The Four Color Media Monitor

The Mainichi reports an anime producer was jailed for 4 years for soliciting child prostitution:

A producer of the 2016 Japanese animated film "Your Name." was sentenced to four years in prison by the Wakayama District Court Feb. 28 for paying cash to multiple underage girls for sex and filming their acts.

Koichiro Ito, 53, a former production company manager and a resident of Nakatsugawa, Gifu Prefecture, had been charged with offenses including anti-child prostitution and anti-child pornography law violations as well as rape, with prosecutors seeking a six-year prison sentence.

The Japan Times says:

Koichiro Ito was convicted of "violating laws on child prostitution and pornography" as well as non-consensual sex and the filming of indecent images, a Wakayama District Court spokesperson said on Monday.

Ito, one of the producers of the critically acclaimed 2016 film, was sentenced on Friday.

Regional broadcasters reported that Ito was accused of paying a 15-year-old girl ¥20,000 ($130) for sex in 2023, and demanding that another teenager take and send him explicit photos of herself. [...]

"Your Name.," directed by Makoto Shinkai, was a huge commercial success in Japan. It won Best Animation at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. [...]

"I'm greatly shocked to see the news about an arrest of someone related to our work," Shinkai posted on social media platform X last month.

"First of all I express my deepest sympathy toward the victims. I also feel very sorry for causing worries to people who love and support our work," he added.

"I don't think the value of our output is undermined by this incident, but it is natural to receive looks of disbelief. That is very regrettable and deplorable."

Sick, sick, sick. It's interesting to note that Your Name is a story about a boy and girl who switch bodies with each other. It may not have been Ito who wrote it, but you could just as well wonder if people like him served as financiers because they thought this could be a great way to pander to woke agendas stateside. That aside, it is lucky this wasn't a screenwriter or an actor who was caught with the pants down, though the director does have a point it's sad that now, a bad man's name will sully the credits of the films he produced, much like Harvey Weinstein.

But 4 years is still a very light sentence, as Unseen Japan points out, and there are Japanese activists who aren't happy either:

However, despite the litany of charges, prosecutors only requested a six-year sentence. That’s the same sentence handed to a local politician recently for a single instance of statutory rape and prostitution.

Even this request seemed to Internet commentators to be extremely light. One popular X news account noted the disparity between this sentence and the one handed to Watanabe Mai, a.k.a. Sugar Baby Riri. Watanabe, who became addicted to a host at one of Tokyo’s many host clubs, forged fraudulent financial relationships with men to pay off her club debt. Watanabe received a full nine years for her crimes. (Her sentence has since been reduced to 8.5 years.)

However, Wakayama Court judge Fukushima Keiko thought even six years was too much. While saying his crimes had a “significant negative impact” on his young victims and that he bore “great responsibility,” she only gave him four years in jail.

Activists in Japan have long held that crimes against women aren’t taken seriously. Many sexual crimes, such as molestation, go unreported because women don’t believe police and prosecutors will actively pursue them.

What's got to be telling is that the judge was also a woman, and can serve as an example of a lady who let down other ladies. I have read at times that Japanese prisons can be hell on earth, one of the reasons they have a low crime rate, but that's still no excuse for the travesties they're leading to by handing out sentences too minor, and there have been at least a few other mangakas and other people in entertainment in Japan who got too light a sentence, and it makes little difference if they were shunned by the public. The fact is, the felons cannot continue to roam freely in public until they've served a long enough sentence for their crimes. So when will Japan's justice system begin to recognize that fact?

Labels: Europe and Asia, manga and anime, misogyny and racism, violence

The disgraced comics, novel and screenwriter Gaiman is continuing his pathetic denials of the sexual offenses he was accused of, but what's really peculiar is the following from Variety's report:

In a court declaration, Gaiman stated that he and Pavlovich had bathed together and engaged in consensual sexual activity, but that they did not have intercourse. He denied the lurid rape and abuse allegations raised in the lawsuit.

Gee, isn't that kind of contradictory to say they didn't have intercourse? Because that's part and parcel of sexual activity. Gaiman's clearly desperate, now that Pavlovich has worked him into a corner. Tortoise Media says:

Gaiman said he believes that outside influencers pushed a false narrative of sexual assault against Pavlovich’s wishes.

The allegations of sexual assault against Gaiman – which he strongly denies – first surfaced in a podcast series published by Tortoise last July. In his filing Gaiman said Pavlovich had engaged in a media campaign to pressure him into reaching an unjust financial settlement.

