Thread "Provoking offense?" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 8:09PM, Sep. 27, 2022

Do you worry that the content you write will offend certain groups of people? Where do you draw the line between being truthful and being considerate of others' feelings?

Posted at 9:09PM, Sep. 27, 2022

I would draw the line like this. Tell the story you wanna tell. If it is really grim, vile even, more reason to get it out there. But be considerate enough to give people out there a heads-up, if you know that your stuff will offend people pretty hard putting it out there. Put up a disclaimer at the beginning and/or in the info blurb. It's not too much to ask for.

Posted at 9:09PM, Sep. 27, 2022

I remember this post from another time…
I think Erick is probably a spammer who'll come back and edit his post to be about Voip or essay writing services.

Being on the DD forums gives me the illusion of feeling eternal when I see stuff like this -when the same posts are repeated again…

Let's wait and see what else ErickSimon says shall we? ^_^
Think carefully ErickSimon. Will it get your account deleted?

Posted at 9:09PM, Sep. 27, 2022

I mean, in this day and age, anybody is going to get offended over anything, it makes it extremely difficult to really say, do, or create anything without somebody out there getting a wrong impression, and thus becoming offended by it . . . hell, once again, I never thought that just a couple of dumb memes and jokes would upset so many people on ComicFury's forum that it'd get me a banhammer.

But here's a specific example from my own work that I can give where I ended up having to change a line of dialogue to something that was considered less offensive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-lUWqP1vew

At the 2:24 mark, Ella the Elf's global warming comment was not in the original script. Originally, she was going to say that, in addition to being in charge of hundreds of other underpaid elves working in a dozen different departments, her lack of jolliness was also due to being a woman in the workforce. My assistant balked at the line and insisted I change it to something else, because she said it was sexist and misogynistic.

It wasn't my intention to be sexist or misogynistic, and in fact, I was actually attempting to be topic and relevant, as the discussion of sexism still existing in the workplace to this day was rather prevalent at the time this short was produced, and I actually pitched the original line to a few other people for a second opinion, and they agreed that they saw it as being topical and relevant, and not sexist or misogynistic.

Still, my assistant was offended by the line, so I changed it to have Ella mention global warming instead, since, well, Climate Change is just as relevant and topical, and the only ones it could possibly offend are clueless Climate Deniers anyway.

Posted at 9:09PM, Sep. 27, 2022

J_Scarbrough wrote:
I mean, in this day and age, anybody is going to get offended over anything, it makes it extremely difficult to really say, do, or create anything without somebody out there getting a wrong impression, and thus becoming offended by it . . . hell, once again, I never thought that just a couple of dumb memes and jokes would upset so many people on ComicFury's forum that it'd get me a banhammer.

ErickSimon is most likely a spammer so will probably have the honour of being one of the few people these days to get the banhammer here XD

Your guy's posts are good though so if ErickSimon comes back to edit their post to talk about bitcoin, Essay writing, Voip, or some other pathetic scam, then I'll copy and paste your posts to a new topic :D

Posted at 12:09AM, Sep. 28, 2022

Pretty certain this is copied from another thread. I remember the original too.(edit searched key words and couldn't find it)

Or it could be a new person asking the same question. Seen that often enough. Be on any forum long enough and you'll see the same questions again and again and it's not like it's that easy to search the archive of threads here. ( edit: actually incredibly easy. But what key words to search? Offense, offensive, hurt, provoke)

I've answered the question at least once before. If I have time I'll search the archive and post the link. ( Edit: Went as far back as 2019, that is eleven pages, and couldn't find it)

Posted at 3:09AM, Sep. 28, 2022

Found one of my replies. Basically said to skate under the radar. Do a photo comic with action figures or a 3D comic and no one will notice.

With a 3D comic there are so many really offensive ones that really get lost in the sauce. Or you do a comic that is so magical and magnificent that it transcends any offensive content. See: El Cid Death Porn

Furthermore, an important distinction is to make potentially offensive content the result of a character's actions or a distinctly set up part of the world building. For the world building have characters remark about it and some recognition that it is offensive even if a part of the world. You can depict morally offensive content as offensive and something to be fought or something that is abhorrent to characters.

I did do a comic entitled Mask of the Aryans with Nazis, racism, commies and topless gladiators in desperate combat. Then there are the horrible actions of the Grey Guys and Falasnorians. The whole concept of the Robofemoids is disgusting and potentially can be viewed as misogynistic but also ironic that it becomes a form of empowerment. And the rampant nudity is intended as gratuitous and silly and over the top and some in my comics even embrace it cynically or just as nature of being a living being.

And if anyone is offended I am open to discussing it. Tell me and we can talk about it. I'm well aware of many of the disturbing themes in my work and find other views enlightening. I will change content because of comments.

Posted at 7:09AM, Sep. 28, 2022

I'm probably not the proper person to talk about this, because I don't tend to write stuff that comes across as too terribly offensive or even just NSFW (which isn't necessarily the same as offensive). Not because I think that sort of thing is bad or wrong, it's just not something that interests me in particular so I don't write about it because if I did it would be very surface level and thus not worth my time to write it or your time to read it.
I think there are "offensive" scenarios that I don't have a lot of patience for (i.e. hate speech) but I don't think it needs to be banned even in that case - there are times when using that sort of language can absolutely be used with purpose to create art, and in the cases where it's just hate/ignorance then that's usually apparent too and the audience will respond accordingly.

