The Four Color Media Monitor

The New York Times did a profile of George Gene Gustines, one of their managing editors who's also done comics coverage, and has proven quite the J. Jonah Jameson of real life for their outfit:

George Gene Gustines, whose alliterative byline evokes many a superhero alter ego, has, fittingly, been the unofficial New York Times comic book correspondent for nearly 20 years.

It’s a quirky reporting beat for the newspaper. Yet Mr. Gustines’s expertise in this niche of pop culture has led to more than 800 comics-related articles. And with great knowledge … comes great responsibility.

“I’m sure most of the Times audience doesn’t know a lot about comics,” Mr. Gustines said. “I’m introducing a lot of them to this stuff. There’s a pressure for the stories to be worthy.”

He sure is "introducing" everybody to it. Via leftism, of course. Though in reality, he's following the NYT motto, "all the news that's fit to print". And his brand is exactly why he can't claim he's being responsible, let alone knowledgeable. Say, what does he mean by "worthy"? Much of the NYT's news is such garbage that makes even Bethany Snow's news coverage in the DCU look tame by comparison, that to say there's a request for worthiness is pure hypocrisy. If the NYT's audience, whatever the size, doesn't know much about comics, it's because the paper's long watered down the subject, and there's only so many comics by right-wingers they likely don't say a word about either. Not even Gustines. If he hasn't covered Mike Baron's Thin Blue Line, that should confirm where Gustines is really coming from. Oh, and look what kind of lifestyle he leads:

Mr. Gustines, who was born and raised on the Upper West Side, had an idea, one inspired by a lifelong reluctance to leave Manhattan. His partner, now his husband, had a method for persuading him to travel.

“He always finds a comic book store for me to visit as a way of enticing me to go to different places,” Mr. Gustines said. “I’ve been to a lot of comic stores.”

Why is it unsurprising he'd be in a homosexual relationship, all the while leaving a lot of women without a partner, and won't at least learn to show he's somebody a lady can rely on to build up a safe and happy life? And if he's done coverage of specialty stores, I won't be shocked at how it all leans. Curious they didn't notice his alliterative name has more in common with the Daily Bugle publisher in Spider-Man, and the letter G can be pronounced the same as the letter J. Could it be they're too embarrassed to admit that?

He mustered the courage to propose a connoisseur’s travel guide of sorts.

“It was totally embarrassing; I had to come out as a comics fan,” Mr. Gustines said.

The pitch was accepted. And his byline made its first appearance on a comics-related article.

A few months later, Mr. Gustines heard about an upcoming Green Lantern plotline that centered on a hate crime against a gay character. He pitched the article to an arts editor who assigned it to him.

“That was my big break,” he said. “It taught me about the power of The Times. I’m a dork writing about this, but it had a really big impact.”

So he did some coverage of that storyline in the last 2 years of Kyle Rayner being Green Lantern where a gay teen named Terry Berg turns up (it was mainly written by Judd Winick, who's since largely departed from comicdom in the past decade), runs afoul of the atmosphere the left would like there to be, in an early example of the LGBT propaganda that's become a sad staple of late in mainstream comicdom, which Gustines also covered, along with some other troubling elements:

Across two decades, Mr. Gustines has tackled a variety of comics-inspired articles for several news desks at The Times, including a feature for Styles about the evolution of superhero costumes. In 2015, he broke the news that the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates would pen a new Black Panther series. More recently, he reported that the new Superman, who is the son of Clark Kent and Lois Lane, was coming out as bisexual. Another career highlight, he said, was serving as the assigning editor for a Stan Lee tribute comic, published the same day as the comic icon’s death.

His reporting has been noticed by many comics professionals. His likeness has been depicted by artists in several mainstream comic books, including Daredevil and Action Comics (where Superman made his debut back in 1938).

I have no doubt Gustines really loved learning Coates, whose ideological outlook is exactly what the NYT wants to hear, would be writing for a comics publisher that was tragically taken over by social justice propagandists and anti-Americanists. And is clearly in favor of humiliating the Superman lore with the LGBT agenda. That Gustines was given an editorial job on a supposed tribute to Lee, a man exploited by only so many SJWs to suit their own narrow agendas, is another head-shaker. And Gustines has done all this for the sake of a paper pushing a left-wing agenda while obscuring important news. If would-be comic pros are paying tribute to him as well, that's just as dismaying. In fact, why does he think the NYT still has influence when here, they've been cutting jobs of recent?

Over the course of Mr. Gustines’s career, comic book fans have been able to bask in a more mainstream glow, thanks in large part to the proliferation of superhero-inspired television shows, video games and blockbuster films.

Mr. Gustines has gone from the younger adult who timidly raised his hand to profess his obsession with comics to someone who embraces his identity as a comic book reporter. He said he hopes to one day reach 1,000 comics-related bylines — and to land a comic book story on the front page.

“There’s definitely pride in writing about comics for The Times,” Mr. Gustines said. “We’re surrounded by so many smart people who seem to know everything, which can be intimidating. It feels really great to have an area of expertise that is sometimes beneficial to this place.”

This is such an insult to the intellect, considering they just confirmed exactly why anything goes wrong within comicdom: Gustines was one of the PC crowd fawning over the idea of turning the recently created Jon Kent into a bisexual - or fully homosexual - protagonist for the sake of social justice check boxes, and that only proves he's not a fan but an agenda pusher. As for "smart" people, wow, that sure is pretty rich considering the wrongs they've done, both on the job and off. Gustines, alas, is just a real life J. Jonah Jameson, who's also gone so far as to fluff-coat the worst of Ta-Nehisi Coates' writings, and that's why this puff piece in the NYT is nothing more than a pathetic vanity project laced with virtue-signaling.

Labels: Captain America, dc comics, Green Lantern, history, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Superman