Oh, so in other words, he's accusing her of being a gold digger, and a puppet of his enemies, huh? But he by contrast isn't guilty of any such influence, right? What a sorry case Gaiman is. Interesting how somebody who was such a leftist, one who'd be interviewed by some of the most mainstream left-wing sources in the past, now accuses them of being against him, in a manner of speaking, despite how he'd play up to them in the past. I guess such charlatan authors must've been so confident in the past the MSM wouldn't go against them, and now that they do, they see it as betrayal, because they thought their leftist credentials would make a master shield.

As noted previously, Pavlovich made clear she regretted writing anything positive to Gaiman, and considering there's been several other plaintiffs who've spoken out publicly so far, that's why it does no good for Gaiman to whine. Perhaps Gaiman's mistake was not taking the same approach as actor Chris Noth, who was also accused of sexual assault and abusing model Beverly Johnson in the early 1990s, when he at least told the press he'd "let the chips fall where they will", which I think was a figure of speech for saying he'd let the public judge. That's not what Gaiman's doing here at all, and has to be one of his biggest PR mistakes, in addition to not keeping quiet, which legal experts would surely argue is unwise.

It should be hoped these cases will convince the comics medium, as much as any other entertainment medium, to doing everything possible to clean up their act, and one way they can do so is to make clear to creators in legal contracts what they must avoid in order to retain good images, and ensure what's written up won't be tarnished so easily. It could take time, but if the upper echelons in publishing want to, they can make an effort to hold writers and artists accountable, and persuade them to better their behavior behind the scenes.

Labels: misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, violence

Recently, Marvel published a special titled "Marvel Mutts", starring the Muslim Ms. Marvel who was created as a propaganda vehicle. Here's the information Comic Book Club Live provides:

Join the Marvel Mutts in their very first comic book adventure! Collecting issues #1-12 of the Friday Funnies series, these heartwarming tales – and wagging tails – are sure to elicit a round of a-paws. Featuring Lockjaw, Lucky, Cosmo, Bats and Ms. Marvel’s dearest doggie, Mittens, this pack is packing the cute. So fetch yourself a copy and have a ball with Marvel’s Mightiest Mutts!

This has the effect of being unintentional comedy, or laughable for all the wrong reasons, because anybody who knows what Islam is like knows the Religion of Peace abhors dogs, and look what trouble it's led to in Britain. In the Arabic language, the synonym for dog "kalb", is even used as a slur. It's clear at this point Marvel's not even trying to draw in the followers of the ummah they supposedly coveted in their bizarre leftist attempts to "please everyone" in the past decade or so, because if they did, they wouldn't have made a character with a Muslim background the star of such a vehicle, nor would they have written her owning a dog for a pet.

In the end, the whole premise first concocted over a decade ago has certainly become very dated at this point, and one must wonder how much longer Marvel's going to keep repeatedly wasting money on a political vehicle that nobody's interested in. The same can be said for DC, if they're still depicting Geoff Johns' own Islamic propaganda concoction, Simon Baz, as such a practitioner. It could actually benefit badly developed characters if they put them in limbo for some time, then wrote out the part about their being Islamists and trying something like depicting them as Arab/Pakistani Christians and/or Buddhists instead. Unfortunately, chances they're willing to do that are very slim.

Labels: islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics

Slash Film posted a fluff-coated take on a time when Marvel's Ultimate line turned Susan Storm into a villainess combined with Kang the Conqueror:

Once, the villain of "Secret Wars" was to have been time-traveling Kang the Conqueror — until Kang actor Jonathan Majors was convicted of assault and harassment, and then fired. What if I told you that, in one universe, Kang is just a mask worn by Sue Storm? Nope, I'm not kidding.

This happened in Marvel's original "Ultimate" universe. ("Earth-1610," not to be confused with the new "Ultimate" world Earth-6160.) In this universe, it was Kang, not Thanos, who attempted to gather up the Infinity Gems, and she wanted to "save" the universe, not kill half of it.

As I recall, Kang's real name is supposed to be Nathaniel Richards, though from what I've read of the Marvel 616 universe to date, I cannot recall reading anything where it was suggested or implied he was a descendant of the Richards/Storm families proper. As for this alternate world take, I'm not impressed, and this is getting tiresome already to see these kind of "explorations" constantly being a focus.

...To understand how Sue Storm became Kang, you have to understand how Reed Richards fell to the dark side first. These days, Earth-1610 Reed Richards is one of Marvel Comics' greatest villains: the Maker.

"Ultimate Fantastic Four" ran 60 issues, from 2004 to 2009. Unlike the other three major titles at the time ("Ultimate Spider-Man," "Ultimate X-Men" and "The Ultimates"), it didn't relaunch or continue after the world-shattering crossover "Ultimatum." Instead, the Four broke up and Sue dumped Reed.

