The Four Color Media Monitor

The Santa Fe Reporter interviewed a specialty store manager from New Mexico, and there might be some encouraging news in this particular item:

What led you to becoming the owner and operator of Big Adventure Comics, and how has the comic market changed since you became the owner?

I’ll tell you the truth. I was getting laid off from another gig. I had been doing corporate IT for 18 years, and I was ready for a change, and I had been kind of helping the previous owners with their computer stuff, inputting data into their point-of-sale system. I didn’t really intend to, but I kind of ended up taking over all the technological parts of running the store, and I found it very interesting. So when I found out I was going to get laid off from my corporate job, I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to see if I can make them an offer to buy the business.’

Why did I want to do it? I mean, it’s partly because I’ve always loved comics. I was into comics as soon as my dad would let me buy them at the grocery store, but, like, I’ve always loved reading novels, too. It was a chance to own a bookstore. It wasn’t like I was dying to sell Captain America to people, I was just really dying to own a bookstore. I liked the idea that I could leverage all my technology skills to do it right, because increasingly it was becoming point-of-sale- and database-focused to run a retail store, and I was good at that.

Over the last 10 years, the comics specialty business in the US has been moving more and more to a bookstore model—more graphic novels, more manga, more things that aren’t magazines. And I love that, so we’ve been pulling that string. We’re selling a ton more manga. We’re selling a ton more graphic novels, because comics, like the monthly serialized magazines, they’re very flat right now. We have them, and we have a big customer base for it, but it’s fairly flat with some bumps. Stuff still happens there, but you know, we become more and more of a bookstore each year.

Here's a promising sign somebody in the retail business is willing to tell it like it is. And it wouldn't be surprising if, no matter what amount of a pamphlet is printed up, much of it gathers dust on the shelves and isn't sold in the huge sum of customer-based sales the mainstream publishers and press want everybody to believe it is. If comics sell better today as paperbacks/hardcovers, and customers consider it a tidier way of storing it all at home, then that's the example even publishers need to go by, both major and minor. I recall that Zenescope was moving away from the pamphlet format some time ago, and if they did, then others obviously should too, including Alterna, who've employed cheaper paper quality, and several years back, gave their comics a price of 1 or 2 dollars. Certainly, that's less than the 5-plus dollars charged for pamphlets today, but even so, it can benefit everyone a lot better if the same comic story were to just be published in one or two specific formats, and save money by jettisoning the one that's not working out well.

The best way a retail store can influence the situation for the better, of course, is if they're willing to stop selling the pamphlet format - especially if publishers won't accept returns of unsold supplies - and just order paperback/hardcovers. If they can do this, they'll be setting a better example. Let's hope other store managers will follow suit for as long as specialty stores are still around.

Labels: history, manga and anime, sales

Euronews announces the 2026 edition of Angouleme's comics festival has been officially cancelled, following a sexual abuse scandal and a boycott call by contributors:

France’s Angoulême International Comics Festival (FIBD - Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is among the world’s foremost comic book events, but its survival is now hanging by a thread after a monthslong dispute over its governance.

Organisers have now decided to cancel the festival’s 2026 edition. The event “will realistically not be able to take place under suitable conditions,” lawyers for organising company 9e Art + said in a statement, which was first reported by local newspaper La Charente Libre. [...]

Over the past decade, controversies and accusations of financial mismanagement have dealt a heavy blow to the event’s reputation and angered professionals.

A 2021 report from the local court of auditors highlighted the “complex and opaque” structure of 9e Art +, as well as inconsistent financial operations.

Under the company, the Angoulême festival also faced several accusations of sexism.

The announcement of an exhibition dedicated to French author Bastien Vivès in the 2023 edition sparked debate as writers and feminist activists denounced the normalisation of incest and child sexual abuse in his work.

The episode triggered the emergence of #MeTooBD and the festival eventually cancelled the exhibition.

But the FIBD truly entered crisis mode in January, when French newspaper L’Humanité revealed that an employee was fired after she reported she was raped during the 2024 event.

The revelation caused outrage among professionals and fuelled calls for a change of governance. In a statement published in late January, the Authors and Composers French Syndicate denounced the festival’s “toxic atmosphere.”

Well that whole subject involving Vives was embarrassing as it was repugnant, and gives matters relating to sex a very bad name. I'm sure it's not the only disturbing issue that could be found at Angouleme over the years. For all we know, there's likely only so much toxic leftism that's turned up there too, and given comics as an art form a very bad name too, with the main problem being that some of the most notable contributors who withdrew support for the festival are leftists themselves who don't intend to change their double-standards on serious issues. In which case, what good will their pulling out of backing the festival do in the long run?

