The Four Color Media Monitor

A writer at the Daily Caller discussed Hollywood's loss of morale and heroism for men, and this has hurt superhero films as well:

What makes a great superhero film?

Although filmmakers have lost sight of it, it’s not so hard to tell: a moral compass rooted in masculine virtue.

America invented the superhero in 1938 with the first Superman comic, but its legacy has been lost in a matrix of franchise fatigue. With “hero” now flippantly used to describe anyone supporting the cause du jour, Americans have forgotten what true heroism is.

The traditional superhero grew out of a distinctly American moment. Like America itself, Superman was larger than life, achieving feats unimaginable to the average human. His mild-mannered disguise concealed the constant tension between his extraordinary power and upright morality; he spoke softly, but carried a big stick.

But the superhero ethos was not limited to those with preternatural abilities. It also permeated another film genre: the great American Western.

[...] Skip forward six and a half decades, long after Shane’s classic status had been cemented, and we find his superhuman descendant slashing through the ossified caricatures of heroism in American film. Perhaps the best superhero movie in decades, “Logan“ (2017) — Hugh Jackman’s farewell to the X-men Wolverine character — pays explicit tribute to “Shane” as it navigates the same themes in a now-hostile culture.

Logan learns of his genetically-engineered daughter, Laura, who shares his trademark claws and aptitude for violence. She is being hunted by the laboratory that made her, and Logan sets out to transport her across the American West to safety in Canada. Despite his aversion to having fatherhood thrust upon him, he accepts his duty.

While I do agree it's a regrettable shame the best of masculinity's being destroyed in culture, what dampened the impact of this argument was when I realized Logan builds upon elements that came up after the early 2000s, like a daughter or a clone who in the comics I think is called X-23, and has 2 claws on both her hands rather than Logan's own 3 on both. IMO, there's no point to basing these films off of material like that, which was done very half-heartedly by that time, and has gotten worse in comicdom since.

That said, the points regarding heroism and masculinity are well taken, and it's terrible that they're being trashed and thrown away for the sake of soulless, morally bankrupt entertainment that doesn't even respect femininity, and superhero fare's been quickly reduced to a far-left political platform that makes even the most questionable comics of the past century with liberal perspectives look tame by comparison. The Big Two should be retired as publishers already, but even the movies would be better off stopping production for many of the same reasons.

Labels: dc comics, history, marvel comics

Another propagandist at feminist website Book Riot's taking issue with superheroines being drawn attractively, even though in the past decade, it was certainly put to ruin by wokeness. The article, curiously enough, makes no actual mention of Wonder Woman, if it matters, since she's one of the earliest who could be called leggy:

Endless words have been written on the unrealistic, damaging body standards promoted by superhero comics, especially in relation to the sexualized shape, proportions, and posing of women’s bodies. But a few more can’t hurt, can they?

In December 2022, the journal Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences published an article called “She’s Got Legs: Longer Legs in Female Comic Book Characters Correspond to Global Preferences” by Rebecca L. Burch and David Widman. The key points are as follows:

1. In real life, women, by and large, do not have longer legs than men.

Ahem. Women who aren't that tall obviously don't usually have long legs in a literal sense. Women who're taller - say, 5'9, could have legs as long if not longer than most men, and for many years, Wonder Woman was depicted as a lady who's medium height (Golden Age rendition was 5'8 according to past Who's Who in the DCU profilings, and later renditions were depicted as 5'11). Even the Marvel universe has some notable ladies, both superheroines and civilian co-stars who're at least medium height, and the tallest would surely be She-Hulk and Sif, so there's some long legs for you, ma'am. What's your boring point anyway? Again, we have some hypocrite lecturing everybody about "unrealistic" storytelling in a science fiction world, insulting the legacies of famous artists and writers like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, et al, and not willing to appreciate the wish fulfilment concept behind these ideas.

2. Men typically find women with longer-than-average legs more attractive, possibly because longer legs are correlated with better health and “reproductive capabilities.”

3. Since Marvel and DC superhero comics cater to the interests of men, their heroes are designed in ways that men prefer, meaning giant bulging muscles for men and long legs and hourglass figures for women.

I guess Stan Lee was inherently wrong to build up the MCU as a boys' leisurely pastime enterprise, huh? And what's this balderdash about "reproductive capabilities"? Some crude way of implying it's wrong for men to want to have sex, and women the same? Or, that it's wrong to give birth to children? That 2nd line sounds awfully forced. The columnist must also believe women by and large would rather be ugly ducklings with faces like the Wicked Witch of the West, and maybe even hook noses. Embarrassingly bad. No consideration for how New Teen Titans had quite a few women in its readership back in the day either.

4. The female characters with the longest legs tend to be heroes. The shorter a woman’s legs, the more likely it is that she is a villain and therefore depicted as “unattractive” on purpose.

Umm, I'm not sure you can say that when Lorelei the Enchantress appears in that article, and was often depicted as a villainess. Regardless, is there something wrong with depicting heroines with long legs? Or villainesses with short ones? Not sure what the point here is, but it's definitely very poor. Why should we want to fall in love with a villainess? I think Titania, the villainess who first appeared in the 3rd issue of Secret Wars, was considerably tall at well over 6 feet (and some of her costume designs were revealing), so I must conclude this shoddy rant is the work of somebody who deliberately refused to do any proper research.

5. Female characters, like women in real life, often wear heels to make their legs appear longer and, therefore, more attractive. In comics, this translates into not only wearing heels but also standing on tiptoe for absolutely no reason.

6. Both DC and Marvel were guilty of exaggerating female leg length to interest male readers, but in different ways: DC’s women wear heels more often than Marvel’s, while Marvel’s women, on average, had a longer leg length than DC’s.

Hmm, something fishy here. She must really hate high heels, and prefer sneakers instead. Or just plain dull shoes, is all. I'm not impressed with this very petty rant. And lest we forget, given the chance, the columnist will also accuse the Big 2 of exaggerating boob size for the sake of male readers, and no female readers of any kind. This is just plain stupid and trivial compared to far more crucial issues around the globe.

I know this sounds a lot like a “water is wet” study, where researchers put a lot of time and effort into proving something that is supposedly obvious to everyone, but these studies really are important. They give people a scientific basis from which to discuss the unrealistic, potentially harmful beauty standards perpetuated by superhero comics, and to identify areas where the industry still embraces gender stereotypes while demonizing realistic physical features that readers are more likely to have.

Exaggerating leg length is hardly the only example of how superhero comics continue to prioritize men and their preferences while kicking everyone else to the curb. As Jess Plummer has written, DC has stunningly few women working on their comics, while Marvel’s movies are still a boys’ club.

I guess she's lacking the courage to announce how disappointed she is with many women for staying away in droves from The Marvels, sequel to one of the sloppiest recent entries in the whole overblown live action Marvel film franchise. Again, why is it wrong to make entertainment for boys, especially when entertainment for women is always permitted too? All it takes is some talented writing development, and you could have some winners on hand. Alas, this is an era where merit no longer counts, and if the Marvel/DC movies cater more to LGBT ideology than they actually have so far, you can be sure there won't be any complaints coming from such a fool over how transsexuality is demeaning to women. She might also want to consider that, with the draconian editorial mandates at DC/Marvel, or the lack of creative freedom, selective or otherwise, why would most women want to work for them in the first place?

To be clear, Burch and Widman’s work does not speak at all about the in-house machinations that may lead to such depictions of women, nor do they talk about superhero films. But all of these issues — unrealistic portrayals of the human body, the lack of women working behind the scenes, and the lack of female protagonists in comics-based films — have the same cause: the deeply rooted conviction that male dollars are more important than female dollars, and that it is okay to do absolutely anything — including depict women in the same old, unhealthy ridiculous ways — to keep those male dollars flowing.

Another finding the study discusses is that women are depicted in a very uniform way. Even more than male characters, there is little variety: they all share an extremely similar body type. While this may make it easy for them to share clothes, it also makes any legs that fall outside the “norm” stand out all the more.

Ahem. Donna Troy's most significant costume designs, in example, are more like trousers, to differentiate in some ways from Wonder Woman's bustier. And there are various other ladies in superhero fare who've worn pants too, including Hawkgirl, and Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four. Oh, and what's this about lacking female protagonists in comic movies? That's so hilarious, suggesting she hasn't seen many herself, or she'd notice Scarlett Johansson playing Black Widow in the Avengers film series. Or how about the 2 Wonder Woman films, which aren't aging well as it is? Predictably missing in the puff piece is discussion of merit, proving this is all a lot of unintentional comedy for pushing for a hag-like vision in comicdom and movies at all costs. The article even highlights a Superman story where Lois Lane's legs were made to look like a hairy/furry alien's, and implies that's the image they prefer for women in general. In other words, women shouldn't shave their legs, or even armpits is what it sounds like, which is severely insulting to women. Lest we forget, she also insults people's intelligence, acting like nobody can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

And of course, it's all coming at a time when the Big 2 have long plunged into the artistic/financial abyss. No doubt, when their doors close, it won't make an iota of difference to a SJW who clearly feels entitled to creations she never authored herself.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, history, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, women of dc, women of marvel

Animation Xpress reports on what's said to be the first official school for comics art in India:

Veteran comic artist and educator Dilip Chaubey has launched India’s first comic book school for comic art education. Called The Dilip Chaubey School of Art (DCSA), the institute offers six-month certification program in Character Design, Comic Illustration and Digital Art in its Lucknow campus.

