Meeting Your Heroes

File this one under "yet another blog post about separating the artist from the art or something". Just a wee rant/random thought. Skip if you don't give a shit about that stuff.

"Never meet your heroes" is an adage filled with dread and tension. We all have folks who we idolize in some way or another to lesser or greater degrees. If you love movies by Hitchcock, then you are a Hitchcock fan even if you don't like being saddled with that term. And yet Hitchcock wasn't a perfect man (I actually don't know much about him, so maybe he was terrible... I don't know, it's not the point).

In my youth I was influenced by a lot of artists and I still fondly remember their work. I do a Sunday blog post each week called Artists I Like and I highlight someone whose work inspires me. If I know an artist is a piece of shit or has some seriously controversial opinion, I might choose to avoid talking about them for that reason. I have no interest in expanding the lore of an asshole. But also, I have almost no interest in defending an asshole whose only connection to me is they drew a picture I love.

Anyway... I had Armando Gil on my list. Gil was a comics artist for Marvel, DC, etc. I know him pretty much only from the Savage Sword of Conan pinups he drew, which were incredible. So different from other artists' work, so rich and vibrant

I was working up a post about Gil so I looked him up to get a general idea about him. Turns out he was convicted of multiple counts of rape in 2017 and is now in prison.

The fact that I loved his Conan art and that it influenced me as a teen cannot ever be changed. And I'll never say I DON'T love his work. But it is also my choice to promote or not promote someone based on my own feelings about them. I have no desire to promote a convicted rapist, so I won't be including this guy in my Sunday post series.

Normally this is because I don't want to contribute to someone like this financially or socially. In this case I don't think there's much benefit to Gil for anyone talking about him. That ship has sailed. He's never going to be back in the saddle. But aside from that, I have my own principles and endorsing someone like that is not on my list of things to do.

There have been a few other artists who were slated to be on the Sunday list who I removed for similar reasons. Not quite as extreme as this one, but uncomfortable enough that I didn't want to talk about them. Also, I probably already talked about someone who you think was or is a bastard. I didn't do extensive research on all of them. And I don't care about trivial infractions. So what if this or that artist once told someone to fuck off at a convention. Even a dickhead can be good at drawing.

It's my choice. I know that some people are of the opinion that none of this matters and that you should talk about whatever artist you want to talk about, regardless of their deeds. I agree. And I don't want to talk about this one anymore.

The Artists I Like series is about expressing my admiration for work that inspires me. I'm sure 99% of the artists I talk about are wonderful people. Some of them might be assholes. I can live with a few assholes slipping through the gate. And, to be totally transparent, if I post one and later find out something about them that I can't tolerate, I'll just remove that post. That is me doing what I want, on my own.