In the 2010 "Ultimate Comics: Doomsday" mini-series by Brian Michael Bendis and Rafa Sandoval, Reed snaps. He fakes his own death and, from a base in the Negative Zone, begins staging terrorist attacks. "Doomsday" ends with Reed defeated by his former teammates and trapped in the Negative Zone, but he wouldn't stay gone for long.

Jonathan Hickman, writing mini-series "Ultimate Fallout," depicted Reed returning to Earth and beginning his crusade anew. He founded the Children of Tomorrow, an evil version of mainstream Reed Richards' Future Foundation, and became the main villain of Hickman and Esad Ribic's "Ultimate Comics: Ultimates." While Hickman didn't begin Reed's arc, he's the one who created "the Maker" as fans know him today. Ribic's Maker costume became Reed's new go-to look, too.

It's now been 15-ish years and Reed has stayed evil, a truly remarkable feat in superhero comics. Reed as the Maker is the status quo now, not a subversion of it. He's a truly terrifying villain, as well, with Reed's usual proud stick-in-the-mud know-it-all attitude combined with a vicious sadism. Utterly unfettered, the Maker doesn't just callously do evil for the greater good, no, he relishes in hurting others and takes his time as he does it. He's not trying to build a utopia where he's solved every problem mankind faces, but just a world where he can control everything. That Reed could've been, and was, a good-hearted hero only makes his current self more unsettling.

Hickman had previously written "Fantastic Four" — his first story featured Reed meeting several variants of himself, "the Council of Reeds." Reed's, and the story's, conclusion is that he needs his family to ground him. So, I get why Hickman liked the idea of a Reed who severed all his emotional ties and decided to change the world by becoming a monster.

Well I don't get anything but that a would-be auteur's apparently obsessed with the idea of turning goodies into baddies for shock's sake. If this is what Hickman thinks makes for fantastic storytelling, he's not a true fan of Marvel, so much as he is somebody who think it's fun to soil the image of the first Silver Age breakthrough for Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Also note how the pseudo-fan columnist sugarcoats everything about Bendis, and you know something's wrong. The columnist tells more about Sue as Kang:

Kang gathers a team of fellow fallen heroes — the Maker, Quicksilver, and the Hulk — and leads them as the Dark Ultimates. They seize most of the Gems, and soon the world itself. The comic gives a new origin for the Infinity Gems; rather than ancient cosmic keystones created together, they are "scar tissue," successively generated after disasters on Earth. Tony Stark's brain tumor, introduced all the way back in Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's original "The Ultimates," is retconned to be an Infinity Gem that was growing in his head.

The Gems can still alter reality, though, which is why Kang wants them. Reed's actions as the Maker generated some of the eight Gems they needed, in fact. However, the Dark Ultimates fail and Kang decides to go further back in time to rewrite history. The destruction she foresaw, which turns out to be Galactus, soon arrives in "Cataclysm: The Ultimates' Last Stand." The "Ultimate" universe ended in 2015 without Kang ever returning, and it currently appears unlikely that she will.

That's actually a good thing. The Ultimate line is better off forgotten, and at this point, it wouldn't be surprising if that did turn out to be the case. Near the end of the article:

So, how did Kang — one of the Avengers' great nemeses — only debut 13 years into the "Ultimate" Universe, and be so radically altered? "Ultimate Marvel" was meant to update the classic stories to be cool for kids of the 1990s. Kang, for his garish costume alone, would've been too silly for the original "Ultimates."

Really? Well that's because these PC advocates want it to be considered "too silly", much as they've practically led to a situation where even Superman and Spider-Man would be considered too silly as heroes by today's standards. When it comes to villains, though, it shouldn't matter all that much if their costumes come in dreadful-looking colors, because we're not supposed to be rooting for them...except that tragically, that's what today's entertainment scene is all about - glamorizing villainy instead of lionizing heroism. Say, does the columnist also think the Green Goblin is too silly, based on the colors of his costume? Maybe even a monster like the Bi-Beast in the Hulk is too silly for him! Which naturally beggars the query - why do these phonies even write about comicdom to start with?

All these villainizations of heroes and even co-stars has gone way too far, and it makes little differences whether it occurs in an alternate universe or a flagship universe, what matters is that it's insulting to the creators of the classic stories, and also dispiriting for fans of the same. Even for new audiences, it can be discouraging, because it sullies everything the original stories were all about, and aren't we supposed to be rooting for these folks? We can't if they're depicted so repellently. Unfortunately, that's what the modern editors and publishers clearly had in mind. If anything like this turns up in the latest Marvel movies, it'll be yet another artistic humiliation.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful writers, Fantastic Four, golden calf of villainy, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, women of marvel

The BBC reports that a video that was in development for some time based on Wonder Woman has been scrapped altogether, and the company working on it, Monolith, has been shut down by owner Time Warner:

Warner Bros Discovery has confirmed plans to shut three of its gaming development studios.