Chaubey has over 30 years of experience in illustration and teaching. He has served as a senior professor in Digital Arts at an American University. He was a former illustrator at Raj Comics, where he created characters like Tiranga, Parmanu, and Fighter Toads in the 90s. With over 300 comics under his belt at Raj Comics, and 14 years teaching internationally, his expertise is widely recognised.

Chaubey’s DCSA is dedicated to training artists in sequential arts and upskilling the crafts of the comics industry. As per the institute, its focus is on a practical skill-based learning approach, providing hands-on, industry-aligned training to shape students into top-skilled artists. DCSA claims to offer an international-level curriculum, bridging the gap between Indian and global comic art standards.

“Comic artwork in India is relatively poor compared to the Marvels/DCs of the world and this has been the key factor as to why our Indian comics industry has never taken off,” said Chaubey, who is the founder & dean of DCSA. “The main reason why the quality of comic art has been relatively poor is the lack of formal comic art education, skill-based learning techniques, and proper resources that enable students to become top artists and make a successful career in art.”

If he thinks local art isn't as good as Marvel/DC art, he should get a good look at the ghastly output from the Big Two in the past decade. The stories are poor, but so is the art, and if DC hadn't imitated Marvel initially, they soon got around to following suit in terms of poor art quality, recalling how horrifically awful the art in Robin became of recent, when they got around to victimizing Robin with LGBT ideology full force. The way the Big Two are going now makes even the most mediocre comics from Asia look like masterpieces by comparison.

I wish the guy good luck going forward with this new art school, and hopefully in the future, new generations will be able to produce art and story that'll benefit the medium in ways mainstream superhero fare in the USA no longer is.

Labels: Europe and Asia, history, technology

WBTV-3 has a report on a comics store in Charlotte, NC, where the proprietor keeps around one of the largest collections possible to find in his warehouse:

Shelton Drum has been buying and selling comic books for decades. His Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find comic book shop in Charlotte is one of the most popular in the southeast.

But the hundreds of comic books you can find here in the shop are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Shelton’s collected over the years.

And for the first time ever, he allowed Carolina Camera to go into the secret location where he keeps his comic book collection. It’s something very few others have ever seen.

It’s like something out of the movies, according to Shelton, who describes it by saying, “It is the last graveyard. It is the warehouse from Indiana Jones. But it’s mostly comic books and comic-related magazines and things.

There are shelves and shelves and shelves of boxes in this secret warehouse. Each box is filled with comic books.

There are comic books of every kind - everything from A to Z and from every year since comic books first came out.

The warehouse even has a distinctive comic book smell. It is a comic book lover’s comic book nirvana.

Although there is no exact count, Shelton estimates there are anywhere from 800,000 to a million comic books here. It’s believed to be the largest collection of its kind in the Carolinas. [...]

So just how does one amass such a huge collection as this? Shelton said he thinks a lot of collectors have a gene.

“You know, it’s like, you gotta have ‘em all,” he said. [...]

And no doubt, Shelton’s made some good deals and gotten a good return on his money. Many of his comics are worth thousands of dollars.

Sure, but it's still no substitute for the value of reading. When one speaks of wanting to have it all, it should be within the context of reading too. That's why I'd like to own much of the most relevant Spider-Man stories, and also Superman, et cetera. But acquiring it in pamphlets that could be hugely expensive is not the way to go. It's in trade paperbacks and hardcover formats that is. I wish I could admire the guy for his acquisitions, but alas, I can't, because it's clear he's got no issue with the pamphlet collector's mentality that's only resulted in speculators buying the heck out of all this for the sake of monetary value, going on to store all those pamphlets in plastic "slabs" and vaults, where they'll never be seen by a mass audience like museum artifacts are.

Maybe if the store manager were to donate them all to a museum, then something admirable would be achieved. But shutting all those great stories of past decade away in a dark warehouse isn't something to appreciate at all.

Labels: exhibitions, history, msm propaganda, sales

It's been a week, but the Daily Wire's reported that the sequel to the very woke Captain Marvel movie from 4 years ago has crash landed quite badly:

Disney’s latest superhero movie “The Marvels” continues to be a box office disaster as the female-led film suffered the worst second-weekend drop of all time for Marvel Studios.

The Brie Larson-led Marvel Cinematic Universe film fell 78 percent in box office performance for its second weekend out and is currently tracking as the worst second-week showing for any modern day Hollywood superhero film, the Hollywood Reporter reported.

“The Marvels” is a sequel to the 2019 film “Captain Marvel” and has managed to beat out the previous holder of the worst dropoff from opening weekend held by the third film in the “Ant Man” franchise, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which experienced a 69 percent drop. The new Marvel film failed to meet expectations its opening weekend with the box office estimates lowered before the release from $75-$80 million in projected ticket sales to just $60-$65 million, as previously reported. Opening weekend proved worse, with the movie earning just $47 million, and the showing is officially being called the worst debut in MCU history, Variety reported.

Earlier, John Nolte on Breitbart noted that women stayed away in droves:

Now that the Disney Grooming Syndicate’s The Marvels is a bonafide box office catastrophe, we can expect the usual-usual lies about how this is all the fault of racist Trump supporters, all the fault of everything except a lousy movie with unappealing stars running around pointing at terrible CGI in a spent franchise that has worked overtime to alienate fans by taking a dump on everything they once loved about that franchise.

Except.

The science does not back that up.

Here’s a breakdown of the suckers who went to see The Marvels this weekend….

Other diagnostics on The Marvels: 65% male leaning, with 45% men over 25, 22% women over 25 (giving it the best grades at 82%), men under 25 at 20%, and women under 25 at 14%. Biggest demo was 25-34 at 33%. Diversity demos were 36% Caucasian, 27% Latino and Hispanic, 17% Black, and 14% Asian.

“Male leaning.” Man alive.

So even though women outnumber men in the American population by a point or two, it is men — men! — who overwhelmingly went to see The Marvels while the ladies stayed at home.

When the movie makes its leads as unsexy as the star herself is insufferable, and even normalizes Islam at one of the worst times possible, you can't be surprised many sensible women don't want to see it. Of course, even many left-leaning women obviously weren't interested either. Which just goes to show how Hollywood's also way too reliant on the notion leftists will care.

Anyway, it's time to retire the whole franchise already. And when the comics medium is doing as badly as it is now, it's ludicrous anybody should care more about the movies when the comics are being abandoned to destruction, as they have for 2 decades already.

Labels: golden calf of LGBT, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, politics, women of marvel

Here's a list on Yahoo Entertainment, originally from Nerdist, ranking what they consider the top 10 Hornhead runs, and once again, we have a most predictable citation of post-2000 runs at hand, no matter how pretentious they became at that point. The examples I'll highlight of this farce include, for instance, Joe Quesada, Kevin Smith and Jimmy Palmiotti's Marvel Knights run:

The 1990s were a rough time for Daredevil. It wasn’t until Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, and Jimmy Palmiotti assembled in 1998 that the Man Without Fear hit his stride again. Under the new Marvel Knights imprint, Daredevil began anew. With Smith’s lyrical narration and Quesada and Palmiotti’s lush art, Daredevil came out swinging and never let up. Smith, Quesada, and Palmiotti kicked off a new era of Daredevil marked by creative experimentation that continued through the early 2000s. In just eight issues, Smith, Quesada, and Palmiotti reminded comics fans why Daredevil is a top-tier Marvel character. And yes, this is the same Kevin Smith who made Clerks!

Yup, sugarcoating the mediocre portfolio of Quesada's art, and no mention of how, at the time, their whole notion of how to script this volume and "motivate" Hornhead was to kill off Karen Page. Palmiotti doesn't impress me either, based on his involvement in these kind of projects. I don't consider anything coming after DD's original 1964-98 volume ended a valid take on the character. And the 90s were rough for DD? Tell us about it. "Creative experimentation" actually explains what went wrong. Next up is Mark Waid's run:

Mark Waid, Paolo Rivera, and Chris Samnee’s Daredevil departed from the dark and crime-heavy tone that the character had become synonymous with. Instead, Waid’s Daredevil had no private identity. He lived publicly as Matt Murdock, vigilante and lawyer, in San Francisco. Waid and Rivera introduced a fan-favorite girlfriend of Matt Murdock’s, Kirsten McDuffie, a fellow lawyer. Rivera and Samnee’s playful artwork combined with Waid’s adventurous tone reestablished Daredevil as a character who made you smile as much as he made you think. In this sense, this run was a better version of Daredevil’s earliest comics by Bill Everett, Stan Lee, Wallace Wood, John Romita Sr., and Gene Colan. Waid, Rivera, and Samnee proved just how versatile Daredevil is as a character.

