I may be down with the positivity 95% of the time, but, boy oh boy do I love a good internet fight among the comics community. Still, by the end of last week, it seemed that everyone was all hopped up and ready to throw down, or just not digging the vibe in comics right now.

A couple examples?

Friday, Rob Liefeld had been talking about how books are often solicited without being finished, and that despite his reputation, he’d done a lot of work on books that were done, and not solicited. Marvel’s Tom Brevoort called him on it, and they got to bickering in public. Here’s a taste:

A sensible Robert Kirkman stepped in, being the writer on the Killraven project in question, and tried to calm things down, asking “Why are we doing this in public?”. It was just a little bickering fight, but these guys are long time pros and should know better. But it happens.

Also on Friday from Toronto’s FanExpo, we heard of Marvel cover artist and designer Marko Djurdjevic, talking about why he wasn’t going to work at Marvel anymore, and it was reported as a bit of a tirade. You can hear the complete audio here, and judge for yourself.

These sorts of things happen now and then, but I’d spoken with a few creators who just had the feeling that things were a little rough in comics for the moment.

Earlier in the week, Grant Morrison’s Rolling Stone interview made its rounds as well, leaving a lot of fans and creators at one side or the other of some theoretical ideological debate where one kind of superhero comic is better than another kind of superhero comic, in some unnecessary all-or-nothing way. Then Grant is talking smack about Mark Millar and Chris Ware, and it was all titillating, but just a bit uncomfortable.

I started thinking about it, and why that must be, and I was struck with the idea that we’re on the edge of change, and I think a lot of the professional comics community is feeling the same sorts of uncertainty that a lot of fans are experiencing. External forces are at work, and they create stress, and that gets translated, like in any workplace, to people saying dumb shit.

The relaunch of the DC line is upon us for one thing. Regardless of how you feel about it, it’s a big deal. People don’t know what’s going to happen. The publisher and comic shops are hoping for a homerun, but it’s a lot of change to the normally rock-solid status quo. Everyone is watching to see what happens, even the folks over at Marvel who say they couldn’t care less. Along with that is the idea that these comics are going to go day-and-date digital, which is a huge change.

Meanwhile, over at Marvel (and yes there are other publishers, but between those two, we’re talking about most of the revenue in comics), Fear Itself is… there. It was supposed to be their return to event greatness, and even though they repeat that sales are good and the reaction is good, it’s just sort of… there. You can trot out the company line and reprint and do whatever you like, but this isn’t the big comics wide phenomenon that was promised. They certainly aren’t doing Civil War numbers. So what do they do now? They’re going to keep going in the same direction they’ve been going, and hope to drum up some excitement between now and then.

Then, just in general, it’s a tough time to be in comics. Sales, much like unemployment, aren’t showing wonderful news. The uncertainty, along with the end of the summer doldrums, put us in this sort of malaise, where everyone’s just waiting to see what the next big thing will be that floats the comics industry along for another year or so. Where is our next Bryan Lee O’Malley? How far can Mark Waid’s Daredevil relaunch carry us? What will be the next thing that rates better than, “Eh, it was OK,” in comic shop conversation? What will get the folks excited on both sides of publishing? We’re split people! There is no water cooler goliath.

Except for those DC books, and we’ll see very soon how that goes over, and I think the results will be fascinating to watch. Remember, it’s all supposed to be for fun, right?