The Four Color Media Monitor: Axel Alonso forms his own company with Bill Jemas

Wouldn't you know it, the former Marvel EIC who precipitated his former business's downfall by pandering to SJWs didn't stay away from the medium for long, and is now setting up his own publisher, Artists, Writers & Artisans, along with another most notorious figure from the early days of Marvel's cascade to failure, and at least one more man:

In comic books, there are two main publishing models. One emphasizes flagship characters — like Batman and Spider-Man — whose success largely benefits their companies, DC and Marvel Comics. The other is creator-focused, where hits like The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and published by Image Comics, can mean a financial windfall for its creators. AWA is aiming for something between the two: It will have interconnected superhero comics like DC and Marvel as well as stand-alone series like Image. And all of its creators will have a financial stake.

It’s an approach reminiscent of old Hollywood. “The model here really is the old United Artists model, where people who are actually doing the creative have ownership, control and decision-making power over the work that they’re doing,” said Bill Jemas, a former vice president of Marvel who is the chief executive and publisher of AWA. Joining him at the helm are Axel Alonso, a former editor in chief at Marvel, as chief creative officer and Jonathan F. Miller as chairman. Miller helped broker a deal in 2017 between the comic book writer Mark Millar and Netflix, which bought his library of characters for development on the streaming service. Jemas and Alonso say the first of AWA’s titles will arrive some time this fall.

First, I think the market's become incredibly oversaturated with superhero tales. There should be a far bigger emphasis on the action/adventure themes, rather than costumes per se. Second, Jemas acquired a notorious reception after he made considerable efforts on his part to antagonize not only the audience, but rival DC and at least a few other publishers as well. It was during his time as publisher that J. Michael Strazcynski took up writing Spider-Man - and Joe Quesada made things worse with his own anti-Mary Jane Watson bias - and he put in some stealth politics, and even more notoriously, foisted the Sins Past storyline upon Gwen Stacy's history. Jemas left Marvel shortly after reportedly trying to tamper with Fantastic Four (presumably, an attempt to convince people to side with Mark Waid, whose talents were beginning to deteriorate at the time), but in hindsight, it's still not all that clear why he left, or if that was the reason why. Since his departure in 2004, his involvement in comicdom was very limited, along with a business venture or two that never went anywhere, and I honestly don't get why he's clinging to a medium I don't think he respects for real.

Most interesting besides is the contributors whom they've hired, one whom I already mentioned, and another one who'd been all but betrayed by the establishment:

Besides AWA — whose team also includes Frank Cho, the writers Peter Milligan and Christa Faust and the artist known as ACO — there are other newcomers to the field trying to rupture the mold of comic books publishing. TKO Studios, which announced itself in December, plans to binge-release its mini-series, simultaneously selling collected editions of those stories and offering the first issue of each comic free. AHOY Comics, which began publishing in September, is more old school, but it is trying new things: It includes extra material — prose stories, cartoons, even a crossword — in its issues, and is also publishing Second Coming, a comic book featuring Jesus Christ, in July.

AWA has its own biblical title, Archangel 8, which is written by Michael Moreci and is about one of God’s angels who goes rogue.

To help shape the comics, the publisher has a creative council, which includes the screenwriter and director Reginald Hudlin, the novelists Margaret Stohl and Gregg Hurwitz, the comic book writer Garth Ennis and J. Michael Straczynski, a screenwriter and co-creator of Netflix’s “Sense8.”

Wow, at least a few of the most overrated figures who contributed to Marvel over a decade ago are on board, like JMS, and they're going to publish an item similar to the series DC dropped after Christian groups objected. This just doesn't appeal to me at all.

At least this time, they're working on their own concoctions and not tampering with more famous, classic ones. But I still don't want to finance whatever they've got to offer, as Alonso and Jemas have already proven they're some of the most pretentious people hanging onto comicdom. Though I'll admit it's pretty surprising they've got Cho as a contributor, and it looks like whatever he's offering ("Fight Girls"), they're not going to censor like they did with that Spider-Woman cover by Milo Manara 4 years ago, on a series that the SJWs attacking obviously never bought. Even so, Alonso and Jemas are still phonies who don't deserve anyone's money, and I've got a feeling this new venture of theirs won't be the success they're hoping it'll become. In other words, no serious Netflix deals for them.

