Ross Campbell kicked my ass!
Sometimes when you give a bad review, you forget there’s a face that goes with the work and a brain behind the face. It’s one thing when you’re ripping a Hollywood blockbuster — whatever, someone is being duly compensated for their pain and they’re working within a larger evil anyhow — but certain individual works, like comics can offer more direct effects on the reviewer and the reviewed.
Hell, Jana and I have both been there. For all the “Very Vicky” love that existed, there were also the bad reviews that went beyond a critical summation to being mean. And those just aren’t fun. At all. Especially when you don’t see yourself or your work reflected in the comments.
In a review for the Minx line, I had some fun directing some over-the-top criticisms toward the book “Water Baby” and thought nothing of it. I noticed tons of traffic being directed here from a Livejournal blog and so, curious, I went to see who had said what. As it turned out, it was creator Ross Campbell’s blog where he linked to the bad review and very politely spelled out his feelings about it and begged people to keep calm if they had to comment on my blog. They did, but they let loose there, which is certainly their right.
A funny thing happened, though. I started to find their characterizations of what I must be like to be bizarre, even over the top funny. They seemed so naive and blustery that the things they were saying in defense were kind of charming in a strange way. It seemed as though everyone was reading the review selectively in order to justify their preconceived notions about who would write such a thing. I came off as a person with disturbing issues who couldn’t write, had no idea how to review something, I was painted as a prude and, it felt, like a fuddy duddy reactionary suburban dad type, that I was intolerant of people different than me, that I had no idea of reality, of what teenagers are like, that I don’t like works about people different than me. And I thought to myself, “Geez, this is the sort of posturing I did to Ross Campbell, except there are like 30 more people doing it than this measly one of me.” All because I have very specific ideas about YA literature that aren’t unusual ideas to have and I made speculative sport of the creator— whether in a clunky or skillful way is not for me to say, but it certainly didn’t sit well with some people!
It’s always interesting to not just see yourself through the eyes of others but see how others imagine you are based on your written word — believe me, I’ve dealt with it scores of times locally because of things I’ve written in the paper. On one hand, folks on Ross’ blog were painting me as a repressed reactionary — on the other, folks who read the paper paint me as an outrageous, coarse liberal-minded degenerate hater of all that is right and holy. I mean, which was I???
Eh, I’m only me, neither a saint nor a turd.
A funnier thing happened though. One — a blog friend of Ross’ commented on the post and made very good points in counter to my review. It was intelligent and thoughtful, respectful and passionate. It didn’t make me change my mind, but it made me happy. So often in the Internet wilderness, people exhibit their inability to just disagree but argue about the points calmly and intelligently, so it’s always a pleasure to encounter the ones who can maintain their composure without tossing out their passion. After considering her comment and some of the better reasoned comments on the blog — as well as Ross’ really personable and gentle responses to them — I decided to edit my piece, I decided that some of it was mean-spririted and glib and undercut my larger point, as well as dragged Ross around in a speculative way that was unnecessary.
The second thing that happened was better, though — I got a totally sweet e-mail from Ross. The funniest part was that he was disappointed that I took out one of my meaner lines and asked if he could use it in advertising. I told him of course he could. Just writing me and asking me was very cool and it reminded me of the sort of thing I might do in the same situation — I had to appreciate it.
More importantly, though, Ross and I trailed off into other talk — he is from Rochester and he lived in Savannah — and we found quite a bit of common ground. And I can truthfully say, for the record, that even though I didn’t really like his book — it would be dishonest for me to lie and switch my opinion around — I really did like Ross, and I would never, ever want anyone to think that I feel he has no right to express himself and have his book published, or represent the audience he does. Ross Campbell, I found, is a capital guy and he helped teach me a valuable lesson in . . . I dunno what. But it seems like a really good lesson. And I got an opportunity to back and forth with Ross and each nice person you meet adds to your life in some way.
So I’m Dr Sister Mary Sunshine Feelgood this morning, I guess. Fuck you if you don’t like it.
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