I've been a regular observer of the Comicsgate movement almost since its beginning. I've known the main progenitor of the current movement, Richard Meyer, for a good decade online, dating back to the earliest days of the Bleeding Cool forums, of which we were both regular commentators. So I knew the man now regularly known by his Youtube series, Diversity and Comics, years before D&C and Comicsgate became a literal siren call for the worst of the world of comics to come out of the woodwork.

Meyer built his channel and his web page around a rather simple conceit: that the push for diversity over content in comics was driving readers away. When he started, Marvel had an African American Captain America, a female Thor and a teenage black girl starring alongside a Tony Stark hologram in Iron Man. The company was pissing a lot of people off for a plethora of reasons. Meyer chose to blame one major focus: the change of characters from established stars and the inflow of new creators, some of which they considered had no business in comics.

In some cases I'd argue they were right. Gabby Rivera's America poked holes into fifty years of Marvel continuity because she thought it would be funny. Chelsea Cain's Mockingbird reads like a comic written by someone with no clue how to write comics, nor with an editor willing to reel them in. Even the venerable Ta-Nehisi Coates took half a year of Black Panther comics before he really seemed to figure out how to work in the narrative form.

The problem of course is that none of these writers' issues actually stem from their ethnicity. All three were successful writers outside comics brought in by Marvel because of a desire by them to write there or by Marvel's desire to cross-pollinate with their already established fans, or most likely both. But comics isn't a format one can just drop into and write. Screenwriters often have an easier time than novelists or essayists, but it's a form that is decidedly different than any other. A strong editor might help them along in the process. Marvel has editors that barely can keep track of their own continuity however, let alone guide a new comics writer to stronger stories.

Nor is their arrival or the unhappiness of long time comic fans a new animal. It came forth at DC with the arrival of the New 52, a reader friendly relaunch of the entire DCU. Despite being built around multiple long time comic writers along with a few new names, a lot of fans were repelled by the sudden loss of all continuity they followed over decades. Many of these fans blamed "new readers" for everything wrong with comics, not understanding that DC desperately needed a shot in the arm to revive a flagging line.

The New 52 strengthened DC's sales, but a lot of fans look at the DC Rebirth initiative later on as the company admitting defeat and proving them right. The rebranding to focus more closely on specific characters with more issues a year was a business strategy that ended a ton of DC titles, but it was brought about to focus the company on larger brands, not out of a rejection of the ideas or creators that brought forth the New 52.

Meyer's focus on diversity started to attract a rather large and vocal following. That following was far from the first time a comic personality attracted dangerous and awful fans, but it was the first time a personality seemed to so readily embrace them.

As Meyer's popularity grew, comic creators Jon Malin and Ethan Van Sciver found themselves at odds with fans upset with the conservative stands they took on social media, especially in the wake of Donald Trump's election. Malin and Van Sciver were certainly the victims of much vitriol and abuse for their staunch support of their chosen candidate as the political landscape of the United States became more divisive than ever before. But D & C showed support for both creators and his followers rose to support the two artists. Much like Meyer, both men seemed all too ready to ignore their own unsavory followers as they had plenty of unsavory attackers already.

And as more creators have aligned with or against Comicsgate, that seems to be the point so many people miss in the vitriol. There's plenty of garbage people all throughout the Comicsgate community, but just as many garbage people exist in the comic fandom outside it.

Ales Kot famously attempted to publicly shame current DC golden boy Mitch Gerads for drawing a Punisher logo for a Chris "American Sniper" Kyle memorial badge, even while saying he wasn't attempting to publicly shame anyone. Multiple comic creators also targeted Marvel writer Nathan Edmondson (and regular Gerads collaborator) around the same time, alleging sexual impropriety from a creator with known conservative views. The private correspondences between multiple comic creators once aired online but since removed spent far more time focused on the problems of his politics than on his supposed actions. These are not to point out "they did it first" but to simply point out that vitriol rises easily in a world of quick Twitter thoughts.

And that's where things began to devolve. Dozens of creators targeted Meyer for his mockery of creators on his channel. His links to Van Sciver, Malin and later additions to the IndieGoGo centered creators that embraced the movement such as Mitch Breitwiser, Mike Miller and Art Thibert drew them into the heated debate. Was ComicsGate a movement about bringing back what these fans loved about comics? Or was it a movement about insulting female, non-white and queer creators?

