2 more crossovers coming from Marvel this year

Marvel simply refuses to cease with the endless flood of company wide crossovers, and IGN in turn refuses to take any kind of objective view of how negatively this affects their now sorely lacking creativity:

Marvel Comics took to the Comics Pro retailer convention to shine a spotlight on two of its biggest 2026 storylines, Avengers: Armageddon and Queen in Black. Both of these crossover events will help to define the ongoing direction of the Marvel Universe in the latter half of 2026.

First up, Avengers: Armageddon is a new limited series from Captain America writer Chip Zdarsky and artists Frank Alpizar and Delio Diaz. Aramageddon is being compared to 2004's Avengers: Disassembled in terms of being a major watershed moment for the Avengers franchise that will completely transform Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

Armageddon builds on the fallout of One World Under Doom and ongoing story threads in Captain America and Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon. As the world continues to reel from Doctor Doom's brief reign, Red Hulk decides to claim the kingdom of Latveria for himself. That sparks a global conflict that draws in the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and Wolverine.

...Meanwhile, Queen in Black is an event spinning out of the pages of Al Ewing's Venom series. [...]

Yup, a crossover based on the writings of one of the wokest writers of the past decade. And two crossovers is simply 2 too many. That this is being compared to one of the worst productions of Brian Bendis - one that degraded the Scarlet Witch - is telling. No matter how this turns out, it's not worth wasting money upon, and its being developed as a crossover at this point is a most serious problem, because of how as time went by, crossovers served to destroy creative autonomy and stand-alone storytelling. This is one of the main reasons Marvel and DC will never recover from the damage crossovers have resulted in long term, so long as they continue to stick with them so casually.

Of course comic readers can read more than just comics

A writer at the Blackshear Times spoke about a political argument he had with some online contact, who seemed to believe comic readers limit themselves almost entirely to that very medium, and have no interest in anything else:

You see, my worthy opponent informed me I live in “comic book fantasyland.” In a subsequent response they indicated I should stick to comics, because I “can’t understand political narrative.”

I can only guess they connected me with comics due to my profile pic, which features the heroes of a publication a friend and I successfully funded on Kickstarter last October. A brief online search of my name might also connect me with a handful of comic related websites and publications. Maybe they have even read my occasional columns about the comic book medium right here in this paper.

They probably thought they had scored some searing takedown, based upon a quick, surface level assessment of my online persona.

You see, the implication is that if you love comics you’re stupid. And if you aren’t stupid, then you are somehow immature or developmentally stunted.

It’s an old insult, as weak and tired as every other lame jab thrown at readers of every stripe no matter their preferred publication (books, newspapers, comics, etc.), most often by insecure people afraid someone knows more about something than they do.

They have good reason to worry too, because comic books lead to actual books. Now, my accuser probably hasn’t bothered with books in years, but when I look at my bookshelves I’m pretty content with what I see. There are plenty of titles which are close kin to comics; Conan, Tarzan, King Arthur and others, but there is also a lot of history, science, philosophy and biographies.

I myself have some Dungeons & Dragons/Dragonlance novels around the house written by Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman, from a time when PC wasn't being forced upon the franchise like it's been today. And I've also got books about real life subjects at home too, including a book or two by UK writer Melanie Phillips, and also the late Barry Rubin. (Update: my household's also got a book about French poetry by Kenneth Canfield, if poetry matters.) I've also read Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, and I've even recently gotten hold of a book by James Kakalios titled The Physics of Super-Heroes, to see what he has to say about the differences between fiction and real life when it comes to sci-fi writing in comicdom. And that just shows how, whether before or after, of course there are comics readers who do take interest in plain-text books. Why, even books with illustrations obviously count to boot, and I read some of Beatrix Potter's children's books like Peter Rabbit and Jemima Puddle-Duck in my youth too, along with Dr. Seuss. If those aren't stupid, why do some anonymous creeps think comics are? Do they also think the same about animation, even Japanese?

Another sad thing about people who put down comic books, which has plagued the medium's reputation for decades on end, is that they couldn't possibly care less if Superman and Green Lantern had remained in the grave after the 1990's Doomsday battle and Emerald Twilight, or if Identity Crisis had remained a full-fledged status quo, or that the Avengers storyline making Hank Pym look like an abuser remained stuck for a long time, that Scarlet Witch was made to look horrific as a result of Disassembled, or that Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson remain kept apart for nearly 2 decades now. Such people, without a doubt, have no appreciation for even the informative subjects that were examined in comicdom over past decades, like how drug abuse and racism are bad, and there were a few storylines that made points why sexual violence is wrong too. Could we perhaps guess why?

In the end though, some of these anonymous posters are people who're just looking for cheap, petty excuses to tell somebody else, "I don't like you", and that's very sad, because it does virtually nothing to improve a bad, divisive situation, and refuses to recognize that being a comics reader doesn't automatically prove you're "uneducated". Those who read comics are more than perfectly capable of reading plain-text books as well, including many tackling serious subject matters that comics are just as valid a medium to explore them in as well.

Czech comic wins this year's Muriel award

Radio Prague International interviewed Pavel Korinek, head of Czechia's comics academy, about a recent story called Oskar Ed by Branko Jelinek, which won the year's Muriel award:

For those who haven’t seen the book, who exactly is Oskar Ed? Is he a fictional character or something more personal?

"Oskar Ed is a fictional character who is in many ways typical of Branko Jelinek’s work. He is a recurring figure, though not in the sense of sequels or traditional series volumes. Rather, Jelinek works with Oskar Ed almost like an actor, a character he places at the centre of different graphic novels."

"In this book, Oskar Ed is a nearly middle-aged man struggling with family issues and dissatisfaction at work, a corporate job that doesn’t truly fulfil him. He is no longer a young man. He is haunted by his insecurities and by his rather precarious personal situation." [...]

And finally, is there a chance that Oskar Ed will reach English-speaking readers? Do you think it could eventually be translated into English?

"Hopefully, yes. Previous books featuring Oskar Ed have already been published abroad — in France and in Poland, for example. The second book was translated into several other languages as well."

"I know there have been attempts to publish Oskar Ed in English. At one point, the well-known alternative comics publisher Fantagraphics in Seattle was considering it."

"I hope that the four Muriel Awards won by the latest Oskar Ed graphic novel will serve as another reminder that something truly exciting is happening in Czech comics, and that English-speaking readers may soon have the chance to encounter Oskar Ed in translation."

I do think drama-based comics like these are what parents should encourage their children to read, certainly far more than action-adventure comics in mainstream today, and it's about time families did give comics like these a go if they really want their children to have something sophisticated to challenge their reading skills. So when will that happen? Exactly why I hope some publisher in the USA takes up the challenge of translating it into English, and also remains faithful to the comic's Czech cultural background.

Stamps based on famous comics and cartoon characters

The US Postal Service has an article about some special commemorative stamps they've developed, based on at least a few comics and cartoon characters in recent times, which includes the following:

• 1997’s Bugs Bunny featuring the animated rabbit leaning on a mailbox with a carrot in hand;
• 2006’s DC Comics Super Heroes, featuring portraits of Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Green Arrow, Aquaman, Supergirl and Plastic Man in a 20-design pane;
• 2015’s Batman, featuring four versions of Batman drawn from different comic book eras, paired with four “bat-signals” that trace the evolution of his character; and
• 2016’s Wonder Woman, featuring four portraits of the Amazon princess from different comic book eras, emphasizing both her physical power and her sense of purpose.

Well at least this kind of venture is more appealing at this point than the artistic fiasco DC degenerated into by that time. But for all we know, even this could end up being craved by the speculator market, and that wouldn't be any better than how pamphlets are repeatedly bought by such decidedly misguided and embarrassing people for the sake of money, and in hopes the newer ones will actually make the same, which first brought down industry in the mid-90s.

Putting comics and cartoon characters on stamps can be creative, and might be preferable to some other forms of merchandise, but even that's no substitute for artistic quality in terms of storytelling.

