On JESSICA JONES Trailer, Tom King’s BATMAN, and DCs SWAMP THING show!

Let us start in the middle Tom King’s BATMAN.

I listened to a recent podcast where they were bemoaning the news of Tom King stepping off the BATMAN comic. All kinds of speculation on him being removed, etc. That he was doing a brilliant run on Batman, etc, etc. And they couldn’t understand how DC could not see what a great, innovative job he was doing, and that DC execs must not like great stories, yada, yada.

This very minor and relatively harmless rant from this podcast I watched, illustrates perhaps a less wholesome issue with our culture in whole. This inability to see or look for, or acknowledge, viewpoints other than our own.

The truth is out there, to paraphrase a show I was never a fan of, beyond the odd ‘monster-of the week’ episode.

The truth is out there, but we have to look, and we have to do our homework.

It doesn’t have to be controversy when we get news we do not expect or agree with.

It doesn’t have to be DC executives are stupid.

It could be as simple, if Tom King was removed, as simple as the books were not moving in the numbers they liked, or meeting with across the board praise.

A simple look at reviews of Tom King’s BATMAN run, whether podcasts, or Youtube videos, or blogs or websites, when you extend the search beyond your circle, your chorus, you see a run, a body of work, that from the first trade on, was conflicted. And grew more uneven and conflicted, in terms of the writing, and the response to the writing with every trade/issue.

I think a lot of people make excuses for Tom King”s work when they do not love it. Like they refuse to admit they didn’t love it because of Tom King, so they blame the publisher, or the editor, etc.

A writer is a lot like a director, you get the praise when a product is great. You should also carry the blame when a product isn’t. A lot of people like to give King the former, and make excuses to keep him from the latter.

Stop making excuses or trying to blame Editorial if you do not like a Tom King story. You do not try to give them the praise if you love a Tom King story. So let’s not be hypocrites.

And I am not anti-Tom King, I am not one of these knuckle dragging anti social justice warrior, anti-woman, anti-diversity, psuedo neo nazi nuts. I judge the work, on the work, and wait to read it, before having an opinion on it.

Tom King can be a great writer.

https://amzn.to/2MAm9GC

His VISION series is one of the greatest things I have read in years. (And if you have not read it, I urge you to pick up the collected hardcover… it is that good.)

His OMEGA MEN very good.

https://amzn.to/2EZQGHG

His Batman, in pieces, standalone, I’m thinking specifically of ANNUAL 2, can be great. Annual 2 was great.

https://amzn.to/2MzJsk0

However, specifically to Batman, other than that standalone story,  his actual run on Batman, the first 4 or 5 trades, I found awful. I mean… awful. “I am suicide!”As his take-away on the character of Batman. Really???!!

The great flaw of Tom King’ s BATMAN (for me), was always Tom King’s take of the character. He keeps writing the same broken, suicidal, and ineffective character, over and over again. And while it worked for the Vision and Mr. Miracle, shoehorning that Hamlet type protagonist and calling him Batman or Kid Flash, does not work at all.

He keeps trying to tailor these heroes and archetypes to his ptsd framework, and it increasingly does not work. He needs to start writing to the character, than simply shoehorning them into his rigid story.

We get it,

Tom King brings a military background, and a CIA background, and an espionage background, and a background of those places where we all break under stress and pressure. And again telling that story with certain characters can work, however retelling that story with every character does not work.

There are more stories than that. And another reason we look to these heroes is because they are our aspirations writ large, they should not all be stand-ins for the places where we fall down, they should be the standards of how to standup. They should be our hopes writ large, not our insecurities. The VISION type stories should be the exception, not the rule.

I do not want to read a comic with a Superman dealing with PTSD. It starts to become one note writing, rather than great writing, to make all the heroes analogs for the common man, or the Hamlet in us.

So yeah, while I will not be picking up the individual issues regardless of who writes BATMAN, because paying more than $2.99 for a single Marvel or DC comic is insanity (Marvel and DC should both be ashamed of themselves for charging more than $2.99 for scant pages of comics. Now, smaller Independent publishers I cut them slack on pricing, because their page count and quality is usually higher. However Marvel and DC has the economies of scale to keep prices low. To not do so comes down to mismarketing, mismanagement, and short term greed, over long term sustainability and growth) , I will, if the word of mouth is good, check out the books when they hit the $1 bins of the secondary market or in collected edition at the libraries.

