Author notes

BGH#491 Boyscout's Motto

theRedDeath

on June 2, 2011

So yesterday was my Birthday! I turned: "Too old to be writing a comic about High School".

I want to take a moment to talk [rant] about some of the comments I got yesterday. Nothing bad. I'm not scolding you. But about "bloodbending" being an ability used before in fiction. When I did BGH#486 it was because I knew this would come up. The whole point of that page was to illustrate that sometimes different people come up with the same plot-device and they can HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER. Sometimes different people just come up with the same idea. It's not an actual reference or even inspired by it.

As far as I know there are only two instances where hemokinesis was used. One of them was a cartoon (That I have never seen), and the other was a Japanese Manga that I didn't even know existed until Wednesday. That's not exactly a commonplace thing in the super hero genre. I'm not claiming I came up with it first, I'm just saying I came up with it on my own.

And even then…no one dismissed Magneto as being a reference to Dr. Polaris, despite Polaris coming years earlier. No one gives Alan Moore grief for making "Watchmen" an intentional homage to the Charlton comic heroes. Deadpool is one of the biggest characters Marvel has right now even though he was a total knock on DC's Deathstroke. "Thanos" is one of the greatest comic villains of all time, even when he was based on Darkseid.

The Joker was ripped off of "The Man Who Laughs" and "Batman" was Bob Kane's attempt at cashing in on Superman. Kane even wanted to give Batman powers before Bill Finger talked him out of it.

That's just how things go. But sadly, this is one of the reasons I'm ending BGH.

When I started this comic I was in High School, and it is obviously ripe full of cheap parodies, references, and homages. There's no denying that. But as this comic went on and I grew along with it more and more I started implementing my own creative ideas and storylines. Fleshing out these characters just as any other writer would.

But time and time again I would get a comment saying: "It's just like [X] character!", "It's a reference to when this happened in that one story", or any permutation thereof. And a lot of the time that just wasn't TRUE.

I don't blame you guys. It's not your fault. This comic bounces back and forth between referential humor and melodrama. It'd be unfair of me to expect you to just psychically know when I'm actually trying to be original. But that's also why I'm ending THIS comic. Because I want to do creative things and not be hounded by the idea that I'm just ripping someone else off. I want my work to stand on its own.

Even if it's really crappy. THAT'S a criticism I'm totally okay with.