New ANN report suggests wages for animation in Japan not as bad as previously claimed

In a followup to this previous article, there's now a report on Anime News Network that wages for animation development aren't as bad as what the Asahi Shimbun claimed:

From reports of monthly salaries as low as 160,000 yen (US$1,034) in 2015 to the examples of scant wages seen with 2020's #AnimationPaidMe hashtag, there have been numerous horror stories about working as a newbie animator in Japan—namely, the inability to earn a living wage. To find out if this was still the case, ANN met with numerous industry individuals—from freelance and studio-employed animators to studio heads and animator rights advocates. (This article contains quotes from only a select few of them.)

However, rather than tales of doom and gloom, we found universal agreement that, over the past five years, animator wages and working conditions have improved dramatically. When it comes down to it, this is mostly due to a shift in the inner workings of the anime industry.

“Since the Japanese anime industry continues to expand, we're left with the current situation where there is inevitably a shortage of human resources.” Hiroki Yoshioka, President of animation studio ENGI, told Anime News Network.

Studios are producing more anime now than ever before, but they are struggling to keep up. This is doubly true for 3D animation teams, who face an additional rival for recruiting recently graduated animators, as many 3D animators are more interested in making games than anime, since game companies pay higher wages.

To combat this animator shortage, large-to-mid-size studios—or studios with access to parent companies' resources—have spent the last few years reorganizing their animation departments. “Until about 10 years ago, many animation production companies paid on a commission basis—though they were hiring to a certain extent. However, in recent years, animation production companies have revised their labor standards, making it necessary to hire full-time employees,” Yoshioka explained.

The best place to get these animators? Right out of school. However, that's just the first hurdle. “While hiring characteristics differ between CG and hand-drawn (paper or digital pen) animators, when it comes to hand-drawn animation, one reason for [the difficulty in recruiting] is that the level of training offered at vocational schools and universities is far from sufficient for immediate practical application,” Yoshioka continued. “Therefore, when hiring new graduates, they need to be taught [the job] from scratch.”

Junji Murata, president of MAHO FILM, shares a similar view. “They need to train animators from scratch,” he told us. “Animators are like actors. It takes a lot of training to master first-class acting, so it's not something anyone can do easily—thus, there's a shortage of talent.”

And make no mistake: turning a fresh graduate into a veteran animator is not a short process. “Even if they are paid a fixed salary as full-time employees, their skills are low, requiring companies to continue investing in their employees' growth over an average of five years,” Yoshioka said. “I believe that less than half of these employees reach a level where they can be considered a valuable asset.”

This is right in line with Murata's assessment as well: “Three to five years to become halfway competent. Ten years to become fully competent.”

Well if that's the case, it suggests some animation employees are being awfully fussy when they don't have the full skills needed to qualify, and this in an industry where merit's given higher emphasis than what the USA industry showed in past decades. So, maybe the press was just unwisely playing along without getting the whole story. Obviously, even in Japan this is a problem. So, let's hope some animators will be willing to learn some lessons moving forward about why it pays to prove they believe in being talented as much as in asking for higher salaries. That would do the whole profession a lot more good.

What's been said about Disney's Hey AJ cartoon series and its use of a durag for a superhero

According to Breitbart, there's been backlash against against a cartoon show on Disney called Hey AJ, featuring a character named Captain Durag, based on its alleged employment of stereotypes, including the costume's accessories:

The black superhero character wears a durag on his head in Disney’s Hey, AJ series. The head covering, which is common in the black community and used to protect treated hair or to protect intricate hair braids, has gone from a mere utilitarian item to a cultural statement for many American blacks.

But the cartoon’s use of the headwrap has led some to criticize the Disney character as being insensitive, stereotypical, or even “disrespectful,” according to PrimeTimer.

Criticism of the character includes accusations of tone deafness, lazy writing, and claims the character is somehow engaging in cultural ridicule.

But the creator of the character, Camille Corbett, who is black, has replied to the attacks on her X account.

“I created the character Durag Man, now known as Captain Durag on the Disney Show, Hey AJ and I’m just finding out people are finding it problematic? I just wanted our culture to have a superhero of its own!” she wrote.

As bad as Disney is today, this does sound like a forced overreaction from leftists who're anti-culture, selectively or otherwise, and if so, then of course that's a shame this woke mentality's still around. It's only brought pop culture to a point where it risks being near impossible to create anything challenging, and that's unacceptable.

That said, Disney's still not worth tuning into at this point, and they'll need a much better overhaul of leadership and creativity if they're ever to be considered worth financing again.

A new comic starring M.A.S.K, and a movie adaptation

The Hollywood Reporter announced the launching of a new comic based on the M.A.S.K toy franchise, which also saw an animated adaptation during the mid-1980s, with Robert Kirkman's Skybound publishing outfit overseeing it under the Image banner:

Now, after mostly surviving as an occasional comic and occasional movie development announcement, M.A.S.K. is back in its most high-profile way thanks for Invincible co-creator Robert Kirkman and his Skybound multimedia production banner.

Skybound revealed a new ongoing comic from writer Dan Watters (Batman: Dark Patterns), artist Pye Parr (New Gods), colorist Pierluigi Casolino and letterer Rus Wooton. The announcement was made Friday by Kirkman at ComicsPro, as part of the annual meeting of comic book industry retailers, publishers, and distributors held in Glendale, Calif. The first issue is due to hit comic book shelves via Image Comics June 3.

Okay, good luck to them in following up their acquisition of the GI Joe/Transformers license from Hasbro, which is the main owner of the M.A.S.K toys today, having bought out Kenner in the early 1990s. But I still find it regrettable they're sticking to the notion of producing this foremost as a pamphlet series monthly, and even hinting at a lack of confidence by selling it with variant covers:

The first issue will showcase a main cover by Parr, with a lineup of variant covers from artists ranging from J. Scott Campbell, Cedric Poulat, Mark Spears, Daniel Warren Johnson, among many others.

M.A.S.K No. 1 will also features the first-ever Energon Universe blind bag program that allows fans a chance to get any of the solicited covers, intermixed at varying degrees of rarity. There will also be rare surprise covers that will not be publicly announced in advance of the issue release.

No matter how much I admire Campbell's artwork, I'm not going to soften my stance on why variants have made a joke out of marketing, and if they're concealing the actual covers in special wrapping, that risks making it worse, because it's like they're encouraging everybody to buy multiple copies to see if they can get all variants produced. If that's what they have in mind, it's dishonest and disrespectful to consumers.

And while we're on the topic, Entertainment Ireland says there looks to be a live action movie with one of the most prominent directors from the Fast & Furious series assigned to the job:

...Anyway, a live-action adaptation has been mooted for many years, but now it looks like it's finally coming to fruition as it's been confirmed that F. Gary Gray, director of Fast & Furious 8 and Straight Outta Compton, has been lined up to turn your childhood nostalgia into a workable film.

Gee, what if the finished product is anything but? The Fast & Furious series became tiresome and pointless after 2-3 entries, and when I watched the 8th, what insulted my intellect there was that a murderous criminal was suddenly turned into an ally. That was even more ludicrous than how sexless the approach became by that point. That the franchise even started veering into science-fiction terrain was also pretty risible. I just couldn't take it anymore, so why must we assume Gray will show any sign of improvement with this new movie project?

Yet even the upcoming comics should obviously be approached with a degree of caution, because even if they don't inject stealth leftist politics, that doesn't guarantee the new series will be entertaining. What I do know is that under Skybound, they may have made the Energon universe they've produced more grisly, recalling a page from their Transformers series where it looked like Starscream smashed a human to death. Even if that wasn't graphic or direct, it's still troubling. So what can we expect from a Skybound-helmed M.A.S.K comic? That remains to be seen. For now, let me just say it's insulting to the intellect if anybody thinks new stories based on old toy franchises have to be "adult" in the context of bloodletting, and I'd be much happier if all involved would at least avoid resorting to jarring violence just to "prove" where they can go with older products. It's rather obvious where they can, so they'd do better to avoid being horrific when it comes to mayhem.

Late Oklahoma lawyer's comics collection put up for auction

Another case of classic comics being sold on auction, as told by the Oklahoma Gazette:

A remarkable comic book collection assembled over a lifetime by late Oklahoma City attorney Eric J. Groves is headed to auction this month.

Groves, who died last July at 82, was widely known for his civic leadership, preservation efforts and support of the arts. Less publicly — though no less passionately — he was a devoted comic book historian and collector.

