Posts Tagged ‘Fandom’

45 items.

No Drama, Thanks, I’m Driving

by Colleen Doran on November 4th, 2011
Posted In: Blog, Colleen's Work, Colleen's Work, Essays, Culture, Fandom

Every once in awhile, I’ll post something a bit controversial or confrontational. Not every week, not even every month, but search long enough, you’ll find something. On the whole, I try to restrict my posts to industry-related issues.

A while ago, I had a long talk with some friends and decided that it’s best to cut fandom from my blog subjects. While I deplore exploitative fan cults, have been the victim of same, and have seen many friends abused by them, I just don’t have the stomach for it all anymore. I don’t believe my posts on those subjects make much of a difference since there are so many effective fan resources that seem to manage it all just fine. There will always be con artists at conventions, but I simply don’t have the time or energy to follow it all anymore.

Industry pariah Rick Olney comes back over and over, and there’s been enough written about him to power the entire internet for a year. It doesn’t matter. He never learns.

Rob Granito got outed as a professional plagiarist and spent months dancing in what he believed was the spotlight he’d earned for his pains. And he keeps coming back.

I only blog about things that interest me and fulfill me, and this sort of thing does neither anymore. It just makes me sad and disgusted.

I suppose blogging fulfills some basic need in me to protect people from the exploitative creeps that made my early years in fandom and publishing so horrible. I have a strong urge to make things right. But I can’t protect people from themselves and their bad choices. And I believe I’m making a bad choice in continuing to try.

I frequently receive letters from people asking me to blog or link to some fannish scandal, and now I have an inbox with 864 messages in it. I have a buttload of work to do before I leave the country to go work a job in another country. If I spend only a few minutes on each of these letters, it will take me over 43 hours just to answer my mail.

I’m not blaming any of you who write me, I’m blaming me for not making better time management choices and better choices about where to place my focus.

Every once in awhile, someone (usually the subject of one of my posts) makes the ridiculous argument that I blog about these things for the massive attention they bring me, for surely on a site like mine, I must be raking in the dough every time I blog. This particular accusation was hurled at me by Rob Granito’s unfortunate wife who had no idea what her husband was up to. Like any loyal wife, she angrily defended her spouse. She did, eventually come to learn the truth about her husband. I have nothing but sympathy for her, and wish her the very best.

Here’s what I wrote in the comments thread at Ty Templeton’s blog about whether or not blog posts about fan scandals make for big traffic.

200,000 hits, and they think that makes them popular?

Here’s how that math really works out.

Rich has about 60,000 regular readers.

If only 10,000 of them click on a story 20 times to read the comments thread, you get 200,000 hits. Those are not Granito’s readers, those are Rich Johnston readers. It would be easy for just a small percentage of Johnston’s readership to account for many hits with 100 posts and readers coming back over and over again to read the posts.

I’ve written several blog posts on Granito on my site, and Rich linked back to one of them. These posts showed no significant increase in the page views on that day over any other day with a new post. As a matter of fact, the post that brought me the most hits over the last month was not the Granito story – even with Rich’s link back – but a day where I posted about educational programs for immigrant artists, and a sale on my graphic novels.

Granito is not popular, Rich Johnston’s blog is. I routinely get over 300,000 page views on my site every month, and my stats show as many as 90,000 unique visitors per month.

However, deeper analysis shows that of that number, only about 20,000 of them are dedicated readers.

No one with a modicum of web savvy confuses hits with popularity or actual readership. And most people would be smart enough to distinguish between hits and page views. If I pick up a new reader, they may sit down and read my entire webcomic, running through 500 pages in one sitting. Because my site got 500 views, that does not mean I got 500 views from 500 people. What I got was 500 views from one person.

200,000 people did not sit down and delight at the wonder that is Granito, anymore than I have 90,000 regular readers of my blog, just because that’s what my stat counter indicates. There’s a big difference between a hit and an individual reader, and a page view and a hit, and a unique reader and a visit.

I suppose you could all consider this public declaration of freedom from fannish drama a flouncity flounce, but I just want some of you to understand that even though I know there are some very unpleasant things in fandom, I need to move on and concentrate on other things. I just have too many great projects going on, too many great friends, too many things to do, and I feel like all this mess poisons the well.