The decision means the anticipated Wonder Woman game, which has been in production for three years at one of the affected studios, Monolith, will not be released.

Player First Games, which made MultiVersus, and Warner Bros. Games San Diego will also be shuttered.

The announcement comes after a difficult time in the industry, with widespread job losses since a boom during the Covid pandemic.

A spokesperson from Warner Bros told BBC Newsbeat the "difficult decision" was aimed at boosting profitability.

On Wonder Woman, they said: "Our hope was to give players and fans the highest quality experience possible for the iconic character, and unfortunately this is no longer possible within our strategic priorities."

Last month, MultiVersus said there would be no more updates for the game, which would have to be played offline "for the foreseeable future".

Warner Bros said it will instead focus on developing its core franchises including Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC and Game of Thrones.

Ugh, they still consider Mortal Kombat a series worth continuing with, despite all the repellent gore it emphasized in over 3 decades, and even Game of Thrones? Well that says all that's wrong with WB's conduct. Harry Potter's a decent choice, but their reliance on the grossest monstrosities for video games only embarrasses the medium all the more. BBC also notes:

Warner Bros Games had big expectations for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League but the game was panned by fans and critics.

Updates for the game ended in January after weak sales and poor reviews.

With a title like that, what can you expect? The emphasis on villainy is taking its toll, and thankfully, it turns out the video game community has common sense members who don't want anythng to do with a game where villains target heroes, and it makes little difference whether the game followed the premise of John Ostrander's 1987-92 series, with the crooks forced to do government service. It's also pretty weak to just blame the Covid pandemic for the Suicide Squad game's failure, because wokeness has played a role in recent video game development, and it remains to be seen if corporations will let it go. For all we know, even the WW game could've been subject to wokeness, but since it's been kiboshed, we might never find out the exact details.

The Verge also notes:

The cancellation and shutdowns are yet another rough spot in Warner Bros.’ gaming efforts. Player First Games recently announced that MultiVersus will be taken offline, ending a development period that has already included a long hiatus and a relaunch. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a flop, with that game receiving its last season less than a year after launch. A previous report from Bloomberg said that WB’s gaming division suffered $300 million in losses last year.

It's interesting to note there was a certain very far-left writer who was hired by Monolith as a consultant, according to IGN:

Comic writer Gail Simone has revealed she worked on Warner Bros.' beleaguered Wonder Woman game before it was shelved yesterday.

Simone, known for being the longest running female writer on Wonder Woman comics to date, praised the "dream team" working on the video game, insisting everyone she worked with from the now-shuttered Monolith and Warner Bros. was "enthusiastic and supportive."

"I was asked to do long-term consulting on the game, and I was thrilled to do it, it was a perfect storm of stuff I adore," Simone wrote on social media. "Wonder Woman, video games, and one of my favorite games studios: Monolith, who produced the Game Of The Year Mordor games, that I was completely addicted to.

"The game was gorgeous and expansive. It was beautiful to look at. I am not going to give details for a number of reasons, but every effort was made to make this not just a great game, but a great Wonder Woman game. A showpiece epic.

"And all of that was because of the team. Everyone who worked on it brought their A-game. Programmers, artists, designers, everyone. I don’t know that I have ever worked with a team that cared more about making sure the end product was perfect."

"It was a dream come true. Wonder Woman had a dream team and they put their all into it," Simone concluded.

"They made sure it had WW and DC lore on every aspect of the game. It was a thrill and honor to work with them. I know there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on, but everyone I worked with from Monolith and WB both was enthusiastic and supportive. Everyone wanted to make the best game ever."

With somebody that cynical and far-left, as she turned out to be, working with them, I'm not sure there'd be much to look forward to. What has she actually done to improve women's status in the long run? Not enough, that's for sure.

Since we're on the subject of WW, Polygon told why the writers of Absolute WW made her more like a witch, and:

Like her Gotham City counterpart Batman, Wonder Woman leapt into DC Comics’ blockbuster Absolute line — a starting-from-scratch setting where the odds stacked against DC’s classic superheroes are higher than ever — with a striking new look. Astride a red-eyed skeletal pegasus, Diana sports tattooed arms, a buster sword, a black-and-red color scheme, and (perhaps most controversially) pants.

One must wonder why these PC ideologues have a problem with a lady's legs, because this is getting absurd already. I suppose they'd also use Donna Troy's pants-built costume as justification to boot, which decidedly begs the question: did even Donna's costume have to be that way just to differentiate her from WW back in the day? Also note how any allusion to the colors of the USA flag have been muted, and you can guess where this is going too.