Now, his trove will be featured in Event Auction 65 hosted by ComicConnect, running Feb. 23 through March 15–19. The collection includes first appearances of iconic characters such as Captain America, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Mickey Mouse and Blue Beetle, along with a deep selection of prized Golden Age titles.

There goes another collection straight onto the speculator market instead of a museum. And once more, it's a shame. It's great if the guy was a historian, but why it's okay with anybody involved that the collections just get sold into a sales cycle is stupefyingly bizarre as it's sad.

Old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon show revisited in new IDW comic

Polygon says there's a new comic produced of recent that's supposed to draw from the 1983-85 Saturday morning cartoon TV series based on Dungeons & Dragons being reprinted in archives, and yes, this appears to be published by none other than IDW, which has been circling the woke drain for nearly a decade now:

The Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon aired from 1983 to 1985, and the weird tale of a group of six kids who ride a roller coaster into the fantasy tabletop role-playing game is still inspiring writers and game designers. The characters popped up in the 2023 film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and Wizards of the Coast created an adventure based on the show to introduce the 2024 rules. The series was a big influence on Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans’ dark comic book series Die, and got its own comic adaptation from IDW in 2022, which will be collected into a deluxe hardcover edition releasing this summer.

Dungeons & Dragons: Animated Adventures Library Edition contains IDW’s three Saturday Morning Adventures four-issue miniseries, which are meant to represent lost episodes of the cartoon. The comics are written by David M. Booher (Ghostbusters) and Sam Maggs (Critical Role) and illustrated by George Kambadais (Gargoyles) and Jack Lawrence (Transformers). While the show was set in a generic fantasy world, the comics take place within D&D’s Forgotten Realms campaign setting.

I seem to remember this Maggs as a sex-negative feminist who ruined a Spider-Man video game co-starring the Black Cat. Even the Ghostbusters comic could very likely have been subject to similar wokeness. With these kind of people now employed by IDW, no wonder it's bad they still have a license to publish anything D&D related. The compilation is said to be nearly $50, so that's a lot of money best saved for better things. It's also not very encouraging when they mention the writer who made a mess of Iron Man as somebody who allegedly drew inspiration from D&D.

Since the subject of IDW comes up, Gizmodo wrote another fawning article about their Star Trek comics, and it looks like they made sure to provide woke pandering in them as well:

...Two new celebratory one-shots will also release in May and September. The first coming in May, Star Trek: Celebrations 2026, sees the return of IDW’s pride anthology, celebrating LGBTQIA+ characters from across the franchise with stories from queer creatives. [...]

With this kind of marketing, can they be trusted to deliver a decent D&D comic that's not filled to the brim with leftist ideologies anymore? Far from it. Nor can they be trusted to take a respectable approach to the characters from the 1980s cartoon series, which, IIRC, was produced by Marvel Productions, the 1980-97 animation studio managed by a business invested in Marvel at the time (the name was changed to New World Animation in its last few years). And the credited writers, of course, are also discouraging. I sure hope anybody who already has or may be making deals to publish creator-owned comics with IDW will rethink their arrangements. They lost the license to publish comics based on GI Joe and Transformers. But even D&D will have to be taken elsewhere with such awful wokesters at the helm.

In the end though, the owners of the IPs that were turned into a mess have to shoulder some blame for letting things go south. In the past, Hasbro may have put plenty of oversight on how much creative control and/or autonomy was allowed for licensees. If they own Wizards of the Coast, then whether it's the affiliate or the main managing company, they've failed the D&D franchise at this point, by allowing IDW's writers and editors to turn it into a disaster, and as I'm aware, WOTC has been alienating D&D fans for years already.

Dan Slott sadly returns to Spider-Man

One of the worst of the woke writers who was ever allowed the job of writing Spidey in the past has been rehired by Marvel for the job - undoubtably with C.B. Cebulski's approval - and Comic Book Club Live's making such an irritating fuss over it:

Dan Slott left Marvel towards the beginning of 2025, burning all his bridges with his long-time compatriots to follow his dream of writing Superman for DC Comics. Just kidding, it was amicable, and in fact Slott has already signed up for at least one Marvel project (that would be Fantastic Four: First Foes). And now he’s returning to Spider-Man, just in time for a brand new movie with the new ongoing series Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day. [...]

Slott was instrumental in crafting the original Brand New Day storyline back in 2008, which followed up on the controversial “One More Day” storyline. That erased the marriage of Peter Parker and Mary Jane, but opened up the door for Peter to date such iconic characters as Carlie Cooper, Shay [Editor’s Note: Does she have a last name? Can we check on that?], and I want to say Captain Marvel, maybe? That can’t be right.

It's pretty apparent where the writer stands on the issue of Mary Jane and the marriage. This article is so blatant. Just how have characters like Carlie and Shay become "iconic" overnight, especially when sales were nothing special even back then? If he sees nothing wrong with doing it all at MJ's expense, that's one more reason why Slott's return to Spidey should be avoided.

And this wasn't the only puff piece to come out recently, dishing out apologia in Slott's favor. There was also ComicBook's coverage of the news:

Marvel Comics has just announced that it is returning to one of Spider-Man’s most controversial storylines. Spider-Man has been around since almost the start of Marvel Comics, and there have been some polarizing storylines, to put it lightly. Things like The Clone Wars and One More Day remain among the most hated Spider-Man storylines ever created. However, some storylines get lumped in with those polarizing tales, including the infamous Brand New Day story that followed Spider-Man’s deal with Mephisto in One More Day. It is that classic timeframe that Marvel is returning to, with a new series that Marvel claims will affect today’s storylines.

Marvel announced that Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day debuts in May, with Dan Slott returning to the title with artist Marcus To (X-Force). The storyline sees Dan Slott returning to the story in which he started his long and successful run on Spider-Man comics, and he has a chance to tell a new story that will play into what is happening in Spider-Man books today.

Spider-Man Creator Talks New Brand New Day Storyline

Dan Slott has written more Spider-Man comics than almost anyone in history, proving that his run on Brand New Day was the start of something special, and not as bad as some fans might remember. This comes down to the writer’s love for the character. “Spider-Man is my favorite character in all of fiction. Heart on my sleeve here—I love writing Spider-Man,” Slott said in the press release. “We’re going to reveal hidden secrets and plant explosive seeds that will pay off and affect what’s happening in Spider-Man’s world today! These will be stories that matter and that will have major consequences!

Anybody who's going to be as contemptuous of Mary Jane as even Slott was has no love for Peter either, and the way they repeatedly dangled carrots was atrocious. It's no accident the columnist made such a laughable statement. But it's also sad how tons of money were completely wasted on these stultifying directions taken. And "reveal" secrets? They already forced said secrets onto the cast members in Sins Past; we don't need more of this tripe.

The new Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day series will see Slott returning to the Brand New Day storyline, which ran from 2008 to 2012 and saw the creator tasked with relaunching Spider-Man’s story after the controversial One More Day, which was a storyline by J. Michael Straczynski and Joe Quesada. Slott did the best he could with the cards he was dealt and actually delivered a series of great Spider-Man stories for hundreds of issues, including introducing Superior Spider-Man.

The entire plan for Slott was to relaunch Spider-Man in a new world where no one knew his identity, Harry Osborn was alive again, and Peter Parker’s marriage to Mary Jane never happened. While that latter event is what most fans look at the story with distaste, Slott delivered some incredible stories, and this is the canon that Spider-Man lives in to this day in Marvel Comics. The idea of going back to this time period and introducing something fans have never seen before, while setting up some new future stories, is very exciting news.

Once again, somebody downplays the extent of the damage, to say nothing of failure to admit it was all useless. But it's clear where he stands regarding Mary Jane. The chances Marvel will reverse the fate of the Spider-marriage are slim, but if they do, it'll be insulting to the intellect that a writer as dreadful as Slott would be given the task, much like how Brian Bendis, IIRC, got the task of resurrecting Mockingbird in his Avengers writing. After all, that was obviously an attempt to persuade audiences to validate a bad writer, and such psychology is simply reprehensible as it's disrespectful to the audience, after all the harm Slott and Bendis caused back in the day.

And even if the Spider-marriage is restored, when you have leftists like Slott and Bendis around, you can't expect them to avoid lacing their stories with some kind of woke garbage, no matter what direction they take. After all, that's what led to J. Michael Straczynski's pretentious run on Spidey during 2001-07.