If anybody sensible really cared and had the dough for it, maybe somebody should organize an alternative convention that can make better choices and judgement, but of course, there's no telling if the same leftists who withdrew from Angouleme's attendance would be willing to take part. And no telling if there's enough rightists who care to help organize an alternative convention that can give various subjects a better name, or anything important either. So, who knows what'll become of Angouleme as it stands now? Alas, for all we know, it could very well be on its way out, and some might say it's for the best.

Labels: comic strips, conventions, Europe and Asia, exhibitions, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, politics, violence

The Rome Sentinel (NY) reports the veteran artist Bart Sears will be attending a New Hartford specialty store's event:

Longtime comic book artist and Ithaca native Bart Sears will be visiting Ravenswood Comics in New Hartford for a signing and art event from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 6.

Sears has been an artist in the comic book industry since the 1980s, drawing such comics as “Justice League International,” “Turok: Dinosaur Hunter,” “Conan the Barbarian,” and many more. He has worked for major publishers like Marvel and DC Comics and has produced his own, creator-owned works.

I seem to recall some of Sears' artwork was very dismayingly "puffy", making Capt. America, for example, look as dreadful as Rob Liefeld's artwork, and IIRC, even his character design for Power Girl in Justice League back in 1989 was awful. I have no idea if Sears' styles have improved in the 2 decades since, but what's so great about this guy that a specialty store has to make a potential joke of themselves by inviting him? If I were in charge of the store, I definitely wouldn't want to invite Liefeld. Only talented and competent artists need apply.

Perhaps this can serve as an important lesson for store managers and other folks arranging conventions, that they shouldn't make fools of themselves by sugarcoating artists whose styles are in questionable taste. After all, Liefeld for one was a prime example of an overrated artist who sullied the industry 3 decades ago, though the real culprits are the editors and publishers who hired him in the first place. But, it does explain why Sears was hired by Marvel/DC years before too, and considering how bad artwork's become under their managements now, Liefeld and Sears were just the beginning.

Labels: dc comics, dreadful artists, indie publishers, licensed products, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales

Anime News Network interviewed voice actress Lisa Ann Beley, who worked in anime dubbing for at least 2 decades from the 1990s to the 2010s (and does have USA/Canadian cartoons to her credits as well) about her work on Gundam Wing from the past 3 decades, and I noticed something dismaying that comes up. First, though, take a gander at the following inaccuracy on the writer's part:

Twenty-five years ago, Lisa Ann Beley was living in Vancouver. She had graduated from the University of British Columbia's acting program and was working as a voice actor with Ocean Productions on a number of English anime dubs. She voiced Eda in Black Lagoon, Murrue Ramius in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, and Chi-Chi in Dragon Ball Z. [...]

When I looked up Lisa Ann Beley, I quickly learned that she has since moved to Washington, D.C., along with her husband, Jonathan Holmes, also a former Gundam voice actor. She is a teacher at the Shakespeare Theater Company Academy, specializing in voice and speech. She has worked as a dialect coach with actors like Daniel Radcliffe and Freddie Highmore.

But I couldn't find any of her contact information. She'd made all her social media accounts private. What's more, I learned that Beley has only conducted a single on-camera interview about her anime voice acting work in 2022, and she stopped voice acting and attending fan conventions in the early 2000s.

Excuse me? Black Lagoon was first adapted to anime in 2006, and Beley's resume on the IMDB indicates she hasn't worked in voice acting since 2018. Her last role to date was in what appears to be a remake of Superbook, a bible-themed anime series originally produced in the early 80s, here produced more in 3D. That the interviewer managed to goof off in the same article where he alludes to Black Lagoon for one is enough to fall off the couch laughing, but probably isn't all that surprising when you consider this is a news site that's had its share of morally questionable positions over the years.

The main subject is the character of Relena Peacecraft, whom Beley voiced years before in the English-dubbed editions. And there's some pretty peculiar stuff that comes up here. First:

I thought about my conflicting feelings about Relena. She's a spoiled rich girl who doggedly pursues a boy who keeps threatening to kill her. Even now, people argue about whether they love or hate her on Reddit—and it has been 25 to 30 years, depending on your nationality. Could somebody have possibly taken their frustrations over Relena out on Beley?

Let me get this straight. The male star of the show, Heero Yuy, threatens to kill the leading lady, and they're telling us Relena's the problem? This is disgusting. And no disappointment with the original screenwriter, Katsuyuki Sumizawa, for characterizing Relena so questionably, and the male lead so appallingly? And then:

“I thought [Relena] was annoying at the beginning, I have to admit,” Beley told me.

Filming Relena's scenes out of order, as was par for the course for an Ocean Productions dub, Beley said she had to trust what the authors meant, even if her lines didn't seem to make sense.

