Non-profit Jewish organizations want to honor overlooked creators

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was the reason Gwen Stacy wasn't resurrected post-OMD, as was allegedly planned?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ComicBook fawns over post-2000 Superman comics

ComicBook wrote another sugary article where they predictably set about gushing over what they call the "best" of Superman comics in the 21st century, with the writers of their choices being none other than the worst of modern day ideologues, or even writers who've lost their way post-2000. For example:

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths is underappreciated; it’s much better than it gets credit for and has some certified bangers. The best of them is probably Dark Crisis: World Without a Justice League: Superman #1, by Tom King and Chris Burnham. The story takes place on a “perfect” Earth for Superman, meant to drain his energy for Pariah. He’s married to Lois and Jon has become his sidekick, working as Robin instead of Superboy. However, there’s something amiss with the world that keeps bothering the Man of Steel, which leads him to make a fateful decision. King hasn’t written much Superman, but has proven to be amazing with the character. This issue is no exception, and it’ll bring a tear to your eye by the end. Burnham is fantastic, really bringing the issue to life. This story is an underrated sensation that isn’t talked about enough.

When King's the kind of writer they recommend, you know something's wrong, and that the comic in focus is both overappreciated and overrated. Where does the writer get off lecturing us that such scriptwriters are the best we can find in this day and age? If this story isn't spoken about much, it's just as well. And then, also to be expected:

Geoff Johns and Gary Frank are one of the best teams to work on Superman in the 21st century. Their run on Action Comics is almost completely perfect. “Brainiac” is a wonderful example of why they are so great together. The story brings back the villain Brainiac, revealing the truth about all different versions of the Coluan cyborg we’ve seen over the years. This one is both an action masterpiece with some amazing worldbuilding, and a tearjerker that will break your heart. The action is brilliant, and the art will knock your socks off. This came during that period when DC was bringing pre-Crisis ideas back to the Superman comics, and is a story that is both modern and retro at the same time.

There they go again with the use of the word "revealing", rather than "establishing", but either way, Johns is unsuited to the task, and Frank shouldn't have worked with him. And there's also the following:

Superman: Space Age is a retro masterpiece, and doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The book starts in the 1985, at the end of the world, and tells the story of Superman’s life, his relationship with Lois Lane, the beginning and end of the Justice League, and a look at Crisis on Infinite Earths that we’ve never gotten before. Written by Mark Russell with art by Mike and Laura Allred, this story is the perfect mix of retro DC goodness and amazing Superman storytelling. It’s not a perfect book — the Lex Luthor subplot isn’t as great as it could be — but it’s so very good. We all expected it to be great, but we didn’t expect it to be as great as it is.

Even if a leftist like Russell wasn't the writer here, the Allreds are honestly some of the most mediocre artists since the turn of the century, and alone could be quite a turnoff. I seem to recall reading some of the former's work in the last year of X-Force, and there too, the art was perfectly dreadful. There's even another item by King listed that at least half admits he's not a fan-favorite:

Superman: Up in the Sky, by Tom King and Andy Kubert, was a huge gamble of a story. King isn’t exactly the most beloved writer in DC Comics, and the book was sold in Wal-Mart in an anthology book that combined it with Superman classics. The story sees the Man of Steel fly off into space to rescue one little girl. On the trip, the hero is challenged numerous times, all while wrestling with whether he should be out here in the first place to save just one life. King and Kubert give readers a story that completely understands the character, a brilliant tale that digs into the first superhero in a way a lot of stories don’t. The art is amazing, perfectly bringing the script to life. This story can easily stand with the greatest Superman stories of any generation.

And only because King's the writer, right? Interesting they admit he's not the most admired writer at DC today, but then, none of the new ones really are, so it's nothing new, yet of course King's politics don't improve anything. But that still doesn't explain why they're fluff-coating his writings despite admitting he's not a favorite writer for the core fanbase they already alienated, and to say a scriptwriter who obsessed over storylines emphasizing heavy-handed takes on traumas is one of the most talented you could possibly find is just insulting.

And all this mishmash takes up valueable space that could've been dedicated to spotlighting the most interesting and challenging new creator-owned comics instead. If they'd just admit there's no point wasting time on modern DC/Marvel, we'd be getting somewhere. Sadly, it's unlikely they'll ever explore topics more challenging, and we'll just keep getting more of this gushy nonsense that always goes for the most overrated writers and stories in the modern era.

More about the back issues on the speculator market

The UK Times wrote more about the topic of the speculator market, and the old back issues that're held hostage to the cyclical sales mindset. And in the following about Spider-Man, they say:

More than 60 years on, the world is still marvelling – not just at Spider-Man’s awesome might but at his impressive market value. In 2021 a copy of the same magazine sold in the US for $3.6 million (£2.7 million). It cost 12 cents when it was bought in some suburban drugstore 62 years ago. At the time, that was the highest price paid for a comic book, but since then the record has been smashed on several occasions – a solid indication of the rising global market in collectable comics. Last year, a copy of Action Comics from June 1938, which introduced the Superman character to the world, sold for $6 million at auction. And just this week, a copy of the first comic dedicated entirely to Superman, dating to 1939, astonished the collectibles market when it went for $9.12 million.

I'm afraid it's just at the market value, considering what a joke sales of monthly pamphlets have become. Does anyone truly marvel at how Joe Quesada destroyed the Spider-marriage? And the damage to Spidey didn't stop there. How can anybody consider it a celebration when artistic value's been massively damaged and left unrepaired? Also note how none of these press sources today ever delve into sad moments like those from the past 2 decades, nor anything else that brought down comicdom, and you see how the inflicted damage will continue apace.

Superman’s debut belongs to what collectors and dealers call the golden age of comic books – the pre-war or wartime era when other patriotic, all-American characters such as Wonder Woman and Captain America arrived on the scene and spent their early years fighting Nazi stormtroopers and the Imperial Japanese Army. Spider-Man is a product of the so-called silver age of the 1950s and 1960s, when new-minted superheroes were allowed to be more flawed and personally conflicted, and when they deployed their powers primarily as crimefighters. Batman, though he first appeared before the Second World War, found his métier in the 1950s when he became a kind of masked special constable, constantly at the beck and call of the Gotham City Police Department.

Is that a joke? "Allowed"? Back then, while there were problems with censorship, which tragically made a comeback in the past decade, personality flaws weren't something anybody in the business knowingly objected to. That was something that was up to the writers/artists to decide if they wanted to emphasize. During the Golden Age, most stories were at least half the length of what followed during the 50s/60s, and Action Comics, in example, was more an anthology of several entries, some lasting longer than others, like Superman's. And in those early years, it's not like anybody was immediately interested in emphasizing what became more common in the Silver Age. At that time, working on the kind of publication deadlines that they did, the primary objective was entertainment value, and they succeeded well with that. They make it sound, again, like comics characters are real people instead of fictional figures, and as I've said before, I find that galling. I think that part about Batman being an unofficial "employee" of the GCPD is also exaggerated, because there were times when he'd be seen investigating crimes without their immediate request back in the day too.

It is likely that prices for silver-age comics have been boosted in part by the popularity of the Marvel movie franchises, according to Jamie George, Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s specialist in collectable comics, trading cards and video games. “It’s difficult to point to a causal link, but there are definitely people who buy comics speculating that when a movie hits, that comic’s going to go up in value,” he says. “The Iron Man movies were great, so were The Avengers, and prices for those books seem to have risen. When an Eternals movie was first rumoured to be coming out, I saw many collectors buying issue one of the comic book – from July 1976 – because they figured they would be able to sell it at a profit.”