Japanese survey reveals many animators dissatisfied with the wages

2 months ago, the Asahi Shimbun reported wages in the anime industry aren't all that different from what the USA cartoon industry may have been said to pay in past decades:

A new government probe has exposed deep frustration among the artists who power Japan’s animation and film industries, where low pay and opaque business practices contribute to unstable working conditions.

An overwhelming 89.4 percent of film directors and staff, along with 52.1 percent of animators, said they were not satisfied with their current pay, according to a survey released on Dec. 24 by the Fair Trade Commission.

Many respondents complained that their compensation fell short of rising living costs and that the fees offered for their work were inherently low.

Some also reported that negotiations either failed to produce acceptable rates or were not available at all.

Yes, that's a shame, because for all we know, failure to pay well could one day lead to the downfall of the Japanese animation industry if they don't pay their employees as much as they're expected to produce. Even back in the USA, there's similar problems that have undoubtably come to head after so many years, and who knows, even that may bring down American animation one day, though let's not forget that, when any studio starts pushing leftist political propaganda into their cartoons, they can't be surprised if they don't do so well in the end, and as a result, the studios may not make enough money to continue paying their animators as well as they'd like. Yet depending how woke the animators are, it may not be easy to feel sorry for them if they don't make the fortunes they're hoping to accumulate.

For now, maybe Japanese studios should consider making an effort to raise the wages for their employees. And if video game producers suffer similar problems, maybe they should follow suit.

Some history of an early Fantastic Four issue's story and of Lee/Kirby, that may have unfortunately been exploited for political propaganda

A writer for City News in Canberra, Australia, tells about the 51st issue of Fantastic Four, but there's suggestions this item was written as a stealth political statement. First, here's something he tells about team leader Mr. Fantastic:

The thing is, nestled among those treasures, and appearing in Australian newsagencies in early August 1966, at exactly the same time I first appeared too, was the little known number 51.

It’s worth a small fraction of the others and is a lame and ordinary 20-page story introducing a villain (the evil scientist Ricardo Jones) who was so uninteresting that he dies at the end of the story and was never seen again.

From the moment I first read it, it is my favourite comic book of all time and I read it about once a year, whenever my wife rereads Pride and Prejudice. It’s got fewer bonnets but more explosions so, you know, swings and roundabouts.

The story is simple. In every issue since number 1, Reed Richards, famed scientist and the leader of the FF, promises but fails to cure his best buddy Ben Grimm from being a monster made from rocks, known as The Thing.

I think a moment must be taken to point out that Mr. Fantastic didn't promise or practice curing the Thing in virtually every issue at the time, and certainly not within 2-3 decades of its debut, so why is this being exaggerated? That the writer seems to be putting down the story despite suggestions to the contrary is also galling. Here's more:

The story begins with Ben being so frustrated at never getting cured that he falls in with the Evil Scientist, who is jealous of Reed’s fame and fortune.

The scientist successfully turns Ben back into a normal man. Ben races to his girlfriend’s house to show off his normality and finally propose. Evil scientist is turned into the rock monster himself and impersonates The Thing, his plan being to destroy the hated rock-star scientist Reed Richards. [...]

Classic comics melodrama demands that when the evil bloke dies, Ben, about to propose to his girlfriend in his handsome human body, instantly turns back into the ugly Thing and fails to pop the question. Alicia, we know, doesn’t care what he looks like and loves him for him, but he never sees it.

When I was 11, life was often hard. I read that comic 20 times and felt such shame that I related more to the evil scientist than to Reed and Ben, our heroes.

I understood his loneliness and anger so much better than their easy success, belonging and having a best friend. I loved the redemption that could be gained from a single act.

Kindness to me is finding all those people who are behaving like the evil scientist, blaming everything for things they cannot grasp, and showing them all the love and respect we can, to open their own hearts.

People who have undergone unfair treatment, fear, and despair and seek recognition or refuge in our modern Australia – people who’ve been here for six years or 60,000 – there’s plenty here who need our love today more than ever.

But is there room for people who follow bad ideologies/religions and commit terrible crimes stemming from that? I get this strange feeling this was written as a form of apologia for Islam's entrance into Oz, and if it was meant for that purpose, that's very disturbing, considering all the damage that occurred in decades since till now. It's also disturbingly worrisome how the columnist implies he's sympathetic to people who commit crimes, and raises another troubling issue - there seem to be quite a few people like these who created a situation that got worse over the years where they pivot to loving the villains more, presumably because heroes are "boring"?!? That's practically what led to Hollywood glamorizing crime. Just what are people like these thinking? Is this how they thank Lee/Kirby for all their hard work? And just what "easy success" did Reed and Ben have? Considering the former failed several times to fully restore the latter to his human form for long, that's not exactly what I'd call success. Also, Reed had fallouts with wife Susan Storm, and while they did eventually mend fences, the whole notion everything was rosy in the FF's series up to the early 2000s is colossally exaggerated by these propagandists. Also, opening your heart to somebody who could follow an ideology built upon evil and oppression is naive and dangerous.

The above column, unfortunately, led to another one that appears to have been written even more noticeably for said apologia goals. First though:

How much of the resultant work was Lee and how much was Kirby, is a furiously debated topic in comic book circles. But what is clear is that it needed both of them to make it special.

Sadly, as the years passed, Lee would claim sole credit for the Fantastic Four, framing Kirby as simply an artist-for-hire. Kirby was deeply hurt and eventually left Marvel for DC. Fantastic Four continued under Lee and other artists, but the spark was gone.

And this is little more than another subtle putdown, when they make it sound like Kirby was the only artist who ever gave it energy. What about John Buscema, John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Carlos Pacheco and goodness knows what other artists were involved up to the turn of the century? Anybody who's going to minimize the impact of FF the way both columnists have done is not writing these history pieces altruistically. I think it's a shame Lee and Kirby fell apart, but what the writer says in regards to the entertainment value going forward is still no excuse. And now, here's another clue this article was meant more for propaganda purposes:

Like Lennon and McCartney, the creative rift between Lee and Kirby was never fully resolved before their deaths. Which brings us back to Antonio’s characteristic question about kindness. How should two big egos work together?

While healthy to have, egos should never be left untempered. We know this since Renaissance times when the cloistered cathedrals of Europe interacted, often turbulently, with the polymathic Islamic world.

Gee, this sounds an awful lot like somebody's trying to make the Islamic world look far better in every way, at the expense of say, the Israeli world's innovations. Naturally, he never gets into what innovations or polymathism the Muslim world allegedly produced, when more honest research would make clear that's not literally the case. And is he implying the Christian church wrongly attacked the Islamic world, but not the other way around? Wow, this practically obscures persecution of Christians in Nigeria. The columnist should be ashamed. Towards the end of the City News column, here's what's additionally fishy:

I was 16 and saw a classifieds ad for “a box of Marvel comics”. Travelling by train to Strathfield, I walked several blocks to be met by a guy who explained that his uncle (a single man) had died and that they were selling his house contents.

What emerged were, not one, but several boxes of comics – a complete run of Fantastic Four from issue 22 to 116, plus other ’60s Marvel titles, all in excellent condition.

I can’t remember exactly what I paid – perhaps $100, which was a lot for a 16-year-old at the time – but I do remember the crazed, Joker-like, grin on my face as I shoved a fistful of $20 notes into the seller’s hand. It took two arduous trips to get them home and they’ve been with me ever since.

When I look at them now, I like to imagine that dead uncle smiling at me from above, pleased that his collection is still being loved and read, rather than sealed in a vault, awaiting a Sotheby’s sale. Some pretty strange teamwork, that’s for sure, but the world works better with strange teams.

Which is in no way a segue to my normal political milieu, to cheekily encourage a Greens/Liberals partnership. Mind you…

Ah, how fascinating. Sounds like this must be some stealth leftist propaganda as well, which only dampens the impact of the comics segment even more. And begs the question - was this article intended as comics nostalgia, or as political propaganda?

Some so-called historians sure know how to exploit the creations of people they may not like and insult everbody's intellect, all for the sake of advancing their ambiguous political goals. With the worst part being when they're not willing to be clear and state their exact beliefs. Such people, as a result, have no business commenting on comics history.