“That was challenging sometimes, because [Relena] would say things and I'd be like, 'Huh? What is she saying?' Like at the very beginning of the show, when she was responding to her father. And I was like, 'Why are you obsessing over this boy?'”

As she continued recording, however, she gained more affection for Relena. And now that Beley has a teenage daughter of her own, she can reframe some of Relena's brattier exhortations as, if not totally justified, certainly more familiar.

“You grow to love these characters. You really do,” Beley told me.

I did know, I told Beley. On my subsequent Gundam Wing viewings as an adult, I gained a new softness for this character I was once so hard-hearted towards. Where I thought she was pushy, she was resilient. Where I once thought she was naive, I realized she was brave for insisting that a better world was possible than the one she had been handed.

The considerable flaw here is that we have here an example of animation specialists who act like a fictional character is a real person, and have no complaints about the original screenwriters characterizing Relena as a potential brat, let alone somebody who pursues a boy with a bad attitude of his own. Interesting how, beyond the non-committal reference to the boy himself, no serious arguments made about why it's unfortunate the girl's on the receiving end over something that's not her fault as a non-existent person. They may view Relena differently in terms of personality today, but their failure to distinguish between fiction and reality - let alone take issue with how the male star's written - remains the same as it's been for many years with alleged pop culture fans.

This therefore makes another sad example of how "professionals" vehemently refuse to rise above an illogically juvenile viewpoint, and if it damages the status of anime in the long run, it'll be their fault. Just very disappointing.

Labels: animation, history, manga and anime, msm propaganda

It's been a while since anything was said about leftist comics scribe Ellis, who was accused of sexual misconduct 5 years ago by a bunch of women he'd led affairs with, and allegedly cheated them out of offers to help them build up careers in entertainment or something. It led to some of his projects being cancelled, and/or publishers distancing themselves from Ellis for a time. I hadn't noticed before, but back around May/June/July, news sources like Comic Book Club Live announced that Image was publishing facimile editions of Ellis' GN titled Fell:

...And one of those books is Fell, written by Warren Ellis, with art by Ben Templesmith. [...]

It’s unfortunate to see Warren Ellis’s book in there, as the writer was accused of sexual misconduct in 2020 by over 60 women. In 2021, Image Comics backed off publishing additional issues of Fell due to the allegations and explained, “Image Comics will not be working with Warren on anything further until he has made amends to the satisfaction of all involved.”

Despite what seemed like some promising steps forward thanks to an organization called SoManyOfUs that initially opened a dialogue with Ellis, in 2023, they announced that he “took none of the steps we hoped he would.” There have been no updates since then, and Image Comics offered no comment when asked whether Ellis will see any financial compensation from its publishing, as well as what changed from their previous statement in 2021.

And Down the Tubes announced:

Named by director James Gunn as an influence for Gods and Monsters, the first chapter of the new DC Universe film and television slate, The Authority: Relentless by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, has just been re-released as a 360-page DC Compact Comics Edition. [...]

A Caveat: In recent years, after widely reported accusations of sexual coercion and manipulation, documented on SoManyofUs.com, we are unclear if resolution was fully reached between Warren Ellis and those whose lives his conduct impacted. The last update statement on the site, posted in 2023, indicates that some progress was made, but not all that was hoped for.

What's either surprising or not is that Ellis didn't try to sue his accusers, and just tried to appease them. Or so it seemed. As the news suggests, those reporting on new publications of stories from Ellis' resume still ostensibly detest him, but if they retain double-standards on J.K. Rowling that they inexplicably juxtapose with the news about Neil Gaiman, for whom the allegations are far more serious, then again, that ruins everything, and puts their sincerity in serious doubt.

Now, I don't find Ellis appealing, and there's little in his portfolio I care to read. But, if he led his relations consensually within the proper legal age boundaries, then that's not the issue. What is the issue is only that he may have tricked his lovers into believing he'd help them boost their careers in showbiz. And of course that was wrong of him to make promises he wouldn't keep. I have no idea if he made some kind of settlement with the women accusing him, but it looks like now, Image for one is willing to work with him again, if they're publishing new editions of his work for them. But if there was no serious buzz in the news, it suggests they're putting out new editions of his work quietly, and as their press statement indicates, they were willing to resume work with him, presumably if he apologized to the women he'd cheated. Not that what they're publishing sounds appealing though, and while Ellis may not be guilty of the trivial topics some of the press panned him for, I still don't see the point in financing his wallet.

Labels: history, indie publishers, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda

KMYA-NBC reports there's a businessman in Nebraska who wants to auction his collection of Spider-Man issues to feed the hungry around the world. However, he does have fishy positions when it comes to comics he's produced himself:

A CEO from Omaha, Nebraska is ready to auction off a "Spider-Man" comic book collection worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to help educate people on how to feed the hungry around the world.

