What Pros Owe Fans

Originally published February 4, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1368

The fan walked up to me in the hallway at the convention with a look of great urgency in her face. “Mr. David,” she said.

As usually happens when someone addresses me that way, I reflexively glanced behind me to see if my father was standing there. Belatedly realizing that she was talking to me, I said, “Yes?”

She shook my hand firmly and said, “I wanted to tell you… that conversation we had at this convention several years ago changed my life.”

I smiled warmly. “Did it?”

“All the things you said… I thought about them all, and I made some major changes because of that, and I’m doing great now. And I just wanted to thank you.”

“You’re very welcome. I’m glad it helped.”

Having said her piece, the fan let out a breath as if pleased that she managed to express her sentiments without having done herself any harm. Then she turned and walked off to pursue the improved life which she had ascribed to me.

I had no idea who she was. I had no recollection of the conversation at all. For all I knew, she was hosing me, walking away and chuckling at her personal little joke. But I didn’t think that was the case. She seemed very sincere, and I think she wanted to express genuine appreciation for a Dutch Uncle chat I apparently had with her that altered the course of her existence. Her expectation had been that the conversation had been as seared into my mind as it was into hers.

Except it wasn’t.

But she expected me to remember.

If I had been honest with her, I’d have said that I didn’t know what she was referring to. That if she’d come up and introduced herself as if we were meeting for the first time, I would have been none the wiser. That, however, was not her expectation. She wanted that conversation, needed that conversation, to be as important to me as it was to her.

So I accommodated her. Because I could.

The movie Galaxy Quest has prompted this pondering of just what it is that a person in the public eye owes that public. In that film, an alien race called the Thermians expects the stars of an old SF TV series to be the characters they portrayed and save the Thermians from the nasty intentions of an evil warlord. And the cast winds up rising to the challenge.

A significant omission from the story, however, is a point where the actors actually decide that they owe it to the Thermians to live up to those expectations. They wind up in space purely through a misunderstanding (they think they’re just going to another personal appearance gig) and when they’re faced with the reality of their jeopardy, they make every attempt to cut and run. They never decide that they must stay and slug it out with the bad guys; they’re just never given the chance to depart. Even in the midst of peril, the full level of difficulty doesn’t always register. Faced with potential menace from a herd of blue-skinned nasty things, Gwen DeMarco (Sigourney Weaver) bleats, “We have to get out of here before one of those things kills Guy!” referring to another actor who’s convinced that he, like his security guard character, is dead meat. Gwen never considers that she herself is at risk.

The thing is, we live in a world where judgments are made and expectations are set, based not on who people are, but who we expect them to be. You see this in fandom all the time. Fans can be genuinely enthused to meet you… but if you do not live up to whatever it is they’ve built you up to be, then the speed and vehemence with which they can turn on you can be utterly breathtaking. I know of one comic book editor, for instance, who participates in online postings. He spoke of one poster who previously had been singing the editor’s praises, but had also been posting continuous questions that were increasingly bizarre, irritating or off-point. Finally the editor said, “Enough already.” Instantly the fan turned on him, and proceeded to barrage him with hostile emails. Why? Because the editor had not lived up to the fan’s expectations.

Of course, it can cut the other way as well. Some pros have a reputation for being brusque, unapproachable or even downright nasty. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. And some fans will target these pros and go to conventions to pick fights with them or “stand up to them” on behalf of the legions of fans who were supposedly treated in a high-handed manner.

It’s not as if it’s limited to comic books, of course. How we perceive the world around us is shaped by what we ascribe, not only to certain people, but certain types of people. Case in point: Elian Gonzalez. A good percentage of Americans believe the Cuban child should be allowed to remain here. The entreaties of the father that his son be returned fall largely on deaf ears. Let us remember, though, that this is a country which has elevated motherhood to such a degree that, in custody cases, a single mother would have to be turning tricks on the living room floor while her kids are doing homework before a judge would grant custody to a father. Let’s reverse the circumstances of the Gonzalez case. Let’s say that his father had been the one to smuggle the child illegally out of Cuba. The father drowns. There’s the boy with relatives in America, and poor mom is back in Cuba, crying piteously, “Please, please, I want my little boy back!” Would American sentiment skew the same as it is now? I’d bet not. My guess is that the kid would be back home so fast his feet would hardly have had time to touch American soil. But the case is being judged on the basis of our expectations of specific individuals in specific roles. A mom loves her little boy. What she was doing had to be in his best interests. So it is owed to her memory to keep him here. Period.

And then there’s John Rocker. For some incomprehensible reason, we expect professional athletes to be role models for kids. When did this become a mandate? They’re jocks, for the luvva God. The jocks I knew in high school were the most obnoxious guys around. They were role models if you wanted to learn to act like a bully or a swaggering macho idiot. But when they’re pro athletes, suddenly they’re supposed to be user friendly? Kids are supposed to look up to them?

Yes, yes, I know. There’s a ton of sweet guys out there playing pro ball. And then there’s John Rocker. Okay, fine. He’s a jerk. Wow. A jock who’s a jerk. There’s news. Let’s make that front page material. A swaggering athletic type who doesn’t care if he hurts people’s feeling. Whoa, that type’s rare as hen’s teeth.

In the world where expectations are formed based on the slot one fills rather than the person who fills them, what does, indeed, a professional owe his fans? Fans give the writer, for instance, “personal attention” in that they’re reading the writer’s book. Those same fans then feel entitled to have the writer return some of that. Is that understandable? I suppose. Is it reasonable? No. A writer or artist of comics doesn’t owe the fans anything except to give them their money’s worth when they buy the book or comic book. Simply because you are a person who’s in the public eye, that alone doesn’t obligate you to go any extra mile.

But then again, I’ve had fans come up to me and present me with things I wrote that I think are the worst examples of my writing in existence. If someone tossed them on a pile and doused them with kerosene, I’d light the match and torch them myself (torch the books, that is, not the fans.) And the fans will say, “This is the best thing you’ve ever written!” The first time someone said that, my response was, “Oh, God, I can barely stand to look at it. You’re too generous. I think it’s awful.” And the fan was crushed. I saw the look on his face, realized my error, but it was too late. With one thoughtless remark, I had diminished his opinion of his own taste, or made him feel he’d insulted me, or I-don’t-know-what.

So now, if someone raves about something that I personally would like to remove my name from retroactively, I’ll simply smile and say, “Thank you. That’s very kind. I appreciate that.” Because ultimately, it doesn’t come down to what I owe that person, pro to fan. Rather, it’s what I owe them as a person. As a human being. Simple respect and consideration for the feelings of the individual, rather than the expectations accorded with the status. And that, I suppose, is about the most that you can ask, or expect, of anyone.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)