YMMV / Ralph Hayes, Jr.

• Values Dissonance:
  • As an unabashed Bible Belt Conservative who is firmly convinced of the correctness of his views, a common problem that readers have is disagreement with some of his values, especially when he goes into the strip comments to hammer home his beliefs about, for example, homosexuality being a sin and transsexuality being a mental disease that should be forcibly corrected. Those fans who like his works and don't agree with his views often liken it to having to occasionally brush off the discomforting moments and focusing on the things about his works they actually like.
  • The dissonance can be so severe that some plots can take truly bizarre twists from the perspective of audience members who don't share Hayes's values. An infamous example was a story in Goblin Hollow where Penny was targeted for public bullying by a blatantly corrupt preacher, which she responded to by calling him out for his lies and hypocrisy. This was treated as her reaching a crisis point as a Troubled Teen and very nearly crossing the Moral Event Horizon by making a scene in church, requiring both severe punishment and immediate intervention. It never occurred to Hayes that there was any other reading of the scene, while readers who saw Penny's actions as heroically denouncing a corrupt authority figure never saw it coming and were horrified.