An NBC affiliate in Omaha first met Nate Blum, who is the CEO of Sorghum United Foundation, back in 2017. He was being fitted for an artificial eye, and he donated his glaucoma-damaged one to science, for medical research and education.

"I've always hoped that my experiences could somehow help educate," Blum expressed.

Eight years later, Blum continues to educate through comic books he's written, creating his own super heroes.

"It's a worldwide adventure. I say it's like Indiana Jones meet Captain Planet," Blum shared.

These books target young children around the world, focusing on very serious issues.

"We don't sugarcoat things...We talk about climate change in this book, and we talk about the fact that people don't have enough to eat in this book. In this book, we talk about how farmers can't grow a grain if they don't have a market to sell it," Blum explained.

The part about climate change is what's annoying here. That's been a rather petty issue for some time among leftists, and if that's what Mr. Blum believes is such a big deal, then he isn't being very creative, even with seemingly family-friendly subjects. As for the part about hunger, well let's hope he doesn't follow a leftist playbook on that subject, because areas run by Islamic jihadists are not those deserving of monetary relief so long as they follow the Religion of Peace. Either way, when climate change is what he believes a big deal, why say he doesn't sugarcoat things?

I also think it's laughable if the guy sees Capt. Planet as a great cartoon, because it really wasn't. It was just more environmental propaganda mishmash from its time, and don't see much point in adapting it comics, as it was of recent.

Also of interest, the Seattle Times wrote about a store that appears to be affiliated with Fantagraphics working in the Georgetown area, which also deals in collectibles:

Larry Reid, the manager of Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Georgetown, has “nothing but fondness” for Seattle’s many comic book shops. After all, the bookstore that Reid manages is owned by Fantagraphics, the Seattle-based publisher of some of the most critically acclaimed American comics to be published in the last half-century, including “Love and Rockets” and “Eightball.” You can find Fantagraphics titles on the shelves of every comic book shop in town.

But Reid claims there’s a big difference between a comic book store and a bookstore that focuses on comics as an art form. He’s devoted much of his life to the latter pursuit. Reid opened his first art gallery in Pioneer Square in 1978, and he almost immediately gravitated toward the burgeoning new generation of young cartoonists.

“I’ve always been interested in the intersection between fine art and pop culture,” Reid says, and he found that comics often “had a more immediate impact on culture than fine art.”

Pacific Northwest cartoonists like Lynda Barry and Matt Groening caught Reid’s attention, and he developed relationships with nationally celebrated cartoonists, including Gary Panter and Art Spiegelman. His idea of what an art gallery could be was evolving as well, and Reid started experimenting with hosting musical performances, video installations and readings.

I guess it's no surprise they'd align themselves with notable leftists like Spiegelman, and Groening, the latter who's creator of the Simpsons, which has had its share of leftist allusions. In the long run, what good has their influence been? Not much, if at all.

The amazing thing about comic books — and their more respectable siblings, graphic novels — is the way that they seamlessly blend high and low art. Until Spiegelman’s “Maus” was published, for instance, no one suspected it would be possible to produce a bracing and deeply moving account of the Holocaust using a cast of anthropomorphized mice and cats. More than any other medium, comics can evolve to encompass just about any idea imaginable. [...]

“There’s a local artist that I’m particularly fond of,” Reid says, pulling out an edition of Gina Siciliano’s “I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi.” The book “tells the story of an overlooked high Renaissance master. Being a woman in Italy at the time, she was marginalized and sexually assaulted, and then she herself was put on trial for sexual assault.” Siciliano’s biography tells Gentileschi’s story and reclaims her art for modern audiences, finding some sort of justice for a woman who was largely forgotten by art historians.

Regrettably, it's unlikely they'd ever say soemthing similar about the subject of the war against Islamic terrorism, and in all the years since 911, comics that dealt honestly with the issues involved were minimal, if at all. And on the subject of the Italian artist, would they ever argue in favor of producing GNs about the terrible experiences of Betty Mahmoody in Iran during the mid-1980s, and her effort to make sure her daughter wouldn't remain prisoner of her abusive father there at the time? Sadly, that too is highly unlikely, and a terrible shame. So what's the use of talking about comics as an "art form" if and when nobody's willing to make use of it for serious topics as well, which can also be an art form in a way? If Fantagraphics turns out to be unwilling to take up truly challenging subjects, then they haven't accomplished much of anything either.

