Doesn’t help when the flames are fanned by commenting “cry more”.

Fair assessment. I deleted the "cry more" comment and another similar one, my apologies, those are indeed uncivil. However, I would like to remind you that until very recently this community was entirely unmoderated, and that slinging insults at reactionaries / sexist / racist folks was the only way to make them go away. I can adjust that behavior now that the place is (hopefully) properly moderated, but it's a different request from the "you are unwelcome here" that your colleague opened with, nor was the "did I stutter" they followed it up with when I was trying to clarify the situation a civil response tbh.

It feels like you might thrive off of rage-baiting like this

My comics are satirical. The point of satire is that it stings when it hits the correct notes. If you think social/political satire doesn't belong in this community, then you should add it to the rules. But that would mean banning a lot of the most famous / classic comics of all time, such as The Far Side, Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Dilbert… hell even Astérix is straight up satire.

Satire is very different from ragebait: it's meant to make people think about preconceptions they have, about topics they don't usually question, by presenting them under a different light that exposes the fundamental hypocrisy behind that situation. Ragebait is just stuff made to piss people off for fun. I don't do such content.

aware of the headache your content is causing to mods as you remarked that this very comic was locked on /r/comics

I am in good terms with the mods of r/comics. We have regular conversations, and never once have they accused my content of being ragebait, complained that I was uncivil (although to be fair the place is actually moderated so I can just report comments over there), or complained that my comics aren't comics. Quite the opposite actually, they enjoy that I (and other popular cartoonists) act as a magnet for unmasking bigots, it helps them get rid of those people.

They locked the thread because it was attracting an overwhelming number of men's right activists, so many more than usual that it had to be a raid from a third party community. It wasn't because they had any issue with the content of the comic or with the discourse that was happening under it (actually there was some pretty good discourse regarding transphobia if the comic is seen under a specific prism that I didn't take into account, which is healthy and important discourse).

My comment that spawned this entire conversation was a commentary on a deep sexism issue that Lemmy has to deal with, especially in unmoderated or poorly moderated communities. Whether I continue posting content here or not, those people will still be there, and you'll have to deal with them sooner or later. Keep that in mind.

All in all, I understand that it's hard to take over a husk of a community and turn it into something better. If you think I don't fit, then fine, your place your rules. Just make sure that decision fits with what the community actually wants (doesn't seem to fit with the votes / scores my content gets + nobody in this community has ever told me my content doesn't belong here), and that everyone here understands what your definition of a comic is, otherwise you're exposing yourself to fragmenting or dulling the community, which is something I don't want to happen even if I do get excluded, as this is the kind of stuff that alienates Fediverse users and hurts Lemmy's overall popularity.

Good luck figuring this all out. Thanks for actually making a proper detailed comment about it. If you genuinely think my content doesn't belong here, then just ban me and be done with it, would be better than your colleague's confusing attempt at trying to act tough. Otherwise I'll continue posting on the usual schedule, as I've been doing for a year now. I enjoy the conversations in here, sometimes it mostly generates rage and negative reactions sure (especially when it's about sexism tbh), but most of the time they're constructive and interesting. See you tomorrow… or never I guess, depending on how you feel. Your move. Good night.

I share comics in Lemmy's main comics community.

They're shared in good faith, with the goal of being relatable and thought provoking content. As all comics are, that's precisely the reason why people make comics, especially satirical ones. I have better things to do with my life than creating chaos for the sake of chaos.

This comic has a good score, a good upvote % ratio, has generated some interesting conversations (and some chaos too, sure).

You told me I am unwelcome in response to a comment that has 89 upvotes vs 20 downvotes at the time of writing this. Are you sure that you understand the community you are representing / moderating? Seems like there's an obvious rift here.

In the end it's up to you, and if you want me gone, then I'll be gone, I'm not here to argue with you. I'd just like to spare everyone (you included) the headache of whatever happens next if you start power tripping. It would lead to the usual lemmy community split, fragmenting the userbase even more, etc. which is not desirable for any of us.

You should really think this through, starting with learning what a comic is, and looking at what the community wants or doesn't want to see here.