“She still has all these very superhero-y, classic powers,” Thompson told Polygon over video chat, “but they feel different now because they have this base of her being a witch. That’s how she was raised, and this is what she knows — even though she’s never going to be a sorceress the way Circe is, and she’s throwing around this huge magic. And then she’s saying to people, ‘Well, I’m not much of a witch,’ and you’re like, Really? What you’re doing is pretty huge.”

The way they put it obviously sounds like the negative connotation of the word "witch", and that's a problem. It's just embarrassing, right down to the mediocre artwork samples, and making matters worse:

Among the huge things Wonder Woman has done in Absolute Wonder Woman’s first four issues? Casting a spell to deafen an entire city — but first broadcasting a comforting, hopeful explanation about how it will keep them alive. Cutting off her own right arm to fuel an arcane ritual — freely given so Steve Trevor, playing his traditional role of catalyst to her hero’s journey — could escape hell. And in the latest issue, Absolute Wonder Woman #5, Diana musters a very different weapon than her traditional Lasso of Truth: Circe’s own Lasso of Transformation.

So this comic is another modern monstrosity built upon gore. That Absolute WW does the ritual just to enable this take on Steve to escape hell is no excuse. And what does writer Kelly Thompson think of the golden lasso?

Thompson said that the reason she wanted to show the full origin of the Lasso of Transformation here is precisely because of how big of a departure it is from the usual Wonder Woman canon.

“This lasso is not very Diana,” Thompson said. “It’s not who she is, in a lot of ways. […] You can be raised by someone and really believe in their ideals and believe in them — whatever Circe thinks about herself, Diana sees her mother as a heroic figure, for sure. But that doesn’t mean they agree. Even though Diana was raised in [hell], there’s just more darkness in Circe than there ever has been in Diana. That’s a wedge between them, a little bit, but it’s also a way for them both to learn. […] Diana recognizes that she’s an incredibly powerful character with an incredible amount of knowledge, but she’s also very aware of how little she knows, of how much she has to learn. That is a template for a great character, as opposed to a closed-off one that cannot move forward.”

Well if that's what Thompson has to say, it just compounds more of what's wrong with their approach. No doubt, for them, the lasso represents brightness more than darkness, and for them, that's another sad excuse to shove the vicious direction they're taking here down everyone's throats.

The news of WB's video game production outfits closing is likely for the best, because the company's been going in wrong directions for years already, right down to what's coming from their comics to boot. It's best not to finance their video games either, and most definitely not Mortal Kombat.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, Justice League of America, msm propaganda, sales, technology, violence, women of dc, Wonder Woman

Several days ago, ComicBook announced Marvel's publishing a miniseries titled Death of the Silver Surfer, and the excuse for this story appears to be that it's set in a future timeline:

Silver Surfer is going to meet an untimely fate in the comics before joining the Fantastic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe later this year. Norrin Radd patrols the spaceways with the Power Cosmic as the Silver Surfer, former Herald of Galactus. Silver Surfer is one of Marvel’s most recognizable cosmic heroes and has fought alongside the Fantastic Four on numerous occasions against the Devourer of Worlds. As Marvel prepares for the premiere of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Silver Surfer will headline a new limited series that, according to its title, will conclude with his death.

ComicBook can exclusively announce Death of the Silver Surfer, a five-issue limited series by writer Greg Pak and artist Sumit Kumar, with covers by Dike Ruan. The series appears to take place in the future, with Silver Surfer returning to a war-ravaged Earth and a big target on his back. Silver Surfer will encounter a human that Pak describes as “the most human and yet the most formidable rival Norrin Radd has ever had.” Fans can look forward to appearances by the Fantastic Four and Galactus, along with the introduction of new characters.

This sounds like little more than a few specials produced in the early 2000s titled "The End", and the human they speak of may be a woman. It may end up being an unsurprising deceit about the Surfer supposedly dying, based on whether it's set in a future time, but all the same, this is not something to care about. What could be something to care about would be if, under a better management, Norrin Radd and Shalla-Bal tied the knot and ended his saga there. But that's not what they're doing here, and the same mentality that led to breaking up Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson obviously has a terrible effect on how stories like this are handled too.

One can also make a valid point that, if Marvel really did want audiences to be excited about the new FF movie, they wouldn't publish a story with such a downbeat theme. Why do they even say fans can "look forward" when there's nothing to be excited about anymore? The Silver Surfer's legacy came to an end at the turn of the century with the conclusion of the 1987-99 volume, and what's come afterwards has been nothing short of banal and appalling.

