From everything I've seen about Gretchen Felker-Martin, that author's literary career seems to be based on three things:
Being trans
Being a psycho
Really doubling down on that second one, in a keyboard warrior sense
Felker-Martin recently lost a comics writing gig at DC over some witless and, yes, psycho tweets about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Apparently you can only bluff your way so far with a pair of twos.
The incident made me think of someone else from the horror-fantasy field: Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Salmonson has been writing since Nixon was still in the White House. She also happens to be trans. But her much more low-key reputation is based on things like "finding a good story" and "writing well." Antediluvian stuff.
2 comments:
As you'll very likely guess I had no prior knowledge of 'Gretchen'. Jer told me that the comicbook Red Hood series had been cancelled by DC after that particular tweet. Apparently, making offensive tweets was a frequent occurrance for him but DC had been looking the other way for a long time. Then they were surprised. hmmmm..
I'm not sure why so many of these people have three names but it does appear to be common in the trans community.
Nevertheless, it sounds like Jessica has maintained a discrete attitude as regards his trans status. I don't know when he made his personal circumstances public but when Nixon was in office most guys with the proclivity for cross dressing were keeping a low profile.
Not so much nowadays - today we saw a heavyset man with purple hair wearing a skirt and pushing a baby carriage. You do have to wonder how that's going to work out in the long term.
Btw: good title Untitled - German I see..
The extent to which you aren't missing much cannot be overstated. This isn't someone I would have voluntarily learned about either. The big two comics companies don't have as much of a farm system as they used to, in the Bronze Age (70s and early 80s), when freelancers could still cobble together an income while waiting for a regular assignment. There's a tendency to try and attract name writers, mostly novelists and TV people. Apparently this also bred a culture that believes there's no such thing as bad publicity. Until there's bad publicity.
Some trans people who had a reputation before transitioning use both a female and male given name so people will still know who they are. That doesn't seem to be the case with GFM. So I dunno.
Salmonson comes from an older culture/ethic, where ideas and execution are more important than declaring your identity. Of course when you talk about low profile crossdressers in the Nixon Era my mind goes immediately to J. Edgar Hoover jokes.
In a lot of ways the sudden victory of the gay rights movement in this century, e.g. Obergefell in this country, flatfooted the organizations involved, who needed to go to greater extremes in order to keep fundraising. You were looking at one result.
Thanks. I think I just kept it in reserved in case I couldn't think of a header.
Post a Comment