For the record, if I wanted to blog about something that really interests people and brings in the traffic, I would restrict my blog to posts about my garden. And Sandman.

We moved servers last year which wiped out much of my traffic data, but I think you’ll find this interesting: my most popular blog posts are:

Look up there. Ten Things to Do with Those Pesky Green Tomatoes. Yeah, that’s right. A post about gardening. Biggest Post Ever.

And the blog post about Death and Dream got a plug from Neil Gaiman a few weeks back, hence the traffic.

Some dude liked it so much, he made it into a tattoo. Nice!

Alas, I can’t recall the name of the cool guy who sent me this pic, so email me and I will link. But be aware, it may get lost in all that email. I’m about to do a mass deletion.

Anyway, the occasional accusation of massive attention hogging and big bucks made from fannish wankery is pure nonsense. These posts really don’t bring in much traffic, and the most trafficked of them brings in about $1 in advertising income at most. I have no financial incentive to blog about uber drama. Really, people. Clue stick.

I’m just tired and sad at the constant wankery and fighting that never ends, all the con creeps that come back year after year like a polluted tide.

I need to move on.

I’ll continue to blog about art and industry-related issues that have a more positive focus and meaning for me.

With a major emphasis on the positive.

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Amy Player is Andrew Blake, and an even bigger conning slimeball than Rob Granito UPDATED

by Colleen Doran on July 15th, 2011
Posted In: Blog, Culture, Fandom

Amy Player is a con artist who is now living under the male identity Andrew Blake, running some kind of bogus “awareness” group called “It’s About Power”. If you have any contact with Andy Blake/thanfiction/Victoria Bitter/Amy Player/Jordan Wood, then you need to read this post and carefully go through all the links provided. Amy Player was convicted (details differ: apparently, it was actually some kind of plea bargain) of prior offenses for running a fake charity and was arrested for identity fraud.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Confusion abounds as to the exact nature of the “conviction” and there is a new blog post that goes into detail about the plea agreement.

Moreover, Amy/Jordan/Andrew’s former partners now have blogs going into great detail about their experiences, which in some ways are even sadder and more bizarre than anything I’ve heard before. Con artist or mentally ill cult leader? You decide. You can find discussion and links to same at this blog. It’s all so terribly sad. But I think I’ve devoted enough time to looking down this rabbit hole. Back to the original post. And I’m going to make this my last update, because even though my original involvement in all this was extremely limited, years later it continues to eat the brain. Proceed with caution.

Nearly ten years ago, a young woman named Amy Player bubbled up from the oubliette and conned a lot of people out of some money, time, and sanity. She accused her own family of trafficking her for sex (a lie she later retracted,) claimed to be on the run from the IRA, claimed to channel the spirit of Mr. Frodo, and claimed to be Elijah Wood’s cousin Jordan Wood. She also claimed to magically grow a penis.

Amy/Jordan was so convincing as Jordan Wood, she managed to dupe hundreds of devoted Lord of the Rings fans into believing that she was the very person she claimed to be. As if that wasn’t enough, she even managed to convince some of the actors in the cast of Lord of the Rings, and she set up bogus charity events and conventions that bilked fan and pro alike out of thousands of dollars. She managed to bamboozle cast members, stranding a bunch of them in an airport with no plane tickets, no money, and no hotels, after they had flown to the USA all the way from New Zealand to attend a non-existent convention.

After making a mess of her own life and the lives of many others, Amy came out as a transexual, found God, cleaned up her act, and left fandom forever. Out of respect for our trans friends, we will use the pronoun “he” from now on, even though I have doubts about the sincerity of Amy in all things, including the trans claim.

You may also remember Amy as the fanfic author Victoria Bitter. Find a complete rundown of Amy’s fannish antics at the link.

Jeanine Renne, one of many fans conned by Amy of the Many Guises, wrote a book about her experiences. You’ll find a short run down of the history of the con and what happened over a bit of earth here.

Recently, a fanfic author named thanfiction, with a very small following of Harry Potter fans trailing behind, was revealed to be none other than Amy Player. Thanfiction, who as Amy had sworn to leave fandom forever, now uses the name Andrew Blake. He solicited gifts, donations, and sells really bad photoshop-traced art of celebrity snaps.