Labels: indie publishers, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, sales, science, Spider-Man

So it looks like even a few years after Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed the name to X, there's still controversies bursting out there over comics, whether justified or not. And the latest one involves writer Tim Seeley and an X-Men story he wrote. But before we get to that, here's something I noticed written by Tom Brevoort at least a year ago about Magik from the X-Men franchise that requires pondering:

In the past, I haven’t liked Magik pretty much at all. But that doesn’t mean that the character doesn’t have fans, lots of them. And being in the position that I’m in now means that I can prevent her from being written in the manner that used to irritate me. So there’s no problem with using her.

He seems to have laid out quite a double-standard in which, on the one hand, he acts like a fictional character is a real person, a considerable problem still haunting comicdom till this day. On the other hand, he ostensibly admits, though not clearly, that it's the assigned writer who's guilty of whatever he thought "irritating" about Illyana Rasputin in the past. It was surely to be expected from somebody who hasn't been convincing in his dedication to the job he works in.

But that doesn't explain why Brevoort approved of the following story in focus, which leads us to what's come up on the web, as explained by Comic Book Movie. It's a story supposed to be set in a future alternate era, where Magik kills Maria Hill(!) and is killed by Nick Fury in turn, and goes to the depths of hell again, and:

Well, there are sexual undertones in the comic that imply the demons have sexually abused Magik. X-Men: Age of Revelation Infinity #4 doesn't depict rape, but demeaning remarks are made about her body, and two of the hero's tormenters, Belasco and S'ym, were previously revealed to have abused Magik as a child.

When Magik arrives in Limbo, she's in her underwear, and as Darkchild, she thanks her abuser—in an admittedly sexualised pose—for "sating [her] pathetic needs." While some read that as a reference to sexual assault, Belasco is actually making her beg for food.

Sexual assault has frequently been used as a plot device for female characters in comics, so it's easy enough to understand the outrage. It may not have been the intention here, but the issue can be read in that way, and therein lies the problem.

The backlash was so vocal that writer Tim Seeley, who faced abuse and death threats (which is obviously unacceptable), has deactivated his X account and gone private on Instagram. On Bluesky, he wrote, "Welp...I had to finally deactivate twitter because that was just a touch too much death for me and the family. It was a sh*t 16 year run! F**k everybody!"

He may have erased that specific post too, and it wouldn't be shocking if the atmosphere wasn't so clean even there. First, let's be perfectly clear. Of course if anybody reacted that repulsively on social media about this story, it's offensive and doesn't help the cause of anybody who's allegedly revolted by how the story was written up. That said, even if this is supposed to be an alternate future story, it is insulting to the intellect how a character who'd once been built up is reverted back to a denigrating position, as though her status in the regular world had never been. And that only suggests these alternate future titles Marvel's been working on lately have little purpose beyond the settings.

Here's what The Gamer tells about the story:

Specifically, readers claim that the comic depicts Magik being sexually abused until she becomes a villain. This is perceived as a resurgence of the trend in which female characters are sexually assaulted for shock value and receive a disproportionate amount of violence, something Marvel is no stranger to.

While Marvel obviously isn't innocent of concocting tasteless stories alluding to sexual violence, we have DC to thank for really leading us to the sorry state mainstream comics suffered from 2 decades ago, when they published Identity Crisis, the miniseries that minimized sexual violence for the sake of leftist metaphors, and worst, minimized real life victims of sexual violence in the process. Such abominations are why we got to a point where the audience may not be ready for stories in which sexual violence of the worst kind is even alluded to. That aside, one more reason it probably shouldn't be surprising a story like this was approved by Brevoort is because, lest we forget, he was editor of Avengers at the time Brian Bendis mistreated Scarlet Witch in Disassembled. It certainly does make his claim he wants to prevent Magik from being written poorly very bizarre indeed.

Another writer at ComicBook also spoke about the subject, but there's traces in his piece of blurring the distinctions between fictional characters and their real life writers/editors:

Right now, the X-Men books are in the midst of “Age of Revelation”, an alternate universe story whose perception that has mixed, which seems like the watchword for the line since Brevoort took over. This story takes place ten years in the future, with many characters drastically changed. Magik, who has been Cyclops’s right-hand woman in X-Men, has become the Darkchylde again, and an Infinity comic, the books that Marvel puts on their Marvel Unlimited app, told the story of how she got there. However, this comic caused a huge uproar, one that sees a disturbing Marvel trope return, and we need to talk about it.

We may alright, but I'm not so sure the columnist himself is the most qualified for the job, as a certain part of the following suggests:

Marvel Infinity’s X-Men: Age of Revelation #4 revealed the fate of Magik after her death. She was sent back to Limbo, where she met her old demonic masters and they decided that they wanted her back as their weapon. So, the demons sexually assaulted her until she became their slave again. Now, it wasn’t shown on the page, but the book didn’t shy away from telling us what happened to her. It’s such a strange and disturbing choice to make in 2025; Magik has gotten more popular than ever, and to have her abused in such a way is honestly terrible.

