Creator responsibility

dracoplato 2016-02-25 21:45:07 UTC #9

Hmmm I have probably the unpopular opinion that for the things you put out there you should understand that it's putting out that idea so that others can do with it what they will. Is it impossible for someone to take that idea and do a bad thing with it? I think we can all agree that it is not impossible. So in that sense we as writers and artists are responsible for the ideas we put out there. But really why are we determined to put out evil things in the first place, lol.

carloswebcomic 2016-02-25 21:57:41 UTC #10

Warning are pretty useless if you ask me, what is important is to show that those actions are not normal or OK and can have real consequences. I mean, you do not want to normalise bad or irresponsible behaviour.
For example, A lot of movies tend to normalise the act of killing people, where you see one guy kill 50 others with all the remorse of putting on a pair of socks. In real life, that would leave you fucked in the head, but in movies, you rarely see the consequences.

To see the consequences of actions speak a lot louder than a warning.

mariusthered 2016-02-25 21:59:35 UTC #11

I never thought of it that way. a valid point.

mariusthered 2016-02-25 22:08:57 UTC #12

To answer that gives me the chance to put something I wanted to write in the first place. And as a follower of my comic you know the sort of things that crop up in my work. Talesfromswipecity
Swipe city is all about learning right from wrong in a city that has taken a moral stand against political correctness. be it with criminals or on the domestic front. but fro us to show punishment we have to show the crime, and sadly one cannot exist without the other. I don't write about evil I write for the lesson.

PixyByte 2016-02-25 22:14:30 UTC #13

No, it's no fault to the creator at all. We are all responsible for our actions, and if someone is twisted enough to commit a crime, the thought has already entered their head at some point. They aren't right in the mind to begin with. No written work or drawn illustration is going to make someone go "Hey that looks fun, I'm going to try it". At least not in a sane person's head. If you're crazy enough to do something horrible, anything could trigger the final "I've had enough and I'm going to do it" thought. Even a cut on a finger, maybe, I don't know. I'm not crazy lol. The person will take it however they want, putting warnings up and not writing about something in an encouraging manner would help, I believe. There's only so much you can do when the final action is entirely up to the individual, however.

dracoplato 2016-02-25 22:18:24 UTC #14

Yeah, which is how I think most of us would express it. I think the only issue with that then is if the lesson isn't clear it just becomes about the crime. But like one of my favorite stories is The Mahabarata and that's a religious allegory that could be easily misunderstood based on the actions of the "moral" characters at times.

60Six 2016-02-25 22:22:21 UTC #15

I feel like this is really comparable to the "video games encourage violence" argument that we've all seen a thousand times now. If someone REALLY goes out and shoots a cop because Grand Theft Auto made it seem cool, they probably already had some real moral issues to begin with. The same especially goes for a comic where you're just along for the ride, you aren't even given a choice in what the character does unlike a video game where you have some say in it.
I DO feel it's sort of good to give people a general warning of what sort of things might be in store for your comic, though. I generally tell people City of Blank would be just be pg-13, which I hope gives them an idea of how "explicit" it will be. I know not a lot of people have this sort of rating for comics, but I think just from a pretty early point in your comic, it's pretty obvious you're going for a rated R level of content. Which I would HOPE would quickly deter anyone not capable of handling mature themes and subjects away from your comic.

But maybe I'm getting a little off topic here. Long story short, I'm in agreement with most people here. It's nice to give people warnings, but in a LOT of cases, I think these things are a given. If people can't handle the subjects in someone's comic, it's their responsibility to stop reading it for their own sake.

eschaefges 2016-02-25 23:10:16 UTC #16

Dude, after this thread, I am totally rethinking my "How to Crack a Safe" webcomic...

All kidding aside, I think @PixyByte, @Riko and others make some good points - in my view, you are not morally obligated for others actions after reading your fiction. Their actions are their own. Just by showing an activity, you are not endorsing it - the Bible depicts much violence and other acts that it also condemns. However, a warning couldn't hurt anything, and if your story is especially realistic, may help contextualize it.

On a separate note, I do think that after decades/centuries of fiction where 'good prevails over evil', the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction in a major way over the last decade: a growing amount of adult TV, comics, books, video games, movies have "people doing horrible things to other people with pretty much no consequence for their actions", and while one single comic, movie, book, game doesn't influence people in any great extent, it is now possible for a person to watch/play/read NOTHING BUT stories like this 24/7 for the rest of their lives... and i think we do not know the full repercussions of how this will affect generations to come. It is simply too early to tell.