I realize that was a cheap shot, but it’s true.

Outed as Amy once more, Andrew claimed that he was not, in fact, Amy, but that Amy was his evil twin sister.

Then he admitted in writing to Jeanine Renne, that yes, he was Amy, and here’s $100 to STFU.

Then he claimed he was dying of a rare heart ailment and would not live long.

Then he claimed he spent much of his time on the astral plane protecting innocent children from an undead shaman wizard.

Then he claimed he was leaving fandom forever. Once again. Because it’s death or college.

At this point, I don’t even know how to wrap my brain around this mess.

But it gets even worse.

Andrew/Amy has a long history of meeting lonely women on the internet, conning them, convincing them to go along with his bizarre tales of abuse and drama, and then making hash of their lives. Adult women that they are, they are partially responsible for the ensuing chaos, but this time it got ugly.

One of the cuckolded husbands of one of Andrew’s con victims snapped, went on a shooting spree, killing his “common law” wife, a guest in their home, himself, and allegedly shooting the extremely lucky Andrew in the ankle.

Despite this desperate wound, Andrew decided the appropriate way to remember his departed girlfriend is to go on a hike to bring awareness to the plight of battered women. By walking across long expanses of dirt. And he wants you to give him money. For his charity.

Over the strong objections of the murder victim Brittany Quinn’s family, who believe Andrew was instrumental in the death of their daughter. Brittany’s father, Robert Quinn, wrote to Jeanine Renne:

We knew from the beginning that there was something not right about “Andrew” but could never get Brittany to admit anything. She went downhill, changed and acted very out of character after she met him. We suspected for a long time that “Andrew” was pushing her to sell her things, borrow money and file court actions against her ex to get more money for “Andrew”. Andrew was always whispering in her ear when she had a conversation with anyone else while he was there and had a weird control over her.

Anyway, FYI “Andrew” has moved to Denver, CO and has started another charity fan page using Brittany and her memory to get attention and money for him. He has a facebook page called “It’s About Power” and a web site www.itsaboutpower.org. It is supposedly a site to prevent domestic violence raise awareness and as always some money and sponsorships for “Andrew’s” continued adventures. The NZ trip is off and the new scam is a hike “in Brittany’s memory” along the “Trail of Tears” in the South Eastern U.S.

As you have probably guessed, most everything that “Andrew” has written about Brittany and her family is overly exaggerated figments of his/her imagination. Brittany does have 6 brothers and 2 sisters, and did a great many things as she was home-schooled with her siblings. But most of the rest is extreme exaggerations, fanciful lies and the self-serving imaginations of this sociopath. Our family is coping best we can and working with the other victims families (including the shooter’s Dad, who lives at the house where the incident occurred.) to take care of each other and try to establish somewhat normal lives again…

I just want to make sure no one else ever loses one of their children, family members or friends to this evil and sick person again and try to put a stop to “Andrew/Amy” using Brittany’s memory and image to promote his/her scams.

Andrew has a history of making extremely dubious comments about women, trans people, and even the Irish. So you can tell he’s a sensitive guy.

This fandom is infested with girls. Little bubble-headed shipperchibbies who spaz all over me because I write from the perspective of a guy, as a guy.

I’m just going to let that hang in the air for a minute there.

I have been told that my guys are blunt, agressive, hot-tempered, that my fics are unnecessarily violent, that my guys aren’t sensitive enough about their own feelings and the feelings of the girls they deal with. Um, well, I hate to break it to you, Hannah Montana, but guys are like that, and moreover, war is like that. We do not speak the same language you do. Yes, we have all had those kinds of thoughts about the Patil twins. Seamus is Irish. There is no filter between his brain and his mouth, and when Padma twists herself like that to duck a jinx, he will make a lewd comment. He’s seventeen. At least half the time, his brain is in his pants or wanting to hit someone. It’s called testosterone, and we don’t deal with it well. That’s why they make boy bands, so you don’t have to deal with the real thing.

Quoted for irony.

This sensitive guy who, under his Amy identity, was nabbed for running a bogus charity already, is now running another one. Starbucks is listed as a sponsor.