Actor who played Superman in 1990s TV show may have been blacklisted from convention over his conservative leanings

Pajamas Media recently reported that actor Dean Cain, who played Superman in the 1993-97 Lois & Clark TV series, may have been banned from GalaxyCon over his right-wing standings:

Superman actor Dean Cain is exposing the truth about an attempt to blacklist him in Hollywood for openly expressing his conservative political beliefs. Cain is best known for portraying the Man of Steel in the hit 1990s series Lois & Clark, where he embodied the Last Son of Krypton for an entire generation of fans, myself included. Don’t get me wrong — my two favorite actors to play the character remain Christopher Reeve and Tom Welling — but Cain did a fantastic job bridging the gap between the two and bringing Superman back to television.

Without Lois & Clark, there would be no Smallville. Cain deserves respect for keeping the franchise relevant at a time when the Man of Tomorrow had begun to fall in popularity, regardless of his political beliefs. Unfortunately, liberals often seem incapable of seeing beyond a person’s politics. I consume plenty of art from people I vehemently disagree with. I still respect many of those artists as people, even when their values directly oppose mine. It can be done.

Cain took to social media this week and shared a screenshot of an email he received from an employee at GalaxyCon, a company that organizes fan conventions, explaining why the company would not work with him. The email cited a difference in “values” as the reason.

“In regard to Dean Cain, although I have a soft spot in my heart because he sent me an autographed postcard in the mail when I was like 10 years old, GalaxyCon’s values don’t align with Dean,” the message stated. “[Redacted] also reaches out to us quite often, but we are also going to pass on him.”

The conservative actor publicly addressed the message and accused GalaxyCon of using vague “values” language to justify blacklisting him over ideological differences. In his post, he wrote, “This is how they try to blacklist…” followed by an eye-roll emoji.

I think this makes for a good reason to boycott the convention if they're going to let their leftist ideological outlooks govern their whole MO. It also explains perfectly why right-wing businesses have to start establishing their own conventions, and not rely solely upon what leftists set up. If they'd get that through their heads already, we probably wouldn't be in such dire straits.

According to Fox News, Cain appears to have contacted the official director of Galaxycon, and they may have reconciled:

Cain said he does not fault Sarah, GalaxyCon’s vice president of talent, personally, describing her as a messenger rather than the ultimate decision-maker.

"I don’t blame Sarah for being the messenger here," Cain said. "The owner of GalaxyCon is named Mike Broder. I’d love to hear his explanation re: my values."

That explanation, Cain said, eventually came after he spoke directly with Broder.

"Spoke with Mike — appreciate the conversation," Cain said. "We agreed to disagree on certain things — but it turns out, our values aren’t so far apart."

Cain said the exchange reinforced his belief that conversation — not exclusion — is the way forward.

Mr. Broder may have retreated from any blacklist he attempted, but what if he pulls it again on another performer or comics creator in the future? He has to publicly address this on TV or radio, because this cannot go on, and must cease. I'd seen news in the past year since Donald Trump's election that there's people who want wokeness to end, and they're right. If GalaxyCon doesn't want a boycott of their convention, they'd do well to set a starting example of one that doesn't take that kind of path, and a good way to build confidence is to invite a busload of conservative figures to their upcoming panels.

One of the reasons I find this news so reprehensible is because Cain once produced a documentary about the Armenian genocide committed by Turkey's Islamic Ottoman empire during WW1, and visited Israel in the past decade, and here Mr. Broder's thanking him by trying to blacklist him? Does that mean Mr. Cain can't talk about how say, a role like Superman taught him a thing or two about altruism for real life? Well if one's not allowed to raise serious issues like those at an establishment like GalaxyCon, then what's the whole point of the convention? All they'd be doing is setting a double-standard on political issues. I should hope Cain's conversation with Broder will prevent any such hypocrisy in the future.

Much too late for Alex Ross to work on a new Marvel project

Over 3 decades ago, artist Alex Ross worked on Marvels with Kurt Busiek, which was a form of nostalgia. Now, the Hollywood Reporter's announced that Ross is returning to do a new item for them, a few years after he'd worked on another project starring the Fantastic Four:

Comic book painter Alex Ross burst out onto the comics scene in the mid-1990s when he produced a one-two punch of electrifying and celebrated works, Marvels for Marvel Comics and Kingdom Come for DC Comics. For a good chunk of this century, however, he has become known mostly for his lush and colorfully vivid covers for Marvel.

Readers were treated to the full Ross experience when he returned to writing and drawing interiors for his widely-praised 2022 graphic novel Fantastic Four: Full Circle.

And while that was the first Ross book in years, fans don’t have to wait as long for his next opus, one that could be as ambitious and impactful as his classic works.

Ross has written and illustrated Marvel Dimensions, an all-new 112-page graphic novel that Abrams ComicArts, in partnership with Marvel Comics, will release in September.

Much of the story is being kept under wraps, but it’s meant to be both a tour of the classic Marvel Universe and something much more expansive. It’s said to be a work that experiments in both art and form, and could introduce upwards of 200 new characters, or at least that many variations of characters.

“It’s meant to be as bonkers a ride for the reader as it could possibly be,” says Ross teasingly to The Hollywood Reporter. “You’re getting one kind of entertainment, and then it changes on you midstream and then you’re getting a different art style suddenly, and then you’re wondering, ‘Where’s this going?’ And then the format changes within the book itself, a mid-book format change. All these things hopefully seem to unify and combine and come back together, but it’s meant to be a wild ride that is throwing everything plus the kitchen sink at you.”

What if it turned out any and all of the "new" characters they speak of were written for the sake of woke brownie points? Not to mention that, years after continuity was ruined and turned incomprehensible, it's pretty rich to tempt everyone with the claim Dimensions will be a tour of the "classic" universe, even as the modern one desecrates all that and worse. A story dealing with the old universe is no substitute for a respectable tale set in modern times.

Even under C.B. Cebulski, there's been only so much that's remained damaged, it does little good to market a project like this, when a single product alone isn't reason enough to resume reading their output. They vehemently refuse to restore the Spider-marriage and Iron Man's parents as biological ones, or quit producing the mess they've made of X-Men and Avengers, and then they actually think we're going to let go of our principles just because they promote a project based on "nostalgia"? No, it's no simple matter at all.

I do appreciate that Ross firmly and wisely refused any part of DC's Identity Crisis over 2 decades ago. But that's exactly why he shouldn't be associating with the Big Two based on what people run them now, which will not change so long as they're under conglomerate ownership. Why, does he even believe this'll sell millions years after rising prices gave many customers pause? It's delusional to believe Dimensions will be much different sales-wise.

Some coverage of a Cleveland specialty store that's out of touch with the real picture

The Land did some coverage of a comics store in the Cleveland area, and the way they describe all this is sadly not looking at the modern picture of where mainstream comicdom sunk down to:

Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop feels less like a retail space and more like a place where stories are handed down. Some people come in looking for something specific, some people come in just to browse, but everyone leaves with something. A kid walks around looking at a Spider-Man book, a longtime customer flips through new releases on a table in the center of the store, each one of them there for the same reason. They’re a part of a community.

This is part of why comic books endure. They survive because we share stories with each other. It is a part of how we got to where we are culturally. Comic book heroes are America’s mythology. Much like England has its Arthurian myths and Greece has its Hercules, we have Superman, and places like Carol & John’s are the reason why our heroes have endured for generations.

But do we have these creations appearing in modern stories that are readable anymore? Sadly, quality's gone down so badly, with Superman's downfall in story merit just the beginning. Yes, comics as a medium can survive in some form or other, but what about IPs owned by conglomerates? Why doesn't that matter?

For Dudas, the story stretches back even further, to a great-grandfather who used comic books as a bridge into a new country.

“My great-grandfather was a Polish immigrant,” he said. “He could speak English, but he couldn’t read or write it. So he would learn from the context by reading comic books.”

When his great-grandfather died, the comics were left to the kid who cared. Dudas was 6 or 7 years old and studied them closely. By the time he was 12, he was working in a comic shop. Then, later, he and his mother opened their own.