To be clear: I am not saying i am against stories where the bad guys win - I am saying that the staggering amount of new media portraying crimes like murder, rape, robbery, assault in a casual, daily context, with a huge number of these stories featuring the criminals as protagonists who are rewarded/praised for their actions... I think that anyone who says with certainty that there is no effect on the mentality of the viewers, overall, does not have enough data yet to work with. That's all. :: ducks ::

Vikiro_Hop 2016-02-26 03:22:11 UTC #17

I believe that the burden of differentiating fiction from reality rest on the shoulders of the audience not the creator. If you want to put something out then you should, fiction isn't always pretty, fair, or moral. I don't think artists should shirk away from uncomfortable territory because they are afraid of their audience. Whether or not they put a warning is up to them, I don't think I would.

Aspie_Gamer 2016-02-26 03:51:01 UTC #18

No its always on the moron who decided to emulate whatever he learned from TV/movies/comics/games/etc.

If something is rated R, its probably not going to have sunshine and bunnies for 90 minutes so why some people think its on the creators when their kids get in trouble for cussing at school, vandalizing school property or worse, become the next Columbine or Sandy Hook school shooter, etc. is beyond me.

Yeah kids are impressionable, but you know the best way to keep adult content out of the hands of minors? Do your research on something they read or want you to take them to/buy for them. Read up on the ratings. Read up on the content of the series before you hand your kid the keys and put them in the drivers seat. Do you really want little johnny showing his classmates a picture of a naked woman he found online after you let him make a deviantart account?

Do you really want little Susie to act like a pompous starts with B and rhymes with Witch after you let her go with her friends to a dumb high school comedy full of unlikeable characters who emulate the worst elements of high school students? I could go on, but I won't. As the creator of Life of an Aspie, I pray I never wake up to an e-mail from an angry parent or moral guardian pointing fingers at me because their kid learned some new words they don't approve of as there's a fair amount of bad language in my comic thus far. Heck, I'll probably start putting a content warning at the beginning of every chapter from now on just to be extra safe. That way, if some dumb "moral guardian" tries to pin all their problems they have with their kid/teenager on me, I'll just laugh my butt off and point them to where it explicitly says WARNING: This chapter contains (x). Viewer discretion advised.

AnnaLandin 2016-02-26 04:14:44 UTC #19

Is it the creator's fault if someone uses their fiction as inspiration to commit a crime or to harm themselves or others? No, I don't think so.

Should we still proceed with a sense of responsibility for our fictional works? Most definitely. Fiction matters. The stories we choose to tell, and how we choose to tell them, matters. The same way we would definitely warn readers if there is going to be very graphic scenes of gore and violence, we should consider the impact of our stories.

I'm not saying we all need to slap a big introductory text on all of our comics, talking about how crime is bad, or racism/sexism is terrible, or whatever. I'm just saying that every time we tell a story, we're adding it to a wider cultural and social context, and we should as creators be aware of what we're doing, why we're doing it, and at least consider the impact it will have. Like @shazzbaa has already brought up, depicting something isn't the same as condoning it, but it's about how we depict something. As creators, we need to be aware of what the storytelling methods we use are actually signalling to our readers, even on the more subtle levels.

Like, if your stories are constantly depicting women as hypersexualised, or as helpless victims - or both! - that is telling your readers something even if it is never spoken out loud, and you need to be aware of it and be ready to take responsibility for it.

R.n.P 2016-02-26 12:41:49 UTC #20

For me the responsibility of a creator is to always keep his readers n himself interested in his comic, that to me is the summary of any creators responsibity

Kamikaze 2016-02-26 15:57:30 UTC #21

Is it the fault of a creator if story in his fictional works are copied in real life?

Absolutely not. The old comic rules you're talking about (if I remember right) are taken from the Comics Code Authority which is a now defunct guideline of rules for censorship that was used in publishing. These rules started in the 1950's under the scare tactic logic that "Oh my god, this could be BAD and set BAD examples and turn our children BAD." And...well it's garbage logic.

The CCA is one of the reasons Lois Lane stopped being a reporter and became a housewife, why violence was skirted around, and why a lot of comic folks where REALLY frustrated when the stamp was in use. It's also the reason why in the 80's/90's when the CCA was largely abandoned by larger publishers that the darker themes and more adult oriented work became a HUGE deal. It was like creators were trapped in Nickelodeon for 30 years and suddenly the gates opened and they swarmed to HBO to create what they REALLY wanted.

You've got to give your readers more credit than that. We're not in the 1950's anymore, readership has evolved and been conditioned to understand more complex forms of storytelling that don't require those rules.

Respect your readers. You're a comic creator, not the individual parent to each and every one. :/

mariusthered 2016-02-26 16:13:29 UTC #22

@Kamikaze It's nice to find someone who knows what the hell i'm talking about for once

and I agree we don't need those rules being shackles on our creative freedom of expression.

