The Four Color Media Monitor

The Harrogate Advertiser wrote about the latest Thought Bubble convention in the area, since it moved locations:

Since Thought Bubble Comic Convention swapped Leeds for Harrogate in 2019, it has gone from strength to strength.

A week long celebration of comics, illustration and more spread across the whole of Yorkshire, it’s just seven days until the whole shebang culminates in a huge two day comic convention at Harrogate Convention Centre.

But Amy Bellwood, one of the directors of this legendary comic con, said the magic of Harrogate was built more than on just its excellent convention facilities. "Our international guest artists absolutely love coming to Harrogate,” she said.

No doubt, those international guests also include the "writers" who've effectively ruined mainstream comicdom in the USA. If Frank Miller loved coming to Thought Bubble, the Orwellian crowd there sure ruined it for him too, though if he never opposed their banishing in any way, he's obviously responsible for enabling their censorship to happen. That said, somebody tells here:

"Everyone can get together under one roof. [...]

Except anybody who's right wing, or even anybody who opposed Islam, as Miller did in Holy Terror, and then he made a farce of it all by retracting his earlier standings. As a result, I've found it hard to support him any further. Here's a bit more about what people are in attendance:

DSTLRY Presents: The Art of The Cover in which trailblazing international comic artists Emma Rios, Jock, Sweeney Boo, Becky Cloonan, Tula Lotay and Dani.

[...] Not only does it boast a huge array of big names from comic books but its ethos of representing that world in the all its many iterations shines through.

This "Boo" also worked on some pretty woke stuff at least 5 years ago, and again, let's consider that most of the creators in attendance are more or less leftists. I wouldn't be shocked if Chuck Dixon weren't invited, nor Mike Baron, and who knows if any leftists today still cherish his work on Nexus, for example? All the Thought Bubble convention's done is gone from strength to weakness.

Labels: conventions, Europe and Asia, islam and jihad, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics

The Yale Daily News wrote about a convention held in New Haven, CT:

New Haven Comic and Collectible Spectacular descended again upon New Haven, organized by comic aficionado Tom Fiore at the Annex YMA Club bingo hall. Collectible vendors, visiting artists and professional comic collectors manned booths from wall to wall, selling posters, Funko Pops, eclectic mementos, vintage comic books and signed artwork.

“I’ve been doing shows since 1985 [and the New Haven] show for the past eight years,” said comic seller Jonathan Scungio over his bins of rare comics, some prices marked in the thousands.

The Spectacular began in 2006, shortly before the birth of Tom Fiore’s daughter, who helped behind the ticket booth at the entrance on Sunday. Fiore’s family wasn’t the only one present. Droves of parents and children milled between the booths of the Spectacular, poking through action figures and plush cartoon characters.

Fiore was inspired by comic book fairs he attended as a kid to create the Spectacular. The children weaving between the stands on Sunday reminded Fiore of the joy events like these brought him.

Beneath the unused bingo scoreboard and among rows of comic books from his childhood, Fiore remarked on the legacy of his passion for collecting comic books and the Spectacular.

“It’s liberating. I do hope that this catches on and people continue it. People have gone off and run their own shows that started by coming here and setting up,” said Fiore.

Well it's great to know children are attending this particular convention. But it's to be hoped the comics marketed at the convention actually are suitable for children, and don't emphasize LGBT propaganda like certain items today do. And when it comes to collecting, again, it should be for the reading value, not the monetary. If convention organizers would emphasize those points, they could make things a lot easier.

Labels: animation, conventions, history, msm propaganda, sales

Recently, a columnist for Villages News of Florida wondered if it's time to bring back comics heroes, following the recent USA election:

I haven’t written one of these musings for some time. I guess all the various political information missiles got me down wondering how people could write such misleading “facts” and expect the voters to buy the comments as clearly true? Unfortunately, we will now listen to similar after the election comments. I just hope that those unfortunate college students and faculty recover from their disappointment so that the students can graduate and the faculty grow up! The whole mess makes me wonder sometimes why I learned to read. Of course, when I was young you had to essentially learn to read as back then that’s how you got most of your information. Alas, there was no TV or social media available. It took longer for news to get around then, which was good in many ways as it stopped copycats from shooting more people – which is a very good example.