Obviously, the movies had some influence on encouraging speculators. But the alleged value went down once the movies' popularity subsided. And it wouldn't be surprising any value the Eternals back issue were assumed to have didn't work out well following the film's failure. Most annoying about this otherwise fluff-coated item is what got one of the interviewees to try reading:

Many comic enthusiasts are men who bought and read the comics as teenagers. “Jonathan Ross is one of the biggest collectors in the UK,” Pace says, adding that Nicolas Cage and Eminem own collections in the US. As middle-aged men, all three are the core demographic. The urge to collect comics is at least partly a nostalgic form of escapism. But Pace also stresses the visual impact of the best comics. “The first book I ever picked up was Batman, The Killing Joke, which was published in 1988,” he says. “I never read as a kid, couldn’t stand it, but that comic had an iconic cover depicting the Joker with a camera held to his face. I just loved the artwork, so read the comic constantly.”

Once again, a very sad situation where somebody was hooked on the medium not just because it was a Batman book, but also because one of the most notorious supervillains in comicdom was on the cover. Of course, if it had been a Superman comic with Lex Luthor emphasized, that too could be dismaying. Same with supervillainesses like Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, and there are Marvel supervillains where a similar point could be made that villain worship is troubling. That the interviewee would imply a comic like the Killing Joke is literally the "best" is ludicrous at worst, ditto that the reader apparently only got into the hobby because of something like the Joker, and what the comic in question emphasized. It's not difficult to guess he never cared for Stan Lee's creations at Marvel, if at all, unless maybe Bullseye in Daredevil is what he considered delightful. Amazingly, the article does reference a certain issue from the 50s, though in a context that ignores the present, and says:

Still others concentrate on what are known as pre-code comic books. In 1954 a psychologist named Fredric Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent in which he argued that comic books were causing a storm of juvenile delinquency. The criticisms in the book spooked some comic publishers who, to reassure advertisers, agreed to adhere to a code of conduct. The code stated, among other things, that “good shall triumph over evil and the criminal shall be punished for his misdeeds” – hence all the depictions of rueful gangsters being bagged up by Batman and Spider-Man. It also said that “females shall be drawn realistically without exaggeration of any physical qualities” – a bid to censor what were known in the trade, somewhat lasciviously, as headlight covers. Those comics are now, of course, eminently collectable.

Interesting they bring this up, because the past decade had serious problems with mainstream publishers censoring female imagery, making it sexless. Does it concern anyone involved that such a horrid mentality made a comeback of recent, and is still affecting mainstream comicdom in some way or other? If not, there's no point complaining about the past if they don't have a problem with it in the present. And near the end:

But is it art? Should comic books be seen as a sophisticated design genre on a par with other mass-produced ephemera such as, say, interwar adverts for ski resorts, the futurist posters of the Russian Revolution or the postage stamps that have long been Stanley Gibbons Baldwin’s stock-in-trade?

If anybody truly recognized comics as art within the context of entertainment and education value, they wouldn't be reducing it all to a joke of speculation market sales. Nor would they be ignoring modern issues with censorship, destruction of established characters and franchises, and above all, how writing and art in mainstream today is otherwise very bad, and held hostage to the worst editorial mandates, including company wide crossovers. There's also no discussion of how, less than a decade after Jack Kirby's passing, Marvel under Quesada and Bill Jemas spared no expense in humiliating one of the finest icons for patriotism and crimefighting adventures, Capt. America. No one's held accountable for how the Marvel Knights imprint turned the Star-Spangled Avenger into an apologist for anti-American propaganda, and today, it's become farcical how Marvel's editors/writers repeatedly make efforts to replace Steve Rogers under the cowl with diversity tokens, including Falcon and Dani Moonstar. Nor does anybody ask how that alone even so much as amounts to a talented story. So why do these papers even waste time talking about speculator market value? The modern pamphlets definitely won't see the big sums of their Golden Age predecessors so easily, that's for sure.

There's unfortunately comics opposed to capitalism

El Pais wrote about comics written from an anti-capitalist perspective:

All humans laugh, cry, eat, sleep, and love. Although most of their day is spent on another universal activity: work. As such, complaints about work are widespread, across the globe. Too many hours, stress, demands, sacrifices, and various other things. Since its triumph, neoliberal capitalism has repeated that there are no alternatives. Lately, however, a simple option has emerged to question it. Or to understand the rules and dark sides of the game we all play. Just read one of the many comics about economics, exploitation, and other workplace injustices that are being published right now. It turns out that another world is possible, at least in comic books.

On this, no doubt, the medium's specialists and contributors have long made it extremely vulnerable to exploitation by political ideologues, whether intentionally or not. Now, the paper and its writers are only perpetuating the damage by lionizing this kind of approach.

“We have to understand economics for ourselves, or we’re at the mercy of any charlatan,” warns writer Michael Goodwin. He himself has contributed his two cents: first, he delved into decades of treatises and thinkers; then, in Economix (2012), he summarized in comic strips — with illustrations by Dan E. Burr — what he had gleaned: theories, practices, and pitfalls of the last two centuries of development. There, one discovers that even Adam Smith, enshrined in history as a champion of the free market, denounced the “rapacity” of the magnates and urged caution regarding their legislative proposals. Or one reflects on a society that is democratic in its structures but “dictatorial” in many businesses.

“Every public problem or decision is economic. In the U.S., the rich have basically bought the institutions. If we had structured the economy differently, they wouldn’t have been able to. It was our choice. Or it was never presented to us in those terms,” Goodwin notes.

Economix does indeed do this. And it eliminates the excuse of excessive complexity: now understanding — or perhaps outrage — is within everyone’s reach. Like the recent graphic novel adaptation of Capital and Ideology (2024): the original 1,248-page volume can be daunting even for admirers of its author, Thomas Piketty. But Claire Alet and Benjamin Adan’s graphic novel has condensed it to 176 pages. The ideas of the new guru of social justice are presented in simplified, though no less insightful, form. And certainly, more accessible.

This is also seriously flawed. There's also only so many public problems that are ideological, and Mr. Goodwin is lecturing us that finance and economy are the issue here? Very cheap, and the way they make use of "social justice" so casually is telling of where this is going. And then, they even go out of their way to obfuscate the issues involving communism:

...Kanikosen, by the Japanese artist Go Fujio (2023), adapts a double death story into manga: the communist writer Takiji Kobaiashi denounced the forced labor on board fishing boats in his country in his 1929 novel of the same name, but it cost him his life, due to police torture in 1933.1

Now just how is forced labor not connected in any way to communism? Or why are they making it sound like communism is an innocent ideology, despite the millions of victims who perished under its tyranny? There was only so much slavery conducted by communists, and they obscure all that? This is most embarrassingly bad. Something else they don't make clear is that communism is obviously not the only bad ideology that could exist in the world, and chances are that, if Japan had been dominated by Islam at the time, it wouldn't even appear in this puff piece. So what are they trying to prove? And then, near the end, the author of Economix says:

“There are many options. We don’t even have to imagine them; we just have to look around. Social democracy works much better than unregulated capitalism according to practically any metric,” Goodwin points out. There’s one recommendation that, in a way, sums them all up: slow down, put on the brakes... even stop. Even if it’s just for a while, to read a comic.

And that's supposed to allude to socialism, right? When you mix it with that, democracy is bound to fail badly. It's bad enough they're whitewashing communism, among goodness knows what other ideologies that have totalitarian structures. This only adds insult to injury, and even gives comics a bad name. It does make clear though, that we need more comics by better artists and writers who can stress the positives of capitalism, why socialism is a failed ideology, and even why communism isn't the only bad form of totalitarianism that ever came about. But don't expect El Pais to cover comics with better perspectives, unfortunately.

Artist for Archie sugarcoats their shift to wokeness

An artist named Bill Golliher, who's worked for Archie, was interviewed by Outlook, and unshockingly, he justifies their forced shifts to wokeness over the past 15 years:

How have Archie characters evolved to reflect contemporary diversity and gender dynamics without losing the essence of Riverdale?

We adapt to cultural and social progress thoughtfully. A big way we introduce new themes is through new characters like Kevin Keller in the 1990s, who resonated deeply with readers and is still part of the universe today. If a character representing newer identities or contemporary issues connects with the audience, they stay. The approach ensures representation without destabilising the original personalities that define Riverdale.