“Between my great-grandfather and my daughters, it’s five generations of comic books in the city of Cleveland,” Dudas said. “I could talk to my great-grandfather about Superman, and I could talk to my daughter about Superman.” It’s a bridge that ties them.

That inherited understanding is what turns stories into cultural touchstones. Spider-Man and Captain America aren’t just characters. They’re mirrors. These stories persist because their morality transcends eras and they answer the same questions for every generation. Questions about responsibility, sacrifice and how tough it can be to be a righteous person when it is so easy to give in and quit.

That, alas, is what modern leftists writers did, in a way. This part completely obscures the disaster Cap's stories became in 2002, after the regular series was cancelled and a Marvel Knights series replaced it, which turned out to be apologia for Islamic terrorism. It was so stunningly vile, and quickly degenerated into even more aimless propaganda that seemed more about blaming America than actually solving problems like barbarism in modernity. IIRC, that series was easily the shortest lived of the Knights imprint, being jettisoned after 2 years, but the damage that began there was sadly never fixed, and successive editors/writers/artists never tried to avoid the kind of pettiness that first brought down Cap as an icon, seeing how later, there'd be stories where Steve Rogers was repeatedly replaced by other characters, some of whom were diversity-pandering tokens, and the worst moment was when Cap was made to say "hail Hydra". And Joe Quesada never apologized for what he enabled.

I think it's impressive the store owner's great-grandfather learned reading from comics, but the way this article airbrushes the bigger picture concerning the moral collapse of mainstream comicdom is very appalling.

I asked John whether comics had always shaped who he was, or if it was something that he discovered about himself later in life.

“I’m a better man for it,” he said. “My morality was developed around it.”

But was that decades ago? Because not many people seem to have grown attached to the creations since, and morality isn't developed based on the newer stories post-2000, based on the defeatist politics and ideologies they fell victim to since.

On Free Comic Book Day, thousands of people pass through the doors, and tens of thousands of comics are given away. The store provides free vendor space for local artists, hosts cosplay groups, and runs charity events that have helped generate more than 200,000 meals for the Greater Cleveland Food Bank. Free Comic Book Day is scheduled for May 2 this year.

On a Saturday, standing in the middle of the shop, that story becomes easy to read. Comic books endure because we need heroes. Not perfect ones, but flawed ones who try the way we try. We pass these stories down because they help us explain who we are and who we want to be.

“I believe in the hobby,” Dudas said. “I believe this hobby makes you a better person.”

I'm afraid the hobby alone doesn't do that. It depends on if you understand any of the messages clearly, show the guts to tackle challenging issues, which wasn't what the Knights volume of Cap did, seeing how it followed a leftist Blame-America narrative. Why, even reading literature alone doesn't make one a better person, if said literature happens to be built on negativity. It's a shame we seem to have here folks too full of themselves to show the courage to admit that, like Hollywood movie production, even comicdom's fallen victim to political correctness that won't be fixed by painting a superficial picture of the hobby that doesn't acknowledge what's gone wrong over the years. Also, have they considered what a disturbing emphasis on villainy turned up in the past 2 decades, sometimes at the heroes' expense? That kind of approach is also what brought down Cap, and makes it hard to believe Marvel's staff at the time respected heroism. Comicdom may continue to survive, but if store owners aren't willing to raise all the relevant issues, all because they may worry publishers won't do business with them, then they've failed again to solve anything.

News about artist Dave Brown

For Black History Month, Mid-Michigan Now/Fox 25 gave a report about how comics artist Dave Brown built up his career:

Detroit artist Dave Brown has transformed his lifelong passion for art into a successful independent comic book career. Growing up in a creative family, Brown was inspired by his father, an artist who specialized in landscapes and portraits. "I always wanted to draw," Brown said. "I started drawing Ninja Turtles... I had the love for it and kept going."

Brown honed his skills at Wayne State University and through years of experience on the convention circuit. His wife encouraged him to showcase his work at conventions, which led to collaborations with local writers and creators. "I can start doing this myself really," Brown said.

As an independent artist, Brown writes, illustrates, and self-publishes his own comic books, covering genres from family stories to horror and sci-fi. He emphasizes the importance of representation, especially for his sons. "I never really seen a black superhero that stood out," he said.

On this, I would like to make a crucial point that, without building on merit, of course nothing's going to stand out, and today, after all the damage done to Marvel/DC by cynical editors and publishers, even white superheroes don't stand out anymore, because almost nobody cares about the whole genre anymore. And if representation matters, how come nobody seems to go by nationality? Don't countries like Cameroon have what to draw inspiration from?

So good luck to Mr. Brown with his career, and he's doing the right thing by staying close to the indie world, but once again, we have an example of somebody who's not building an argument or vision based on the importance of merit. And seriously, I think it's a shame if he's working in the horror genre, because there's far too much of that these days. The sci-fi and family genres are what matter more.

Federal judges not accepting lawsuits against Neil Gaiman

The victims of Gaiman may not get the justice they seek in a court of law, as this Breitbart/AP Wire report notes:

Federal judges have dismissed three lawsuits accusing bestselling British fantasy author Neil Gaiman of sexually assaulting his children’s nanny in New Zealand four years ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich filed a lawsuit against Gaiman and his wife, Amanda Palmer, in Wisconsin in February 2025, accusing Gaiman of multiple sexual assaults while she worked as the family’s nanny in 2022. She filed lawsuits against Palmer in Massachusetts and in New York on the same day she filed the Wisconsin action.

Gaiman has a home in northwestern Wisconsin, and Palmer lives in Massachusetts. Pavlovich moved to drop the New York lawsuit against Palmer in May, explaining in court documents that she filed an action in that state because Palmer had recently relocated from New York to Massachusetts and she was unsure which state had jurisdiction. U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil in New York City granted the request in June.

Pavlovich also dropped the portion of the Wisconsin lawsuit against Palmer in May, and U.S. District Judge James Peterson in Madison dismissed the rest of it in October, saying Pavlovich needed to pursue the case in New Zealand. U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton in Boston threw out the Massachusetts filing on Friday on the same grounds.

It's sad that there's cases like this where only the court of public opinion can help deliver a much needed penalty to the offender, who may never face jail time or even a monetary fine for his offenses. Gaiman's career may be washed up, but once again, we have a sad case of a would-be celebrity who's all but getting away with serious violations as the legal system's regrettably not willing to enforce the law against him. Though it makes clear how, nearly a decade after the MeToo era, things haven't improved.

How are Canadian specialty stores managing now that Diamond's out of business?

Something I may have vaguely noticed in the past few months, but was unable to address until now, is that Diamond Distribution went throughly out of business; more than just filing bankruptcy. The CBC's looking at how this affects specialty stores in provinces like Newfoundland:

Comic book shops and a publisher in St. John's are still grappling with the repercussions more than a year after a major distributor declared bankruptcy.

Diamond Distribution, one of the world’s largest English comic book distribution companies, filed for bankruptcy in the United States in January 2025. For decades, it had been a supplier of comic books, board games, collectives and figures.

“Truly, everything you see in my shop, like, at one point I could have ordered from Diamond,” said Kerri Neil, owner of Downtown Comics in St. John’s.

Neil now orders from eight different distribution companies to stock her shelves. She said there were problems with having just one company dominating the industry, and it was expensive to use with the U.S. exchange rate and shipping from New York to Montreal and finally to St. John’s.

“As soon as we could jump ship … we were out of there,” said Neil.

But having to order from multiple companies can be a headache for small business owners, Neil added.

I realize many specialty stores are small business incarnate, but even so, nobody should be held hostage to just one single distributor if, in the end, they rip off the clients as Diamond did, including the following:

Black Panel Press founder Andrew Benteau said he previously used Diamond as a distributor and was owed thousands of dollars when the company went bankrupt. He has since been able to secure IPG as a distributor.

“We've had no revenue from books distributors since … [the] end of 2024 until last week, we got a payment of $600,” Benteau said.

As a result, he’s taken a second job in advertising.

So there's another business that got short-changed by Diamond, and no telling if they'll ever be repaid. Seriously, it was a mistake for retailers to rely solely upon their business years ago, and a shame if nobody would establish competitors years before. Now, many are finally trying, but maybe they should consider that some formats for comics like the pamphlet have to be jettisoned in favor of the paperbacks/hardcovers. If they'd consider, it just might alleviate the difficulties now faced in seeking distribution and how its done. Just like USA retailers, even Canadian specialty stores should give that some thought.

