THREAD: I met Doug Tenapel for the first time at a comic book professional weekend after the Calgary Expo. We were staying in Banff and it was an amazing time. All I knew about Doug was that he created Creature Tech, which was a graphic novel I really loved.

Doug and I hit it off. We talked about a lot of things, including growing up with bodies that did not conform to the norm. He was very tall and skinny. I was very tall and heavy. And how that affected us.

It was clear Doug was a Conservative Christian with some outdated (to me) ideologies, but nothing worse than say, my dad had at the time. The oddest thing he did was make it his mission that weekend to convince me I HAD to have children. (I had told him we had decided against it)

Later Doug asked me to provide voice acting for one of the characters in a video game he was working on (they decided later against using my terrible voice acting and rightly so). But I was honored because among the cast was Mike Nelson and Jon Heder.

When I agreed to do the voice acting for the game, I was first made aware of homophobic and transphobic things Doug had said, which didn't surprise me because the guy I met in Banff was SUPER Christian and that made total sense to me. I mean, it's shitty, but yeah. Duh.

And I talked to Doug about it, and he assured me it was all taken out of context. How he had worked with AIDS patients and refused to wear gloves because it dehumanized him. Etc. And I bought it all. I believed him. Sure why not. And I defended him online even.

But, and here's the important part. MY experience with Doug Tenapel is different from everyone else's because I'm a straight white male. And if you stop for a moment and talk to ANYONE else who's had even a quick interaction with Doug who is NOT a straight white male....hoo boy.

You don't have to look very hard to learn of Doug's opinions about women, homosexuals or progressives. You can literally watch any of his youtube videos at random to learn his thoughts on this. And that's not even getting into his involvement in Comicsgate (don't even start).

So you tell me, how a person who spent countless hours, smoking cigars, sipping whiskey, eating sardines and discussing the wisdom of CK Chesteron, is JUST NOW learning from a podcast episode he didn't participate in, what Doug Tenapel thinks. I call bullshit

Mike Nelson has known for a LONG time exactly who Doug TenNapel is, and he's had no problem with it AT ALL. And I wasn't joking about the CK Chesterton Cigar/whiskey/manly-things club

Oh, I guess it's GK Chesterton. Whatever. CK, GK, dude was an anti-semite.

ALL of this breaks my heart, because Mike Nelson is a very funny performer & Doug is an incredibly talented cartoonist. I love their work and don't get any gratification speaking out against either of them. But they need to take responsibility for their words and actions.