Without clear sales figures to back that up, his claim falls flat on its face. And why does he inaccurately say the 1990s, when it was only about 15 years ago they introduced the Keller character? Oddly enough, for the next question, he answers:

What is the future of print comics in a world increasingly shifting to digital?

Print hasn’t become obsolete yet, and we hope it never does. There’s something irreplaceable about holding a comic book. That said, younger audiences increasingly prefer digital formats, and we embrace that too. Digital also opens new possibilities—animation, interactivity and emerging technologies like AI could expand the storytelling canvas. So, the future isn’t print or digital. It’s both, coexisting to serve different kinds of readers.

Gee, doesn't that kind of put his claims of resonation in question for how the Keller character is viewed? If, as this suggests, not many are buying their printed books, why should we buy that digital sales are doing any better? Golliher's talk of digital viewing conflicts with what he says about printed books, and his defense of AI could signal he's doesn't have much faith in traditional human effort. Also, though not clearly mentioned in the article, their shift to horror is another appalling issue.

I guess he's the kind of artist who just isn't very dedicated to the job he works in, so much as he is to wokeness. One must also wonder how much longer a company like Archie will be in business, since if their comics aren't selling as well as they want everyone to believe, then how have they gotten as far as they have till now?

What Tim Seeley says about his Psylocke miniseries

ComicBook interviewed writer Seeley about the Psylocke miniseries he's scripted, which, like the Rogue miniseries, is a retro-based tale trying to build upon past storylines by sandwiching it in between older stories from the times it draws from. He tells, for example:

ComicBook: You have done a lot of really cool things with the X-Men. What makes Psylocke: Ninja exciting for you?

Tim Seeley: Ninja allows to pick up on an approach I honed with Rogue: The Savage Land, and that’s going back to read some of my favorite 80s/90s comic books and figuring out where there are little gaps that could be filled in with all-new story, that still respects the existing continuity. Savage Land had to be, by design, fairly contained, but with Ninja, I was able to pull in not only Uncanny X-Men issues, but also Daredevil, Wolverine and even New Warriors! So, this is a very personal story for Betsy, but it’s also pretty personal for me, as I smash all my back issues together into something new!

I don't deny it's an impressive idea he's got, but it's being done under a bad company management. So bad in fact, that what he may be able to do with X-Men is not allowed to be done with Spider-Man, or even Captain America and the Avengers. As a result, now that I think of it, it's actually surprising they allowed Seeley to retain a certain faithfulness to earlier X-Men tales, considering all the implausible distortions even the mutants underwent since the turn of the century that only soured the mutant milk. It can easily be said Spidey and the Avengers are undergoing a certain form of censorship in terms of creative license that disrespects their particular fandom as much as Mary Jane Watson's been as a fictional character in nearly 20 years after One More/Brand New Day.

With the X-Men having such a long history full of iconic moments and stories, what did you find particularly challenging about digging into this time in Psylocke’s history?

Well, Betsy Braddock becoming ninja Psylocke is some really dense continuity–it’s also got some conflicting ideas that don’t quite line up! So, I had to focus on what I thought made it a great story in the first place, and that’s Betsy essentially being remade into someone else, then becoming comfortable with, and really adapting to who she was the whole time. I think she has to have agency, while also letting her roll with a very crazy sci-fi body-swap brainwash story–and that takes some serious thinking.

I suppose so. Yes, the star lady should have some personal agency assigned. And maybe the continuity here is pretty dense, and has some conflicting parts, perhaps more than Hawkman supposedly does, though as I've noted before, it was only at the dawn of the 1990s that Hawkman's consistency fell apart, no thanks to the editors of the times. But, it's awfully rich to say there's conflicting ideas regarding Psylocke when today's tattered "continuity" since the early 2000s is much worse, and doesn't really exist at all. Brian Bendis is one of the writers responsible for dismantling Marvel's coherency for the sake of short-term publicity stunts, and now that he's reportedly returning to Avengers, there obviously won't be improvement. Recalling Bendis wrote X-Men too at one point, it won't be a shock if he's able to write it again. And on that note, it's rich to say something takes serious thinking when Bendis certainly doesn't do so.

Good luck to Seeley on producing a Psylocke miniseries that's said to be more faithful to the original Marvel continuities. But it's pretty apparent even C.B. Cebulski won't allow a proper repair job for the flagship X-books, and that dampens the impact of Seeley's miniseries, including Rogue's. On which note, let's not forget what they did to her recently. That really ruins everything.

Geoff Johns' Redcoat predictably getting a film adaptation

Shortly after the overrated Geoff Johns launched a creator-owned venture called Ghost Machine, Deadline's reporting that one of his writings, Redcoat, looks like it'll be adapted to the silver screen, and surely the most laughable part is how this is made to sound on the surface like something respectable of America, despite what some of Johns' own mainstream writings in the past quarter century were like:

Atlas Entertainment and Ghost Machine have made a deal for a feature film adaptation of Redcoat, the comic series written by Geoff Johns (Aquaman, The Flash). Redcoat’s debut issue in April 2024 was an instant sellout, and the ongoing series has since been a bestseller for Ghost Machine and publishing partner Image Comics.

The film will be scripted by Johns, based on a story by Johns and Bryan Hitch. Charles Roven and Alex Gartner are producing for Atlas Entertainment.

After a British deserter mistakenly gains immortality during the American Revolution, he is forced to face his cowardly past and fight against a sinister plot to destroy America. Reminiscent of the bombastic historical action in Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones, Redcoat pulls back the curtain of American history to tell the legend of the unknown hero. The comics are illustrated by Hitch (The Ultimates), colored by Brad Anderson, and lettered by Rob Leigh.

This is awfully rich considering that Johns forced a Muslim protagonist into Green Lantern a dozen years ago, in a story rife with woke cliches, and now we're presumably meant to believe he really cares about the USA? Sorry, but if he obscures what the Religion of Peace is like, then no matter the structure of Redcoat, his previous work and positions render it a joke. By the way, why no sales figures? And as noted, Hitch was the artist for the Ultimates, which was overrated, and came from the pen of Mark Millar. Also, ComicBook told that there's a DCEU connection working on this adaptation project:

...It was also revealed that Alex Gartner and Charles Roven will be producing for Atlas Entertainment, and Roven has not only worked with Johns previously on the DC film universe, but he’s also been involved with many of the DCEU’s previous films.

Roven worked alongside Johns for the Gal Gadot-starring Wonder Woman, and Roven has also had a hand in DC films like The Suicide Squad, Justice League, Wonder Woman 1984, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Man of Steel, Suicide Squad, and even Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The only DC films of that era Roven didn’t work on were The Flash, the Aquaman movies, Birds of Prey, and Black Adam, and he hasn’t worked with Johns since Wonder Woman 1984.

Well I'm not expecting Redcoat to be anything truly convincing in terms of patriotism and morality. And if Johns hasn't apologized for giving the Religion of Peace a whitewashed platform when he worked at DC, nor for any of the jarring violence he shoehorned into the mainstream comics he previously wrote, then there's less reason to be convinced he's repenting for his past mistakes in mainstream scriptwriting, and it looks like here, he's just looking for an excuse to get back into more Hollywood assignments. That's another reason I find his work so insufferable these days. He may have begun his career as an assisstant to filmmakers, and it's clear that was a poor influence in the long run.

Joe Sacco minimizes the seriousness of Islamic terror in India

The Washington Post wrote some fluff-coated takes on GNs published this year, and it includes one by the anti-Israel cartoonist Joe Sacco, who's now apparently trying to downplay the seriousness of Islamic terrorism in India, in the pages of a GN titled "Once and Future Riot":

For decades, Sacco has carved out a space for rigorous, fact-based journalism in comics, with books on the Palestinian territories, the Bosnian war and other topics. Here he examines the Muzaffarnagar riots that tore through Uttar Pradesh, India, in 2013. Interviewing survivors and perpetrators on both sides, he carefully depicts how relations between the region’s Hindu and Muslim communities broke down. In the process of telling the story of these few days of violence and pain, he lays out a larger narrative about the rise of Hindu nationalism that is all the more troubling for the evenhanded way he explains it.