J. Scott Campbell draws Carol Danvers in her original 2nd outfit as Ms. Marvel

Artist Campbell took a most interesting assignment along with colorist Sabine Rich on a Marvel cover featuring a lady who's been wronged for nearly 15 years, all for the sake of being pushed out of her original codename and costume for the sake of a politically motivated direction and character in her stead:

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This certainly is quite pleasantly surprising on its own, though a title like "Dark Past" is cause for caution, no matter you look at it, based on the people now in charge of Marvel. Indeed, nobody should be foolish enough to trust them not to screw up again, even if they've shown signs and suggestions they're finally willing to move away from the repellent directions they took with Danvers in the past decade. They're also going to have to stop promoting the Muslim Ms. Marvel based on the background they gave her for political reasons, and it would do a lot of good if they'd remake the character into one that doesn't adhere to the Religion of Peace. Until then, it would be best to put the character on the shelf for a long time to help get over the stench they left as a result. That Marvel, under Axel Alonso at the time, went out of their way to produce leftist propaganda like that only wound up increasing the damage, and undoubtably, even now, much of said damage still remains and will continue to be there for as long as they're still publishing under the ownership of Disney.

Campbell's illustration of the real Ms. Marvel is something to appreciate, but let's consider that it is still just a cover drawing, and Marvel's books today can't be judged by just the cover.

This kind of history may be eyebrow raising, but is it really "wild"?

The Saturday Evening Post wrote about 10 stories from comics history they describe as "wild", and while that may be the case for some, I don't think such a description fits the bill when it comes to the following about a certain late cartoonist:

In their heyday, Ham Fisher, the creator of Joe Palooka, and Al Capp, the creator of Li’l Abner, were superstars of the comics pages. They were also bitter enemies who engaged in a years-long feud over the origins of Li’l Abner that ultimately destroyed them both. Their animosity came to a head when Fisher, in a pique, accused Capp of hiding pornographic images within the panels of Li’l Abner. Almost no one believed the accusation, and it destroyed Fisher’s reputation. He was drummed out of the National Cartoonists Society and took his own life shortly after. But Capp was no saint. In the 1960s and ’70s, several women accused him of sexual impropriety. Capp pled no contest to certain accusations, which led to hundreds of newspapers dropping Li’l Abner from their pages.

Yes, I know all about that sad history regarding Capp, who also offended actress Goldie Hawn decades before. And what he did is much worse than what the now deceased Scott Adams was accused of. Capp may not have concealed smut of the sort Fisher accused him of, but I do recall seeing an illustration or two from Capp's work that were troubling in terms of implied male-on-female violence. And that certainly doesn't reflect well on his reputation viewed in context of the sexual offenses he was accused of.

That said, this particular history isn't what I'd call "wild". It's just sad and disgusting. Here, Capp could've made an effort to stick to a more positive path, and instead, he became one of the earliest examples of a comics specialist who did horrible deeds, and now, if Lil' Abner's obscure by today's standards, it shouldn't be a surprise.

Specialty store manager in Ventura County "contracted" to sell classic comics

The Ventura County Star tells about a man in the region who's making a living selling classics like the Action Comics premiere from 1938 "under contract":

The Ventura County comic book store owner sat in economy on a flight to Sarasota, Florida. In the backpack, sheathed in a hard-cased shell insulated by bubble wrap, was an original Action Comics No. 1. Heague is contracted to sell the 1938 comic book that features the first appearance of Superman and also marks the introduction of superheroes.

There are maybe 125 copies in the world. One in near-mint condition, once owned by and stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, sold at auction for $15 million in January.

Action No. 1 is not just a big deal. In the world Heague has been obsessed with since he bought Web of Spiderman and Green Lantern comic books at the age of 8, it is the biggest deal.

“It’s a unicorn. It’s such a rare thing,” Heague said. “What I have – the stores, my very existence – it wouldn’t exist without Action No. 1.”

Heague, the personable architect of a social media network that includes 22,000 Instagram followers and 9,000 on Facebook, owns Arsenal Comics & Games in Newbury Park and Ventura.

Four years ago, the Ventura native negotiated with Marvel for 6,000 copies of “Amazing Spiderman” to be published with a cover featuring the Ventura pier and the landmark two trees that once sat on a hill atop the city. It was his store's biggest-selling book ever.

He writes comics too in genres ranging from horror and superheroes to humor and romance. An Archies book he wrote with co-authors that include actor Patton Oswalt sits for sale in his stores.

With ties across the comic book industry, he's also developed a reputation for selling big-name books, like the publications that marked the first appearance of Spidermen, the X-Men and the Avengers.

A friend connected him to a man who lives outside of California and owns some of the most valuable comics in the world. The collection included an Action No. 1. The man was looking for someone to sell it for him.

Heague, 33, flew to the man’s home. They talked. Heague, who sells facsimiles of Action No. 1 for $9.99, held an original version of the comic book for the first time.

Just so insulting to the intellect how this is a big deal, but not the reprint archives of Superman's past publication history. Instead of talking all about what the Man of Steel was like in the past century, both good and bad, all they can discuss is owning back issues they'll never read, and keep in plastic "slabs" for ages on end. Even fascimiles are nothing to celebrate, seeing how expensive they are at nearly 10 dollars, and the money spent on those could also be reserved for printing more paperback/hardcover archives too.

I'm also not impressed that the merchant went out of his way to arrange for variant covers of Spider-Man boasting the sight of a Ventura location, but wouldn't negotiate for wall paintings that could feature the same scenario to sell at his store. No doubt, the guy doesn't see any problems with increasingly expensive pamphlets either, and if not, that's another serious letdown. And some specialty store owners even do contract work for all this? That too is ludicrous.

In addition to the above news, The PRP also highlighted a musician who's also making a big deal out of owning a back issue of the Action Comics premiere:

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan hasn’t only pursued a life-long passion of music with the aforementioned Armenian-American nü-metal stars, he’s also spent decades in the comic books industry. His Torpedo Comics shop in Las Vegas, NV has been featured on ‘Pawn Stars‘ and he’s worked conventions promoting the business, while also creating and launching comic books of his own.

Over the weekend, Dolmayan showcased what may be his most valuable comic, a copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1. That book marked the first appearance of the iconic DC superhero Superman. An 8.5 graded copy of that book sold for $6 million at auction back in April of 2024.

In other words, this guy's the next speculator to buy these classic back issues in circles on the market, just because owning one is such a big deal, and won't be selling it to a museum at all. That's what's wrong with the whole picture here, and again, it's hugely disappointing how the speculator market continues to be fawned over at the expense of merit-based storytelling in the present.

A co-founder of the CBDLF sides with anarchists in Minnesota

The Comics Journal did a very biased interview with Greg Ketter, the owner of a specialty store in Minnesota who was a co-founder of the CBDLF years ago, and what's told here is a very disturbing example of how leftist the magazine and their interviewee are, in how they view divisive issues like illegal immigration, and rioting. They also distort specific facts about 2 antagonists:

In the now-famous protest photo of Greg Ketter by Theia Chatelle, Ketter is poised, tree-like, in mid-stride, his body clouded in mists of tear gas. Moments earlier, he had given the quote to the TV cameras that wrote itself into a part of cultural and political history: “I’m 70 years old, and I’m fucking angry.”

Ketter had come out on that Saturday not to protest, exactly, but to be a part of the Minneapolis community confronting ICE and CPB. He had been drawn out, initially, by the killing of Renée Nicole Good earlier in the month, and when ICU nurse Alex Pretti became the second Minneapolis resident killed by federal authorities in the space of three weeks, Ketter felt compelled to stand with others at the site of the murder. "I got there about an hour after the murder and went right up to the intersection that ICE had taped off and stood guard. There were perhaps 50-100 of them and several hundred observers/protesters milling around. Some were right up front yelling and swearing. I became one of them," Ketter wrote on his Facebook page.