I look forward to a new take on Batman, and a new writer.

Okay… next topic…

***************************************************

JESSICA JONES Season III trailer. Here is the thing, I was not interested enough to watch the 2nd season of JESSICA JONES. And by all reviews I did not miss much. But I went into the the trailer for season III hoping it would be good. I have to tell you, I found it incredibly uninteresting.

I can only take so much of brooding, not quite likeable, characters so, just with the way the protagonist is played, with a listless, can’t be bothered attitude, the performance of Jessica Jones is typically the weakest part of the show JESSICA JONES.

So that said, you need charismatic, interesting people surrounding her to make the show worth while. You need a Luke Cage, you need a Purple Man. You need dynamism to counteract the plodding, disaffected, and starting to get annoying, performance of the protagonist.  And unfortunately the trailer for Season III offered none of that. Offered an Antagonist, absolutely as uninteresting as the protagonist. A battle of who could bore me more.

 

So yeah the trailer to Season III of JESSICA JONES, a hard fail. That is not going to make my watch list, based on that trailer.

*********************************

Finally, the news that the DC Swamp Thing show has been cancelled before the 1st season really starts.

It has come out the reason DC/Warner Brothers pulled the plug is largely because North Carolina, an increasingly politically suspect state (excuses to my North Carolina Friends, but you are starting to be run by the pointy hat crowd. And I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You know you need to start cleaning your house, much the same way the Nation needs to clean its house) basically bailed on their promise to help finance the production of SWAMP THING in their state.

It is a great shame, because I have to tell you, I absolutely loved the full trailer to SWAMP THING.

They looked like they had all the elements for a wonderful , long form story, worthy of the kind of eerie, brilliant, haunting storytelling that creators Alan Moore, Bissette, Totleben, Wein, and Wrightson laid the ground work for.

Such a shame.

Maybe someone else will add the additional funds so we get to see this vision of Swamp Thing, eventually played out.

Well that’s it guys.

Just wanted to put my 2 cents in on those 3 topics. Take two seconds and support today’s recommended comics.

You know when I was saying I cut Independent comics a slack, because of their quality of content and packaging. ALTERNA COMICS and AHOY COMICS are two cases in point. There are a lot of great writers/artists in comics, arguably one of the best of them is Eric Powell. I absolutely am enamored with his GOON and his HILLBILLY and his SPOOK SHOW. And ALTERNA comics addreses all the issues with price gouging that we are getting from the big two, Marvel and DC, while giving us quality products. So you can preorder comics from both publishers and get them direct mailed to you.

https://www.mycomicshop.com/subscriptionservice

 

Use the links above get great books, support these publishers, and earn a few pennies for this blog. A win-win!

 

“Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning. ”

― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

December 1st to 2nd Youtube Roundup : Dr. Von Chilla + Price Increases+Bendis+ Social Justice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gswkW9as0M4

 

Under the heading “Don’t drink and Youtube” 🙂  – Dr. Von-Chilla went on a bit of a tirade regarding people speculating on comics and buying comics based on movie, tv news. Which I can get behind his feelings on that.

He also threw in there, ‘Brown chicks taking over for white guy superheroes’, which I think is a whole separate argument that I don’t get behind.

Now I know Dr. Von Chilla is not one of those anti social justice warrior nut-cases, who were hating on creators like Mark Waid and Ta-Nehisi Coates and Dan Slot, but that issue he brings up of characters changing, is one of the arguments of this mob.

It is that faulty ‘anti social justice warrior’ thinking.

If you do not like social justice warriors, you should not be reading superhero comics, because Superman, Batman, and Captain America in their origins were Social Justice Warriors. Before there was a term for it, these characters in the Golden Age were taken it to the fat cat businesses and corrupt syndicates and regimes that were sticking it to the little guy. From slum lords to Nazis the comics of the 1930s 1940s were all about saying things about what was wrong in the world. Far more courageously I might add, than most books do today.

So to hate on today’s comics for doing the same thing is to be disingenuous at best, and a moron at worst.

Now that’s me going on a tirade against people with an issue with Social justice concepts in comics. Here’s the thing, not all comics are for you or for me.

We have our preferences and there is nothing wrong in wanting to stick to that. What is wrong, is to not allow others there preference.