I decided this morning that I needed to go back to my early days of reading to calm my ancient mind. I taught myself to read by perusing the daily comic strips. I would then inform my parents of what was occurring in the strips at dinnertime. Finally, my mother asked my dad how I knew all about what was happening in the strips. He naturally replied that even though I was only five, I was reading them. That’s how I knew I had become a reader. With that information in my still developing brain, I branched out to comic books which were becoming very popular. Back then comic books were sixty-four pages for a dime. Naturally, others saw an advantage in a book that was thirty-two pages for a nickel. In fact, one of them was called “Nickel Comics,” Its main hero was Strongman. He was pretty indestructible, but he couldn’t fly. Therefore, to get places he would hop on cannon shells and ride them to where he wanted to go. Luckily the cannons were always pointed in the right direction.

Strongman shouldn’t have been too upset as Superman could not fly either back then. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound, but no flying. The flying came later, so maybe if Strongman’s creators had persisted, he might have learned to fly too. However, there were too many comic book heroes to follow to worry about Strongman. There were heroes galore and copycats of heroes. Everyone knows of Batman and Robin. There were many copy cats of them which failed for one reason or another. One of the oddest was Mr. Scarlet and Pinky. They caught villains too, most of whom were probably doubling over in laughter at the costumes worn by the good guys. I was never sure how the creators’ expected boys who read most of the comic books to relate to superheroes in scarlet and pink. I guess as I mused above, some writers believe that people will accept anything.

Unfortunately, these last folks are perhaps correct. The last few years obviously shows that. I would expect that the same tendency will continue for many years into the future. That is not really a good situation, so it might be good if more expressions could be made in comic book form. Who knows, Strongman might make a comeback. Strongman, the superhero that is – not a socialist dictator!

On that note, I hope he's not alluding to Donald Trump, though if the columnist is a leftist, it sure would be weird if he really does believe socialism's a bad ideology, considering how much the left sold out to communism over the past decade or so.

But if the guy really thinks superheroes should make a comeback, it'll only happen if positive values are respected, and it sure won't happen so long as DC/Marvel are under corporate ownership as things stand now. Maybe the columnist would do well to look at the situation under a magnifying glass, and actually write about what's gone wrong with superhero fare in the mainstream. Then, we'd actually be getting somewhere.

And as for pink outfits, well I am aware that in addition to Mr. Scarlet's adopted son Pinky, Lee Falk's Phantom was created wearing a purple leotard during the Golden Age, and yes, that too is outdated, but I can't seem to recall many examples of male heroes other than them wearing pink and purple. What I do recall is Saturn Girl from Legion of Super-Heroes wearing the color pink in the Bronze Age, and for heroines, such a color shade is a lot more suited, if that matters.

Labels: comic strips, history, msm propaganda, politics

The AV Club's talking about rising prices of floppies, and how it affects independent creators and publishers, something I may have wondered about earlier myself:

For the past 12 years, standard 32-page comic titles were priced at $3.99, with some titles (mainly for kids) still at $2.99. But prices have been steadily rising; more than half of all new comics in 2024 cost $4.99, with some going up a dollar or two more with variant and stock card covers, or in some cases, extra story pages. It might seem like a small difference, but it has big implications, Image Comics co-founder and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane explained. “…For 20 or 25 bucks when we were younger, you used to be able to walk out [of a comic book store] with a pretty thick bag full of comic books. Now you can count them on your fingers.”

McFarlane raises an important point: With inflation hitting people hard, can the comic book market sustain a 25-percent price increase? How does this affect the indies? While journeying through New York Comic Con 2024 (and after), The A.V. Club sat down with several comic book publishers, including McFarlane, to discuss this shift.

There are a few key reasons for the recent industry changes. “Cost factors have gone up for everybody,” explains Damian Wassel, CEO and publisher at Vault Comics, whose recent series include Deathstalker and Godfather Of Hell. He noted that in the three years prior to the COVID pandemic, “the U.S. went through this massive run of paper plant consolidation and shutdowns. Then COVID happened, and comics sales skyrocketed in 2021, but nobody could get paper for them so costs went up. You’ve got some printers charging close to or more than 100% more than they charged in 2018—not because they have to, necessarily, but because that’s what they’re doing. Then inflation has gone up, so creators need to make more.”?