I do agree with the idea that if you're aware that something may be viewed as offensive you should put some kind of warning to give a head's up to readers who may not be up for that. I'd react a lot more harshly to something I was blindsided by than something I'm aware of going in. On the flip side, you might not know in advance. You're not going to know everything and can't tailor your writing to everyone's concerns, so it's just going to come up sometimes. Don't dismiss a reader's problems, but don't feel obligated to change your writing for them either. You can change it if you agree it's too much, you don't have to if you don't, but I think as long as it's approached with respect you can take confidence in that.

I also think that considering this, I wish there were more options on the site to include warnings. I actually went through something very recently where I wanted to put on a content warning on the most recent chapter, but couldn't really find a good way to do it. I assume there are some kind of spoiler codes that work on this site, but I couldn't find it and none of the more common ones worked. What I settled on was to change the text of the warning to be the same color as the background so people had to hi-light to read it (used here: For Chapter 11) which works well enough, but it was a bit of a runaround to get there. It might not be a bad idea to make those codes more apparent (or implement them if they aren't already there) to make this a bit easier for creators.

Posted at 8:09AM, Sep. 28, 2022

I assume there are some kind of spoiler codes that work on this site, but I couldn't find it and none of the more common ones worked. What I settled on was to change the text of the warning to be the same color as the background so people had to hi-light to read it (used here: For Chapter 11) which works well enough, but it was a bit of a runaround to get there. It might not be a bad idea to make those codes more apparent (or implement them if they aren't already there) to make this a bit easier for creators.

There used to be a code. I used it before. Was just thinking about it the other day.

Posted at 11:09PM, Sep. 28, 2022

bravo1102 wrote:
Or it could be a new person asking the same question. Seen that often enough

I probably deleted the original because it was a spammer too.

This one has classic sleeper spammer signs:
Their profile name is made of a first and last name. They going and don't do anything at all for almost a month and then out of the blue they post a generic contextless question to the forum.
Then they don't respond or do anything else…

Sometimes they'll come back and add a meaningless response: "Ah, very interesting! You have given me a lot to think about"

Their main goal is to edit the original post to include an essay writing service link or VoIP scam link.
Once they do that they get bold and make a new thread straight after that just directly links to a VoIP service 😅

Sometimes they'll just forget they even most the post at all and never come back to it.

Posted at 11:09AM, Sep. 29, 2022

Ozoneocean wrote:
bravo1102 wrote:
Or it could be a new person asking the same question. Seen that often enough
I probably deleted the original because it was a spammer too.

This one has classic sleeper spammer signs:
Their profile name is made of a first and last name. They going and don't do anything at all for almost a month and then out of the blue they post a generic contextless question to the forum.
Then they don't respond or do anything else…

Sometimes they'll come back and add a meaningless response: "Ah, very interesting! You have given me a lot to think about"

Their main goal is to edit the original post to include an essay writing service link or VoIP scam link.
Once they do that they get bold and make a new thread straight after that just directly links to a VoIP service 😅

Sometimes they'll just forget they even most the post at all and never come back to it.

Dude
I'm like halfway there half the time 😅
>Post thread with interesting topic
>Read thread
>have nothing to add

Like there's just one step missing

Posted at 4:10PM, Oct. 30, 2022

I mean… Blessed Days has the potential to offend pretty much anyone. Should a little person be depicted doing a humiliating job? Or a woman MC whose life completely revolves around motherhood? Or a kind of sexist office jerk as someone who's technically right in his own life example, just not generally? I even have a character in store for a future chapter that's the most obnoxious and racist I can think of and it's so painful that it's funny. There aren't many things I wouldn't joke about. I think depicting Muhammad or doing a Good Doctor parody to poke fun of the autistic person = odd genius trope are the only lines I'm too chickenshit to cross, but South Park wouldn't have an issue doing that and good job!

While my aim is not to offend people, sooner or later someone will pick an issue with something I write and will try to make my life more difficult, because simply ignoring it is not an option for most these days. I'll just have to deal with that when it happens. The way I use comedy is usually to ridicule the tropes and categories that lump individuals together in some manner and measure their values based on how well they "fit in the box".

Since everything is pretty much about control, people fight over who gets to dominate every sphere with what narrative, what's an appropriate image, what's an inappropriate one, etc. Discourse about these things is healthy, being aware of our own double standards and how fiction can potentially influence people in negative ways is good, but there comes a point when the hero is not allowed to have flaws anymore, when someone with flaws cannot be right or sympathetic, when you laughing about something bad is equated with approval, when the gay couple in your comic is not allowed to have fears or doubts about their sexuality. Because "what some people may take away from it". And who needs to make more fiction that offers and explores the alternatives when we can just cancel the authors of the ones we don't like? I've become neurotic, living in a varying degree of anxiety from simply interacting with others online. The only way I know how to deal with that anxiety is ridiculing the reason of it.

And of course, there's my other comic: Runed, that just begun and might be already raising eyebrows. The characters ARE of legal age, I'm just not going to go through extra trouble to make them look like they're over thirty to be on the safe side, because honestly… they're fucking clueless about sex and how for most people nudity is treated as sexual in nature and they don't really care that much either, they live in their own little soap bubble of world and that's what'll make the situations funny and also them kinda wholesome. I just love the character type that doesn't understand taboos and knocks them over without a shred of malice, because she's hungry or something and they were just in the way. Such a shame that it's mostly reserved for children and robots and otherwise it's too weird for most. Oh, and of course for the mentally challenged. A more innocent way to see the world is the privilege of children, robots and mentally challenged characters. Monkey D. Luffy has some delightful qualities like that (even if it's often percieved as simple stupidity) and I think he's technically an adult by now. There's hope.