UzukiCheverie 2016-02-26 16:46:37 UTC #23

Chances are, if someone needs a comic as an excuse to commit violence/criminal activity, then chances are that's all they were looking for - an excuse - and they've probably got a history of doing these sorts of things to begin with or having mental issues that stem into violence. And if someone tries to blame you for whatever violence it is they committed, then they aren't hitting the root of the deeper issue.

People say video games cause violence, but that's been proven as bullshit again and again - that the people who are "influenced" by games also have severe mental disorders, some completely undiagnosed and therefore not medicated. There's always more to it than "I saw it on TV."

If someone got some crazy idea from my comics? I'd tell them to stop being an idiot and take responsibility for their own actions. It's not our responsibility - the responsibility lies in the individual and their actions, and if they're kids, FIRST OFF they shouldn't be reading my stuff lol and SECOND that responsibility lies with the PARENTS.

Soooo yep.

thesisterscomic 2016-02-26 16:53:44 UTC #24

It is highly unlikely whatever violence you're writing about hasn't been written before or been featured on television before. You cannot cripple your own efforts for the fear that some unhinged individual might emulate it on some level to satisfy their own ends. I mean, that's even if you did hit those odd-end variables of getting a reader who got that far gone and opted to emulate your fiction rather than any other they might be exposed to.

When those killers emulated Dexter Morgan, they weren't going by the books.

I'd say this isn't something worth worrying about. Care about producing quality content rather than the moon-shot chance that someone is going to kill/rape/steal in a way similar to your works. The media would be far more likely to blame video games on the perpetrators shelves than anything so small as a comic in their browser history.

I feel that's entering into some dangerous territory. I think the Fargo mini-series did it quite well, in almost that exact scenario. We do have a guy who does strike his wife, and his wife has pretty much belittled and abused him verbally to the point that we want to be happy he did this. But it is presented with this degree of distance, and it becomes disgusting; especially as we see the fallout of this and the lengths the character goes through to keep up the ruse. I think presenting a more balanced, or at least, a less strawman scenario, especially when there is going to be some nasty consequences, is important.

Whether or not the reader is okay with the results is on them. A good story should be able to make you feel conflicted. And not in a forced way like "But my evil would stop a greater evil, now that's on you" way; but rather a "I can see how someone in this walk of life could reach this moral event horizon and choose poorly in order to stop feeling the pain, even if it meant hurting others." We don't need to love our villains, but unless they were born slithering out the razor-trap of Satan's anus; they're generally still people with wants and needs which may be perverted or controlled in order to get them to do these bad things.

I guess in short; don't worry about some nutjob doing something based on what you wrote/drew. The odds are against you anyway, so you may as well enjoy the unfettered freedom.

shazzbaa 2016-02-26 17:57:33 UTC #25

Oh man, thanks for adding this, actually -- this is a good point and a really good example of how to look at it. It's not a matter of "you can never show a victim of abuse as an obnoxious unlikeable person" or "crime must always pay" or "people who do bad things must afterwards be punished" or whatever, but you have to be thoughtful about how you're presenting it and what you do with it.

Ultimately I think that's the thing -- there's no list of Comics Code Rules that you can follow, where crime is okay if you show these things, but not okay if you show these other things. It's not that black-and-white.

I agree with this a lot!! I think you really need a lot of empathy if you're gonna tell these kinds of stories. A character who is hated by the creator and exists only to be punished for his crimes is gonna be a mess and won't ring true. The readers don't have to be able to sympathise with everyone, but I think the creator does, or else it's much harder to write them all with care.

mariusthered 2016-02-26 18:58:00 UTC #26

very much so. One of my favorite Characters (and one of my first for swipe city) is not a nice guy. Clarence Potts is a victim turned psychopathy who kills "naughty girls" (meaning anyone who lies) in truth this character was born after living six years with a pathological liar and then I mixed him with elements of the joker (my fave bad guy ) For what this guy stands for I should hate him but I just can't bring myself to do so. ( sorry if this is a bit off topic)

mccjohn295 2016-03-06 20:29:24 UTC #27

Is it the creators responsibility, if someone does something reprehensible because of their work. No I don't at least it should not be the case legally. I do think however that if a work becomes influential enough it can have an effect on culture, and effect peoples actions. Butterfly causing a storm and what not. As a creator, you should think about what your work puts out into the world, and if you're okay with this personally. But once work is put out there it becomes it's own thing, separate from the original creator, and can take on a life of it's own.

tsukin 2016-03-06 20:40:55 UTC #28

No. It is not your fault if someone decides to pick up a gun and shoot someone because that's what their favorite super-villain or what have you did. In that case, if they thought it was cool, there's probably something really wrong with them and they are need of serious help and whether or not you wrote/drew what you did in the end they still would need help and would probably come to the same point in their life either way.

People need to understand that yeah art has power but at the end of the day art has no power OVER someone. In the end the person still has to willingly choose what their actions are and that's not on you.