This run was noteworthy for containing apologia for Islam, in additiona to other forms of leftism. That sure is some way to make one think, based on the kind of direction it went from a modern, post-2000 perspective. And if memory serves, Brian Bendis was the one who set up the whole Matt Murdock sans-secret ID premise, and not for the better. But it can't be any surprise they'd imply Waid's run - or anything coming post-2000 - would be far better than Lee's run, or even Colan's. Here's also what they say about Chip Zdarsky's run:

If Waid, Rivera, and Samnee’s Daredevil was the Beach Boys’ Surfer Girl album, Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto’s Daredevil was Rage Against the Machine’s debut. Zdarsky wrote Daredevil with righteous fury and emotional complexity, brought to life by Marco Checchetto’s art. Matt Murdock became more and more disillusioned with the justice system as well as his Catholic beliefs. This culminated in him going to prison after killing a man early on in the run. The focus on Daredevil’s rage brought out a terrifying but relatable dimension to his character. With Zdarsky’s attention to both the failings of the justice system and Catholic schools of thought, Daredevil never felt more salient to today’s world. If you’ve ever experienced even a smidge of Catholic guilt, you’ll find yourself at home in Zdarsky and Checchetto’s Daredevil.

Something tells me any criticism this run has for Catholicism or Christianity in general doesn't extend to terrible cases like these. No doubt, Zdarsky's run is just panning Christianity - and probably Judaism by extension - based on what positivities it could have from a conservative perspective. Or, Zdarsky's just slamming Christianity along the lines of far-leftism. No surprise, of course. There may have once been a time where storylines in which Hornhead killed criminals would've been acceptable. But not the way they're writing it here. And just how is the justice system perceived as failing? Not in the way it is in New York today, to be sure. And then, lo and behold, Brian Bendis' run makes the numero uno rank on the list:

Daredevil by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack, and Alex Maleev is a rare book that fearlessly rewrites what a superhero story can do. The run begins with a story about a child obsessed with Daredevil. David Mack’s gorgeous watercolors defy conventional page layouts. It elevated existing Daredevil characters like journalist Ben Urich in a wholly original way. Bendis brought a sense of soulfulness to Daredevil’s familiar crime dramas, bringing readers into the dizzying sights, smells, and sounds of New York City. Daredevil has a tendency to wall himself off when he feels vulnerable, but Bendis brought us into his headspace like never before. Likewise, Alex Maleev’s vision of New York City is arguably the blueprint for the city moving forward, bringing a palpable sense of grit to the page. Bendis, Mack, and Maleev made a whole new generation of comics readers fall in love with Daredevil.

Sorry, but this run, much like Smith's, was the beginning of the end. And bringing the audience into DD's "headspace" sounds reminiscent of J. Michael Straczynski's claims he wanted to get into Spider-Man's head, when Peter Parker's just as fictional a character as DD. If memory serves, this run saw Matt Murdock have his secret identity revealed, and not for the better. It's no more impressive than Superman getting his revealed.

This list also fails to mention anything prior to Frank Miller's run - not even Lee's storytelling - which is quite appalling. Miller's run is mentioned, along with Denny O'Neil's from around 1984, and Ann Nocenti's later one from 1989, but that's about the only good stuff to be cited in this otherwise pretentious puff piece. Ed Brubaker and Charles Soule's runs are post-2000 as well, just like Bendis', and I wouldn't be fooled into wasting time on them today either.

Besides the above, Yahoo Entertainment also ran an article originally from Total Film, about the new Madame Web movie, based on some of the characters from Spidey's world, and one in particular from the aforementioned JMS' pretentious 2001-07 run, who's turning up in the cast:

Sony's Madame Web movie is shaping up to be the most Spider-y of the studio's Spider-Man spin-off films with three Spider-Women appearing in the first trailer, and even an evil Spider-Man as its apparent villain who is seemingly identified as Ezekiel Sims, an important figure from Spider-Man comics with a connection to the Spider-Verse.

But is all as it seems with Ezekiel Sims in the Madame Web movie? And is that him in the dark spider-suit?

In Marvel Comics, Ezekiel plays a very different role as more of a mentor and ally to Peter Parker, with secret, mystical knowledge about the nature of Spider-Man that calls into question everything Peter knows about his place in the Marvel Universe - and even the so-called Spider-Verse.

Introduced back in 2001's Amazing Spider-Man #30 by writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist John Romita, Jr., Ezekiel is a mysterious older man who discovers Spider-Man's true identity by hiring numerous private investigators to track him. After revealing himself to Peter, Ezekiel also reveals that, like Peter, he too has spider-powers.

Unlike Peter, however, Ezekiel gained his powers on purpose through a magical ritual, tying himself into the power of the so-called Spider-Totem, a mystical spider-entity who, according to Ezekiel, empowers all Spider-heroes across the Multiverse.

Ezekiel reveals this connection to Peter Parker, raising the question of whether the spider that bit Peter gave him powers because it was irradiated, or if it was attempting to pass spider-powers on to Peter before it died of radiation.

Whichever it is, the result is the same: Peter is now tied into all the other Spider-Totems, and with this new awareness also comes the danger of those who hunt Totems, specifically a particularly malevolent energy vampire named Morlun.

The issue Spider-fans had with this take is that it diminishes Spidey's uniqueness - this isn't the DC universe, where the legacy concept was written well enough with at least a few characters like the Flash, up until the turn of the century anyway. Say, and what's this about a so-called Spider-verse? Such a thing didn't really come along until about a decade ago, when Marvel started injecting a busload of other characters into spider-themed roles, again, at the expense of Spidey's uniqueness. The only other character we really need in a heroic spider-role is Jessica Drew. Yet simultaneously, I get the feeling the columnist's putting down Spidey's world rather than praising the best of it (pre-2000, of course).

With Morlun hunting Peter, he must turn to Ezekiel for help. Ezekiel eventually gives his life to defeat the villain - although both Ezekiel and Morlun would eventually return, though Ezekiel would also die again (apparently permanently this time). And in between, Peter would discover one of Ezekiel's darkest secrets.

As it turns out, Peter isn't the only Spider-Totem who gained powers on the day he was bitten as a teenager. As revealed in 2014's Amazing Spider-Man #1 by writer Dan Slott and artist Humberto Ramos, Peter's classmate Cindy Moon was also imbued with spider-powers on that day. But unlike Peter, she was locked away in a vault by Ezekiel, who kept her there for years for fear that Morlun would sense the power of the connection between Peter and Cindy.

Here we go again with that pathetic "revealed" nonsense, instead of "established". And the way Morlun was written was so cardboard, right down to how Spidey initially defeated him.

Sci-Fi Now noted that JMS commented on the Ezekiel issue himself, as the first he's hearing about the use of his poorly scripted character in the film:

“And well, this just happened,” Straczynski said on Twitter. “It’s definitely the character I created for Spidey, but it feels like they may have merged it with Morlun a bit. (Don’t ask for any details because this is the first I’m hearing of it, so my guess is as good as yours.)”

When met with a slew of questions, including whether he can sue for the use of his creation he replied: “No, because comic writers don’t own what we write on a work-for-hire basis, which is how comics work for the most part (creator-owned stuff aside)” and then when asked on clarification on whether he’ll get paid for the use of the character he stated: “No, nothing.”

Oh well. I could honestly care less. JMS' run is largely irrelevant today as it is poor, and predictably, nobody mentions how embarrassingly bad the ending of his run was, what with Peter and Mary Jane making a deal with Mephisto at the cost of their marriage. Today, Marvel continues to dangle the carrot in front of the audience, when in the end, it's not even worth eating to begin with. And JMS has never admitted how cheap he was being to concoct story and plotlines at the expense of the Silver Age origins, that weren't consistent with how Lee first established them. Exactly why he deserves no royalties. He was part and parcel to the devastation of all that's Spidey, did no better with what he wrote for DC either, and if he's left the comics medium, that'll be a blessing. I'll admit though, it is surprising the moviemakers of Madame Web want to put the Ezekiel character in a villainous role. As low an opinion as I have of JMS' past work since 2000, that doesn't mean they should've taken the direction they did. Though what it does indicate is that this is another case of filmmakers going for some of the easiest choices for what to draw from comics, with no consideration that what's come about since the turn of the century is worthless.

Labels: bad editors, Daredevil, dreadful writers, golden calf of death, islam and jihad, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Spider-Man, women of marvel

WCAX-3 covered this year's non-fiction comics festival in Burlington, the 2nd so far:

The topics covered by nonfiction comics can range from journalism to graphic medicine. Burlington Resident Romaney Granizo Mackenzie says she’s always been a fan of books, but she’d actually never read a nonfiction comic. And now, she’s a fan.[...]

Co-organizer Teppi Zuppo is excited that this genre is getting more recognition.

“We’re the only nonfiction comics book in the country, and it’s a really big genre. It’s growing and it needs this kind of focus,” Zuppo said.

Organizers of the nonfiction comic festival tell me there’s over 50 authors here. The day was filled with workshops as well as presentations. While people are immersing themselves in nonfiction comics Zuppo hopes people there share the message that there’s more to comics than cartoons.

“But also, just getting people to take comic seriously as like a real learning medium. Comics can really like break up that information in a way that makes it more accessible...Comics aren’t just for kids, comics aren’t just superheroes,” Zuppo said.

Of course not. But there's one crucial point that should be made: they can't be just leftist propaganda either, and anybody who exploits the medium for the sake of woke nonsense that's hurtful to people isn't doing comicdom a bit of good. The genre may be more recognized today, but on what exact grounds? If it's as a way for conveying leftist propaganda, then it hasn't been truly recognized at all.

So of course, one must wonder what exact kind of non-fiction comics are on exhibition at this festival? That's what they don't make clear here beyond at least 2 examples given. Do any right-wing cartoonists attend? That's certainly not clear here either. So how do we know this festival is something to be optimistic about?

