Posted in: Comics | Tagged: amazing spider-man, Comics, dan slott, entertainment, Silk, spider-verse

Dan Slott Tells The Internet How Silk Got Her Own Series

Published Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:00:07 -0600

On the CBR message boards (oh wait, I just got what this must have referred to now), Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott took time out from his New Year to address his issues with message boards.

Too many fans online pick at interviews, tweets, videos– what have you– and desperately try to fill in the gaps. And that's fine and dandy. But then comes the screwy part…

…a lot of you take those personal guesses as FACT. And then start arguing those fictions as if they were real.

And they're not. They NEVER are.

Let me give you an example:

"Marvel is ramming this new Silk character down our throats."

Nope.

Want to know who chose to put out a new SILK book?

The fans.

No. Not the small, angry, vocal subsection that likes to rant on message boards.
The tens of thousands of fans who voted in comic book shops across America and the world.

Marvel had no advance plans of putting out a Silk book. None whatsoever.

But then ASM #1 was the best selling comic of the 21st century. Fan mail came in and– universally– wanted to know more about Silk. And then the book had to go back to press.
And then ASM #2 performed better than anyone expected. More Silk fan mail came in. And the book had to go back to press.
And then ASM #3 performed better than anyone expected. Again. More Silk fan mail came in. Again. And the book had to go back to press. Again.
And then ASM #4 REALLY performed better than anyone expected. Even MORE Silk fan mail came in. And the book had to be RUSHED back to press.
And it all happened again with ASM #5.
And again with ASM #6.

In the middle of all of THAT, and based off of fan reaction, is when one of the big wigs said, "We should do a Silk book."
Fans made it happen.
It's THAT simple.
That is the REALITY of the situation plain as day.

Sometimes it happens lightning fast– like with the near instantaneous reaction to Jason, Robbi, and Rico's phenomenal Spider-Gwen EOSV #2 issue.
That was fan reaction that was easy for everyone to immediately see and grasp.

But that rapid response to Spider-Gwen in no means invalidated the steady, sustained, and strong reaction to Silk– just because there are those on message boards & tumblr who loudly and repeatedly want it to be that way. Much in the same way that one of the regular CBR posters here repeatedly makes the case that Spider-Man should be dating She-Hulk. The frequency and intensity of a message board post– from the same corner over-and-over again– doesn't make the argument or desire behind it any more real. It's all just a fiction.

You can read the full post here. For what it's worth, I remember a few years ago when the comics fanbase has whipped themselves up into believing that Dan DiDio was going to be fired so much that one speculation started supporting another speculation, until in the end, Deadline reported it as happening.

Even Bleeding Cool has been known to drink the Kool Aid now and then. But it's a worthwhile to consider everything you read, the potential biases, the possibly miscommunications, and to consider how wrong you might be, because no one can actually be inside another person's head.

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