BRENTZILLA

Warren Ellis, come FUCKING on.

Ellis, by the way, is a writer of comics. Oh, and he wrote a book, “Crooked Little Vein,” which I may or may not read. Anyway…

Ellis asked the people subscribed to his email list a question, invoking (sort of) the idea of “crowdsourcing” (look at Fark or Digg if you want to see crowdsourcing actually happening). To wit:

“Hey, I have no time to research shit that’s going to make me money: How about you do that work for me? Do you know of any public domain superheroes? If so, send them my way.”

Okay, so it’s paraphrased. Still, Ellis’ readers respond. And all Ellis can say is:

Thanks to all for your help. I did actually know about the Wikipedia pages that all of you, without fail, cited to me. But since those pages are so blatantly fucking wrong in so many instances, I didn’t think anyone would um, cite them to me…

(Wikipedia also continues to spell my name wrong, so, you know, please stop using it like it’s a bastion of truth, or, indeed, fucking anything.)

Ah, well. Anyway, thanks for your efforts, it’s all greatly appreciated.”

Sure it is. I’m sure Ellis’s disciples agree. Meanwhile: Ellis asked for information. Ellis got it, and ironically, he got much of it from the greatest example of crowdsourcing around: Wikipedia.

By the by, this is basically the same reaction Ellis has any time he trolls for information from his audience. Troll, get responses, throw a fit about how stupid the responses are.

And hey, Warren? Go change your name on Wikipedia if you’re so unhappy. Apparently, no one on your list cares to do it for you. But you can dip into the crowdsourcing phenomenon yourself and just do it. If you deign to do so.

(Full disclosure: I did not reply to Ellis’s request for free research. More: I’m a fan of his work. That doesn’t make anything about his reaction to his stupid-ass question right.)