The answer to both questions is yes, however. While many of the creators immediately rose above the infighting with Meyer notably pushing the #movetheneedle hashtag on social media to focus on books he found to fit his narrative of great comics, the followers that embraced his mindset found their ability to spew vitriol enabled. Trans creators became the most attacked group, while creators embraced by the movement but against a lot of the movements' tenants, followed in the ridicule.

The public issues of the ComicsGate movement first started to rise when Larry Hama stated his own discomfort with the movement. After Comicsgate spent months working against Aubrey Sitterson as a writer of one of IDW's G.I. Joe series, they made sure to note that Hama fit everything they wanted in a creator with his work on G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Hama disagreed with this view, saying he often inserted politics into his work. (Meyer agreed with this, pointing out it was his lack of heavy handed writing that made it work.) This seeming denouncement from a creator they admired and supported quickly turned into a hate-fest aimed at Hama.

Fans that felt themselves marginalized by vitriol aimed at their interests or politics were suddenly spitting the same kind of vitriol directly at a creator. Irony is no one's strong point on Twitter.

This was followed shortly after by Antarctic Press' decision to publish and then not publish Meyer's IndieGoGo funded Jawbreakers. This ignited the ComicsGate crowd again, as multiple creators called on Antarctic to change their mind, while multiple comic shops threatened to pull all Antarctic titles in response. Antarctic was buried in anti-ComicsGate vitriol, even as shops and creators were struck back against by the ComicsGate faithful. Of course, all the comic gatekeepers at those shops and in the comics community also managed to prove a point the ComicsGate fans loved to embrace: they were being marginalized by the comic publishing field.

More incidents between traditional creators and ComicsGate continued, but things heated up most strongly when a noted ComicsGate fan posted video of Darwyn Cooke and stated the late creator would have been on "their side." This drew the attention of Cooke's widow who publicly denounced any likelihood Darwyn would have worked with ComicsGate. This started an attack campaign against Marsha Cooke, perhaps the most reprehensible of the antagonistic campaigns started by the nameless fans intent on spewing vitriol in the name of their movement.

Ultimately though, the movement is one built around the idea that Marvel and DC no longer have an interest in creating the kind of comics long time fans want to read. Yet the often abrasive language of Meyer in his D&C videos and the outright awfulness from the fans of the movement have tainted that goal forevermore.

The mainstream comic community continues to mount campaigns, often popularly supported ones, to shun and marginalize all the creators related to ComicsGate. It seems a strange choice for so many out to prove that comics are for everyone, a regular rallying cry online, seem so willing to ostracize these fans from traditional comic forums. From pushes against Diamond related companies from publishing the books to outright refusals to carry such books at shops if they do make it into Previews to declarations of creators to refuse any comic convention appearance where a ComicsGate related creator appears, all of these actions just succeed in truly marginalizing a bloc of fans angry because they feel marginalized and ostracized by mainstream comics. Ultimately, it creates a vicious circle, one where both sides are right and both sides are very, very wrong.

Ultimately, the only solution is for major names on both sides of the shouting match to admit to their own wrongs and rights. That seems unlikely to ever occur. Vitriol pushes everything on social media, as can be seen by the widely successful IndieGoGo campaigns of the ComicsGate crowd. Every time a creator declares an effort to keep those creators out of a mainstream venue, whether regular publishing streams through Previews, the largest scale comics companies or even convention appearances, they serve to only create more disenfranchised fans. No one wants to address the problems brought up by the ComicsGate fans, nor will those fans ever admit their own issues, from obvious bias to outright bigotry. As long as Meyer, Van Sciver and company can continue to make significant money, they are unlikely to fall into any kind of friendly relationship with creators that are actively trying to remove them from every mainstream comic venue.

So the circle continues and the garbage people spew more garbage. Leadership crumbles under the mass of vitriol and hate.

Will this destroy the comics industry? Not likely. Does it threaten to hurt it significantly? Quite possibly. Can any of it be stopped? Only if fans rise up and demand reason from those involved.

And that seems sadly unlikely.