Ethan Van Sciver is a popular comic book writer and artist, currently working on Hal Jordan And The Green Lantern Corps, but he has worked on New X-Men with Grant Morrison, the first Flash Rebirth with Geoff Johns, has a Composite Superman story in the works with Gail Simone, is the creator of the comic Cyberfrog, which he threatens to bring back every now and then, and the brother of the cartoonist Noah Van Sciver.

He is also one of the few "out" conservative voices and Trump supporters in the comics industry. And while much his more outrageous commentary is restricted to his private Facebook account, sometimes that leaks out.

And yesterday it leaked out big, as comic book writer Matt Miner tweeted out these Facebook screencaps, in a now-deleted post:

And other comic book professionals have also started to comment.

https://twitter.com/SotoColor/status/862486948333703170

https://twitter.com/SotoColor/status/862491856994791426

https://twitter.com/ryanklindsay/status/862549906577215488

I can see telling someone "go fuck yourself" but telling a fan "kill yourself, loser." Now that's hate. — J.Glapion (@jonathanglapion) May 11, 2017

He did have some defenders and recontextualisers, however:

https://twitter.com/bclaymoore/status/862501305545351168

And Ethan himself made an apology on Facebook.

And then a better one on Twitter — now deleted with the rest of his account, as well as a screencap of a donation made to a suicide prevention charity.

As well as this also-deleted tweet:

For some, the apology wasn't enough. There have been streams of negative commentary from comic book professionals on private Facebook pages that haven't been made public.

But Mark Brooks' Facebook page is public. And has as his profile photo, that photo of @tenderslices burning the copy of Secret Empire with his cover. So it's not as if he is immune to controversy. He wrote,

Here are some of the responses from across the industry.

Paul Jenkins had a story to tell about his own interaction with fans, regarding suicide:

To which Ethan replied:

On his private Facebook page, with permission given to reproduce, he posted:

I was talking to another comics creator in the pub last week, considering a guide to creators online on how to deal with social media, with three words: "Delete Your Account". Looks like Ethan has come to a similar conclusion.