who is writing and drawing that. Straight people can get married within the day of marrying one another; so should gay people. It's about equality.

And what is happened is DC being more and more bigot. I keep hoping to see this company die because frankly... they need to put down and we can hope something better comes from it.

When Life with Archie is leaps and bounds ahead of your comics in social progress, I'd say you have a serious problem.

Paul, you could use this space as a "why don't you read ____ from -____ publisher" as well. Bring some light to indie comics you've enjoyed recently instead of just bitching about the big two. It's more productive.

@5, a million times this, those stories were great but lets see something new and lets not see what you have now ever again.

There is one thing that this story leaves out, and it comes from the creators: DC did not ban this just for being a gay wedding. They have banned *all* weddings. They retconned the weddings of Superman and Lois, Green Arrow and Black Canary, both Flashes, etc. They want their heroes single.

Which is dumb, because they could have generated a ton of positive press. But there you have it.

We knew about DC, they are a gaint souless bag of suck, how about a word of warning about Penny Arcade and their rape-appologist bullshit? The marketing of t-shirts promoting rape, their bullying of fans and other creators and general doucheyness?

@10, you suck, you took the dickwolves thing and took it to a position of rape-apologist? The joke had no rape in it, it was not a rape joke. It became a joke on rape afterwards when they insensitively promoted it as a reaction to people's sensitivity, that was VERY uncool and they apologized. It's bullshit that people want to tear these guys down for being human, maybe you just can't be bothered to actually read their very good apologies? Why should we listen to you if you refuse to comprehend words. There are reasons and ways to take up the cause you so desperately want to take up and yer doing a bad jorb.

That was rude! Sorry, I got in such a fight earlier today! You were just talking.

Their apologies were shit. They didn't come until their fans spent a week telling female critics they should be raped. Someone even claimed the teamrape Twitter handle; if that person is on your side of an argument, that should be your first clue that you are on the wrong fucking side of an argument.

Krahulik just said over the weekend that he considers their business manager's biggest mistake to be taking the shirts down (because that "tore open the wound") and not letting them put the shirts up in the first place. It's also worth pointing out that what really tore the wound open was when a fan asked if they could still wear the shirts on Twitter and Krahulik responded "I'll be wearing mine."

That's also leaving out his transphobic bullshit from earlier this year.

@9 - This is what I had heard as well. They wanted to keep their continuity baggage "leaner", and marriages complicate things, especially when you get to the point of having to undo them. Look at all the BS that "One More Day" over in Spider Man created.

Yeah and he apologized for that too. And they are slowly taking the fans to task, they could be doing a better job. I guess my feelings are that you arent going to get better than PAX, we are not going to see a better iteration of it come up while it exists. So it has to be changed to suit more people and the people who want in need to take it over, not boycott it. The creators are clearly open to conversation and reason, they are morons, not evil.

Also it's good that you leave the transphobic stuff out becasue they aren't transphobic, they are, say it with me now, MORONS. To imply that they are is to assume that he knew allllll about trans issues and cisgendering and chose to make the comment, all to shame and/or piss someone off. He got in a fight online with people, it's heartening to see him SCREW UP and DIG DEEPER, it means he's human. This stinks of the Dan Savage detractors, people want to take these comments so freaking seriously. That trans kerfuffle started over people getting pissed of and reacting to a blurb about a panel, the actual panel? Nobody actually cared if you know, that panel might have actually addressed this stuff, just over-reacting to what it could be about.

When you only have one gay title-star character in your entire 52 titles per month, and you deny that character a wedding (particularly when it's entirely natural to where the story was going per the creative team's plans), then, yeah, that is homophobia, whether it's passive or not. And BTW, the entire central theme of DC's Animal Man title is the various ups-and-downs in the heterosexual marriage of Buddy Baker, so saying DC's just entirely anti-marriage is bunk. This is just the final straw with DC-- has it even been that long since the Orson Scott Card fiasco? I'm with Paul on this, fuck 'em.

Comics in general have female and LGBT* problems. Some are handling it better then others. Marvel > DC in that aspect, for sure. I am glad for the birth of "web comics" as we see more diversity and people being able to tell mainstream publishers like DC, Marvel, etc to fuck off and go their own route. Physical publishing is dying and digital is definitely the way to go.

As for web comics- Penny Arcade was never good, I'm avid gamer and found them very lacking since they got started. They just found a small niche of people who supported them and made the right connections. The occasionally comic which pulled regular nonreaders for views and most people at least hear of them.

The whole dickwolves thing is them wanting to embrace their "LOL WE'RE BOYS BEING BOYS" rather then an actual rape issue. I think it taps more into sexism then rape in that vein of thinking. They just can't see that and they want to ride the controversy for money. That's what I got from Krahulik's statement. He wants to sale something that is shocking for money and get views on his site for more money.

I, personally, wasn't bothered by it. But I can see how other women would be and how it encourages the deep division of men and women in geek/nerd/gamer/ community. Frankly, I think people who use negative woman/sexuality statements are weak. Weak in skill, as people, in their confidence in a culture. All the dickwolves episode shows is that Krahulik is sexist. Not outright, not that he can actually see himself. But he is.

And the people supporting him use it as a tool to keep crippling the community because god forbid if it becomes more open. I think that's why I think a lot of guys have issues with women in that area. Because it's more "competition" and if they have a sexism streak, no matter how mild, they're suddenly going to have to compete with girls. And will lose. Men have issues with losing, more so if it's to a girl. Especially if you're socially disabled.

