If you missed it, comic creator Valerie D’Orazio spoke out on Twitter about being harassed in the past from blogger/comic creator Chris Sims. Sims was announced as one of the writers behind X-Men ’92 from Marvel (how many months since Marvel’s anti-cyber bullying covers?). Sims also blogs for Comics Alliance (overlook the conflicts of that I guess…). Comics Alliance condemned Sims past, and Sims apologized only after being confronted through the Tweets. The Outhousers have done the best job of documenting the situation, stepping up where other sites failed to live up to past actions concerning similar situations.

You can imagine the asshats that this brought out of the weeds, and D’Orazio has decided she will be closing down her Twitter account on March 31, due to “messages of a disturbing and violent nature.” She’s keeping it open until then “to allow journalists to document her statements on cyber bullying.”

I think it goes without saying, but harassment of any nature is wrong, uncalled for, and disgusting behavior. This whole affair has seen some serious issues on many sides, especially from some blogs, and creators, but the worst behavior are those who have seen this as an opportunity to spew hate and harassment. This is nothing new in our community, and we never seem to learn any lessons from it. We might have made steps as far as having more women in comics and creating comics, but we still fail time and time again to stand against the bullying and exclusion some think are ok. Harassment of any sorts is wrong, and those who promote it or partake should be called out. Those who receive it should be supported. D’Orazio stood up, called out bullshit (and hypocrisy), and suffered for it. Thank you Valerie for standing up, we commend your strength, and are so sorry for what you endured.

(via The Outhousers)