Labels: bad editors, dreadful artists, dreadful writers, Fantastic Four, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, marvel comics, msm propaganda

ABC's Denver 7 talks about a new comic based on the history of an African-American cowboy from the 19th century, Nat Love, and how its writer decided to develop it:

When R. Alan Brooks was 5 years old, his father introduced him to comic books to encourage his love of reading.

"[The] first comic I read was 'The Flash,' and I really loved it," Brooks said with a smile. "I was a fan all my life. I was going to comic book conventions as a kid, but comics were not popular."

Brooks's father searched for comic books that contained Black characters but could not find many. His father was always looking to learn more about Black History, and the story of Nat Love had always been one of his favorites.

"When [my father] was a teenager, he discovered the story of Nat Love, and he decided, 'One day, I'm going to write a book about Nat Love,'" Brooks said. "He even came up with the title, but the book never came to fruition."

Nat Love was a legendary Black cowboy in the late 1800s.

Decades later, in 2020, Brooks was commissioned by the Denver Art Museum to create a comic book about Nat Love. For Brooks, it felt like the culmination of several things that his dad taught him to love.

"This was actually one of the first comic book stories that I drew from beginning to end myself," Brooks said about his comic book, "Nat Love: A Cowboy's Life." "I know that my father deliberately gave me a gift of this knowledge of our history, and being able to distill it down and pass it on to other people is really beautiful to me."

Brooks read Nat Love's autobiography and realized he was facing a daunting task: boiling down the cowboy's life into only a few pages.

"History exists. The facts exist. So when I'm approaching it, it's important for me to not just be like, this happened, this happened, this happened. Because that's boring. I have to figure out what the emotional connection is," Brooks said. "He didn't bring this theme out, but I noticed that riding a horse is when he felt the most free. Like, even before slavery ended, he would ride a horse, he'd feel free. Horses represented freedom. And so, I decided to bring that theme out in my telling of this story."

Yes, this is something to appreciate. And just like it can be advantageous to create new comics with Black stars with their own agency, it can be the same to develop biographical comics about real life figures. Brooks has done the right thing to work on this project.

Labels: exhibitions, good artists, history, indie publishers, museums

State College interviewed a guy who founded the Happy Valley Comics & Collectibles convention:

Tom Range traces his love of comic books to a playground mishap that left his younger brother with two broken wrists.

“I was in fifth grade. [Vince] was in third grade. He broke both his wrists trying to swing all the way around on a swing set at recess,” Range says. “Aunt Sue sent him some comic books to read to cheer him up. But both his hands were in casts and I had to sit next to him to turn the pages for him. That’s how we got kind of addicted to comic books.”

Range eventually found his way to Penn State, where he played sousaphone in the Blue Band; he graduated in 1989 and embarked on a career as an educator in Bucks County and New Jersey. His passion for comic books never waned. He and his brother ran a comics shop in Bucks County for a time, until his children came along. Later, Range became more involved attending comics conventions.

That gave him an idea: Penn State “would be a perfect place for a comic book convention.”

Years later, Range and his family brought that inspiration to life. In 2023, they founded the Happy Valley Comic & Collectibles Convention. The event, casually known as Happy Valley comic con — or HVC3 (C to the third power, Range says) — celebrates its third year March 1-2 at the Nittany Valley Sports Centre.

When they present more questions for how he founded the convention and his childhood inspirations, the following comes up:

You started collecting comic books at a young age with your brother and became a comic books dealer. What’s your favorite?

Range: It’s interesting how he and I went two different ways. He’s more of a DC (Comics) guy. I’m more of a Marvel guy. He’s definitely DC, Superman. My favorite, and actually the first series I finished, was a group called the Defenders. And it was considered a non-group. Their membership changed regularly. It started off with Dr. Strange, Sub-Mariner, Namor and the Hulk. And then Valkyrie came in and it grew.

If it had a single character, I always liked Daredevil. Here’s a guy who was blind, but his other senses kind of took over. Supposedly he was blinded by a radiated isotope that hit him in the eyes, but the radiation heightened all his other senses. And of course, Spider-Man. Everyone loves Spider-Man. That’s the holy grail of superheroes, I guess. And again, it depends if you’re a Marvel or DC (fan). Marvel, it’s Spider-Man; and DC, it’s Superman. Superman started the whole comics superhero genre.

Finally, it's a real relíef to discover somebody citing Superman as a favorite pastime from DC reading, rather than Batman, and at this point, even Daredevil makes a more challenging citation when discussing series with darker angles. What took some press sources so long, you could wonder, to give specific mention to the Man of Steel as somebody's numero uno favorite DC hero? I'll be very happy if more news writers make an effort to highlight a superhero like Superman, and even Supergirl could make a great example, if the right material up to the early 2000s was cited.

Why do you think events like yours are so popular? What is it about comic books and superheroes that capture the imagination of so many people of all ages?