As a result, the two comics behemoths, Marvel and DC, raised prices on many of their books to $4.99. A number of indies also followed suit. However, Marvel and DC have the advantage over indies in that they can do considerably larger print runs which can reduce printing costs. Indies generally have smaller print runs and therefore tighter profit margins. They also don’t have the greater corporate profit edicts of the Big Two. Further, some licensed properties can require higher cover prices to recoup an investment.

“Pricing has been an issue in comics for a while because of this collector mentality that’s become the mindset of everyone,” notes James B. Emmett, senior editor of creator-owned projects at Mad Cave Studios, home to Gatchaman, The Hexiles, and others. “But also to make sales make sense in terms of printer costs, shipping, paying our artists, paying our writers, and just making sure we’re breaking even on the floppies.”

The company settled on the $4.99 price with $6.99 for books with slightly longer stories or alternate covers, which is comparable to other indies’ pricing. “Variants are more expensive because they’re lower print runs so their markups are higher and they’re more exclusive,” Emmett said. “We’re still playing in the world of comics in that way because people want to collect those things.”

Well I think a serious clue's been provided that even the independent scene's not immune to the obsession with pandering to the speculator market. I'm sure not all publishing specialists and writers/artists agree with that, but anybody who lets this go without comment can't be surprised if the independent industry's ultimate damaged by the whole notion they must do favors for a certain segment that's not in the game for reading, but for collecting out of a flawed notion these items will ever be worth huge money in their lifetime. Even independents have a huge opportunity ahead of them to publish wall paintings, and instead, they opt for a hilariously silly format that could end up locked away in a vault for ages to come, and nobody gets to see it, because it's "collectible".

Through his Outtatime Comics imprint, writer Mike Spring has released his series Red, White And Broke: Confessions Of An American Superhero and The 8-Bit Slasher. His initial print runs are about 300 to 500 copies. His books are 24 pages of story at $5 each, his collected trade paperbacks are $20, and his two recent releases were 48-page square bound one-shots priced at $10 each.

Spring says fans are fine with his pricing “because I mostly sell them at conventions and on Kickstarter, and I think they’re very commensurate with what most indie books are selling for at conventions and on Kickstarter. The thing for me is my profit margin gets a little bit less every time the paper costs go up. I find that most people can see the value of the book.”

But is there a difference between how much you're paying for paperbacks as opposed to floppies? If a trade contains 6 or more chapters originally printed in pamphlets, and it's just $20 in contrast to the $30-plus you could end up paying for the pamphlets, then obviously, the paperback makes the better choice for purchase. Hardcovers can be much more expensive, but some could reasonably argue that too makes a better choice for buying.

We are currently living in another golden age of comics because of the sheer diversity of titles available to readers and collectors today. A majority of that comes at the indie level which is vital for keeping the medium moving forward artistically. But like the current streaming television boom, a plethora of selections can also overwhelm consumers.

“Choice profusion also affects the economics of the business,” Wassel noted. “It’s great to have options as a reader, but when you have a lot of options it can get harder to pick anything. You see a little bit of that happening in consumer behavior, but it also just means that it’s harder for any one thing to break out.”

Umm, you could easily say that about ordinary books, whose own industry is even huger. As for artistic merit, if indies count, why not the corporate-owned comics? Since Marvel/DC threw it away long ago, is it any wonder they've been abandoned? That's why they no longer have breakout successes.

“The key is producing comics that readers actually want and knowing your market,” says John Dziewiatkowski, publishing director for U.K.-based Titan Books which also releases titles in the U.S. including the Gun Honey and Minky Woodcock series. “Is your brand known? Is your story engaging? Strong brands with great stories and great art continue to sell well. Indie comics with unknown titles can be challenging. Publishers need to get creative with their sales and marketing efforts to get the product in front of their target audience. Unfortunately, there is not a magic formula for comic book success.”

While the market may be able to bear $4.99 comics for now, it should be noted that a majority of traditional comic buyers are middle-aged adults, whereas younger readers tend to like manga and graphic novels. Trying to build a strong fanbase of younger readers may be more challenging when some may perceive larger collections as better value for money. And single digital issues are usually not cheaper than print.