I looked at the earlier article from March linked to in the paragraph, and the fellow veers into silly babbling about Magik being great because she's supposedly better than Dr. Strange. Umm, that all depends on how well written she is, and if she isn't, then her power levels don't add up to much of anything. He also says, "Take Doctor Strange’s powers away and he’s just a guy. Take Magik’s powers away and she’s still a formidable fighter." *Ahem*. Around 1989, there was a story in the 2nd volume's 10th issue where Stephen Strange wound up in a fight with Morbius over a misunderstanding, and the Living Vampire assaulted Stephen when he tried to initiate magic spells, cancelling out the incantations, but Stephen didn't back down. Rather, he took to using physical martial arts taught by butler Wong, and succeeded in defeating Morbius that way. What ComicBook's writer says erases that storytelling history. I don't know just now if Dr. Strange was originally established by creators Stan Lee/Steve Ditko as a physical combat practitioner, but by the late 80s, succeeding writers like Peter Gillis certainly seem to have made use of the possibilities. What's the columnist trying to prove with such a puff piece? Which ends with:

Magik was able to summon a massive demon to help her fight Wraith’s mech. As powerful as Doctor Strange is, he wouldn’t have been able to summon a powerful demon to do his bidding. Magik’s history can be quite convoluted, but she’s proven herself as Marvel’s best magic user, making her a unique weapon for the X-Men.

Sorry, but this too hilariously ignorant of the fact that it all depends on what even Lee thought made for a great story, and whether it was plausible enough within the boundaries of science fantasy Lee established in his time. I'm sure that writers with talent could come up with a great Iron Man story where Tony Stark built a giant Japanese-style mech and put it to use in battles against criminals armed with similar weapons, but let's remember that with bad apples like Joe Quesada and his successors being in charge of Marvel, the chances something that spectacular could work well is simply out of the question. If you want to defend Illyana Rasputin as a storytelling vehicle and condemn superfluous use of sexual violence as a storytelling tool, that's okay, but making her and Dr. Strange out to sound like real persons and reducing everything to a whole "my favorite character's better than yours" argument does nothing, and in fact runs the danger of encouraging abuse of the character considered "lesser" by the columnist.

Sure, it's awful if Magik was established as sexually abused by the demons in the new X-Men story; whatever abuse she underwent in the Bronze Age stories where she first appeared was enough. But, chances are the cybertrolls on X and other platforms who attacked Seeley weren't altruistic, nor were they actually against offensive use of a serious issue in an entertainment product; chances are high they were just looking for excuses to attack somebody else over something they otherwise have no issue with in real life, certainly if they never condemn cases like the following in Europe. If the attacks on Seeley were only written for the sake of "fun", it only makes clear no problems are being solved at all.

With that told, there doesn't seem to be much point to these alternate future storylines Marvel's currently turning out, and the hypocrisies surrounding the whole mess are stupefying.

Labels: bad editors, Doctor Strange, golden calf of death, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, Nick Fury, technology, violence, women of marvel, X-Men

From eJewish Philanthropy (here's an archive link if it requires registration to read all), some news about non-profit organizations like the Jack Kirby Museum that wish to honor creators like him, among other Jewish figures who were early originators of modern comicdom in the mid-20th century. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they take a sugarcoated view of recent film adaptations:

This year, four of the top 10 domestic blockbuster films were based on comic characters created by Jews — Superman, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and Captain America — which collectively brought in more than $1 billion.

Was there an Avengers movie this year? I'm not sure, but if we take the Superman, Cap and FF movies as examples, those weren't financial successes individually, so why make it sound like there's something to celebrate, considering how bad the politics in the former was, and quite possibly also in the Cap film? Does that not concern folks who say they respect the background of the creators? If there's no complaints made about abuse of Jewish creations by potential antisemites and anti-Israelists, then what's the point of this?

This Black Friday, the franchises will generate further revenue as parents brave their way to Walmarts and Targets to snag cartloads of action figures, apparel and Lego sets based on their kids’ favorite Marvel and DC heroes and heroines. But that same day, legions of fans will trek to One Art Space in Tribeca, New York City, to celebrate the man who co-created many of these characters: Jack Kirby, the artist behind the Fantastic Four, Captain America, X-Men, much of the rest of the Marvel Universe, who also fully created DC Comics’ New Gods.