When he attacks Indian nationalism, it's harder to believe his approach is "evenhanded", especially when the following panel suggests otherwise:

So the Muslim figure on the panel is denying there's such a thing as "love jihad", even though there have been cases of this occurring in what could be described as one of the worst forms of coercion, and attempts to force women to convert to Islam. Also notice how the panel depicts non-Muslims attacking one who is Muslim, and it's set up to make it look like they're doing it out of false accusations. What "careful depictions" is Sacco working on here? This is shameful, right down to how the non-Muslims assaulting the Islamist are made to look nasty, while the cleric, by contrast, is depicted as calm and sympathetic. The riots in Muzaffarnagar were sparked by the murder of 2 men by 7 culprits who were Islamists (and certainly had names often used by followers of the Religion of Peace), and were handed down sentences eventually for their repugnant crimes. It won't be shocking if Sacco obfuscated all that. What's drawn in the panel is anything but "fact-based".

Sacco continues to prove he's one of the worst pro-Islam propagandists in the political comics business, and I hesitate to think what disfavors he's done for 9-11 survivors in the USA in the near quarter century since the tragedy in NYC. The Wash. Post is similarly doing disfavors by sugarcoating his works, and only make clear they're one of the worst papers to talk about the comics medium in any format.

Artist Ben Harvey believes drawing covers for One World Under Doom was actually getting somewhere

The Chesnut Hill Local spoke with artist Ben Harvey, another artist who may do more work with covers than anything else, and he's one of those kind of sugarcoaters who won't admit he's working on an overrated crossover that does no favors for the previous stories of the past:

Ben Harvey was busy when Marvel reached out to him to create covers for the “One World Under Doom” comic books a little over a year ago. Working on multiple other projects at the time, the illustrator politely declined the opportunity. However, when Marvel insisted they could work around his schedule, Harvey relented. He is glad he did.

“I had no idea what I was getting into,” Harvey told the Local about the project. “It wound up being this huge event,” a multi-issue storyline with large ramifications for the comic book’s universe.

According to Harvey, “One World Under Doom” has gone to its third printing, an accomplishment that indicates just how popular the comic books are. With issue No. 9 — the final one in the 2025 event — releasing on Nov. 19, Harvey will be celebrating the release at Multiverse (8026 Germantown Ave.) in Chestnut Hill on Nov. 22 from 1-3 p.m. He will be signing comics, and the first 30 attendees to purchase the “One World Under Doom” comic also will receive a free Ben Harvey print.

Forget it, these crossover events have become so insulting, it would be meaningless to own a print that pretentious. Again, sales figures aren't given here, so one must reasonably wonder if the company's wasting money trying to make it look like everything's dandy. We're supposed to waste money on this shoddy item built on the concept of crossovers, which eventually ruined mainstream superhero comics? That kind of stuff has also made it nigh impossible to develop stand-alone stories that could be built on character drama, but apparently, none of that matters to an artist who's clearly only in the business for drawing coverscans.

In addition to Marvel, Harvey has worked with multiple prestigious publishing houses such as DC Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, and Valiant Entertainment. Outside of the world of comic books, he also has provided illustrations for Wizards of the Coast’s Magic the Gathering x Marvel crossover and partnered with Epic Games to produce loading screens for the popular video game Fortnite.

Harvey said these high points of his career so far have typically been unanticipated.

“I guess you could say I’m just happy to be here,” Harvey said. “I never realized going into this [industry] I would be able to reach such successes with my work.”

With “One World Under Doom,” the work has not just ended in success, but also provided Harvey with “solid job training.”

“Throughout this whole ride with Marvel, as you do more and more of these covers for them, it’s a learning process,” Harvey said. “Looking at that first cover, issue No. 1 all the way out to No. 9, I feel like I’ve grown a foot between all that.”

And once more, what are the sales figures for this shoddy crossover that had its share of political metaphors? Harvey's just as dismaying as various other artists who've sugarcoated these overrated events intended only for short-term headlines, and what's to learn from participating in a story with tasteless political motivations? That's hardly "solid" training, and if he's going to keep propping up the company despite all the bad directions they sunk into, that's one of the ways things have gone wrong with modern comicdom. No doubt, Harvey also takes a naive, fluff-coated view of DC and Valiant/Dynamite, even though they too have their share of ill-advised directions they won't take responsibility for. I've seen some of his art, which appears to be more of the computerized variety, though what's really sad is how he wastes his talents on unproductive crossovers like One World Under Doom. Something which'll only be forgotten by next year, and will have accomplished nothing lasting, contrary to what Harvey wants everyone to think.

Greensboro honors artist Murphy Anderson

Yes Weekly reports the city council of Greensboro voted for a resolution to honor the life of the late artist Murphy Anderson, whose credits included co-creating Zatanna as the Silver Age daughter of the Golden Age magician Zatara (who made his debut the very same month and premiere issue as Superman in Action Comics), a decade after he'd passed away:

Recently, at a meeting of the Greensboro City Council, Mayor-elect Marikay Abuzuaiter announced a resolution honoring the life of comic book artist Murphy Anderson, who grew up in Greensboro in the 1930s and lived there from 1949 until 1959.

After Abuzuaiter spoke of Anderson’s “lasting impact on art, culture, and his hometown” as “one of the most influential, respected illustrators and inkers in the history of American comic books,” council unanimously voted “that a plaque will be installed at the Greensboro Cultural Arts Center to commemorate his legacy.”

Well that's great. He was a lot better than many modern artists whose styles pale horribly with character designs by contrast, and are a lot more PC to boot. This article also gives some interesting history about something Anderson originally wanted to do with Black Canary upon reintroducing her in the 1960s:

In 1959, with superheroes experiencing a comeback and Anderson getting more work, he moved his family to New Jersey. When DC brought back Black Canary, Anderson wanted her to be Black, but Schwartz said this would lose sales in the south (according to Amash, Schwartz confirmed this story). With Hawkman writer Gardner Fox, he co-created another female crimefighter in fishnets, the magician Zatanna. On superhero titles, he usually inked another artist’s pencils. His pen and brush skills won fan awards every year from 1961 through 1965.

That, sadly, was the situation regarding how storytellers did their work at the time when it came to racial issues. Of course, as many surely know today, Schwartz himself later did show the courage to oversee stories featuring positive approaches to race relations by the late 60s, with the Green Lantern/Green Arrow teaming a most notable example, and this was around the same time as Stan Lee did so at Marvel. It was under Schwartz's editorialship that the black GL John Stewart was introduced, and it's a terrible shame that at the end of the 80s, the editors who'd taken over by that time ruined everything with how Stewart was written, namely in the Cosmic Odyssey miniseries, just shortly after the GL run in Action Comics Weekly depicted Star Sapphire slaying Katma Tui, who by then had been written as marrying John. That was an utter fiasco that the GL franchise has never recovered from to date, based on how Katma Tui, last time I looked, was still being kept in the grave. And shoddy modern writers and editors like Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio are why it won't recover, so long as they continue to run the store.

Anderson's definitely a figure worthy of an honor for his hometown, so congratulations to the council for approving a memory plaque for him.

Will the Angouleme festival collapse?

The comics convention at Angouleme in France may have had some troubling cases before, but now, it looks like it's coming to a head with a scandal involving sexual assault that may have occurred involving a staffer who was fired after she reported the incident to the police. Here for starters is The Local's report:

One of the world's biggest comics festivals, which draws top graphic novelists and cartoonists each year, was close to cancellation on Wednesday after publishers pulled their support and the French government piled pressure on organisers.