Well at least a UK publisher's willing to make a point USA publishers don't seem capable of doing anymore, though I decidedly take issue with "brand". Even that's disputable, since merit for anything, regardless of recognizability, is what counts. And why must brand new stories from Marvel/DC matter as starting points, but not old? You can learn from past publishing history how to turn out the best possible story, and instead all that seems to matter is the newer stuff lacking in merit. Maybe if indie publishers would have the guts to call out Marvel/DC on all the mistakes they're still making, we'd be getting somewhere. Nobody should be sticking to PC standings regarding the issue of merit. That's what allowed Marvel/DC to get away with some of the worst directions for years already.

And even indies aren't immune to PC. We can only hope, therefore, that independents will consider that, if there's anything they need to tidy up for now, it's the laughable notion they're required to pander to speculators. If they'll turn to the wall-portrait business instead of relying heavily on variant covers, then we'll be getting somewhere, ditto if they leave pamphlets behind in favor of paperbacks. Unfortunately, no chance the AV Club will ever make the suggestion themselves.

Labels: conventions, Europe and Asia, history, indie publishers, licensed products, msm propaganda, sales

Digital Trends wrote about Disney's animated production, Big Hero 6, from the past decade, probably one of the last cartoons they produced worth seeing to date:

The superhero genre has become remarkably overcrowded over the last 15 years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe and Christopher Nolan-led redefining of the genre in the late 2000s and early 2010s paved the way for an era of Hollywood dominated by movie characters in capes and villains with world-ending plans. Whether that era is still going is up for debate, but it led to a few years there — roughly 2014-2023 — where superhero movies and TV shows genuinely felt like they were everywhere, and sometimes to a suffocating degree. That doesn’t mean, however, that certain superhero films haven’t fallen through the cracks here and there over the past 10 years.

That seems, at least, to be the fate that has befallen Big Hero 6. Loosely inspired by the Marvel Comics superhero team of the same name, the animated Disney film received largely positive reactions from both critics and casual viewers alike when it hit theaters in 2014 and it grossed over $650 million at the worldwide box office. On top of all of that, it went on to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2015. Big Hero 6 nonetheless ranks as the most underrated superhero film of the modern era — a vibrant piece of comic-book-inspired storytelling that is oft-forgotten by fans of its genre and which strangely hasn’t received the big-screen sequel it deserves.

This'd have to be saying something, considering how far the mighty at Disney have fallen in the decade since, and the comics adaptations have too. Maybe the reason it won't see a sequel is because it wasn't PC enough in its time, and ever since, the PC situation's gotten much worse. Or, if a sequel were made, it'd be forced to incorporate wokeness, and that would only make a long-awaited sequel into a huge disappointment that didn't have to be.

Maybe that's why it's worth considering there's some movies that are good enough to stand on their own without resorting to only so many sequels. Even family fare doesn't have to see a whole lot of them, because if the sequels turns out to be bad, it can diminish what the 1st film accomplished, and that's why animators have to realize it can always pay to just produce one entry, without trying to build up whole franchises that ultimately could lose their edge. Let's home someday, the animation industry and even the whole entertainment industry in general will understand that.

Labels: animation, history

ComicBook reviewed Jason Aaron's Absolute Superman, yet another alternate world take on classic creations, and I guess because of who the writer happens to be, that's why the specialty news site is okay with delivering political messages in the pages of such a comic:

DC’s Absolute Universe got its Superman this week with the release of Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval’s Absolute Superman #1 and while this new version of Superman does have some major differences from his main universe counterpart — differences that aren’t just limited to the heroic figure himself but the world he hails from and more — there are some huge similarities as well. Perhaps the largest of those similarities is just how moral and to an extent political the message conveyed by character’s story and actions are. Absolute Superman #1 gives readers who, despite not being the Man of Steel they’re familiar with, is still fighting for justice in ways they can easily recognize. [...]

While the circumstances and details of Absolute Superman’s story are different than the main universe hero readers know, fundamentally the actions of the character are not. Throughout his nearly 90-year publication history, Superman has always been protective of Earth and its people, standing up for the common man against threats — including those posed by those with great power who use it to oppress those without. Superman has always taken on threats such as fascists, racists, evil corporations, corrupt politicians and more in addition to otherworldly threats. It’s the character’s sense of justice and his strong moral code that is perhaps his most defining feature and, as such, makes him a genuine hero of the people.