Organized by the Jack Kirby Museum, the pop-up event titled “Jack Kirby: From the Ghetto to the Cosmos” runs from Nov. 28-Dec. 7, with an opening reception on Saturday. The heart of the event will be a display of reproductions of Kirby’s only explicitly autobiographical story, the 10-page “Street Code!,” which portrays Kirby’s life growing up in the tenements of the heavily Jewish Lower East Side, a 30-minute walk from the exhibit. [...]

The Kirby Museum, along with The Siegel and Shuster Society, which honors Superman’s Jewish co-creators, is one of the few nonprofits celebrating the Jewish masterminds of the comics medium. Even though these writers and artists’ creations are plastered on nearly every child’s lunch box — not only in America, but around the world — their foundations and museums often lack the financial support of nonprofits dedicated to those deemed “fine” artists. [...]

You cannot take the Jewish out of these creators and their creations, Rabbi Simcha Weinstein the author of Up, Up, and Oy Vey: How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero, told eJP. His book was one of several on the topic of Jews in comics published in the late aughts after Michael Chabon’s 2000 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, told the story of two Golden Age comic creators modeled after Siegel and Shuster, drawing attention to the Jewish history of the medium for the first time in mainstream media. “It’s impossible not to see [the superhero] journey as a reflection of the Jewish immigrant experience, name changing, the desire to mask the double identity, the wrestling of the outsider/insider.”

When they bring up a writer who's taken political positions hurtful to Israel, I'm less convinced the people doing this coverage are sincere. Chabon also did serious damage to the Star Trek franchise, and based on that, what's so special about him anyway? What if his leftist politics were the reason Jewish history was allegedly taken note of in the mainstream? That's the problem, unfortunately.

Comic characters often mirror their creator’s experiences, even if not implicitly. Superman is the story of an immigrant to Earth whose planet was destroyed — widely seen as a reflection of the Jews fleeing Eastern Europe for America. Captain America can be read as a Golem or a take on assimilation, a character so American that he envelopes himself in the flag. The Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm, known as the Thing, grew up on Yancy St., a stand-in for Essex St., and his often gruff, sarcastic character was revealed to be Jewish after Kirby died, with many believing the character was based on him.

It would seem somebody chose to parrot the MSM narrative of Superman as an "immigrant" and not a refugee. No doubt, Supergirl and the Martian Manhunter would be subject to that kind of narrative too. Also troubling is how they speak of Capt. America - does that bizarre comparison of Cap to a golem and wrapping himself in the USA flag imply he's portrayed as a "jingoist"? This is weird when you consider that the Thing could've been considered the golem variant, and even the part where they use the word "revealed" instead of "established" is again irritatingly flawed.

Hoppe is not Jewish, but he said that Kirby’s heritage can be seen in everything the museum does. “The whole comic book industry, we wouldn’t have that without the Jews and any of the creative people that were shut out of mainstream publishing,” he said. [...]

Because superheroes are ubiquitous, it’s important non-Jews recognize the characters’ Jewish roots as a way to combat antisemitism, Schwartz said. “One would think that if somebody loves a character and finds out that they were not only created by Jews, but were designed to reflect the Jewish experience, that makes it a little bit harder for this person to hate Jews.”

Unfortunately, if history since is any indication, it's clear that regardless of whether antisemites/sexists/racists read this stuff, they still don't recognize the legitimacy of the creators as human beings. Though you definitely have to wonder why they'd buy and read/watch this stuff if they really don't like Jews, and don't want to put money in their pockets. You could make a similar point about Andre Citroen, who founded the car company that's today owned by Peugeot; why would antisemites want to buy cars and trucks from a company founded by a Jew, or even from the company under which it's owned? It's mystifying. Also note, from the comics-based perspective, that terrible ideologues like Saladin Ahmed are not only allowed by Marvel/DC management to write Jewish-shepharded comics, they seem to do so out of some form of virtue-signaling and spite.

I can't say the article's very convincing when it takes an otherwise superficial, fluff-coated view of the subject, and for a site that's allegedly about philanthropy, it's tough to comprehend why they don't make an argument that Israel's descendants have to reclaim their overseas brethren's creations if they really want to make clear they care. Nor do they make a case why Islamic antisemitism is something that has to be tackled in comics as much as in any other medium. I'm sorry to say, but all this cowardice and selling-out has not helped comicdom in the least. Will Eisner may have been one comics scribe who dealt with the issue, but perhaps unshockingly, nobody else seems to want to follow his examples. Alas, this is another article of its sort that's getting nowhere.