If the publishers can sell new characters to new populations, great for them, if they can spike sales of existing story-lines, by changing up the character, great for them (changing up not being the same thing as a mashup, which is what they are doing wrong today). That is nothing new. After the first 110 issues of the original IRON MAN he got in a rut. Back in the 80s… the creators, to get him out of this rut, wrote a FANTASTIC very long storyline where Tony Stark, became an alcoholic, stopped being IRON MAN, and James Rhodes became IRON MAN. And those were STELLAR issues from the 1980s. For my money the only issues, along with the original 110 issues, worth owning.

The same thing happened in GREEN LANTERN, the book was going nowhere after Neal Adams’ departure in issue 89 (IT SHOWS YOU HOW MUCH NEAL ADAMS BROUGHT TO THE BOOK AND THAT HE WAS A HUGE PART OF THE CREATIVE DIRECTION, BECAUSE WHEN HE LEFT EVEN THOUGH THE WRITER DENNY ONEIL STAYED, THE BOOK WAS UTTER CRAp. THE SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS STORYLINES THAT MADE AND STILL MAKE THEIR PARTNERSHIP SO GOOD, WENT BY THE Way-side AND THE BOOK DEVOLVED INTO A BORING BOOK. AND I LIKE DENNY ONEIL AS A WRITER, BUT WITHOUT NEAL ADAMS HE DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THESE CHARACTERS. I SPECIFY THESE CHARACTERS BECAUSE HE DID VERY WELL ON BATMAN AFTER NEAL’S DEPARTURE) .

THE BOOK WAS BAD A LONG TIME AND DID NOT GET GOOD AGAIN UNTIL ABOUT #172 when writer Len wein comes aboard and started to direct the book back to earth, and replacing Hal Jordan with John Stewart. LIKE ALWAYS THE LATE, GREAT LEN WEIN WOULD BE CALLED IN TO HELP RIGHT A SINKING SHIP, AND WITH THE HELP OF HIS ARTIST WOULD COMPLETELY REVAMP IT, AND BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO the series.

AND ONCE HE GOT THE BOOK winning again, WEIN would turn iT OVER TO ANOTHER WRITER TO CARRY THE book to the championships (to toss in a sports comparison).

HE DID THAT WITH THE X-MEN, fixing it and HANDING IT OFF TO CHRIS CLAREMONT AND HE DOES THAT HERE WITH GREEN LANTERN… fixing it and HANDING IT OFF TO STEVE ENGLEHART AND JOE STATON, till about issue 200, with wonderful Joe Staton art and great Englehart stories, along with the ONeil/Adams run… those are my favorite issues of GREEN LANTERN to this day.

SO IF LOOKING TO COLLECT GREEN LANTERN IN MY Humble OPINION YOU GET ISSUES 42 to 80, then 172 to 200. Use the following link(YOU GET GREAT BOOKS, AND YTOU EARN A FEW PENNIES FOR THIS BLOG TO KEEP THE LIGHTS ON. A WIN-WIN!):

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?tid=179931&pgi=1&AffID=200301P01

 

And they were experiments, creators tossing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck. They were allowed that freedom in the 1980s, they should be allowed that freedom today.

The ones that do not appeal to you, don’t buy. Like me I no longer buy Marvel Comics in monthly form. I think to pay over $3 for Marvel’s horrendous paper quality, and obvious attempt to milk the speculator market rather than create good stories is asinine.  And their obvious editorial mandate to create new characters, mashup characters, to get the mindless speculators, to buy cosmic ghostrider, or phoenix wolverine, or Thor venom, or Hulk Wolverine; is not creative, it is actually them in real ways making of themselves a horrible parody and joke. The same for DC, to a lesser degree, ever since Bendis went over there. He’s a good writer, but I find him more trojan horse at DC, bring the fratboy idocy, and disrespect for readers intelligence and pockets, that he championed while at Marvel.

No sooner he is over there and DC raises its prices to $3.99. So yeah these days, with Marvel and Dc, if I hear good things about a story, I’ll check it out at my library when collected or pick up the trade online. But as far as monthly books, you just get a whole lot more bang for your back from Independents like Image, Dark Horse, IDW, After-Shock, etc. DC and MARVEl, the two companies that realistically can afford to keep the price point of new comics at $2.99 or less, are the ones driving the price up($4,$5,$6,$7 is unsupportable, when realistically speaking most of these books will end up in dollar bins in a few years. It is bad business from the big two.)