His latest attempt to weasel out of his past is to now claim he’s not Amy at all, despite the prior confession and buckets of photo evidence to the contrary. People who are saying all these bad things are just out to get him, because he’s so popular, has so many followers (the blog has 6,) and as a force for light in the world, he attracts the dark. We’re all just his shadow.

I live big, live passionately. I have people who would die for me and people who would die for the chance to have me dead. I’ve seen 37 friends die violently. I’ve been shot 4 times. I’ve been stabbed, strangled, beaten, burned, left for dead…an internet brouhaha doesn’t register as anything more than a mosquito bite.

Then you won’t mind this one.

You know, I’ve got cops in my family who’ve seen less action than this dude. Then again, they live outside their head.

I don’t know what else to say here, except to encourage you to read the links, spread the word, and to consider very carefully before you go anywhere near Andrew Blake. The charity he runs is no charity. It is not registered anywhere. Do not give this con artist your money.

If you want to support an organization which helps battered women, CLICK HERE to check out the ratings of legit charities which do real work.

Fandom isn’t always a nice place. Be careful out there.

Please spread the word about this con via Twitter, etc. Thanks.

UPDATE: Oh how nice, a little clarification just got posted at the completely superfluous “It’s About Power” non-event.

“We are NOT a charity. We do not and have never solicited monetary donations nor do we accept them.
Under any circumstances.
The hike team has, however, sold items in order to fund their emergency cash as this kind of hike can be dangerous.
The only sponsorship we are currently requesting is 78lbs. of bison (or lean red) meat.”

Isn’t that special. Never claimed to be a charity? Never solicited donations? Pull the other one.

Backpedal faster, Andrew.

Someone really ought to tell these nitwits that a gift of property is just as tangible as a gift of money, and soliciting property is still soliciting.

There is no reason for anyone to sponsor this nonsense at all. Not even to feed the animals.


UPDATE For the reading comprehension impaired: If you’re one of those people who read the post, then walked away scratching your head wondering “Gosharootie, why wasn’t Amy Player/Andrew Blake convicted already?” then READ THE LINKS. Amy Player WAS convicted (plea bargained,) given probation and a fine, and forbidden from running any more charities in the state of Oregon.

Amy Player changes identities faster than a comic book villain, is continuously on the move, and has managed to convince people that Amy is someone Andrew doesn’t even know.

My family is loaded with cops. After contacting one in the general area to report, local authorities could not be bothered. While Amy’s family lived in Williamsburg, Amy’s dastardly deeds are across state lines. If the feds don’t get involved, Amy/Andrew will be very hard to catch.

Hate to break it to you, but crime is not as easy to prosecute in real life as it is on TV.

UPDATE October 5 2011: The latest nonsense is an attempt to raise $2000 to keep one of his pals in the USA. Someone who did not get a proper Visa, but did just conveniently marry a US citizen.

I leave it to you to decide whether or not there are better things to do with your money. There are a lot of better things to do with my time.

Since all this started a decade ago, I’ve blogged about it exactly twice. That’s enough. I only met Jordan Wood the one time, and then watched as he cut a maniacal swath through the lives of fans I cared about and professionals who really weren’t in a position to deal with the mess. I feel sorry for everyone and anyone who got involved and has been harmed. More than anything, sorry for the family of the former Amy Player.

There is nothing further I can do. I get emails and links about this, hoping I’ll fight their fight for them, husbands who claim Andrew destroyed their relationships with their wives, and I simply don’t have the time to go through all of this anymore. This kind of cultish fan scheming has been going on as long as I’ve been around, and that’s more than 25 years. My blogging hasn’t stopped any of it, but it has taken up a lot of my time.

If you have a serious problem, please get professional help. Call a doctor. Call a lawyer. Call the police. Far more manipulative and financially devastating schemes have been perpetuated in fandom, and almost every time, the culprit gets away with a slap on the wrist. I know its hard, I know its embarrassing, I know its time consuming.

I sincerely hope everyone who has ever been involved with this bizarre cult is able to get away and get the help they need.