Range: I think there has always been a fascination with “super” people.

What are sports stars? Maybe just low-level superheroes that can do things that normal people can’t. How many times have we seen a spectacular play and been envious that we can’t do that? These superheroes are the beings we wish we could be.

And we as a species have had superheroes from the beginning. What was Hercules if not a superhero?

We talk about Thor and Loki, thinking they are Marvel superheroes [or villains] but those characters have been around for centuries in Norse mythology.

What was Beowulf if not an early superhero?

I think it is just in our human nature to create beings of immense power, because deep down, we wish we could be them.

Now comic conventions are popular because they give you an avenue to enjoy your favorite character and celebrate him or her. You get an escape for a few hours to immerse yourself in a culture you can enjoy and get to know people that are very similar.

No matter how obscure a character you might like and enjoy, there will probably be at least someone else at the convention that likes and enjoys the same character.

On this, there's a vital message to consider in something the late Mark Gruenwald once said: "every character is someone else's favorite. You shouldn't kill them off lightly, or worse, ruin their appearances in retrospect." I'd hope such a viewpoint is brought up at these conventions, because even "civilian" co-stars in superhero comics have been some of the biggest victims of such a mindset, and it can't continue any longer. I'd even add that, no matter how well written the 3rd Robin, Tim Drake, was under Chuck Dixon, that doesn't excuse the cheap direction taken with 2nd Robin Jason Todd in 1988's "A Death in the Family" storyline in Batman. Why, one could argue even the killing of Jean deWulff in 1985 in the pages of Spider-Man was going a bit far. Certainly, if these stories were self-contained, that's the saving grace. But since the turn of the century, as I've discussed before, things have a taken a turn for the worse, mainly in the company wide crossovers that have come down the pike since. They also bring up certain fan clubs participating:

How important is the Penn State audience to your convention?

Range: I find it very, very important. I mean, if one of our big selling points is that Penn State has 46,000 students, am I [saying] 46,000 people are going to show up to my convention? No. But if we get 10 percent of that, that’s almost 5,000 people. [A shuttle bus runs from East Halls to the convention.) And Penn State already offers groups that are interested in the stuff that we’re dealing with. I just presented to the Yu-Gi-Oh! club. There’s the Magic the Gathering club. There’s the Students of S.H.I.E.L.D, which is a comic book club. There’s the Star Wars club, the Disney club, the anime club. There’s the Alliance of Heroic Hearts. That’s the first group we did an alliance with. They are cosplayers that show up to local hospitals and different events for children. We give them a booth, and they help us advertise; they were in the homecoming parade, handing out fliers and things like that.

On this, one must wonder if Magic the Gathering, as allegedly celebrated at the convention, is still going by "woke" standards, as seen in the past decade? The same could be asked when it comes to Star Wars, of course. Or, do the fans attending the Happy Valley convention put up with this, and have any complaints to raise in regards to what Wizards of the Coast and Disney are doing to those franchises, and what they've also done to Marvel, and Warner did to DC? Well I sure hope so, but that's where the interview avoids any discussion of challenging issues when it comes to pop culture. And that's where it's honestly not helpful.

I wish the convention good luck in the forseeable future, but if it turns out they too happen to take a PC approach to promoting pop culture, then it can be argued they too are another convention that's not defending pop culture convincingly. At least the citation of Superman as a favorite pastime is an important plus.

Labels: conventions, Daredevil, dc comics, history, manga and anime, marvel comics, msm propaganda, sales, Spider-Man, Superman

A writer at ComicBook tells about the history of one of the shoddiest projects at Marvel, the Trouble miniseries, written by Mark Millar and previously mentioned here, towards the end of the time Bill Jemas was their CEO, but Joe Quesada still the EIC. The columnist flubs, however, with the following:

Marvel in the early ’00s was an exciting place. The publisher had come out of the ’90s, got fresh leadership in the form of new Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada and Vice-President Bill Jemas, and started putting out fantastic comics. The two of them brought in loads of new talent and did their best to repair the damage to the line that the ’90s had done. They started with the Ultimate Universe and went from there, redefining Marvel’s biggest franchises for the 21st century. There was an energy that was palpable to readers and Marvel did their best to push the envelope in their superhero line. New stars were made, with names like Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis taking the top spots in the company. They were allowed to take Marvel comics in all kinds of new direction, and Millar had an idea to bring back the old romance comics, with a Marvel Universe twist.