So these days companies like Alterna and Chapterhouse who sell books for under $3, are the ones I am happy to purchase everything they sell. For me they are the future of comics.

So alll that to say, there are hundreds of comics released every month, there is no shortage of Alternatives.

And quite frankly to expect Superman or Captain America of today to appeal to you the same way as the Superman of your childhood did, and never allowed to experiment or change that character is moronic.  Characters change, writers changes, the audiences they write for likewise change.

You hate slabbing. Don’t slab. You hate variant covers don’t buy variant covers. (Quick aside : I’m not a huge fan of either of those things. I think pressing comics, while it removes imperfections from the cover, is PROVEN to shorten the lifespan of the interior newsprint pages. I think it is people moronically pursuing short term goals, at the expense of the longevity of the actual book. People are going to unslab these books in several years and find pristine covers over deteriorating interior pages, especially as it relates to older books. Newsprint+moisture+heat=mistake. Every single time.

But hey  if people want to continue doing this even after being informed of the potential damage (every single person you see pressing on youtube, presses differently. Different ranges of heat, different amounts of moisture, different drying time before slabbing. I guarantee you 99% of the people slabbing comics are doing more harm than good, and are making a mold infused mess rather than preserving a collectible. It is all experimentation and guess-work with the lot of them.

If you were to do it perhaps to salvage a book that already had interior water damage, I would only use CGCs  original service, rather than one of these diy -let me get my iron out -guys. Also going through CGC you have some potential recourse through your insurance company  if things go wrong. Better than some of these guys who are doing pressing at their kitchen sink. Okay that may have been a long aside. 🙂 )

 You hate new characters or change to your existing characters, don’t read those characters. Read the 80 years of back issues, or choose new comics to support. It is not that effing difficult, it is not effing brain surgery, it only becomes a problem when you want YOUR choices to be the only choices everyone else has available. That is the problem I have with the anti social justice warrior nuts.

They think their right to hate something, should supersede someone else’s right to love something.

Don’t tell me the things you hate. Tell me the things you love, and that is how you move the needle.

It is what is great about the Youtube comic community. A lot of people sharing their loves, has inspired me to buy a LOT of books this year. People telling me what they hate, has not gotten me to drop a single book, or change a single purchasing decision. I decide for myself what is worth hating, and I hate very few things. I dislike a lot. I have no interest in reading books or watching tv shows about trans or gay characters. I’m not saying these books or Tv shows shouldn’t not exist,  OR THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT, but I have no interest in them IN MY COMICS OR MY TV SHOWS. So AFTER THE FIRST SEASOn of supergirl tv show (which i enjoyed) I dropped out of the second season, because it was too much soap opera bs about her sister coming out. no interest. same thing with arrow, mr. terrifics relationship i think is out of place and just detracts from the show, etc.

so instead I just find something I like, to watch or read.  SO while I may dislike or avoid many  things, I hate very few. Your hate is not something I catch from you, like the cold.

But tell me of the things you love, and that I will check out, to see if I love it too.

Dr. VonChilla, knows this. Because I have watched his videos where he introduces us to books he loves. And some of those books I’ve bought.

That’s how you change the world for the better Dr. Von Chilla… one great recommendation at a time.

 

 

Where to buy NEW comic books right now, Sept 2018 Pre-orders! And What books to get! ALL THE REST EDITION!

This is the last day to preorder books that will be shipping in December at a discount.

Here are my suggestions for the books worth your time:

MARVEL COMICS

Nothing. I can recommend nothing from Marvel Comics. Marvel is GROSSLY overpriced.  Save your money and either pick up these issues for a $1 or $2 each in a few months, when they are no longer new, from the secondary market. Or wait till they get collected into trade paperbacks and read them from your local library for free. Or buy them used online for a fraction of what getting the individual issues would cost.  I grew up with Marvel Comics, and i think they still have some fantastic creators I would love to read on a monthly basis, Ta-Nehisi Coates CAPTAIN AMERICA , comes to mind. After much hate from the moronic bigoted internet crowd, the moronic antisjw nazis, it turns out Coates CAPTAIN AMERICA is shaping up to be great. The same with just about anything Al Ewing touches. Unfortunately these great creators are sabotaged by a unsupportable comic price, and horrible editorial and marketing decisions.