Labels: conventions, libraries, msm propaganda

Deadline announced whom some of the cast for Superman: Legacy will be, and what's reported appears to indicate this upcoming DC adaptation will involve some kind of wokeness, to nobody's surprise:

María Gabriela de Faría, the Venezuelan actress best known for roles in Fox comedies Animal Control and The Moodys, has landed a breakout part on the film side, joining the cast of James Gunn’s Superman: Legacy.

Her character is Angela Spica aka The Engineer. Part of the Warner/DC flick’s villain team, Angie’s powers stem from nanotechnology built into her body. Created by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, she’s the second DC character to bear the name of The Engineer and was first introduced in The Authority vol.1 #1 in 1999.

The first title in a revamped DC slate, marking Gunn’s first directorial effort as co-head of DC Studios, Superman: Legacy will follow Superman as he looks to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing. He is the embodiment of truth, justice and the American way, guided by human kindness in a world that sees kindness as old-fashioned. Others in the ensemble, as previously announced, include David Corenswet as Clark Kent/Superman, Rachel Brosnahan as Lois Lane, Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner/Green Lantern, Isabela Merced as Hawkgirl, Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific, and Anthony Carrigan as Rex Mason/Metamorpho.

Wow, just what we need, a movie based on one of the most overrated liberal ideology comics of the past quarter century. Sounds like this'll be a backdoor entrance to follow up with a film adaptation of the Authority, certainly if the movie turns out to be successful. Granted, unlike recent productions such as Black Adam, it doesn't look like they're following a dictate of forced "diversity casting" for this new Superman film, since 5 of the 6 performers cited here are white, and the 6th, Gathegi, is black like the 2nd Mr. Terrific. (And they might even employ the American Way slogan.) But even so, that they'd be doing a film like this as a setup for a comic as ultra-leftist as the Authority was, is still reason to give pause, because how do we know they won't build on the same kind of ideologies Ellis and Hitch did, right down to all the emphasis on Apollo and Midnighter as a gay couple? What that would mean is that Gunn doesn't have the what it takes to make a movie refraining entirely from wokeness. And what if "kindness" is some kind of leftist anti-war allusion?

If it turns out this upcoming edition of Superman builds on as leftist a premise as the Authority comic was, you could probably describe the situation as similar to whether Marvel would restore Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson's marriage: that would be wonderful in itself, but if the writers are as far-left as they've been for some time, then beyond a reunion of Peter and MJ, you couldn't expect the stories following not to be repellent, whether politically or otherwise. Come to think of it, that's what J. Michael Straczynski's stories are in hindsight, explaining perfectly why his Spidey run's aged poorly. Just as many of these live action superhero movies look to be like within the next decade.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of LGBT, Green Lantern, Hawkman and Hawkgirl, Justice Society of America, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Superman, women of dc

The Southeast Missiourian gave some history of veteran writer/editor Roy Thomas, who came from that area, and at the end, it says:

He started professionally in the comic book industry working for DC Comics, but was hired by Lee in 1966 to work for Marvel — where he wrote characters such as Spider-Man, Conan, Daredevil, Captain America, among many others — and in 1972 he took over as editor-in-chief when Lee became publisher. Thomas moved to DC Comics in 1981 and wrote characters such as Superman, the All-Star Squadron and Wonder Woman, among many others. He has continued to work for both publishers, and man others since.

If Thomas does continue to work for the Big Two in any capacity (3 years back, he'd written a Conan prequel) seriously, must he still associate with them, with the terrible way they're going today? Work for the independents, that's surely a better path, but continuing to lend his talents, even at his advanced age, to staffs that have no respect for what Thomas worked on years before, only makes him look absurd. Which could easily describe the situation with plenty of other writers, for that matter.

Thomas would be better off retiring already, but certainly putting some distance between himself and the current Marvel/DC incarnations. Or better still, speaking out against their worst managers. A real shame he's clearly the kind of guy who's a product of his time, and likely won't speak poorly about the places he's working at, or been working for.

Labels: dc comics, good writers, history, indie publishers, licensed products, marvel comics

Jewish Unpacked highlighted at least 3 examples of comics that were on display at New York's Jewish Comics Experience, and the following certainly has guts:

Imagine the iconic, spandex-clad superheroes reminiscent of the early days of comic books, but now set in Israel. Enter your new favorite Jewish superhero: Magen, The Shield of Israel!

Created by Joshua Stulman, Israeli Defense Comics presents three thrilling issues that blend action and adventure with Israeli current events.

From the very first page, Magen (“Shield” in Hebrew) is seen fighting terrorists in Gaza who have kidnapped a soldier.

Mirroring the 1930s when readers turned to comic book heroes during wartime, these action-packed pages offer hope to readers today when the Jewish people are at war again.

The three-part series intricately weaves relevant current issues into its plot, like terrorists firing rockets into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. It also incorporates Jewish folklore like the Golem, the mythical clay creature from 16th-century Prague.

Now that's a premise that's already speaking to the times. Congratulations to the artist who came up with Magen. But will more writers and artists, Jewish or otherwise, show the guts it takes to develop more variations on this kind of a story? That remains to be seen. And if they don't, this won't amount to much.

Labels: conventions, Europe and Asia, exhibitions, history, indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, terrorism

As Israel's war against Hamas, following the jihadist organization's bloodbath in southern Israel on October 7, continues, most leftist comic creators seem to be avoiding divisive statements publicly. However, there is one author who's worked in comicdom who's also gotten jobs in Hollywood who's now facing calls for shunning, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and as reported by Screen Daily:

Over at UTA, some agents reportedly believe client and author Ta-Nehisi Coates should be dropped after he led an open letter last month calling for the international community to back an end to the “catastrophe unfolding in Gaza” and seek a just political solution to Palestine.

By all means, Mr. Coates most definintely should be kept away from Hollywood, and he practically should've been blacklisted years ago, long before Marvel ever allowed him to write any of their comics, based on Coates' repellent view of 9-11. There's legitimate arguements one can make that, why only now is anybody willing to consider ostracizing and blacklisting the worst of politicized left-wing writers, when there was valid reason to be concerned years before? What Coates did is offensive to the Jewish creators of the comics he was given the privilege of writing, including - and not limited to - Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, creators of Black Panther. I most definitely do not want to read Coates' comics any more than his books if that's how he's going to behave.

But if Hollywood's now willing to put some distance between themselves and Coates, will the comics industry be willing to follow suit? Lest we forget, there's Muslim writers like Saladin Ahmed and G. Willow Wilson who made offensive statements in the past, and hopefully, the medium's been moving away from employing them any longer. But there's still quite a ways to go, and the comics industry now has a lot of soul-searching to do over how they failed the legacies of Jewish creators and publishers who began the industry in the Golden Age.

For now, it's to be hoped that Coates will be dropped by the talent agency in Tinseltown. He's left quite a stain on any comics he's written, based on the far-left positions he's been embracing, and it'll take ages to mend their reputations.

Update: since we're on the subject, it's also important to note that a certain actress who recently co-starred in a very woke take on Blue Beetle, has been blacklisted. From the NY Post:

Oscar winner Susan Sarandon has been dropped by top Hollywood agency UTA after saying frightened Jews are “getting a taste of how it feels to be Muslim in America,” Page Six can reveal.

The 77-year-old actress has spent the past few weeks raging against Israel and is now under fire for her latest outburst in the wake of the October 7 attack by Hamas.

Sources say several staffers at UTA were extremely hurt by Sarandon’s comments.

A UTA spokesperson told Page Six Tuesday the agency is no longer representing Sarandon.

Sarandon, the star of hit movies including “Thelma & Louise,” won her Oscar for “Dead Man Walking,” and had been a client of UTA since 2014.

Sarandon has appeared in two movies this year, DC spin-off “Blue Beetle,” which was a box-office flop, and rom-com “Maybe I Do,” with fellow veterans Diane Keaton, Richard Gere and William H. Macy, and has three other films in post-production.

Sarandon's presence alone could be a good enough reason for the Blue Beetle adaptation to crash, and hopefully, her next 3 productions will too. I sure don't feel like watching most of her past movies again after this.

Labels: Black Panther, dc comics, Europe and Asia, islam and jihad, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, politics, terrorism, violence

Australian Broadcasting interviewed Shane Foley, an artist in Oz who's drawing one of the oldest costumed heroes in comicdom, Lee Falk's Phantom, which may have continued storytelling under the management of a northern European company in recent years:

Like most in the superhero world, Shane Foley is an ordinary man with an extraordinary ability.

There's no secret lair or identity and his weapon of choice is a pen, rather than a sword.

From his suburban home in Bundaberg, 400 kilometres north of Brisbane, Foley, 66, brings The Phantom comic character to life by illustrating both covers and comic sequences.

The retired paramedic began drawing The Phantom in 2016 and has now completed more than 500 pages of stories.

"I began reading The Phantom when I was about nine. It was the first comic I ever knew," Foley said.

I'm amazed it's still around in any capacity. I'm certainly glad somebody still cares about it, since it was a pretty famous comic strip of the past century, and is now surely almost 90 years old. According to the artist:

Foley said The Phantom had barely changed since the early days of the comic strip, resisting the modernisation and upgrades given to other, more populist superheroes.