Ketter is a comic shop owner, and a notable one: his shop DreamHaven Books, founded in 1977, is the oldest continuously operating comic shop in Minneapolis, and among the oldest in the United States. And while the extent of national attention has been somewhat new to Ketter – he spent the three days following his appearance on the news fielding interviews with national and local press – it is not the first time he has stepped into the media spotlight. In 1987, he became one of the founders of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and remained on the board of that organization for the next two decades. In 2020, his shop was damaged during the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, prompting Ketter to reluctantly open a GoFundMe to support the store’s recovery.

This is easily one of the worst articles I've ever read coming from TCJ, and compounds the far-left vision they appear to go by. From what's been reported, this Good tried to ram an ICE agent with her car, all for the sake of a petty political position. And the agent she attacked had previously been struck by an illegal immigrant who was a child rapist. And Mr. Ketter's taking the side of the anarchists? This is a most embarrassing moment for comicdom and its marketing division. Also notice how the magazine and interviewee also obscure Floyd's disturbing criminal background. And they expect everybody to view them as a serious news source for comicdom? Why, how does being foul-mouthed make one a better person? Here's more from the interview itself, and it's such a groaner:

For people who aren't in Minneapolis, can you try to describe what it's been like, and what it’s like now?

Well, I guess in Minneapolis, we really do care about community. We care about each other, and people have been tremendous about the whole thing. And we like immigrants, overall. I mean, unfortunately there's been news about the fraud and everything else, which was a very tiny percentage of people and a smaller percentage of immigrants, but they happen to be involved and that's a shame. But overall, people are just very pleased that we have the immigrant populations that we have.

How did you kind of get involved in...it feels wrong to call it a protest. But how would you describe what you were doing out there?

I was there for several reasons. For some reason, I wanted to be present. When they killed Renée Good, I went to the memorial that evening, and that was just thousands of people getting together to show respect. And there was a lot of “Fuck ICE,” and everything else going on, but really I think it was just to show support. And Saturday, I went down there because I felt I should be there and I hadn't actually witnessed ICE at all. Amazingly, I hadn't seen any of the things going on. I'd been to other gatherings. I'd been to strategy meetings and things like that, but I hadn't seen ICE itself in the flesh. So I went to watch, to see what was going on.

Had you been involved with any political activism in the past?

A bit. I mean, I was a co-founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which we started in response to prosecution of [the Illinois comic shop] Friendly Frank’s back then. And Denis Kitchen called me, and right away, and we started fundraising, and then we started the permanent CBLDF. I was on the board for the first 20 years, and then I moved on. I've always been a free speech advocate. That's been my main thing.

And what if it turns out that Mr. Ketter vehemently refused to give Mike Baron any backing on his part when the veteran writer of Nexus had to file a lawsuit over a left-wing news site's incitement against him for publishing an indie comic titled Private American? Some "free speech advocate" Mr. Ketter is then. It's clear the CBDLF's operated almost entirely according to their political standings, and that doesn't help at all. Let's also recall the same outfit was also once managed by Charles Brownstein, who was accused of sexual misconduct in the past 2 decades, so it's not like they were ever clean as a whistle even on those particular matters. And then, look how Ketter downplays the Somali Muslim community fraud scandal that was discovered in Minnesota, and no mention made how widespread it's been said to be, with a number of arrests already made. And again, how does repellent profanity make one a better person, or reflect well upon the mob Ketter joined? Based on this, no sane person, in comics or out, should seek the services of the CBDLF with people like him in charge. Mr. Ketter also brought up more of his MO, political or otherwise, and this too is telling:

It’s a bookstore market versus a periodical or a collector’s market.

Right. I try not to cater just to the collector market. I do have collectors comics; I have back issues of certain things. I buy some of them, and we have a decent selection of some older comics, but I don't go out of my way for that. I've been doing underground comics. I've always been into underground comics, and we have the best selection around here, certainly in the Midwest. And I like unusual things.

So do you sell mostly comics these days, or mostly sci-fi prose books?

It's a pretty good mix. LGBTQ+ comics and graphic novels are huge. We're selling everything in that realm. I was just a guest of honor at Gaylaxicon that was put on here: it's a traveling convention for gay science fiction and comics fans. And I'm straight, I've been married for 40 years to a woman, but they made me a guest because I've always been very supportive of the community. But those books are our bestsellers. We're selling lots and lots of good graphic novels.

It wouldn't be shocking if the underground comics he's written have been viciously political too. What are the chances that, in contrast to LGBT causes, he's never been supportive of the Jewish community Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Jack Kirby came from? Or even the Armenian community? And where's the sales figures for the LGBT comics he speaks of, or even the GNs? Interestingly, he also says:

Because you sell graphic novels and books, you probably weren't affected by the bankruptcy of Diamond quite as much as other shops.

Not in the same sense. I mean, I never did open up accounts with Lunar or any of those. I would still order DC comics or a few Marvels, and I just gave them up. I just said, "After all this time, I can't order one or two comics from them." I didn't have the volume to order from them, so I didn't bother. And I get almost all my stuff from Ingram now. It used to be Baker and Taylor, but now I get it from Ingram, and I've actually just started buying a few things direct from various publishers. So I guess I have to go back to that. I mean, I've been at this long enough that I used to do that a lot.

Does he mean he hasn't had any luck selling modern DC/Marvel comics? Well at least we know how and why LGBT stories he speaks of eclipsed sales he had of those, in a way. But based on how leftism seems to be his motivation, that's why I can't give him credit for allegedly not relying only on the speculator market. Nor can I really appreciate when he brings up the following:

What do you think made you dial back your involvement with the business as a whole?

Some of it's the disillusionment, like I said: the commodification of some of the comics. I hate multiple covers, and all the variants, and all that kind of stuff. People didn't seem like they were necessarily reading them anymore. They were just accumulating them. I like to have people read.

We're kind of in a residential area. And the neighborhood just loves me, because I have children's books, children's graphic novels. I've been expanding that section all the time.

But does the neighborhood think it's a healthy example to be selling LGBT propaganda in the same store, considering some of it was pushed into school libraries? What if he wants children to read the propaganda, including anything as political as he's taken part in? As for variant covers, hey, I find it hugely dismaying too, how they've become such a norm in marketing, with the worst part being how any company that's specialized in them could be doing it in hopes it'll distract from political propaganda they're turning out. But Mr. Ketter, in all his leftist biases, doesn't seem to dwell on whether that's one of the problems, and that's why his argument rings hollow.

What are the big sellers in that area?

Amulet, the graphic novel series, Phoebe and the Unicorn. Amazingly, Calvin and Hobbes is still one of our bestsellers after all these years. 10 year old boys can't get enough of Calvin and Hobbe. We still sell a lot of Bone. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has picked up again quite a bit for us. I kind of missed the beginning of the trend, but they're doing well now.

You were one of the shops that first sold Eastman and Laird’s initial issue, weren’t you? You got in early on independent comic publishers.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. [And] I had Dave Sim in a couple of times, and he was always supportive. He wanted me to open up a Cerebus-only shop. He insisted that that would work really well: it'd be all Cerebus all the time. And I was like, "I don't think so.” I was there very early on with Elfquest. At the time, I was selling the collections that they were doing, and I had sold more than the entire B. Dalton's chain had sold at the time.

What's that? The same Dave Sim who was mostly shunned by the turn of the century because his work was considered misogynist? Gee, that sure is some "show of responsibility" right there. I thought some of the material I'd found in past years from Cerebus and such by Sim was embarrassingly bad, including an early "parody" of Red Sonja, and if that's the kind of "underground" fare Ketter considers okay, something's terribly wrong here indeed.

With this, the Comics Journal has really clarified what kind of left-wing news source they really are. I wouldn't buy at Mr. Ketter's store even if he offered tons of paperbacks and hardcovers for free if this is the kind of political advocacy he's going to uphold. And all the while, people like him turn their backs on the horror story in Iran, proving just how disrespectful they really are of the messages of the Marvel/DC comics of yesteryear. I don't know about the citizenry of Minnesota, but I will not buy at a specialty store run by somebody like Mr. Ketter. He's only giving the sales segment of comicdom a bad name, and making a case for why specialty stores may be outmoded at this point. What he's espousing is exactly what specialty store managers need to avoid if they don't want to tarnish the reputation of comic stores. And no sensible person should waste money on the CBDLF either.