Umm, more recently, Superman has not taken on serious threats like racism and fascism, because when the perpetrators are Islamists, suddenly political correctness must take hold, and when Dan Jurgens was writing the Man of Steel a number of years ago, he certainly demonstrated what side of the spectrum he was taking then. Which was victimologists using protected class status as a weapon against otherwise civilized societies. Since the time Jurgens signed onto a petition in favor of the family of the infant kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Kfir Bibas, is it possible he's changed and reevaluated? Maybe. But if he's not willing to write any stories that serve as even a metaphor for the subject of Islamic terrorism, then Jurgens for one is demonstrating how in the long run, people like him are failing to send a message.

Most annoying about this article is how it simplifies and dumbs down its subject to make it sound like Superman's never been depicted going after common street thugs who are far from millionaires, but can still be quite murderous and racist. By that logic, even Joe Chill, the villain whom Batman later discovered was the murderer of his parents, wouldn't be a big deal. But isn't that odd how corporations are cited in the article, considering DC/Marvel have been owned by such for many years now, and in the long run, it only worked to their detriment.

And as for political messages, here's another problem: if the messages conveyed in Superman were right-wing, these same news outlets would be decrying that to no end. Today, they'd even attack writers conveying patriotic messages, regardless of whether it's in mainstream or independent productions. So it's hypocritical to defend political allusions in comicdom when they won't respect conservative-influenced messaging in sharp contrast to liberal. All that aside, any story written by a writer as awful as Aaron is bound to better avoided.

Labels: dc comics, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Superman, terrorism

It's been a week or so since the USA election that saw Donald Trump become the 2nd presidential candidate since Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century to be relected on non-consecutive terms. Predictably, the far-left creators of comicdom had plenty of negativity to serve up on social media following an election for which Trump was reelected based on serious issues that've been badly damaging the USA and elsewhere. For example, Mark Waid:

I don't believe in the basic goodness of my fellow Americans anymore, and without this, I cannot write superheroes. There's no point. When you see a decline in the quality of my work soon, you'll be able to trace it back to this night… Planning on going dark on all social media and news feeds for a while starting tomorrow. See you down the road, I hope. Godspeed.

Considering he lost direction almost 2 decades ago, it's no loss if he retires from the profession. He's never championed fans of Mary Jane Watson, for example, nor fans of any DC characters who were wronged in the past 2 decades. And Waid's left-leaning positions have found their way into his writings more noticeably in the past decade. There's all sorts of serious issues men like Waid could tackle, and they throw away every opportunity to do so, because it doesn't fit the PC narrative of the left today. Now here's Patrick Zircher:

We blew an opportunity to have a woman for President.
Is that a reason to vote for someone? Well, when we have Never had one, it is.
It would have done more for your sisters, friends, and daughters than you imagine.

— Patch Zircher (@PatrickZircher) November 6, 2024

Wow, what theater of the absurd have we here. If Zircher really wants the USA to one day have a lady president, much like the UK had Margaret Thatcher and Italy now has Giorgia Meloni, then it should all be based on personality and talent. Recent polling surveys revealed that at least 40 percent of women under 30 voted for Trump, and it goes without saying that leftist policies hurtful to women clearly alienated a significant number of women. This is the kind of stuff leftists like Zircher virtually obscure in their ambiguous rants. Something tells me leftists like him don't consider Thatcher and Meloni admirable examples of lady politicians anyway, because they were, or are, rightists. Next is Jody Houser:

For the trans and queer folks in particular who are terrified right now, please know that you were very much on the minds of so so many of us as we donated and campaigned and voted. And we will keep fighting for you to be able to live and thrive as yourselves.