If the Phantom's remained pretty much the same, and the publishers in charge avoided the woke plague of modern times, that'd have to be miraculous, considering there's SJWs out there who'd doubtless want to exploit the purple-colored costume as a repellent excuse for LGBT propaganda. Even so, it's honestly better if these serial fiction classics could be allowed to retire already, and be less vulnerable to woke exploitation, depending how you view these topics.

So great for Mr. Foley if he cares about these classics and enjoys drawing new adventures. But if he slips and lets PC obsessions infiltrate, his work won't amount to much in the end.

Labels: comic strips, Europe and Asia, exhibitions, history

The Stroud Times (UK) reports about a comic available as a free download discussing environmental issues:

An innovative downloadable graphic comic based in the Stroud district has been released with the aim of inspiring a new generation of environmental managers.

The Sound of a River was written by Stroud District Council officer Chris Uttley and illustrated by local artist Joe Magee.

The book tells the story of Monica, a girl who sets out to find out why her house has flooded. She travels back in time to learn that historical changes made to the river have not only resulted in the loss of wildlife and plants, but also increased the likelihood of flooding.

The title is based on the idea that a healthy river generates a variety of sounds, therefore the healthier and more natural the river, the more sounds it creates. Historical land drainage and river engineering have simplified and deepened channels, causing the river to fall silent.

Each page of the book is accompanied by illustrations from the Stroud district and some pages have explanatory notes.

Cllr Chloe Turner, chair of SDC Environment Committee said: “Sound of a River is an inspiring way to capture the imagination of young people and explain how historical river engineering has impacted nature and potentially contributed to increased flood risk.

“Nature based environmental projects will not only help tackle the climate and nature emergencies, but will also create much needed educational, training and employment opportunities.

“I hope Chris and Joe’s story will inspire a new generation to get involved in innovative environmental solutions such as SDC’s Natural Flood Management work just as Monica does in the book.”

I just hope this comic doesn't go out of its way to promote "climate change" propaganda, because "global warming", if anything, has never made for a good argument on how to handle environmental issues. If this comic just focuses on the issue of how to keep rivers from overflooding and endangering houses, that's where it'll work out well.

Labels: Europe and Asia, science, technology

KRGV reports of a Hidalgo County police sergeant in Texas who's developed a comic about the law enforcement profession:

Madrigal said he saw a lot during his years working in law enforcement.

“The things that we see out there, the chaos, the death… my comics have been a break from that,” Madrigal said.

Reading comic books became his way of tapping into another universe, so Madrigal decided to create his own.

In February, Madrigal released “Atreydean Justice,” a comic book he said was 38 years in the making.

The comic is based on faith, family and justice, Sgt. Madrigal said, adding that he hopes his story will inspire others to work towards their dreams.

If he's writing it from a perspective that respects Judeo-Christianity, that's good to know, because there's too little of that these days, in an era of regrettable wokeness. This certainly sounds better than the previous example from New York, where a police official produced a comic more about villainy.

Labels: indie publishers

KPBS in San Diego reports on an exhibition at the SDCC museum of how comics illustration evolved from painting with inks and brushes to digital computer development:

Comic-Con Museum recently opened a trio of new exhibits. One of them looks to "The Godfather of Coloring," Steve Oliff and how his 45-year career coloring comics reveals the evolution of comic book color.

In simple terms, a comic book colorist takes black and white line art and adds color. But it’s easy for readers to take a colorist’s work for granted and not fully appreciate how it impacts every page.

"I call color the silent soundtrack," Steve Oliff explained. "Because you can tell the story underneath, and people don't even think about it. It's just like they're looking at the art, they're reading the story, but the color actually enhances the storytelling."

Since the mid-1970s, Steve Oliff has enhanced tens of thousands of pages of comics, from the "Incredible Hulk" to "Akira." He’s been around long enough to see the tools of his trade change from paintbrushes and inks to computers. Oliff wanted to educate people on the evolution of comic book coloring with an exhibit at the Comic-Con Museum called "Big Dots to the Digital Universe."

Speaking of Akira, it tells that:

"'Akira' was the first actual comic book that was colored for production using a computer," Oliff said. "It would start with the line artwork that came from Japan. Then we would take a reduced copy, and then we'd do our color guide, then it would go to my computer crew and they would do their computer color separation. And one thing that was great about computers, if you wanted to change something, you could, whereas if you did it by hand, it's very difficult."

The anime adaptation from 1988 was also the first one of its kind produced using computerized animation to develop. Cartoons produced via computer are probably easier to modify that way too, without having to repair frames that're flawed. Even so, there's still advantages to continuing painting on canvas, as I may recall arguing before, so let's hope nobody eschews that wholesale for the sake of exclusive computer illustration.

Labels: Europe and Asia, exhibitions, good artists, history, manga and anime, museums, technology

The 4th known movie project based on FF to date, if this Slash Film news is correct, will star an actor in the role the stretchy leader of the quartet who's simply not fit for the role:

"Game of Thrones," "The Mandalorian," the DC Universe, "The Last of Us," and now Marvel: Pedro Pascal continues to establish himself as one of the preeminent franchise actors of the 21st century. After much speculation, wondering, fan-casting, and impatience, word has come out — and /Film's sources can confirm — that Pascal will be starring as Reed Richards, also known as Mr. Fantastic, in the upcoming "Fantastic Four" reboot set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The news was initially reported by Daniel RPK, but according to sources close to the project who spoke with /Film, Pascal has officially signed on the dotted line. Although Daniel RPK's report says Pascal is in talks, /Film's source says the deal is done and should be announced soon. We have reached out to Disney for comment.

Gee, there's nothing to miss then, is there? Pascal, whose resume also includes his role in Wonder Woman 1984, is one of countless modern day ideologues in Hollywood who can't keep their mouths shut when it comes to political issues, and in Pascal's case, he made vicious attacks on Donald Trump and his supporters, and, unlike Gina Carano, for men of Pascal's standing, it's okay, and he wasn't fired from the Mandalorian over them. With more and more noticeable ideologues being hired for projects like these, that's one more reason besides the woke direction Marvel films and TV programs now take that it's not worth viewing them anymore.

I guess what's also regrettable is that the comic that served as Marvel's takeoff in the Silver Age has never been done justice in the movies, however you view this. And it's unlikely a film prepared under the Disney ownership will fare any better. But worst of all is how, after the early 2000s, the FF, like everything else in Marvel's comics output, collapsed artistically under bad management and has never recovered.

Labels: Fantastic Four, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics

Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart tells how DC's forced retcon to Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott has tanked in its latest series incarnation:

Last month, comic book writer Tim Sheridan jumped to his social media to urge his fans to go out en masse and buy his re-boot of the Green Lantern story which features pages of gay sex between the title character and his boyfriend. But it looks like the scribe’s efforts fell on deaf ears as his Alan Scott, Green Lantern No. 1 has landed with a thud with few sales.

Writer Sheridan warned his followers that “haters and the queerphobes are out in force” ahead of the book’s October 24 debut and he urged them all to do him a “favor” and buy up copies of his gay-themed superhero series.

Naturally, Sheridan restricted comments on his X post. [...]

But it seems as though Sheridan doesn’t have as many fans as he hoped because so far, issue no. 1 of Alan Scott, Green Lantern has thoroughly tanked, Bounding Into Comics reports.

It appears that few want to see the big gay Green Lantern reboot to date, the book did not appear in the top 50-selling books. Worse, it is ranked 25,763 in the Kindle Store and #170 for Superhero Comics & Graphic Novels. [...]

The new book engages in a lot of anti-Americanism, too. Back in the day, the Green Lantern character was an important part of the Justice Society of America (JSA), a comic book staple of patriotic American super heroes fighting to defeat Hitler in WWII.

But in this new tale, the JSA turns out to be a shill effort spearheaded by FBI villain J. Edgar Hoover, and at first Alan Scott does not want to join the group because he feels it is just a jingoist propaganda operation for the U.S.A. Then Hoover tries to force Scott into a sexual encounter, and informs Scott that he has photos of a gay tryst featuring Scott, so he better join the JSA or risk being exposed to the world as a gay man.

Sheridan should be ashamed of himself, as should DC's editor Marie Javins for perpetuating this atrocity that first began under her predecessor, Dan DiDio, in 2012. Speaking of which, BIC also recently reported that Larry Hama and Mark Waid, leftist as they are, were blacklisted by equally leftist DiDio in past years. Curious they don't mention Chuck Dixon, however, because he too was ultimately blacklisted along with them. I guess when you're a rightist, it doesn't count, huh?

The current situation is definitely bad. But it's also vital to recall where it all began, nearly a dozen years ago, and now modern ideologues like Mr. Sheridan have continued making everything worse, along with Ms. Javins. Thankfully, as of today, more audience are voting with their wallets and not wasting money on some of the worst woke changes to classic creations that've been foisted upon everyone since the turn of the century.

Labels: bad editors, dc comics, dreadful writers, golden calf of LGBT, Green Lantern, Justice Society of America, moonbat writers, politics

A store manager wrote a column for ICV2 where he actually offers some better insight into what's destroying comicdom:

Where did it go off the rails? It’s not such a conundrum to anyone with two active brain cells and a list of back issues they need to complete their runs. Comics, first and foremost, have always been entertainment. Sure, collectible entertainment, which justifies the cost-to-entertainment ratio. But along the way, the immediate sale and false bolstering of numbers through variant covers, convoluted events, and incessant reboots left the considerations of the fans behind. Character swapping, gender-bending, and changing sexual orientation of beloved characters fell flat with the Wednesday Warriors who supported the industry for decades. The crowd of new readers the changes were meant to attract didn’t translate to a 1-for-1 swap, leaving a declining customer base.

