"There is only one thing in life that is worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about" said Oscar Wilde, so perhaps I should be flattered to find myself the subject of someone's obsessive attention and to discover the extremes that they're prepared to go to in order to vent their bitter, malicious spite against me.
This saddo, who clearly has too much time on his hands, has created a Twitter account in my name, with my avatar, filled with lies, distortions and various absurdities, in the hope of convincing others that I'm not a very nice person. I'm disappointed, as I thought I was doing fine on my own in that regard, and it's a bit of a blow to my pride to learn that I seemingly require some assistance in the matter.
Take a look at his tweets so far: (Click to enlarge.) To read them in sequential order, start at the bottom one and work your way up.
And look - he's even got two followers.
He talks about irony, but seems unaware of what the word means. I post my opinions on my own blog, so how does that qualify me as a troll? And whenever I comment on another blog, I always do so in a civil manner. Yet here we have someone who's disturbed to such an extent that he's created an account in my name, using my avatar, not for satirical purposes as he claims, but for no other reason than to malign me. Isn't that the epitome of 'trolling'? And that's the only time I ever use the word - to point out the irony of someone doing that which they (falsely) accuse me of.
Further, as any fair minded person can see, I welcome debate, discussion and disagreement on this blog, and have never 'banned' anyone for it. I recently told someone calling themselves 'The Source' not to bother responding further after he insulted everyone with a different view to him by describing them as stupid, which I wasn't prepared to allow. Disagree with me all you want to, but don't resort to rudeness just because others don't see things your way.
Every one of his assertions is a distortion of the truth. I've never once said that I chose lettering because it 'paid more' than art (per page obviously); what I actually said was that I stuck with lettering because I was able to do more pages of lettering in a day than I'd have been capable of producing as an artist (and thus earn more). When I lettered a regular, one-page strip for LOADED mag back in the mid-'90s, it paid £30 (update: actually it was £50) for what amounted to no more than around half an hour's work. So you see, I didn't quite say what he claims I did. (Truth is obviously just not his thing.)
It's interesting that the lies in these ridiculous tweets are the same as ones expressed on another blog by one of a very small group (you could squeeze them all into a 'phone box) who seem determined to bad-mouth me. Twitter inform me that the account no longer exists or has been suspended, so perhaps it won't be very long before the source (see what I did there?) is identified and publicly exposed as the lying, twisted, odious little scumbag that he is. Incidentally, if my doppelganger can provide one instance where I've ever blamed others for not working in comics, I'd like to see it.
At least now you can see for yourselves that when it comes to lies, distortions, and obsessional, petty, small-minded behaviour, if anyone deserves to be called a 'troll', it's pretty obvious that it isn't me. No doubt this sad individual will have another go at this kind of thing, so if any of you become aware of it before I do, I'd appreciate you letting me know. Some people, eh?
And in case you were wondering, yes, I do have a pretty good idea of who's behind it all, but I'll wait until I have conclusive proof before saying anything. Perhaps his internet pals should be asking themselves if they want to be associated with this sort of behaviour, or, indeed, such an unpleasant, unbalanced individual. Nice to know that I'm the cause of such vexation to him though - I almost feel a sense of achievement. After all, some @rses deserve to be roundly kicked.