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Liana and Lord of the Rings Masterpieces

by Colleen Doran on June 24th, 2011
Posted In: Blog, A Distant Soil Blog Posts, Blog, Colleen's Work, Colleen's Work, Commissions, Culture, Fandom, Culture, Literature, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings

Another commission sketch, and another official Lord of the Rings Masterpieces sketch card. I’ve kept most of the cards back saving them for a special occasion to sell, and they sell very quickly. I didn’t even have time to put this on the open market!

I know blogging has been light lately, and I apologize. I am deep in drawing mode.

I also have a bunch of hardcovers I really need to ship, so it’s busy, busy here.

I have so many sketches and commissions to get out of here, I could just blog that for weeks. Maybe I will.

In the meantime, if you want something to natter about, here’s yet another article about Geek Culture and its sense of persecution and Special Snowflake status. Now they complain they’re being victimized by raging hordes of good-looking people who can’t possibly be geeks, and are therefore evil capitalist geek plants.


I’ve already expressed how I feel about this subject.

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Safe Spaces in Geek Culture

by Colleen Doran on June 6th, 2011
Posted In: Blog, Culture, Fandom

In my experience, there aren’t any.

Not to say every convention or online community is a weekend at Tailhook. But the pervasive harassment and abuse of women in geek culture is far worse than anything I’ve experienced outside of it. Your mileage may vary, of course.

I expect someone aged about 24 to pop up and comment that there’s never any abuse at shows because she’s never experienced any. Well, I’m glad you’ve never had a problem, but that doesn’t mean problems don’t exist.

Bullying is endemic in fandom, even though fans often claim they came to fandom to avoid the bullies.

Fandom doesn’t like to admit bullying is a problem, or sexual abuse at conventions is a problem, or fannish politics are a problem, or that is has any problems at all. While most fandoms are very cool, supportive, and full of fun, just like high school, some aspects of fandom aren’t so nice. And because the once-bullied-in-high-school sometimes feel pretty sensitive to their image (even thirty years after high school,) fandom has a tendency to cover up and equivocate, rather than address real problems.

After more than 20 years of abuse at the hands of a deranged stalker and his legion of enablers – including a bizarre online screed from a woman blogger who came out on the side of the poor, mentally ill stalker and his buddies (thanks for that, Stalker Enabler) – I know from long, unhappy personal experience how geek culture excuses and enables, and then blames the victim. And there’s nothing stranger than the enabling that comes from supposedly feminist women who are so anxious to be seen as understanding nurturers of the underdog – to not exclude – that they will do ontological back flips to accept almost any bad behavior…except when that behavior is directed at them, of course.

One seriously disturbed individual who has a small list of publishing credits, spent well over a decade on a personal campaign to get me to “clean up” my “act” (his words). These are excerpts of some of his letters to me. He sent far more disturbing letters over time, and expanded his crusade to sending letters to other pros, comic shops, distributors, a number of comics industry magazines, my editors, my lawyers, and my family in an effort to correct my behavior.

So today’s awesome, must-read essay is Resistance is Useful:

I have observed geek culture embracing all of those things, that I have been on the receiving end of them, that I have been an observer of them, again and again and again. Stalking, rape, the enabling of rape, rape apologism, sexual assault of various kinds, opportunistic harassment, predation, collusion to trivialise boundaries and consent issues, violation of consent, coercion, marginalisation and broadly, a deep, vile and insidious culture of loathing and sexual violence. This is not theory; this is what has happened and what continues to happen. It happens your cons, in your city, in your gaming groups, on your streets, on your internet, at your parties, in your forums, on your blogs and in your workplaces. And this is my big Fuck You to all of it.

The point of origin of a problem with a woman is not what she wears, or what she says, or draws, or plays, or reads. If you can’t control the way you behave toward a woman, the problem is you.

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Batman: Deliverance

by Colleen Doran on May 31st, 2011
Posted In: Blog, Culture, Comics, Culture, Fandom, Culture, Film and Television, Culture, Comics, Marvel Comics

Pretty darned cool.

Batman has retired from the superheroes’ stage and Gotham City is plunged into chaos. As Bruce Wayne is getting older and suffering from serious problem drinking, is he going to resist to the Dark Night call for a last fight, a heroic fighting with an awesome adversary?

BATMAN DELIVRANCE from Atomic Production on Vimeo.

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