Now we're getting somewhere in terms of a retailer's viewpoint. Stuff like this is precisely what's destroyed mainstream, along with the continued corporate monopoly on the same. And DC's just as profoundly guilty of this as Marvel; one should never overlook that fact. The writer even lists what he feels is crucial for revitalizing the market:

1. $3.99 comics. I would say $2.99 but we have increased rents, labor, and insurance costs to cover so $3.99. $4.99 and more is a non-starter with too many fans.

2. Fewer covers. I know this will get some pushback from every corner but without a focus, it’s all about the value of the covers and not what’s between them. Max of 2 covers. While you’re at it, give us a hook to sell, not just another convention commission piece with no indication of what’s inside the comic it covers.

3. Editors who are editors. Too many stories are lackluster and agenda-driven, too many covers are con-sketch drivel with no sales point, and too much interior art is amateurish. It’s clear neither Marvel nor DC has a publishing plan beyond the current reboot.

4. The characters are iconic for a reason. The movies never got traction until they leaned into what made the characters decades-long successes. Change is good for story but inevitably, you need to touch base with what brought them. Gender swaps, sexual orientation changes, and outright changes to who’s in the suit are short-term headline grabbers but without long-term sales with very few exceptions.

5. Tell stories without proselytizing. I’ve beat this drum for a decade and more but here we are, chasing away a large portion of our customer base with every new tale as they want entertainment, not a serialized sermon.

6. Limited new characters. Fresh blood is good, but it’s become obvious that characters aren’t organic to stories, they’re shoehorned in for a bump in sales. Dance with who brung you, as the saying goes.

The first of the recommendations given, however, is a very disappointing cliche. I just don't understand why specialty retailers still want to nail themselves on such a now useless format as the pamphlets, and are okay with selling something that costs even 3 dollars for so little as 20 pages or so. What's more, it practically kowtows to the very managements he takes issue with. Why can't these guys recommend abandoning the pamphlet format, for heaven's sake, and switch to a paperback/hardcover direction instead? What is so hard about that? And it wouldn't complicate an artist's ability to draw more portraits - as opposed to variants - based on many of the characters they're already illustrating. How that doesn't occur to them is bewildering.

There is also a good point made about new characters who're aren't introduced organically, but this fails to make clear a lot of those who have been for 2 decades now are Asian/Black/Latino characters who're created solely for the purpose of replacing white superheroes in the same costumes and such. If they're only there to serve as superheroes and not as organic civilian co-stars, then they simply won't work even as superheroes.

Later on, a writer at the Frederick News-Post followed up on this, telling how a local specialty store was impacted by any and all of these problems, but, the columnist won't admit what the other guy recognizes bears accountability:

Now, I can’t say I’m on board with some of his other comments — particularly those that blame overly “woke” “[c]haracter swapping, gender-bending, and changing sexual orientation of beloved characters” in Marvel and DC stories. (Drab writing, subpar art and little emphasis on building a talented stable of storytellers is a much bigger issue.)

This refusal to admit wokeness has demolished comicdom is hugely disappointing, but not unexpected. It's practically why Marvel/DC began to collapse in the early 2000s. Of course the writing is dismal, ditto the art. But the wokeness comprises a large part of that awfulness, because the activist creators are so obsessed with LGBT ideology and anti-conservative leanings, they're willing to sacrifice talented writing and art all for the sake of their petty politics.

Personally, I’ve been hearing a lot of angst in the readership around the price point for individual monthly comics, which is only exacerbated by lackluster stories and art. What was, in the 1950s, a thick, 50-page issue packed with stories that you could pick up at the local newsstand spinner rack for only a dime, is now 24 pages (not counting ads) for a whopping $4.99. If you have a pull list at your local store — that is, regular titles that store staff collect for you to pick up each month — your bill can run a couple hundred dollars. (Digital prices, such as those of the Marvel and DC apps, are slightly more affordable, but I’m focusing here on the bread-and-butter monthly print editions that form the basis for sales that keep comic stores running.)

For a unique industry that relies on an audience of collectors who pride themselves on complete runs, that price point is unsustainable and, ultimately, self-defeating a barrier of entry for new readers.

(As an aside, I stopped buying monthly series years ago, partly because of the cost and partly because I’m a lazy customer who needs to know a run was good before I pick it up. Now I wait for collected editions, or “trade paperbacks.”)

Comics now smack of that luxury-item feel, instead of what they’ve always been: literature for the masses.

Well in that case, why does he seem to be talking out of both sides of his mouth, and not take issue with the whole notion of buying a story almost entirely in pamphlet format? Why not stress why it could pay dividends to buy exclusively in trade format and abandon the monthly pamphlet format altogether?

Two points to make here. 1) Where on Earth is the market diversity? How did the audience reduce so sharply from hundreds and thousands of customers, mostly kids, to a niche base of collectors? And 2) How did comic-book stores become the sole places you could buy monthly comics?

A better query is why must you buy monthly, instead of paperbacks telling a whole story in one? Why is nobody willing to make the case for a huge shift towards paperbacks and hardcovers? It's shameful how these pseudo-pundits keep going on and on emphasizing monthlies, when here, there's a whole golden opportunity to restructure formats for the better. The continued refusal to even suggest a change of format is precisely what'll bring down the whole industry. Sure, some independents obviously specialize in paperbacks. But Marvel/DC's modern artistic atrocities aside, the unwillingness to make a case for them to change just reeks of more apologia. Not that it's surprising a MSM outlet's unwilling to make cases for the better when it comes to them, of course.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of LGBT, indie publishers, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, sales

Yahoo Entertainment published a list, originally from Nerdist, about the 10 best Avengers runs, and predictably the writers added the awful items since the early 2000s, no matter how bad they are. One such bad modern example is Mark Waid's "All-New, All different" from 2016:

Mark Waid was already a comics legend by the time he came on board the Avengers franchise, thanks to series like Kingdom Come and The Flash. but the Avengers he got to write were not the all usual suspects. In 2016’s All-New, All-Different Avengers, Waid kept stalwart members like Tony Stark, but added Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan, Miles Morales Spider-Man, Jane Foster’s Thor, and the teenage Nova, Sam Alexander, as a new generation of Avengers. And Sam Wilson was finally on the team as Captain America and not as the Falcon.

Waid excelled at writing this mix of heroic generations, giving the Avengers a multi-generational perspective it never had before. To make Waid’s run even better, he was joined by artists like Adam Kubert and Mahmud Asrar. Eventually, the younger generation would form their own team, the Champions, but Waid would continue with the older members in a new volume of Avengers. He’d close out his run in 2018 with the epic No Surrender arc, one of the best and most epic Avengers sagas of the 21st century. It was a brief run overall, but one that made a mark. No pun intended.

As this puff piece hints, the social justice-pandering creations were added to the mess. To the point one must ask why Sam Wilson can't be Falcon any longer, and can only exist as a PC take on Steve Rogers' role as the Star-Spangled Avenger. And this farce made a mark? Don't make us laugh. Who actually talks about this stuff today? There's also "Uncanny" from 2012, with its hilarious use of the X-Men adjective, as though that alone will signify anything worthwhile:

The Avengers and the X-Men, two teams who debuted on the same day in 1963, were enemies as often as they were friends. But they’d never really united to become one team before, until 2012’s Uncanny Avengers series. Written by Rick Remender, with incredible art by John Cassaday, Adam Kubert, and others, arrived in the fallout of the Avengers vs. X-Men. Captain America decided that he and other human heroes had not done enough for the mutant race. So he proposed a joint team of Avengers and X-Men, called the Avengers Unity Squad.

Several iconic Avengers like Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch were members, but so were important X-Men like Rogue and Havok. The stories were consistently great and explored the tension between human heroes and the mutant community, all while the Avengers faced epic villains like the Red Skull and his S-Men. Rick Remender’s run was relatively brief, only lasting two years in total. Later, other writers did their own run of the Avengers Unity Squad, to varying results. If it were longer, Remender’s Uncanny Avengers might have gone up a notch in the ranking, because this is some darn great superhero storytelling.

Yeah, tell us about it. That Remender's run was that short can speak volumes in this day and age. Seriously, Earth's Mightiest Heroes never did enough for mutants in any way? This was the team that recruited Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Nerdist also made sure to add Mark Millar's Ultimates, and look what they say here:

Forget what the title of this comic says; the Ultimates are the Avengers in all but name. When Marvel launched the streamlined and modern Ultimate Universe in 2000, it focused on Spider-Man and the X-Men. But when it came time to do the Avengers, Marvel editorial believed the name was too associated with a property that was no longer popular. So they dubbed this series The Ultimates. Even though the lineup featured Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man, the Wasp, and the Hulk. So, basically, the Avengers.