The Angoulême International Comics Festival, held in January-February in the southwestern city, hands out annual prizes that are among the most coveted in the industry.

But it has been embroiled in a governance scandal since its most recent edition and faces allegations that an employee was fired after lodging a rape complaint.

After a boycott call earlier this month from major comics figures including "Maus" creator Art Spiegelman and 2025 winner Anouk Ricard, French publishing heavyweights issued a stark warning on Wednesday.

"Given this large-scale (boycott) movement which they understand, publishers believe that the 2026 edition can no longer take place," the French National Publishing Union (Syndicat national de l'édition, SNE), which represents 24 major publishers, said in a statement.

[...] The 9eArt+ director, Franck Bondoux, was the subject of an investigation by left-wing magazine l'Humanité before this year's event, which accused him of mismanagement and an increasingly contested style.

It also reported that the company had dismissed an employee shortly after she reported being raped at the 2024 event.

[...] The Angouleme festival is no stranger to controversy. In 2022, it had to cancel an appearance by French author Bastien Vives, who faced criticism for his graphic novels depicting incest and sexualised children.

Yes, I remember that revolting incident involving Mr. Vives, which certainly does give art a bad name, and there may have been at least one more writer with a questionable MO who attended the festival. If any of the allegations about last year are factual, it's only a terrible shame that the representatives claiming to be concerned are leftists themselves (I'm not forgetting how awful Spiegelman sadly is), and L'Humanite, from what I know, is owned by a French communist party.

Here's what Le Figaro now says, translated as best as possible from the original French:

The tumultuous Angoulême saga continues to unfold. On Wednesday, November 19, an allegation in the daily newspaper Libération confirmed the cancellation of the 53rd Angoulême International Comics Festival, initially scheduled for January 29 to February 1. This "erroneous information" was immediately denied by the festival organizers (FIBD 2026) in a press release issued shortly thereafter. The 9eArt+ association expressed its "hope that ongoing discussions will lead to a solution so that the 2026 edition can take place." According to them, nothing is yet set in stone.

According to the latest news, the Ministry of Culture, which is involved in the event, hopes "that a 2026 edition can be held without hiding the fact that the event is particularly challenging. We are at a turning point in the festival's history, which is facing difficulties and is in danger." The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region told AFP of its "desire to hold an edition in 2026" and to avoid a lost year, which could be "fatal." The mayor of Angoulême, Xavier Bonnefont, refuses to let the festival become "the focal point of all the issues to be resolved within the publishing world." "We have the impression that the problem lies elsewhere," he told AFP. "This is a national issue, and I believe the festival should not be held hostage simply because it holds a leading position."

However, a certain skepticism prevails among professionals. A press release from the SNE (National Publishers Association) welcomed "the major advances proposed by the public authorities for a historic reform of the festival's governance." The industry nevertheless expressed serious reservations about the 2026 edition, which is severely jeopardized by the widespread boycott by authors. "Given this large-scale movement, which they understand, publishers believe that the 2026 edition can no longer take place," the statement clarified.

The Ministry of Culture had already dampened Angoulême's hopes by stating that it had reduced its aid to the Angoulême Comics Festival, currently in crisis, by 200,000 euros after "shortcomings" during its 2025 edition. A cut deplored by local authorities.

Questioned on Tuesday at the National Assembly, the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, called for the festival to avoid "becoming a disaster starting with the 2026 edition," announcing a reduction of more than 60% in the state subsidy granted to 9e Art+. In total, local authorities and the state contribute nearly half of the festival's budget, which amounted to some €6.6 million in 2023, according to the latest available accounts from 9e Art+.

As of now, the de facto cancellation of the 2026 edition of the festival therefore seems likely. The repercussions on the revenue of Angoulême businesses (restaurateurs, hoteliers, etc.) will surely be felt. The negative image among foreign publishers will also be significant.

Consequently, a new edition is emerging that could refocus around the Cité de la bande dessinée (City of Comics). In any case, the erratic communication of recent weeks will seriously damage the event's reputation. We can already legitimately wonder how the public authorities will manage the festival's restructuring for 2027.

Assuming it even takes place at all. If the festival contributors by and large have been left-wing to date, it could be very ironic to some that left-wingers are the ones who might bring it down, in a classic case of devouring their own. Or maybe not. Scandals like this are nothing new. And when a convention like Angouleme can't enforce decent values, you can't be surprised if in the end, it'll bring the whole enterprise to a screeching halt. No doubt, it's a shame it's come to this, and observers could reasonably wonder if it's a sign where comics conventions are headed, and also movie conventions.

Classic Superman back issue was sold on speculator market for over $9 million

A classic back issue of Superman, which I think I'd written about before, was sold for tons on the speculator market, per the Hollywood Reporter:

A comic found in an attic has just become the most expensive comic of all time.

A copy of Superman No. 1, the 1939 issue that introduced the Man of Steel in his first solo title and astonishingly in near pristine condition, sold for $9.12 million Thursday at an auction run by Heritage.

That price handily beats the previous record, set only in 2024, when Action Comics No. 1, the comic that first introduced the Kryptonian hero to the world, sold for $6 million. Before that, a copy of Superman No. 1 held the record with a sale of $5.3 million in 2022 while a copy of 1962’s Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the first appearance of Spider-Man, sold for $3.6 million in 2021.

It's nothing to make a big deal about, and besides, chances are it'll soon be making the rounds again for over $10 million. A real reason to celebrate would be if the back issue were contributed to a museum, and to date, the speculators in charge of circulating the back issue are unlikely to ever consider that as a possibility. Exactly why these auctions are such a blemish upon the medium.

"Feminist" site supports Bendis

I mentioned before that Brian Michael Bendis is sadly returning to Marvel to sully the Avengers and other comics yet again. And perhaps it's not a surprise that a supposedly feminist site, The Mary Sue, is actually giving him their support, this despite any and all steps he took in his writing that were denigrating to women, with Scarlet Witch one of his biggest victims. Their sugarcoated lauding is as follows:

Bendis’ impact on Marvel, particularly in the 2000s, can not be overstated. Not only did he co-create pop culture juggernauts Miles Morales, Jessica Jones, and Riri Williams, but he revitalized the main Daredevil title with a five-year run. And then there’s his original tenure on Avengers, which led to landmark events like Secret Invasion, House of M, and Siege.

In 2017, Bendis made shockwaves across the industry with the news that he had signed an exclusive contract with DC. He ended up writing for the publisher for several years, not only on the Superman family of books with Superman and Action Comics, but on other titles like Checkmate and Legion of Super-Heroes.

There had been chatter, as of late, about Bendis potentially returning to Marvel… which would be noteworthy in and of itself, even if he was just taking on a lesser-known solo or team book. But the notion of him coming back to Avengers is something else altogether, especially given the ongoing reverence that people still have for his time on the book. Regardless of whatever the future holds for the larger Marvel universe, Bendis and Bagley jumping onto a book like that definitely has the potential to be something special.

If they had no complaints about how WandaVision and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness forcibly turned Scarlet Witch into a madwoman any more than Bendis did to her in Disassembled, that says all you need to know just how "feminist" they really are, and not interested in championing fictional women who could serve as inspirational figures, whether they're heroines or anti-heroines (and I can't recall they ever defended Mary Jane Watson either). Of course, "mary sue" is meant to be a figure of speech in fanfiction, either for writers inject themselves into the story where they imagine themselves in what could end up becoming a sick fantasy, or it means a character with no flaws or depth whatsoever that merely serves a selfish purpose of said writer. There may even be a figure of speech like "murphy stu" in use for similar reasons, but that's another story. For now, the puff piece at the pseudo-opinion site makes clear there's certain "feminists" who couldn't care less if Stan Lee's creations dropped off the face of the earth, competely forgotten. Also, curious how the writer makes no mention of the Disassembled event; it's probably no accident she didn't, because that could undermine the narrative she's pushing here.