The movies quite frankly are a lot better, and a lot less disorganized, stupid, and at times ingrained bigoted than the comics. The comics play lip service to diversity, and it is great to see creators like Coates and Walker get a chance to start their vision, but inevitably Editorial steps in and ruins/aborts their process/ending. The comics back pedal from everything to try to pander to the racist anti-change and anti-diversity mob, who typically don’t even read the comics they complain about.

The movies so far under Feige’s reign have embraced diversity with no back pedaling or moronic denigration that makes up so much of what goes on in the comics when it comes to characters of color (‘Oh Well we can’t have the Black Nick Fury be his own man. Let’s explain him away as the son of a White Nick fury.’ What????? Yeah this is the stupidity and racist great ideas that is happening in Marvel Comics, by there non-writers of color and editorial department.)

So yeah, so far the movies are actually better by far than the comics. So stick with them for now. Or until they start following the stupidity of the current comic books.

DC COMICS

Unfortunately DC that was doing a good job of keeping their prices under $3 a comic, ever since hiring the trojan horse of Brian Bendis, they have adopted Marvel’s disastrous and customer offensive pricing policy. Of charging $4, $5, $6,and $7… for COMIC BOOKS!!!!

Absolutely immoral.

And I like Brian Michael Bendis as a creator, but I despise him as a shill for the company, and his arrogant frat boy attitude to companies milking the audience, and  his basic ‘ah they will pay the higher price. Lower prices do not sell.’ I’m ten years of proving Bendis is wrong. It is not diversity that is the cause of Marvel Comics’ inability to keep from bleeding readers, it is the bloody price of their books. Add to that the over abundance of ads, poor placement of ads, and atrocious paper quality and you have a company that is repeatedly slapping their customers in the face, then wondering why the customers are not sticking around.

DC will soon find they will have the same issue as Marvel Comics. They will keep the die hards for a while, the sheep who buy multiple issues and variants, and the speculators, but that is  a far cry from the millions of people a publishing arm of Times Warner should be reaching.

Besides their last $2.99 books, which word is they are going away soon… The only book over $3 that I get from DC, that I make an exception for, is Christopher Priest’s brilliant DEATHSTROKE. And that is going to change, as editorial has decided to reward the critical acclaim that series has received, by mixing it into their editorial marketing ploy, basically gutting Priest’s ability to tell unhindered stories with the character. Once Priest leaves, so do I.

So what is worth getting?

Here is my list for September Pre-orders:

Beyonders 4	On order	1	$2.59
Bitter Root Cvr D Williams 1	On order	1	$2.59
Cavewoman A Wizard A Sorceress And Meriem 1	On order	1	$2.59
Cemetery Beach 3	On order	1	$2.59
Cinema Purgatorio Vast Cvr 16	On order	1	$4.54
Dark Ark Cvr A Doe 11	On order	1	$2.59
Deathstroke (2016) Cvr B Var Ed 37	On order	1	$2.59
Dick Tracy Dead Or Alive Cvr B Tommaso 3	On order	1	$2.59
Feast Or Famine 1	On order	1	$0.98
Gideon Falls Cvr B Suayan 8	On order	1	$2.59
Hillbilly Red Eyed Witchery From Beyond 4	On order	1	$2.59
Infinite Dark 2	On order	1	$2.59
Infinity 8 7	On order	1	$2.59
Jook Joint 2	On order	1	$2.59
Leviathan Cvr B Guillory 4	On order	1	$2.59
Lightstep 1	On order	1	$2.59
Lodger 2	On order	1	$2.59
Magic Order Cvr A Coipel 6	On order	1	$2.59
Moth And Whisper 3	On order	1	$2.59
New World Cvr B Moore And Muller 5	On order	1	$2.59
No World Primer 2018	On order	1	$0.16
Oblivion Song 9	On order	1	$2.59
Outer Darkness 1	On order	1	$2.59
Proxima Centauri 6	On order	1	$2.59
Raid Cvr B Photo 4	On order	1	$2.59
Red Sonja Cvr A Caldwell 23	On order	1	$2.59
Rick And Morty Cvr A 44	On order	1	$2.59
Rick And Morty Presents Pickle Rick Cvr A 1	On order	1	$3.24
Shadowman Cvr C Veregge 9	On order	1	$2.59
Sideways 10	On order	1	$1.94
Silencer 11	On order	1	$1.94
Sink Cvr A Cormack 6	On order	1	$2.59
Skyward 8	On order	1	$2.59
Spawn Cvr B Mattina 292	On order	1	$1.94
Stellar 6	On order	1	$2.59
Terrifics 10	On order	1	$1.94
Unexpected 6	On order	1	$1.94
Walk Through Hell 6	On order	1	$2.59
Warning 1	On order	1	$2.59
Whispering Dark 2	On order	1	$2.59