Mark Millar, who became a name at DC writing the fascistic hero team series The Authority, brought some of his trademark grit and satirical take on heroes to Marvel. He and artist Bryan Hitch made Ultimates feel like you were watching a blockbuster movie. So it’s no surprise that Marvel Studios’ Avengers borrowed heavily from this run. If there’s one thing that makes this book cringe today, it’s that Millar’s take on the heroes is that they’re all slightly sociopathic at worst, self-centered jerks at best. And the modern twists to Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver are icky. But the big screen scale and imagination on display in The Ultimates make up for those shortcomings.

So despite making the Ultimate edition's cast look sociopathic, and even, if memory serves, making Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver look incestuous(!), they actually believe this is some modern masterpiece, right down to the use of an approach that historian Sean Howe argued was a losing formula. Fascinating they allege the Avengers was no longer popular by then. If not, did it ever occur to them that's because Geoff Johns for starters, and Brian Bendis next, brought everything down artistically? What a bunch of ignoramuses. And then, they also made sure to shove in Bendis' writings from the mid-2000s, just to show how incapable they are of making any distinctions:

In the mid-2000s, Marvel realized the “main universe” Avengers needed a massive overhaul, and so Marvel’s editors pulled out the big guns. Not just on the creative team, with superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis, but also on the team roster. Bendis added two of Marvel’s most famous heroes, Spider-Man and Wolverine, who had never been Avengers before. After Bendis closed out the old Avengers era with Disassembled, which saw Scarlet Witch go mad and Hawkeye die, he launched New Avengers with artist David Finch, and later Leinil Francis Yu, Alex Maleev, Mike Deodato, John Romita Jr., and several others.

This run was an instant sales success, and New Avengers overtook X-Men in sales for the first time in over two decades. From the get-go, the conflict between Iron Man and Captain America was at the heart of this series. A conflict that would boil over into Mark Millar’s Civil War event. Bendis would continue his run for almost a decade, extending it to books like Mighty Avengers, Dark Avengers, and just plain Avengers. Although this run ties into way too many big events, like Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and others, the characterization was always top-notch under Bendis’ watch.

All that's told entirely without questioning whether it was in good taste to shove Wanda into such an obnoxious role, and years later, Marvel studios made it far worse by adapting this story premise to a TV program and a Dr. Strange movie. I'm not sure how high sales were at the time, but it was truly disgraceful how anybody just went along and bought this atrocity unquestioned, effectively tossing Wanda aside like she were tissue paper, and House of M only added insult to injury. That Spidey and Wolverine were shoehorned in was hilariously cheap, and only amounted to a desperation tactic. Besides, did it ever occur to them that, if Avengers was no longer popular, Spidey and Wolvie weren't either, because of plummeting quality? And about conflicts between Wing-head and Shell-head that resulted in the awful crossover of Civil War, let's be perfectly clear. A conflict that forced between 2 or more heroes is never helpful, and definitely not when it substitutes for fighting villains. There's also Jonathan Hickman's 2012 run:

Writer Jonathan Hickman has already made a name for himself thanks to his run on Fantastic Four and creator-owned titles like East of West. But on the heels of the Avengers film, he took over the franchise with a take on the team that used the MCU roster from the film, but also heroes from the previous New Avengers run like Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Spider-Woman. Not to mention, there were several new characters, and even former X-Men Sunspot and Cannonball. Hickman worked with several artists at the top of their game during this run, including Jerome Opena, Stefano Caselli, Steve Epting, and many more.

Hickman’s run was a game changer due to the sheer breadth of its imagination, introducing concepts like Avengers World, and the threat of Multiversal incursions. All of which would culminate in Hickman’s Secret Wars event in 2015. Hickman found a role for each member of this superhero army to play, somehow balancing so many characters together in a way that just worked. No Avengers run has ever gone as big and outside the box in its scope as Hickman’s. Somehow, he found a way to push the very concept of what the Avengers were meant to be within the Marvel Universe. And readers everywhere had their minds blown.

At a time after Bendis for one ensured they'd no longer have meaning, that's saying quite a bit. Game changer? Sorry, but the chance for that was long lost. And it "just worked"? Keep droning on and on, please. When one considers how sales gradually plummeted over time, readers only had their intellects insulted, and that's certainly what I think after Bendis' mistreatment of Wanda Maximoff was adapted without any complaints to live action. That this run employed a setup resembling the movies says plenty too.

Anybody who's going to build a list of the best comics with awful stuff like this included is out of their minds.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, dreadful writers, history, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat artists, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, X-Men

The JTA/New York Jewish Week covered the new Jewish Comics Experience convention at Manhattan's Jewish History Center:

More than 400 comic book lovers flocked to Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History on Sunday for the first-ever Jewish Comics Experience, a pop culture convention that was billed as the “ultimate comics and pop culture event.”

Some 35 comics creators participated in the inaugural JewCE, including “Sin City” creator Frank Miller and underground comics legend Barbara “Willy” Mendes. Others participating were artists who specialize in depicting Torah stories, creators of Jewish superheroes, autobiographical writers who just happen to be Jewish and non-Jewish authors and artists who create Jewish content.

Seeing that Miller attended this convention, it raises some important and relevant queries: does this mean he's willing to own and defend Holy Terror once again, recalling how 5 years ago, he kowtowed to the far-left by not only expressing regret for conceiving Holy Terror in the first place, he even apologized for condemning the Occupy movement, and added insult to injury by attacking Donald Trump, all in the pages of a paper as anti-Israel as the UK Guardian. And despite the incredibly stupid apology, he was still disinvited from a British convention. It remains to be seen if he's sorry he acted so stupidly now. Otherwise, what's the use of his attending this convention? Lack of courage is exactly what leads to all these tragedies, including 9-11, and even the terrorist attacks in France back in 2015. Similarly, if the convention doesn't have the courage to raise the issue of Islamofascism itself, that'll be a serious weakness.

“It’s high time that Jewish creators are recognized for their contribution to comic culture, a culture that was for the most part created by Jewish people,” JewCE co-founder Fabrice Sapolsky told the New York Jewish Week.

Though the event was planned long before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war, the continued violence in the Middle East and its reverberating effects was resonant across the convention. In myriad panel conversations and in one-on-one discussions, the situation in Israel, increased antisemitism across the globe and the acute need for Jewish joy were frequent themes. For many creators and attendees, “showing up” and supporting the Jewish community was at the top of mind, while others noted the camaraderie among individuals who all shared a a love of Jewish culture.

According to Miriam Mora, the co-founder of JewCE and the director of programming at the Center for Jewish History, the difficult moment made a Jewish comic convention more relevant than ever. “Comics are worth paying attention to because there’s no better way to lift up our community and to fight antisemitism than to educate people about Jewish contributions, Jewish identities, Jewish stories than to celebrate them,” she said.

Indie “comix” icon Mendes, best known for the classic comic “It Ain’t Me, Babe,” agreed. “We just need people to know how wonderful we are because there’s a lot of propaganda out there that we’re terrible,” she told the New York Jewish Week. “We need to counteract that with proof that Jews are wonderful, and that’s what this is all about — and that’s why I’m so happy to be part of the convention.”

On this, those attending did the right thing. After such a horrifying bloodbath that the Hamas jihadists committed, it's vital to convey a message of solidarity with the Jewish people, and uphold the memories of famous creators like Siegel/Shuster/Lee/Kirby. However, this convention, unfortunately, has traces of PC to be found in the coverage, if anything:

The history of Jews and comics is a long and rich one, beginning with the earliest comic book creators — nearly all Jews — to the continued presence of Jewish stories in both popular comics and more esoteric ones. For example, Marvel briefly had a Jewish Black Panther character, while, more recently, author Yehudi Mercato drew upon his Mexican-Jewish family for his middle-grade graphic memoir, “Chunky.” Meanwhile, some traditional Jewish texts have gotten the graphic novel treatment, including Mendes’ recent takes on the weekly Torah portion. [...]

That creativity was on full display Sunday as creators spoke at panels such as “Jewish Folklore in Comics,” “Queering Jewish Comics” and “Getting Past Ashkenormativity and Secularism in Comics.” Jewish publishers sold a variety of books and individual creators signed their work and mingled with fans. One table was run by the mother of a writer of a Holocaust education comic who couldn’t make the trip from Los Angeles.

It's regrettable they've continued sugarcoating BP material that builds on some atrocious storytelling, right down to Ta-Nehisi Coates' own propaganda. And Coates is one of the worst far-leftists to ever be welcomed into the entertainment industry. If he could speak as abusively as he did about 9-11, there's no telling what he could say about Jews. I wouldn't want to own any of his comics based on what a far-left ideologue he happens to be. And that part about "queering" is quite telling on its own. It echoes what only so many far-leftists have been pushing and indoctrinating at schools, even going so far as to distort the Bible with it. Does that sit well with them?

Now since we're on the subject, The Forward followed up on the news about Arnon Shorr and Joshua Edelglass's Brother's Keeper. I hope this GN's been highlighted at the convention, because, as noted again by the Forward:

“One of my friends pointed at the screen and he said, ‘We need this. We need this now. We need this yesterday,’” Shorr recalled. “I was too close to it, I think, to see it or to recognize it,” he said. But his friend helped him realize that “this is a reminder that we’ve been here before and we’ve survived this before.”

As Edelglass kept pace with the drawings and Tomić with the colors, Shorr tried to figure out how to make the book widely available sooner rather than later. They’d bring copies to JewCE as planned, but they also made the comic available to order in hard copy online and to purchase as an e-book. Shorr is also working with his parents to translate the story into Hebrew and is looking into options for sharing Brother’s Keeper in Israel. [...]