Interestingly enough, a writer for ComicBook, by contrast, was not so sugarcoated, though he still has a moment of lenience in the following item. First:

Marvel is in something of a rut right now. The Ultimate Universe was the biggest thing in comics in 2023, but DC was hot on the publisher’s tail, and the 2024 one-two punch of the DC All-In publishing initiative and the Absolute Universe destroyed that. Add in the underperforming X-Men line, no one caring about the Avengers, Spider-Man languishing (despite The Amazing Spider-Man finally being pretty good), the latest volume of Daredevil getting panned by everyone and then cancelled, and the rest of the publisher’s output not impressing enough people (besides Zdarksy’s Captain America and Immortal/Mortal Thor), and it’s a dark time for the bestselling superhero publisher.

It's been a dark situation for over 20 years now, and sugarcoating what became of Marvel and even DC is unhelpful. Besides, what's so great about DC's alternate universe line that's got leftist political metaphors sullying its impact? Predictably, this isn't brought up by the columnist, who even has the gall to downplay the continuing disaster in Spidey, whose marriage to Mary Jane Watson, if still decanonized, is a prime reason - and not the only one - why it won't be good.

Marvel is in a bad place, and rumors have been circulating that a familiar name may be returning to the publisher: Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis was responsible for Marvel becoming an unassailable titan in the ’00s, and was beloved by fans for years. He left the company in 2018, working for DC before going to the indies. The writer could be a game-changer for Marvel in 2026, but there’s no real reason he should come back. In fact, he almost certainly shouldn’t, for several important reasons.

Brian Michael Bendis Is Overrated

Bendis started getting attention at Image in the late ’90s with his crime book Torso, based on a real-life Elliot Ness case. He’d end up writing Sam and Twitch for Todd McFarlane and would start getting work at Marvel. In the year 2000, he was given The Ultimate Spider-Man, and that, combined with runs on Daredevil and Elektra, made him a superstar. Soon, he was writing the Avengers and became Marvel’s go-to guy for just about everything, writing the first event of the Marvel event cycle, Secret War, as well as House of M and Secret Invasion. He wrote the Avengers for seven years, the X-Men for three years, and then bummed around the Marvel Universe until 2018.

Many look at Marvel in the ’00s as awesome, but I believe it’s an overrated era. And frankly, Bendis is a big part of that. His overly wordy style did a great job of setting up drama, but his approach to action is far less accomplished. Hate the drawn-out nature of modern stories? That’s Bendis. No matter how acclaimed it might be, House of M was boring, and so was the vast majority of his Avengers run: stories that should have been three or four issues stretched to six to eight. The less said about his X-Men, the better, and his last couple of years at Marvel were a huge failure, with him writing the maligned Civil War II, which ruined Captain Marvel.

So now somebody tells us the real picture of the mid-2000s, which is when things really went downhill, and let's not forget J. Michael Straczynski's bottom of the barrel run on Spider-Man, another horrid example of what's wrong with that specific era. I seem to recall there was a moment where Bendis made Dr. Doom sound juvenile too, though what's really irritating in hindsight has to be a moment where he wrote Hawkeye insulting Hank Pym by asking "don't you got a wife to beat?" This was at the beginning of his Avengers run, and things got worse from there. But unsurprisingly, nobody at the time was willing to admit Bendis is a bad, overrated writer, and if he were beginning with Avengers today, it's a foregone conclusion they'd continue with the code of silence. Unfortunately, the writer goes soft on criticism with the following:

One of the most annoying issues for me is Bendis’ tendency to not use the character’s individual voices that had been built up by creators over the decades. Let me list the characters he was able to write correctly: Spider-Man, Daredevil, Captain America, Wolverine, Luke Cage, and I guess Spider-Woman. Every other Bendis character was basically just Spider-Man (you could probably count Jessica Jones, but he created her, so that doesn’t count to me). If you hate the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s quippy sense of humor, thank Bendis.

All of that is before we even get to his DC run, where he wrote a few good books, with most of his work at the publisher not landing. Ironically, in my opinion, he was actually a better superhero writer at DC than Marvel, but that’s not saying much. Marvel fans had started getting tired of Bendis during his X-Men run, and only got worse as things went on. Bendis did some great stuff at the House of Ideas — Daredevil, The Ultimate Spider-Man, his work on Miles Morales, Dark Avengers — but he’s not the one that is going to fix the tailspin in quality that Marvel is currently in.

Sorry, but even at DC, he wrote crude, juvenile dialogue, and went increasingly woke in scripting the Legion of Super-Heroes. He also caved to a petty complaint about a Superman story where a villain used a slur, even if it was depicted negatively. And of course, the way Bendis had the Man of Steel cast aside his secret ID was contrived and forced. Come to think of it, even the similar direction Bendis took with Daredevil was the same. One more reason it's actually rather late to be acknowledging Bendis isn't a talented writer, and as the article makes clear, even that's conveyed weakly, which is unfortunate. If Bendis did a bad job at DC, just say so, and don't go soft by saying he wrote superheroes better there than at Marvel. Because if his LOSH work is any clue, he didn't. And it's unwise to say he did good work on DD and the Ultimate line either.

Marvel Needs New Blood, Not the Past

Marvel has a lot of problems right now, but the biggest is their hindbound attitudes. Their editorial is run by the same people that have been running things since the ’00s. Names like Brevoort, Lowe, and Cebulski aren’t exactly favorites of fans. The publisher needs something, but they don’t need yet another person from the ’00s. If the company wants to get some heat back — NYCC was a failure for them, with DC running the show — they need to move forward, not backward.

Brian Michael Bendis hasn’t been a superstar in a long time. He’s a great crime writer, but he was pushed into a place where he wasn’t very good, and while a lot of fans liked him, a lot of his work and writing style is now mocked by fans. Marvel has depended too much on inertia and fans buying by rote. Bendis might do numbers on a Daredevil comic, but he’s not going to be the killer application that makes the company hot again.

Gee, do these propagandists really think that, with leftists like the above editors running Marvel ever still, they'll be hot stuff again? Nope. And the way they say fans "liked" Bendis, and then say they mock his style is also awkward. Especially when he himself insulted fanbases by refusing to acknowledge the reasons any fans don't like his work is because of where he took Scarlet Witch for starters, and that he relied on an irritatingly drawn out form of writing where he'd pad out his stories for the sake of 6-plus issues, which only made his writing all the more boring and lethargic. If Marvel and DC still rely on that kind of approach to storytelling, padding out their scripts ad nauseum, how do they expect anybody to be engaged in the stories?

The writer at ComicBook might admit Bendis was a bad writer, and might admit more than the Mary Sue's more biased article does. But it's still very lenient on Bendis' past mistakes, and leaves room to wonder if the 2nd writer really even wants any improvement. So long as Marvel's run by such dreadful management that since turned to wokeness, nothing will improve. And why not suggest Marvel/DC's time to close down business in their current format might be for the best? Even if they do cease publishing, that doesn't mean they can't be revived one day. And so long as it's under a more reliable ownership, that's why if they close and later reopen, then it'll be worth looking forward to. Certainly so long as they don't hire bad writers like Bendis.

Long after the 1950s censorship problem, Sacramento maintained a ban on selling comics to children under 18

This is something few may have known about one of California's most notable cities, but Sacramento, until now, as reported by KCRA-3, though not throughly enforced, prohibited sales of comics to children under 18, something their local council looks to repeal:

Did you know that it has been technically illegal to distribute most comic books within the city of Sacramento — from Batman to the Marvel Universe — to children who are under the age of 18?

That is why two Sacramento City Council members proposed the repeal of an antiquated, 76-year-old law that was still on the books.

"For me, it's a slam dunk," said Sacramento Councilmember Phil Pluckebaum. "It's been sitting on the books since 1949 pretty much unenforced and we are looking to clean up bits of code we don't need anymore."