Order yours here:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/subscriptionservice?AffID=200301P01

And tell them HT sent ya!!!!

🙂

 

 

The last word on Social Justice Warriors, the Anti-SJW movement, Nazis, and Comics!

Everything is political. Because we all have a point of view. And when things conform, or do not question our point of view, we tend to think of them as non-political. But everything is an expression of our values, from Mickey Mouse to Batman to Star Wars to Popeye. Everything has a moral perspective,  a concept of what is heroic, and what is villainous, based on where we were raised, and how we were raised, and sometimes.. if we are lucky, based on how we have grown.

You have a vocal faction these days, a minority, that wants to play the aggrieved party and the victim and label and attack others that they perceive as a challenge to their norms, they attack creators and they attack fans, and brand them with the label SJW.

This vocal faction using acronyms over the whole or correct word, the way traditionally oppressive, bigoted factions have done. SJW instead of Social Justice Warrior, PC instead of Respect, etc. It is the tactic of the Nazi, to use labels and intimidation to cloud reason. To call others what they are, closed minded, and intolerant. And on this web of lies and misdirection, hope to confuse the issue, and gain ground.

The issue is simple. Social Justice Warriors, as it relates to comics, is in the very origins of the super-hero. The fight for the under privileged against monied interests, and oppressive regimes. It is right there in the earliest issues of Superman, of Batman, of Captain America.

There were people back, in a 1940s America, who made death threats, and attacks against creators. People who attacked Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, for having Captain America, on the cover of Captain America #1, punch out Adolph Hitler, for effectively creating a Social Justice Warrior, and a social justice medium. The people railing against Social Justice Warriors and Comics back then in the early 1940s are the same ones railing against writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, and what they call SJW or Social Justice Warriors today, they are Nazis or they are ignorant.

Now if you are ignorant, that is not a crime as long as you don’t stay ignorant. We all wake up, if we are honest, everyday ignorant of something. And we all… if we are healthy, growing human beings… go to bed less ignorant than we started the day. We have read, we have talked, we have communed, we have learned,. we have grown, and we have thrown off at least one incorrect folly we held too. This is your chance to grow. If no one has pointed out to you the immorality of a rant against social justice warriors, in the social justice medium of comics… well I’m telling you.

Now when you go before God, you can’t say you didn’t know. 🙂

Now what you do with that determines, if you are just ignorant, a fool, or a Nazi. A fool and a Nazi are not going to change. An ignorant man however, if he be a man, will embrace opportunities to slough off the hates and misinformation of yesterday.

Will embrace places to grow,

Un-subscribe from those click-bait, hate mongering channels, posing under names completely contrary to what they are doing. Channels with names like We Love, and Diversity, but all they preach is hate.

A lot of you are subscribed to them out of habit.

Habit to give attention to lowest common denominator talk show type conflict and what passes for conversation. This Resident Trump did not win the popular vote, but he won more of the vote than he should have in a civilized country. Part of the reason is seen in Youtube, and across social media. We have become a nation that has traded talk show drama for dialog, and irrational rage and outrage, over reason.

That is a recipe for a falling down nation, a recipe for the end of days.

I say no.

I say no to lies.

I say no to misinformation.

I say no to collusion.

I say no to agents of chaos, seeking to subvert one of the few progressive mediums left…. comics. The majority of these fools do not even read the works or writers they complain about. You don’t like a writer or story, don’t read it. But to attack creators and mess with livelihoods because you don’t want anyone else to read the story… that is Nazism. And I won’t have it. Too many of those who paved the way for you even being here, sacrificed way too much, to let the hate they beat back… rise in the very hearts of their indolent children.

I say no.

