brasca wrote:It's the hypocrisy.
Bingo. Many readers seem to have a very strong and maybe slightly irrational special hatred of hypocrisy. Most of the characters in this comic universe have their full share of flaws, but hypocrisy is actually quite rare, and always seems to trigger an extreme reaction when it crops up.
Zii maybe came close with her "pimping me out" speech to Gary, but if he'd argued the point with her, she could have finessed the issue with quibbles about levels of consent and responsibility in her own shenanigans. Even so, that strip caused a fair amount of flamage on the boards. The character who seemed most deeply hypocritical was Nathan, and he's seen as one of the comics' few downright slimy villains - although actually, he may just be as self-deluded and impulse-driven as ... Dillon.
Talking of whom, different people probably have different exacerbating issues with Dillon. Some think that his treatment of Gary was borderline creepy or just plain bullying (and he may also be seen as bullying Ruby). Others just find his flamboyant campness irritating. He's certainly vain.
And on top of it all, he can seem like a creators' pet. The writers have
said that they like him, and sometimes it seems that all the other characters have to agree with them. Everyone likes him and thinks that he's cute and doesn't want him to change; even the characters who he should annoy mostly put up with him. Jerzy pretty well fell in love at first sight. It was necessary to introduce a completely new character, with a completely different personality type to all the other characters in the comics, just to get someone who could call Dillon out on his BS.
Me, well, I'm another person who'll say that they don't
hate Dillon, and try and keep a straight face in the process. But I do find his camp drama queen style deeply irritating rather than cute, so you won't find me liking him. That's a matter of personal taste, obviously, but it's hardly a unique taste, I think.
TCampbell wrote:Blame me if you like for this particular callback to one of Dillon's
early defining moments. It was my suggestion and I pushed for it. And I stand by it, though it may be a year or more before I know for sure whether it was the right call.
I'd say that it was a
brave decision (Prime Minister). Some of us remembered that early boast, but even without liking Dillon, we could be prepared to regard it as a figure of speech or a bit of early-issue flamboyance. This strip not only brings the subject up again, it confirms that yes, the worst readings were justified; Dillon really
is a deluded hypocrite. That's a lot of audience tolerance to sacrifice, just to confirm that Dillon has flaws.
TCampbell wrote:I wanted it as clear as we could make it that this has never been a story about poor repressed Ruby who just needs to lighten up and learn from the Zen master Dillon, who has everything figured out. That's the story Dillon often thinks he's in, right now, and sometimes it's appeared that way to the reader, too.
I never really saw the story that way, but then I always found Dillon irritating while having a lot of sympathy for Ruby (for entirely personal reasons I'll always acknowledge). What I did suspect sometimes was that the writers were a little too attached to Dillon, so while they couldn't deny that they'd written him with flaws, they maybe found those flaws "cute". Conversely, Ruby is repressed and easily embarrassed, which means that if any strip needs an easy gag, "let's embarrass Ruby some more" is usually the first answer to hand. The first gets irritating to people who don't like Dillon, the second is lazy and seems like cheap piss-on-the-nerds humour to those who like Ruby. If Ruby can actually organise her anger into a coherent reaction here, and give Dillon some of the verbal kicking he deserves, that brave decision may achieve something.