This is why we can’t have nice things: Last week, local mystery writer Chelsea Cain was the target of online harassment over a comic book cover featuring a Marvel heroine wearing a T-shirt that reads “ASK ME ABOUT MY FEMINIST AGENDA.”
Cain’s the author of Marvel’s eight-issue Mockingbird comic series, which we reviewed positively last spring [“Mockingbird Takes Off,” Arts, March 30] in part because of Cain’s depiction of its badass heroine. The series has been canceled, but that didn’t stop Twitter users from criticizing Cain for “ruining my favorite character with your feminist crap,” as Cain says one user put it before she blocked their account. The online harassment began with the publication of the Mockingbird cover, and came to a head Tuesday night. After a spate of online attacks, Cain deactivated her own Twitter account last Wednesday, catching the attention of both feminist fandom blog the Geekiary and fans, who poured support for Cain into the hashtag #StandWithChelseaCain.