Unfortunately, that's the problem. The whole story had to be told within the framework of the 616 universe, not outside of it. As for the Ultimate line, didn't that see an alternate take on Hank Pym and Janet VanDyne, wherein the spousal abuse variation from 1981 was regurgitated in a sickening example of cheap shock value? IIRC, didn't the Ultimate take on X-Men feature Wolverine abandoning Cyclops in a deep valley for the sake of taking advantage of Jean Grey? And while developing romance comics is great on the surface, the idea Millar had in mind at the time - making it look like part of 616 canon - unfortunately wasn't. More on that here:

Trouble was meant to be a raunchy teen sex comedy, set in a 1960s-coded past. Readers were introduced to May, Ben, Richard, and Mary, familiar characters to anyone who has read the Spider-Man comics. That’s right, Trouble was a sex comedy starring Spider-Man’s parents, aunt, and uncle. Aunt May has always been a part of nearly every piece of Spider-Man media, but it’s not like there were a lot of fans out there clamoring to see her past. Romance comics hadn’t been extant since DC brought superheroes back with 1956’s Showcase #4, so fans were genuinely baffled by Trouble. Well, until it came out. Once readers realized that it was about Spider-Man’s parents, things got weird and led to a moment that is such a misinterpretation of Spider-Man that it’s not even funny — it was revealed that Peter was May’s son with Richard Parker, her having cheated on Ben.

It’s almost impossible to understand why Marvel thought that this was a good idea. Now, obviously, they wanted to make the relationship between May and Peter into something else — that May was actually Peter’s mother, and that’s why she loved him so much. But this takes something very special — May and Ben take in a child they loved by choice — and made it a piece of parental responsibility. May gave Peter to Mary in the book because she didn’t feel right about the whole thing; this is yet another terrible read on May’s character and actually makes her look worse as a character.

Spider-Man is meant to have a life of tragedy, but Trouble found ways to take that into a kind of stupid place. It’s an example of wanting to push the envelope without thinking about what bedrock they were going to destroy. Marvel was having a lot of success by going in directions that no one had saw before. Trouble was an example of courting controversy in order to test out a new Spider-Man idea, but it’s a Spider-Man idea that is completely wrong-headed and foolish. It’s fine to change things, but going too far is definitely a thing. Trouble didn’t follow that rule at all.

But neither did Sins Past, written mainly as it was by J. Michael Straczynski around that time in Spider-Man proper. So what's the point? Why did Quesada think that was a good idea? That too should be a query raised by the columnist, but alas, he's so stuck in a bizarre delusion of his own about the early 2000s, he can't consider that he's also taking the whole notion Spidey's life is almost nothing but tragedy way too far. That's exactly what led to the idea Peter should all but be a pauper, and can't be married to an aspiring model and actress at all. Which, as Spidey experts know, resulted in Peter and Mary Jane getting their marriage dissolved by Mephisto. That may not be as offensive as what occurred in DC's Identity Crisis, but yes, Sins Past and One More Day were very appalling and tasteless nevertheless, and as recent procedure at Marvel makes clear, they refuse to reverse the damage.

There’s a lot of great Marvel from the ’00s, a lot of groundbreaking work that did a great job of adding something new to old franchises and making them fresh. However, Trouble is one of the first, well, troubling examples of Marvel’s obsession with Spider-Man’s past. It was Marvel trying to do something dumb with Spider-Man’s past years before One More Day. Trouble was a book that never needed to happen and after it did, it was quickly brushed under the carpet. It was an exercise in futility, and it’s still a perplexing choice over two decades later.

While Trouble certainly lived up - or down - to its name, I don't understand why the columnist seems to believe the 2000s had such great productions, considering how Scarlet Witch was subjected full force to a villification that did not need to happen, and it took nearly a decade until they were finally willing to reverse that, yet the whole Wanda-as-madwoman premise was put to use in the Marvel movie and TV franchise, and all the SJWs who complained about sexism in entertainment never took issue with that, if at all. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were supposed to be reformed crooks who became figures one could admire, even as they still had their character flaws, and in WandaVision and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, she's reduced to a basket case.

The Trouble miniseries didn't have to happen. But neither did Avengers: Disassembled, Sins Past, Civil War and One More Day. There's also some very bad Iron Man storylines that took place at the time, along with Thor, X-Men and Fantastic Four stories, and the repetitive company wide crossovers that got to the point of occurring more than once a year were also uncalled for. Why doesn't that occur to the columnist? Alas, if he can't take issue with those kind of terrible directions, then his alleged criticism of Trouble is unconvincing.

But could a story about Aunt May's childhood have ever been developed? Well, if talented creators were given the right assignment under the right circumstances, chances are they could tell a tasteful story about hers and Uncle Ben's childhoods that Marvel fans could consider worth the effort when it comes to establishing histories for fictional characters. Under awful editors and publishers like Quesada, Jemas, Alonso and even Cebulski, however, this is simply not possible.

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