And he's scared that people won't keep to his brand as more and more far better artist and writers publish. A lot of them are women. What better way to get views then through hate clicks?

@19 Two things:

1) I can totally understand wanting to dump marriages for characters. But...

2) Batwoman is a boutique character and isn't going to really go mainstream DCU anytime soon. Editorial knows that. The book is more in the vein of Moore's Swamp Thing and Morrison's Animal Man.

Their bad decision making is rooted in stupidity, ignorance, and lack of foresight. That's why I've kept clear of all their books except for Wonder Woman.

Sidenote: I understand people being unhappy with what they did with Wonder Woman, but it is really awesome now.

11/19: You're completely wrong. Penny Arcade is clearly, officially, pro-rape jokes. Their "rape controversy" happened THREE YEARS AGO and they still are pro-rape jokes as of THREE DAYS AGO at PAX.

Someone spent a lot of time logging every single pro-rape thing around the Penny Arcade debacle and it never stopped, and there was never an apology except an apology that people "misinterpreted" him. There was a coordinated campaign by his readers against female bloggers to post identifying information to threaten to stalk and rape them, and he never said a word.

http://debacle.tumblr.com/post/304194086…

If people keep asking "PLEASE STOP VICTIMIZING ME" - just fucking stop. When the company behind the video game of the year (Gone Home) backs out of PAX because you won't stop making rape jokes, you have a huge problem.

I'll accept his apologies for transphobia because he said he was ignorant and apologized, but not if he keeps making transphobic comments for THREE YEARS.

22- Oooookay. They didn't even claim that.

When even Reddit (home of underage up skirt photos and MRA's) thinks Penny Arcade is overboard misogynist, you have a huge problem.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1…

I just found this site which lists all the problems with editorial interference at DC over the last few years (especially under Bob Harras). As you can see from the list this is simply one of a lot of bad decisions over the last few years.

Don't mistake stupidity for malice.

http://guttersandpanels.com/gutters-and-…

@ 23 & other Penny Arcade fans: as someone who has read Penny Arcade for many years, & a comics/gamer geek for even longer, I have a pretty good grip on they type of humor they're going for. & when they're funny, they're *really* funny. The original "Dickwolves" strip: I got the joke, didn't think it was the funniest ever, but whatever, I got it: new day, another strip to follow.

Where they mis-stepped was in their response to the kerfuffle that followed. From a PR point of view, the easy thing to do would have been to say: hmm, this strip upsets some people, let's look into that, & then issue whatever politely-worded explanation of the joke they came up with after that ('cause if you don't know anything about how MMO's & the helping people out/level up thing works, that strip is really fuckin' weird). Shouldn't have needed an apology for creating the strip, but a simple one or two-line "hey, we didn't realize how this was gonna be taken, & didn't mean to offend rape survivors" would have been great. A couple of throwaway sentences on a blog entry, & none of that netrage needed to get kicked up after.

But no, they doubled, & tripled down, with the #teamrape fan hashtag, & the Dickwolf shirts. I see *why* they did it ("You critics are the Man! The Man can't tell me what to do with MY OWN ART! I'll show you!") & a percentage of their core fan base rallied around them. They've grown over the years, though, & to use a different comic's wisdom - "With great power comes great responsibility." In previous years in a David & Goliath situation, Penny Arcade would always have been David. ;) Smaller, lotsa inside jokes: tailored to a particular niche audience. Since gaming & geek culture has more or less been co-opted by mainstream folks, & PAX has become *the* gaming convention, Penny Arcade is no longer some little strip with only a limited impact on the world around them: they're a Goliath. This is good, but it means that their words will echo further than they used to.

Should they *censor* themselves? Nah, I don't think so. They have a unique voice, what they think is funny, & I'm not pro-censorship. I do think in the future they have to realize where they *are* as opposed to where they *started*, & how different their position is, though.

Also, IMO, gaming & comics used to be kinda the property of geeky people, & I think some of us haven't taken too kindly to the invasion of mundanes/non-geeks into our private clubhouse, & some of the response to PA's detractors is fueled by that. ;)

Oh, er: "Gabe"/Krahulik of Penny Arcade already posted a blog clarifying his answer given onstage at PAX. Shoulda read that before posting:

www.penny-arcade.com/2013/09/04/some-cla…

I actually wish LGBT Russians had the luxury of the time to angst over bigoted Russian comic book publishers.

What incredibly amateurish reporting.

Yeah, the story here isn't that DC is homophobic, at least not in a conscious way. They certainly are in an *oblivious* way, but there's no real animus there, just a failure to recognize how their actions might be perceived. The real story is the continuing saga of DC's editorial clusterfuck and how their utter ineptness bleeds over into how they handle culturally sensitive issues. It's worth noting that their current EiC, Bob Harras, was EiC over at Marvel during the whole Spider-Man Clone Saga mess, which was pretty much caused by the same sort of last-minute editorial 360's that absolutely every creator who's left DC recently has complained about. But he only seems to be continuing a culture that started at DC while DiDio was EiC. (He's co-publisher now, along with the massively overrated Jim Lee, although that doesn't seem to have had any effect on his day-to-day influence at the company.) Jim Shooter ended up jumping ship from his brief return to writing Legion of Superheroes, the title he got his start on when he was 13 years old, over similar sorts of last-minute editorial fiats, to name one notable pre-reboot example.