— Jody Houser ✒️🗯️🎲 (@jodyhouser.bsky.social) 6 November 2024 at 10:06

If this is all that worries her, she clearly doesn't care about women's rights and safety by contrast, or even children's safety. Some leftists sure did sell out to LGBT ideology, yet the biggest oxymoron would have to be that, if Islamists don't want it, they won't force it on them. Peter Sanderson, a onetime Marvel/DC employee:

I am not looking forward to Trump's tariffs increasing the costs of my good or his tax cuts undercutting finances for the Social Security and Medicare I an dependent on. It has been reported that when Trump was told about the January 6 rioters threatening Mike Pence's life, he said "So what?" Trump voters look at Trump's 34 convictions, his being held liable for serial assault and a half billion dollars of fraud, his undoing Roe, his misogyny, racism and intent to prosecute his opponents, and they say, "So what?" For them getting cheaper eggs (as if Trump will reduce food prices) is more important than democracy. It was interesting tonight to watch MSNBC show one by one which states went for Trump and which for Harris, as if enumerating the states that I don't want to visit because they are pro-authotitarian. Just as well I can't travel beyond the Northeast for health reasons.

It's very sad to see yet another apparent leftist who'd worked in comicdom parroting "narratives" about Trump that were never proven indefinitely, all the while ignoring Joe Biden's own disturbing records. Now, here's Mark Russell:

I feel like maybe normalizing fascism for the last four years had something to do with this.

— Mark Russell (@Manruss) November 6, 2024

What about all those time when the left normalized slurring Trump by comparing him to Hitler? How doesn't it occur to anybody that's a most truly repulsive thing to say? Why won't they let go of such incendiary language? And now, here's Darick Robertson:

We live in a cruel, selfish country. It’s been so good for so long, that what will follow will be an ugly, ugly wake up call for those who think they’ve won tonight.

I really believed people loved their children, their daughters, enough to end this madness.

Owned!

— 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕚𝕔𝕜 👉 @darickr.bsky.social (@DarickR) November 6, 2024

But that's exactly why they voted for Trump. Because they were fed up with the left's horrific ideologies that went way overboard, including the LGBT ideology that came at women's expense, and nobody of Robertson's standing even wants to say a word about. There's also Joseph Illege:

Not promoting any of my projects today.

Thinking about you all.

May we take care first and foremost, of ourselves and each other...

...then get back to business.

— Joseph P. Illidge (@JosephPIllidge) November 6, 2024

Well if politics is all you care about, then it's difficult to believe you really care about comicdom. Here's also Yanick Paquette:

How is this even real. Reality writers should be fired. It just make no sense, it's like they are not even trying. Wtf.

If the left really wanted to try, they would've avoided all the standings they went overboard with this past decade. Please consider. Now here's Jimmy Palmiotti:

Woke up- turned on the TV. Not happy. Sad for the country. Replied to some upset friends overseas. Now back to bed.

— Jimmy Palmiotti (@jpalmiotti) November 6, 2024

If I may suggest, stop worrying over conservative beliefs that children should be able to grow up with their bodies intact, for example. Start proving you have what it takes to take a critical view of leftists instead. There are some people in Hollywood who are.

There are, fortunately, some right-wingers who've had what to say. Mike Baron:

Trump ain't like the others. Just look at his first term.

— Mike Baron (@BloodyRedBaron) November 6, 2024

Trump's learned a lot. And so have the American people. I think we're going to hear a lot more from the common American.

— Mike Baron (@BloodyRedBaron) November 6, 2024

The only question is whether men like Mr. Ringo are willing to listen. Quite often, they're not. Next is Jim Steranko:

TRUMP IS AMERICA'S PRESIDENT!!! And the BEST birthday present I could get! Thank you, Henchman Warriors, for your service, your loyalty, and your relentless Patriotism! And my terminal GRATITUDE for the tidal wave of personal birthday wishes! My pals—THE BROTHERHOOD!!!

— Jim Steranko (@iamsteranko) November 6, 2024

It is NOT about the politicians who serve their country, but the PATRIOTS WHO AIDE THEIR BROTHERS—no matter of creed, race, or color—to be safe and successful partners in THE AMERICAN DREAM! Divided, AMERICA collapses—UNITED, IT'S UNCONQUERABLE! Choose wisely, my friends!!!

— Jim Steranko (@iamsteranko) November 6, 2024

Finally, here's Billy Tucci:

It’s morning in America. #election2024 pic.twitter.com/VsXwlpD0aV

— Teen Sensation Billy Tucci (@BillyTucci) November 5, 2024

We must definitely hope so.

Labels: bad editors, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, politics