Posted in: Comics | Tagged: generation x, journalistic untegrity, scott lobdell, x-men

Why Does Comic Book Resources Hate Scott Lobdell?

Published Thu, 08 Dec 2016 14:00:00 -0600

Last updated Thu, 08 Dec 2016 14:00:02 -0600

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On Wednesday, Eisner Award winning website Comic Book Resources posted a fifteen page slideshow listicle titled "X-Men: Why Generation X Was THE Mutant Comic Of The '90s." Arming ourselves with the most advanced adblocker technology we could get our hands on, we braved all fifteen slides to see what CBR had to say, and came away with a shocking conclusion: CBR hates Generation X creator Scott Lobdell.

In an article that asks readers to click fourteen times just to read the content of a single story, CBR mentions Lobdell's name only once, even though Lobdell not only co-created the series with Chris Bachalo, but also wrote it from 1994 to 1997, more than half of the time period covered in the listicle's title. Surely, Lobdell's contributions played at least some role in Generation X being "THE Mutant Comic of the '90s," especially as Lobdell himself is synonymous with 90s mutants due to writing both main X-books for a time as well as Generation X. And yet, Bachalo's name is mentioned three times throughout the article, while Lobdell is only mentioned once, during slide #6, "It Inspired Flashback Month," and even then only in passing while praising Bachalo's art from Generation X #17. Roger Cruz, Tom Grummett, Warren Ellis (three times), Brian Wood (twice), Jay Farber, and even Chris Claremont (who didn't have anything to do with the book) all receive at least as many mentions as Lobdell, showing what can only be interpreted as a clear bias against Bob Harras's favorite writer. Heck, Scott Summers is mentioned three times in the post, and he's not only not part of Generation X, but he's also a fictional character!

It's tempting to think that perhaps CBR isn't mentioning Lobdell because of his past indiscretions with sexual harassment. In 2013, Lobdell was famously called out for inappropriate comments made he made to cartoonist Mari Naomi at a comic con panel. Naomi kindly didn't name Lobdell in her post about the incident, but Lobdell named himself soon after when he apologized. However, as noted above, CBR mentions Brian Wood twice despite his widely publicized issues with Tess Fowler and subsequent defense of all accused sexual harassers in a newsletter attacking people who speak out about them and saying it would lead to an accused sexual harasser committing suicide. In fact, CBR is notoriously reluctant to even talk about sexual harassment in comics at all, being caught deleting forum threads about Eddie Berganza's repeated alleged sexual harassment at DC Comics, declining to publish a Joseph Illidge editorial about the subject, and only reporting on the story a week after it broke (and several years after Bleeding Cool originally reported on it) in a hedging, cautious report seemingly run only because they were left with no choice due to everyone else talking about it, and never again after that. So that can't possibly be the reason, right?

No, it's clear that CBR must have some kind of personal grudge against Scott Lobdell for unknown reasons. Perhaps it will be explained in an upcoming twenty-three slide clickbait listicle titled "23 Reasons CBR Hates Scott Lobdell," but even if that happens, there's no guarantee Lobdell's name will be mentioned in it more than once. We may never get to the bottom of CBR's hatred of Scott Lobdell, but Bleeding Cool will keep you updated on this ongoing story as it develops.

(image at top taken from Gamespot's YouTube interview with Lobdell)

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