But sitting down to draw night after night in the days and weeks following Oct. 7 was therapeutic for Edelglass. “The story moves from battle and turmoil to great hope,” Edelglass said. And he and Shorr hope it can be a source of comfort and hope for readers as well.

Let's hope it'll be translated into Hebrew, and practically as many other languages as possible; everyone and anyone the world over who's a realist needs to know this kind of history. And again, let's hope the convention at Manhattan's History Center stands solidly by it. That said, it's still a shame said convention is pushing leftist propaganda, and the JTA once again sugarcoated how the Jewish Black Panther was crafted.

Labels: Black Panther, conventions, dc comics, Europe and Asia, golden calf of LGBT, history, indie publishers, islam and jihad, marvel comics, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, politics, terrorism, violence

ABC-TV's KCRG did a report about a mid-20s military official from Des Moines, Iowa, who's producing a comic about the experiences of veterans:

Basi Affia has been a fan of comic books since he was a kid. Now, the 26-year-old soldier is using his creative gifts — and unique experience — to share the perspectives of veterans though his own comics, KCCI reported.

“Me being a nerd is how it came to be,” said Affia, founder and owner of Sensi’il Studios, Iowa’s first Black-owned comic book company. [...]

Affia serves in the Iowa National Guard. In his latest comic book, “Regicide: Havoc,” the main character is a veteran.

Affia said he wants veterans to be able to see themselves in his book. The storyline centers around veterans’ view of their time while serving, something Affia said can affect their lives after their time in active duty.

“It just talks about a lot of veteran issues, like veteran homelessness, talks about the different experiences that soldiers have in the military,” Affia said. “I think it should be more truthful, more realistic. You know, it’s not always positive. It’s not always negative. There’s a happy space right in the middle. And that’s where the truth is at,” Affia said.

Obviously and fortunately, there are positive moments to serving in the military. And this comic will hopefully provide a good perspective much needed in an era where there's too little heroism emphasized.

Labels: indie publishers, politics

Well, it looks like analysts were correct; the latest Marvel movie, laughably titled The Marvels, and the sequel to the dreadful Captain Marvel film of 2019, has opened to just $6.5 million, according to Deadline:

Marvel Studios‘ sequel, The Marvels, has clocked around $6.5M in Thursday night previews we hear from sources. Disney will be reporting their official figure this morning and we’ll update you then. Previews began at 3PM.

The fear out there by many is that this $200M budgeted sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel –which stands as the highest grossing female superhero movie of all-time–could clock the lowest start ever stateside for a Marvel Studios movie; lower than The Incredible Hulk (which was a Universal release before Disney absorbed the MCU) which had a $55.4M start. While tracking took its projections down from $80M to $60M for The Marvels, there is a concern out there that The Marvels could see a $40M+ start.

Boo hoo. Tell us about it. The Captain Marvel film was one of the first where they really went woke, and insulted everyone's intellect with a film that went nowhere in particular. John Nolte at Breitbart had the following to say:

Naturally, the Disney suck-ups at Deadline blame the actors’ strike, even though plenty of movies made big bucks during the strike. Heaven forbid the entertainment media ever show the moral courage to tell the truth, which is that The Marvels looks like two hours of unappealing, sexless, humorless women asking to speak with the manager. Captain Marvel is a dull superheroine because 1) Brie Larson has no charisma, and 2) Captain Marvel can do anything. Her powers are never defined. She has no weaknesses. Whatever she needs to do, she can do, and that’s tedious.

The other problem is that the Marvel brand has spent the last four years leaking the goodwill of its fanbase by injecting its post-Endgame features and streaming series with identity politics. Character no longer matters. It’s all about who’s gay, black, Muslim, whatever… This is not only a violation of human nature; it’s truly awful storytelling if, for no other reason, it’s predictable.

A lot of the reviews are negative, and deservedly so, but while looking through them, I found and decided to take issue with the Toronto Star's, which, despite panning the film, puts in an awfully forced attempt at being positive about a certain PC element:

Note I said it’s almost completely non-marvellous. What “The Marvels” has going for it, apart from a 105-minute running time that blessedly makes it the MCU’s shortest film ever, is the energizing presence of Canada’s Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan, Marvel’s first Muslim superhero. She’s almost enough to save a movie that ultimately is beyond redemption.

Vellani is one of three actors (the others are Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris) whose characters involuntarily swap their “light-based powers” and locations due to a magical MacGuffin called a quantum band that is maniacally misused (more on that in a minute).

Markham, Ont.-raised Vellani made her acting debut as New Jersey teenager Kamala in the recent Disney Plus series “Ms. Marvel.” Over six entertaining episodes, young Kamala learns that her obsession with comic book hero Captain Marvel (played by Larson in the movies) is based on more than just fangirl worship, although there’s a lot of that, too.

She brings some of the TV show’s quarrelsome fun to “The Marvels,” along with her family from the series: her hectoring mom and dad (Zenobia Shroff and Mohan Kapur) and her know-it-all older brother (Saagar Shaikh).

Gee, one must wonder what's so great about a TV show that, much like the Muslim Ms. Marvel comic itself, was intended to whitewash the Religion of Peace and serve as noxious propaganda? The timing couldn't be worse, coming as this movie does a month after the Hamas bloodbath in southern Israel. Not many Israelis impacted by the tragedy are going to want to see a movie emphasizing a character's written to be going by a belief system whose koran declares Jews the offspring of monkeys and pigs. And there's plenty of non-Jews impacted who won't want to see such a movie either. That could even include Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who's now converted to Christianity.

It's seriously time comics movies were retired for a change. They've become a laughless joke in the past several years, and haven't helped encourage moviegoers to read the classic comics at all.

Update: and now, Nolte's reporting that the film's flopped worldwide:

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s latest bomb, The Marvels, has officially flopped all over planet Earth.

Worldwide, which includes its record-low domestic take here in North America, The Marvels opened globally to a disastrous $110 million to $115 million.

That is the lowest global open in the 15-year history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that would be considered a disaster for any movie with a reported production and promotion cost of $200 million, much less the $300+ million this sucker likely cost.

And all the diversity pandering and divisive politics they resorted to has not helped a single bit.

Update 2: the cartoonist Bosch Fawstin had the following to say:

As Muslims march FOR jihad, NOT against it, idiots, Disney/Marvel’s failed “Muslim superhero” is featured in its worst box office bomb ever. She’s a fat teenager who acts like a 9 year old and seems to have a gay crush on Captain Marvel. How very blasphemous of you, Disney/Marvel pic.twitter.com/VdZMTHpK21

— Bosch Fawstin (@TheBoschFawstin) November 12, 2023

Yes, there certainly is something peculiar in how a Muslim character has a mindset applied to her character that's considered anathema to many followers of the Religion of Peace. If they wouldn't attend the film, this is why.

Labels: dreadful writers, golden calf of LGBT, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, sales

News 5 Cleveland reported about a woman in the area who's been distributing comics for reading education. And here's why:

More than half of the people who call Cuyahoga County home cannot read at the highest proficiency levels, according to the Literacy Cooperative of Greater Cleveland.

The group says that staggering number is concerning, not just because people struggle with school or securing jobs, but data shows not being proficient in reading can negatively impact people's health.

Low literacy rates also reportedly cost businesses and taxpayers in the U.S. $20 billion every year.

The literacy rate in Cleveland is even more concerning, with 66% of residents unable to read according to Seeds of Literacy.

In our commitment to follow through on topics that matter to you, News 5 anchor Mike Brookbank checked back in with a Cleveland woman who got a big financial boost to tackle low literacy levels in her community.

Dawn Arrington is constantly on the move.

"People know me as the crazy comic book lady," said Arrington.

She stops by popular locations in her Buckeye neighborhood to drop off free comic books as part of her Comics at the Corner campaign.

"This isn't my full-time job, but it is definitely my full-time passion," said Arrington.

A passion that runs deep.

"I love comic books. I learned how to read reading the funnies on Sunday morning," said Arrington.

Illiteracy is definitely a serious problem, and I've got a sad feeling that, with the way the USA's been going lately, there's no telling if the problem will be solved so easily. But what kind of comics does the lady provide for reading?

She is intentional about the comics she selects.

"About 90-95% of the comics that we receive generally have people of color on the covers or are featured very prominently in the storyline," said Arrington.

Honestly, how does this guarantee the comics she's distributing will be any good, even in terms of education? Or, how do we know these aren't politically motivated comics in focus? In fairness, I did notice an earlier report where it appears Luke Cage, Power Man, was one of the comics she's distributing, and that's something I'd recommend too, as the proud owner of a copy of a Marvel Epic Collection gathering the original stories. Even so, it makes no sense to base the bulk of what's offered almost entirely upon whether the protagonists are POC, when Spider-Man's stories from decades past are another item I'd want to encourage reading, to name but one example where the main stars are white. She may have some of those in supply, but if the vast majority of her supplies are based more on a PC approach, it makes her MO absurd. And what if the comics in store are modern items laced with wokeness?

Mrs. Arrington's mission itself is a good one. But it shouldn't be based on something like identity politics. All that risks is having people miss out on a lot more wonderful products from decades gone by.

Labels: history, msm propaganda, politics, science