Passed in 1949, City Code item 9.12.010 states that "it is unlawful for any person to distribute...for use by persons under the age of eighteen years any book...commonly known as 'comic book' in which there is prominently featured an account of crime, and which depicts... the commission of the crimes of arson, assault with caustic chemicals, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary, kidnapping, torture, mayhem, murder, rape, robbery, theft or voluntary manslaughter."

The ordinance essentially jeopardized comic bookstores, libraries and conventions held in Sacramento.

"There are so many things across the country in terms of book banning and freedom of speech and this is our opportunity to reaffirm freedom in this fun space," Pluckebaum said. "While this maybe isn't the highest priority issue facing the city right now, but it is definitely an easy one for us to support."

While repealing and canceling the law is in itself welcome, it can only be hoped PC advocates won't suddenly take advantage of any reversal so they can deliberately market stuff to children that's inappropriate and explicit. Considering what a disaster California's become over the past decade, what if they don't modify the law with a requirement that age ratings should apply to anything explicit, and then, what if any corrupt merchants exploit the opportunity to sell adult-themed comics to children that're unsuitable for younger ages? If the law isn't changed with consideration for what's appropriate for children from an adult perspective, then repealing the law from 1949 will end up in failure.

A city resident wrote an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee giving his thoughts on why the law should be canned:

It’s wild to think this haven could ever be threatened by something as bureaucratic as a city ordinance banning the sale of comic books. Thankfully, that’s not the story’s ending for Big Brother Comics or any shop like it in Sacramento. In 1949, the Sacramento City Council banned the sale of comic books that depict acts such as arson, burglary, murder, torture, mayhem, and assault with caustic chemicals, to be sold to young adults under the age of 18. It has been in the city code ever since. This was back when crime-fighting comics like Detective Comics were all the rage—those pulpy, action-packed stories that made adults nervous and kids dream bigger. Like anything that shakes up the status quo, comics took the heat for daring to be different.

Well it could partly explain why USA animation was ghettoized for many years, and few producers made any attempt to encourage adults to consider otherwise. Of course, another problem is doubtlessly that exploration of themes like communism were considered anathema to a certain crowd as well, which is why as time went by, less comics took issue with communism, if at all, and now look where we are in a time where communism's actually being normalized in the west.

I never quite understood why loving comics made me a target while growing up. Stories about Superman and Green Lantern sparked my imagination and filled my heart, but to most kids, that just made me “nerdy” or worse. In high school, a bully once thought it’d be hilarious to steal my brand-new Suicide Squad vs. Justice League comic, drag it into the bathroom, and ruin it in the grossest way possible. I tried to save it, but the pages were soaked and the smell was unforgettable, in all the worst ways.

“Grow up,” the guy said as he left the bathroom, laughing with his friends.

Something tells me that despite what the creepy bully did, he wasn't against any violent content a comic like that might've contained, and who knows? He might even consider comics like Image's Spawn the most brilliant ideas ever conceived, not to mention repellent video games like Mortal Kombat. Which would suggest the bully only did that for fun, not because he really bought what he thought. Obviously, that's a terrible thing. But it makes clear double-standards can be as bizarre as one might think.

But here’s what he never realized: that comic, and so many others, helped me grow into the person I am today. Comic books helped me make sense of my emotions, face grief, and strive to be my best self in a world that made me feel less than heroic. They have evolved alongside us, leaping from newspaper pages to blockbuster movie screens that rake in billions.

For the council, this vote is an easy lift, a simple bit of housekeeping. But in a climate where it sometimes feels like any book could be banned at the drop of a hat, clearing this old ordinance out is a powerful move. For the comic book lovers in Sacramento, the ones who travel throughout the city going to places like Big Brother Comics or The Cave to find the great stories found in glorious illustrated pages, it means the city finally sees it as art.

Well I hope he doesn't think children should be encouraged to read the nastiest of mayhem and gore that could be concocted in adult-themed comics, including the aforementioned Spawn. Or that LGBT stories are literally appropriate for children. It's one thing to repeal a stupid law. It's another entirely to encourage children to read products that are inappropriate for them at young ages. It reminds me how for years already, G-rated movies become less and less, and the PG-rating from the MPAA was in use far more, because filmmakers concluded even children couldn't dig a story that's far from violent. That kind of thinking is also why children aren't encouraged to become accustomed to drama and romance, which could actually be a great way for them to grow up. If modern kids don't take interest in Shakespeare, no matter the content level, that should be telling something too.

So repeal this crummy law in Sacramento, yes. But any art advocates who're planning to exploit the occasion for exposing children to what isn't suitable for them won't be doing any favors for the medium, and then we'll all be right back at square one sooner than we think. Also, that part about blockbuster movies making billions is awfully dated now, seeing how the comics movies are losing more than they're making at this point, no thanks to wokery involved.

Far-left Twitch streamer supposedly likes Jewish-created comics despite his hostility to Gal Gadot and Israel

Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart reported about a left-wing Twitch streamer named Hasan Piker, who attacked Gal Gadot for all the wrong reasons, with the most bizarre part being that he supposedly likes a franchise originally sheparded by Jewish publishers:

Left-wing, antisemitic streaming personality Hasan Piker is attacking Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot, calling her a “dog shit actress,” and blasting her for her steadfast support for Israel.

The radical Twitch streamer was interviewed by Variety and asked about the campaign signed onto by New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani’s mother to have the Israeli-born Gadot banned from the Oscars for daring to support Israel. The paper asked Piker “if such a campaign was fair.”

Hasan responded by taking a swipe at the Fast and Furious star’s acting abilities.

“I think she should be banned from the Oscars for being a dogshit actress. I think she has no business being there for the crime of what she has done to not only the DC franchise, but really any movie she’s been a part of,” Piker said.

He followed that attack up acting as if he was joking with that broadside and then blasted Gadot for her support for Israel, couching it in a sexist diatribe.

“All jokes aside, Gal Gadot serves an important role in normalizing Israel as not a fascist ethno-state, but instead a place where a lot of beautiful women come from,” he continued. “And those beautiful women happen to serve in the IDF, because there’s also this weird sexualization of the forces as well that takes place, and it plays another role in normalizing Israel and its activities and actions, and whitewashing it.”

So he blames Gadot for doing...what exactly to the DC franchise? What's ironic is that the 1st WW movie had a Turkish soldier as one of the members of Steve Trevor's group, and the 2nd had anti-American propaganda making it look like the USA was to blame for all the troubles that could be found in the middle east/north Africa, yet all the creep cares about is Gadot, and he even says exactly what sex-negative wokesters would want to hear, about Israeli soldier girls. Another thing that's also horrific about this Piker is that:

Piker has also said that American ”deserved” to be attacked on 9/11.

“America deserved 9/11, dude. Fuck it I’m saying it,” Piker said back in 2019 during an expletive-laced tirade.

Piker later doubled down on blaming America for 9/11, a terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 in New York, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon.

This is exactly why it's stunning Variety would ever give this man a platform, seeing how he's desecrated the memory of thousands of 911 victims. In the interview itself from Variety, Piker even opportunistically sought to laud James Gunn's Superman movie (which is based on the classic creation of 2 Jewish 18-year-olds, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster):

Gadot may have ruined the DC franchise for Piker, but James Gunn is redeeming it. When “Superman” opened on July 11, Piker made viral the idea that the fictional nation of Boravia is a stand-in for Israel. In the film, Boravia, backed by U.S.-made weaponry, drops bombs on and oppresses its desert neighbor, prompting Superman to intercede. Gunn has since denied that the plotline has “anything to do with the Middle East.”

“James Gunn is a lot more woke than he lets on. And he lets on how woke he is all the time,” Piker says, still certain of the director and DC chief’s intention all these months later. “Come on, man, you made the [Boravian leader] look like David Ben-Gurion. He just straight-up looks one-to-one like the first prime minister of Israel. We don’t even care what you say about this. We know exactly what we’re looking at.”