Labels: conventions, dc comics, good artists, good writers, history, licensed products, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, museums, politics, Superman

A writer on Popverse says that during the One More/Brand New Day atrocity in 2007, Marvel's staff was originally planning to resurrect Gwen Stacy, much as they did Harry Osborn, but that Tom Brevoort allegedly persuaded them not to follow through. And some of the "justifications" Quesada used are as laughable as can be expected, considering all the damage he did back in the day:

The 2007 storyline ended with the demon Mephisto rewriting the timeline so that Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson were never married. This was done as part of a Faustian bargain to save Aunt May’s life. The final chapter of the storyline featured the return of Harry Osborn, a supporting character who had been dead for years. But Harry wasn’t the only character Marvel wanted to bring back.

“We wanted to bring in some cast members, and [Gwen Stacy] was one of those cast members that I remembered fondly as a kid,” former Marvel editor-in-chief and One More Day penciler Joe Quesada told me in a 2010 interview for Spider-Man Crawlspace. “Both [James Michael Straczynski] and myself were vehement; we wanted to bring her back. We passed this piece of paper around a room of 50 creatives, and we put Gwen, and no Gwen. And we asked people anonymously to check one box. By the time it got back to me, bringing Gwen back had won out by one vote. One single vote. So, we were going to bring Gwen back.”

This vote was held in 2006 as Marvel was planning the next phase of Spider-Man books, which included One More Day and their three-times-a-month publishing initiative Brand New Day. Speaking with Popverse for a Brand New Day oral history article, Spider-Man editor Tom Brevoort recalls his reaction to Marvel’s plans for Gwen Stacy

“We knew that when we were going to inherit the titles, a couple of things were in place,” Brevoort says. “Spider-Man wasn't going to be married anymore. And then, as part of that story, Joe and Joe Straczynski had intended to bring back Harry Osborn. And there was some back and forth at the time of, 'Are they going to bring back Gwen Stacy?' I kind of put my thumb on the scale and said, 'No, don't do that. That's bad.'”

As Quesada recounts, Brevoort approached him a few months after the vote and convinced him to nix their plans to raise Gwen from the grave.

“Tom walked into my office, closed the door, and he said, 'It’s a mistake. Bringing Gwen back is a mistake,'” Quesada says. “We talked about it. One of the things that he said that was poignant was she’s been dead longer than she was alive in the comic books. So, the only people that really remember her with that sort of affection are fans that have been reading the books for that long a period of time. So, he questioned me and said, is it something that you want to bring back because you emotionally like the character or is it really going to be good for the cast?”

Looking back, Quesada admits that Gwen’s revival wouldn’t have made sense.

“It felt a little too magical to bring her back. It felt a little too heavy-handed by Mephisto,” Quesada says.

This from one of the same staffers who pathetically and arrogantly defended their directions in the late 2000s by saying, "we don't need to explain anything, it's magic". And of course, if it wouldn't make sense to revive Gwen, why does it make infinite sense to revive Harry? The original 1973 death of Gwen at the hands of the Green Goblin was written well enough, but if it's okay to resurrect a man, then by that same logic, it's okay to resurrect a woman too. In fact, how come Gwen's father George isn't brought up when it comes to the subject of resurrections?

Something else that's bewilderingly absent from this issue is that there was some criticism coming from some readers at the time, and though Gwen wasn't revived in the Bronze Age, the writers did compromise by creating a clone, produced in-story by the Jackal during 1975 (and lest we forget, the Spider-clone, Ben Reilly, was originally created at the time too), and if they really needed to concoct anything involving Gwen, couldn't they have resorted to the clone instead of the real deal? Then again, such awful staffers as Quesada's happened to be have no ability to produce anything palatable, and the Spider-Gwen who's been created since hasn't improved their fortunes either. But if Gwen were revived, what good would it do, when her image is tainted by the Sins Past storyline, certainly if it remains canon? That's just another of the reasons why it's hypocritical for Quesada and Straczynski to propose reviving Gwen after all the damage they did, and it's not hard to guess they'd be brining Gwen back at Mary Jane's expense.

And of course, there's the little matter of Mephisto, and Quesada has the gall to say it's heavy-handed for a fictional character to reverse something involving a cast member from Spidey's world, but not for Quesada to editorially mandate the Spider-marriage be broken up. He's never apologized to fandom any more than his DC counterpart, Dan DiDio, for tearing apart continuity cohesion and denigrating other people's creations, both major and minor, to suit his ambiguous agenda. It's really a shame the audience didn't bail en masse on Marvel a quarter century ago when Quesada ascended to EIC position, since it could've sent a message what he had in store was not approved of; the whole train wreck he had in store could've been seen coming back then. Now, years later, Marvel's fortunes have plummeted, and they continue to put the character creations through all sorts of pointless crossovers more than once every year, along with other illogical and implausible mishmash that nobody sensible needs. And Spidey, lest we forget, is but one of the biggest victims of Quesada's machinations.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, Spider-Man, violence, women of marvel