Labels: bad editors, indie publishers, marvel comics, msm propaganda

This will be another Radical Comics.
Once their movie options come through, they will cease publishing.

If no movie options are given to them by Hollywood, they will cease publishing.

It is also a continuation of what they did at Marvel. Reginald Hudlin, Michael Straczynski wrote spec screenplays for Hollywood at Marvel. They will continue to do so at Jemas' and Alonso's new company.

There's a reason why many comics from the Jemas era were cinematic, including Warren Ellis' work on the Ultimate line. There's a reason why Michael Straczynski's spider-man stories and Paul Jenkin's spider-man stories read like low budget tv shows ( They wrote these stories before low budget, low quality tv shows became cool due to Netflix ). Two of Marvel's biggest creators from the 2000s were aspiring or failed screenwriters. Mark Millar had a very good instinct for what Hollywood and its ideal audience wants while Bendis wrote many comics that were read like a one hour tv show drama.

Kissing up to Hollywood, begging for their attention is what opened up the door for sjws to enter the administrative part of comics. People seeking to get their properties options needed to show that their stories were realistic enough for audiences to suspend their disbelief--and that they reflected popular culture more--which has become Intersectional Identity Politics--over the last 20 years.

Posted by Saber Tooth Tiger Mike | 10:06 AM

The sjws have been around since at least Jemas was around. Under Jemas, people from Hollywood like Hudlin was around and this is his approach to comics.

"As a writer, Hudlin would not win any awards for subtlety. But looking at his complete body of Panther work, why he chose such a ham-fisted but potent approach was not hard to understand.

Hudlin clearly saw comic book writing not as a novel with pictures or a forum for deep psychological insights, but as a romp through the imagination, with the opportunity to strike pop satire notes and illustrate socio-political points. In a way, his approach was not that much different from (Panther creators) Stan Lee’s and Jack Kirby’s in the 1960s, before comic creators became enamored with literary pretentions."
Burroughs, Todd Steven.
" Marvel Made a Black Panther Movie Partly Because Reginald Hudlin Put the ‘Black’ in Panther"
https://www.theroot.com/marvel-made-a-black-panther-movie-partly-because-regina-1822764896

Many people from Hollywood saw comics as a place to spread political messages, which they referred to as "socio-political" points or "pop satire" (like Peele's "Get Out") back then if Hudlin's run is to be judged

"Literary pretensions"
which I assume is craft
took a back seat

to spreading political messages

"Sorry, are we talking about the guy who wrote Wakanda as having the cure for cancer but not giving it to anyone else, and this was supposed to be a good thing for them to do? The guy who put T’Challa and Storm together, two people who have barely interacted and with zero chemistry, and hammered a youthful romance into their distant past so them marrying out of nowhere MIGHT make sense... and he did this because he thinks a mixed relationship is automatically inferior? And then had them strut around Europe, talking trash about European architecture like weird, snooty caricatures?
https://www.theroot.com/1822889338

Under Jemas' tenure,
"Ron Zimmerman’s Rawhide Kid, which depicted the 1950s western gunslinger as gay. Given a “Mature Readers” label and getting media coverage from ABC, the Advocate, and even Tucker Carlson, the series was largely panned in reviews for its too-cute innuendo and campy tone. Alonsa also edited Mark Millar’s series Trouble, which featured a young May Parker having affairs and a teenage pregnancy."
https://www.newsarama.com/38290-marvel-comics-april-2018-solicitations.html

The goal of these stories was not to entertain, be "events" or make money but to signal to Hollywood that Marvel was one of them that they shared their far left political views.

The stories noted above, along with financial success of the movies based on Marvel IP, did lead to more attention from Hollywood, the media, and sjws .

So, it's no surprise that all comics are nothing more than soapboxes for progressive politics. It really began by retooling the characters for an easier adaptation to film in the 2000s, which Marvel did in the 2000s. Hollywood is very very liberal. Marvel did what it had to, to survive.