Well, like I said before, this is exactly why I don't find these modern live action superhero movies worth wasting dough on. But it's definitely a bizarre oxymoron how somebody that antisemitic actually wants anything to do with Jewish-developed franchises. Though WW's own creators may not have been Jewish, the editors/publishers certainly were, and Superman's having Jewish creators is already old news. Which beggars the query - aside from how Variety wasted tons of space giving a platform to somebody who led to sponsors withdrawing their support for Twitch, was even accused of electrocuting a dog, and was accused by another streamer of sexual misconduct with a minor in Germany. What is so special about such awful people that they simply must be given a platform to spew their repellent drivel? Addtionally tragic is that Piker has feminist defenders at sites like The Mary Sue, and one exploited the opportunity to attack Gadot in turn:

We also can’t forget when she blamed the box office flop of 2025’s Snow White on how the cast was asked about Israel. Gal, it bombed because Rachel Zegler was the only good thing about it, and she can only carry it so much.

Frankly, it’s tiresome to listen to her continuously deflect blame. Maybe look inside yourself and see where the real problem is. More people should speak out like Piker is doing.

Frankly, it's tiresome and disgusting how the writer even normalizes his repulsive screeds, right down to the use of profanity. Though it does make clear that, no matter how left-leaning the screenplays for movies like the two WW movies could be, it won't convince antisemites and racists to abandon their loathsome ways. Perhaps this is exactly why it's atrocious in retrospect that the film studio and Patty Jenkins applied anything potentially woke to the screenplays for the WW movies, and Gadot approved/went along, because it's clear that, in the long run, it will not change the minds of anti-Israelists.

Anyway, again, it's bizarre how men like Piker could actually embrace anything to do with entertainment franchises, whether comics, movies or both, that originally had Jewish overseers decades ago. But, chances are he's not really a fan, despite what he's saying, so much as he is a fan of the politics Gunn stealthed into the Superman movie. There do indeed appear to be quite a few unpleasant people out there who, if they do read/watch certain corporate-owned products, it's only because they agree with the politics applied, not because they actually admire the Israeli-descended creators and publishers who originated specific comics in their time. But all men like Piker do is indicate they really don't have any solid positions, and apart from the loathsome things they say, they're laughable in the extreme.

After many years, I changed the template because the previous one didn't seem to be working anymore

I must've had the previous template for over 15 years, and because it seemed to stop working about a week or so ago, I felt I'd inevitably have to change it. I'd gone over to Gecko & Fly, where I originally got the previous template from, and even there, it didn't seem to be working on the demonstration page where it was set, and there were at least 2 more that didn't seem to be working either. So, aside from how the forest template was admittedly old, I felt the time had come where I'd inevitably have to change the template on the blog to something that did work, and for now, fortunately, this one does appear to be working and loading properly, there there's some parts, like how all the statistics counters I so love to try out may not be centered properly, that I'll have to try and smooth over. For now, I'm glad I found this one that worked, if only because the counters didn't all seem to work on newer templates, and it's not like I want to discard them just like that.

Again, it was surely inevitable I'd have to change the template one day, and I hope for now it'll work okay. That said, if the older template is repaired by the host, I may restore it, and then must hope all will continue okay from that point onwards.

Hollywood Reporter says European comics should make the next wellspring

The Hollywood Reporter listed several comics from Europe they say are worth adapting to the silver screen:

The ongoing trend of turning comic book properties into cinema gold continues to suffer from diminishing returns in the U.S. In Europe, however, the graphic novel is thriving.

More than 4,000 titles are published every year in France and Belgium, and the bande dessinée industry has fostered an inordinate amount of amazing talent from all over Europe, both on the writing and visual fronts.

Here’s a list of eight Franco-Belgian comic books from the past five years that are ripe for a film or streaming adaptation. Some of these have already been translated into English. The rest are available in the original French editions — but in most cases, the richness and fluidity of the images convey their stories regardless of language.

Just recent ones? I'm sure there's older tales that're worth reading too, but unless Hollywood respects certain aspects of the source material, if they really are good, what's the use of adapting them? Here's a summary of one of their recommendations:

A pulpy series with three published books so far, The Damned of the Brown Gold is set in the 19th century, when the cocoa trade was still linked to slavery and all-around colonial abuse. An intergenerational story, it begins in Brazil, then moves to São Tomé and Paris. Informed by stylish settings, family rivalries and a healthy amount of sex and violence, it could easily become one of those addictive guilty pleasures that Netflix does so well.

When they say Netflix does everything great, you know something will go wrong if they take the job of adapting this to the screen. And that's why I think it better if this bande dessinee remain on the printed page, lest it lose something promising in the process. Besides, when stuff like this is adapted to live action, it can take away the audience's ability to appreciate how things are back in the four color printed pages. That's why those who're thinking of adapting these might want to consider it could be more advantageous to encourage the audience to try the original comics instead.

Video game producer shuns cartoonist because the latter appears to be defending victims of Islamic terrorism

IGN reports, in what's a very troublingly distorted item, that video game producer Hideo Kojima, quite an advocate of leftist causes, shunned an Italian cartoonist because he published GNs that are opposed to Islamic terrorism:

Death Stranding and Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima has issued a statement distancing himself from an Italian cartoonist after deleting a photo of the pair meeting at the Lucca Comics And Games 2025 convention earlier in November.

In the now-deleted image, below, Kojima posed alongside Michele "Zerocalcare" Rech, author of the graphic novels Kobane Calling (2015) and No Sleep Till Shengal (2022), while the legendary developer held up a copy of the former. Both novels document the struggles of war, but sympathize with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, accused by some humanitarian groups of using child soldiers.

The U.S. does not classify the YPG as a terrorist organization. Instead, the U.S. has partnered with the YPG and the broader Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as an ally in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

However, the U.S. position is in contrast to that of Turkey, a NATO ally, which views the YPG as a terrorist group due to its close ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). The PKK is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S., the European Union, and Turkey.

As the image was picked up by Turkish media and fans wondered if it suggested Kojima endorsed Rech's views — views that run contrary to many of the themes explored in the Metal Gear series — Kojima deleted it from his social media.

Notice how, troublingly enough, IGN's writer is siding with Turkey, one of the biggest supporters of jihadism under the despotism of premier Recep Erdogan, and the part about the PKK appears to be distorted, perhaps reflecting the positions of the previous USA government led by Joe Biden, because the PKK has its defenders stateside, and if Kojima's okay with Islamic sharia, that's just one more problem with his MO that's chilling. Also notice the hypocrisy claiming the YPG uses child soldiers, yet no such condemnation is made about the Hamas doing the same. The ignorance of the J. Jonah Jameson of video games of a serious issue involving Islamic jihadism is repellent.

As spotted by Kotaku, Rech released his own video, and told Fatto Quotidiano that it wasn't his idea to share the novel with Kojima, but his publisher's.

"I opened the internet and saw two hundred Turkish sites saying that Kojima had published a post in favor of terrorism," Rech said (machine translated). "Of course, for the Turks, they’re all terrorists, and now they’re harassing poor Kojima."

Kojima had suffered a backlash online from some Turkish nationalists after posting the photo, which ended up with a community note on X / Twitter. Fans were quick to point out that despite deleting his social media post and issuing a statement, Kojima created the iconic Kurdish character Sniper Wolf in Metal Gear Solid.

It makes little difference, that he would rely so heavily upon a Turkish Muslim audience as customers and a fanbase, no matter the cost, is very troubling. That he erased the photo he did with Rech is also a form of weakness, and that's where Kojima certainly did something wrong and cowardly. He should decidedly apologize for throwing Rech under the bus, but I guess no mea culpa is forthcoming, because the adherents to the Religion of Peace are just too valuable an audience to him to risk losing, huh?

I think this says quite a bit more about what's wrong with Kojima's MO, and if those are the kind of politics he's going to stick with and inject in his games, what's the use of playing the Metal Gear series? This case also makes clear what's wrong with IGN's writers, whose politics are hurtful to civilized society.