Heavy Ink Comics Retailer Condones Shooting of Gabrielle Giffords

Working the night shift, I sometimes tend to miss a few bits and pieces that happen during the day, because I am mostly asleep when it happens. Therefore, I only just heard about the atrocious comments made yesterday by Travis Corcoran, president of online comic book retailer, Heavy Ink.

Corcoran put a post on his blog, titled “1 down, 534 to go”, in response to the shooting of congress woman Gabrielle Giffords. In the post, he quotes a news piece on the shooting, and says that:

It is absolutely, absolutely unacceptable to shoot “indiscriminately”.

Target only politicians and their staff, and leave regular citizens alone.

Please!

http://tjic.com/?p=19638

Going on to explain that:

I don’t think that anything productive is going to come of killing either the senator or the judge, but, yes, I think that it is morally legitimate to kill pro-regulation senators and pro-regulation judges, if it can be done without harming innocents.

http://tjic.com/?p=19655/comment-247560

Understandably, many people in the comic community have come out against Corcoran, urging people to stop buying their comics from the retailer. You can find some great coverage of the all of the responses over on Comic Alliance, and Robot 6, so rather than copy and paste from their pieces, I direct you to those excellent sites to find out more.

I will say however, that I add my voice to the chorus of people condemning this vile piece of trash, and I urge you to no longer buy comics from this online retailer. I’ve always been a pretty strong proponent of shopping at your local comic shop rather than online, so I’m glad to say that I’ve never given a cent to this moron.

I think the most interesting response to this came from Nick Spencer, who said on twitter:

I’d like to ask that you… @tjic & your store @heavyink stop carrying my creator-owned work. I respect your right to an opinion, but am not personally comfortable doing business with someone who advocates violence against people they disagree with. I certainly have no power to speak for my publishers and employers, but as an individual creator, I hope you’ll respect this request.

Good on him, though I doubt there is anyway that he could actually stop the retailer stocking his work. More’s the shame!

UPDATE: Brian Clevinger, of Atomic Robo fame, has been a strong supporter of Heavy Ink, since the site’s early day, often urging readers to order Atomic Robo though the site. He has just announced on his blog that he is now cutting all ties with the retail, due to the comments made by Corcoran. Read more about it on Clevinger’s blog: http://www.nuklearpower.com/2011/01/11/heavy-ink/

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