I say it in what I subscribe to. I say it in what I buy. I say it in who I defend. And I say it in the face of a new American age of terror and witch-hunts.

This far, no further.

 

‘

 

To not want to be challenged by your reading is a prerogative and right, at times we want the comfort of a simple narrative. Or a comforting narrative. And there is nothing wrong with that. But do not confuse that comfort,  with it being a non-political narrative. Even the lack of overt political stance in a work, is in and of itself political. Because there is no greater force in times of massive change, no greater political force, than the quiet, silence of the masses.’

—From SILENCE OF THE MASSES

Commentary on the Anti-SJW movement, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Captain America, the antics of Racists, worst Youtube Channels, and the collusion of social media in the ‘dismantling of reason’ and ‘Black Hitler’ claims

 

 

 

Okay that is a long unwieldy title.

But I have a few things to say.

I was on a small discussion board  that has absolutely nothing to do with hate speech or politics, but was just a nice board on comics, specifically hardcovers and collected editions.

People just there to post on what they have bought or are thinking of buying. Nice little low key discussion board that I had been active in for a month or two.

In the last week a new poster had popped up.

And from a couple seemingly innocuous posts the topic was quickly brought to Captain America, and all of us were happy to suggest various story-lines to try. But the poster was not there to praise the good, they came to rant on Nick Spencer and ‘Black Hitler” and getting on an anti-SJW platform

They were going on about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ as yet unwritten run on Captain America, and his unfitness, because of his view-points, and calling him a ‘Black Hitler’.

At this point I responded with a post that shut the poster down. Leaving the poster not a leg to stand on, and the board to its credit also let the poster know in no uncertain terms, this far no further. And that was one troll/hate-monger disguised as a comic fan sent packing, and the good nature of the board restored.

Here is the thing, however.

Everyone has an opinion, that is fine. Where the issue comes in, is people have the belief they have a right to a platform to share that opinion. And that is blatantly incorrect.

You have a right to share an INFORMED opinion. If you are in a packed theater and have a hot flash and are of the opinion there could be a fire, you are not allowed to jump up and share that at the top of your lungs. If after looking around and informing your opinion with observations from those around you and actual facts, such as ‘hey there is smoke in the aisles’, and ‘your neighbors are also smelling something’, you have now INFORMED your opinion and it is worthy of sharing.

An uninformed opinion, also known as bs, will get you thrown in jail because it leads to anarchy and damage. An informed opinion, adds to this conversation we deem culture and is additive rather than destructive, enriches people, even when the viewpoints are opposing.

An uninformed opinion is completely destructive, it is consensus by fear and intimidation, it is the bloodthirsty howling of the mob. It is rule by the lowest common denominator.

Freedom is not mad dogs pissing and shitting where they may and broadcasting that for all, on Youtube or Facebook or twitter.  Freedom is not consensus by this mob, is not policy being made by the loudest and lives being ruined by the vilest.

Freedom is being able to live your life not constrained by another man’s fear of his mediocrity being out-shined by your greatness.

Outrage and ignorance is no substitute for reason.

But is it often used, by those fearful of reason.

In the absence of a moderated platform, outrage and Ignorance has nothing better to do than waste time and waste words and create noise, and the signal, the measured, thoughtful, humanist, additive, cultured conversation is lost, drowned out by the baying of loons.

And that is what has happened to the state of conversation on and off line. A whole generation of people who have never learned how to reason, and think it is enough to speak without thinking, and attack instead of listen.

We are raising as a nation and a world, rabid dogs wallowing in their own stupidity, dogs meeting with derision any concept that aspires to something more than the mud. And a nation that has no perspective on history, or respect or decency, or measured response, lives perpetually in the mud, with those who are, like pigs, at home there.

I come back now to that poster’s attack on Coates, and their hope for a storyline he had not yet started to be canceled quickly. And attacking him using the appellation ‘Black Hitler’.

Again outrage and insults and ignorance, as i told that poster, are no substitute for reason.

First you want to call out a person you use their actual words, not what you think they have said, or have heard third or fourth hand they have said.

Second, a difference in politics or opinion is not a reason to viciously attack a person or call for their firing or loss of livelihood.  Especially over a storyline they have NOT WRITTEN YET!!! If you do not want to read a storyline by this writer do not read it, but to openly go out of your way to try and stop the story from being written, by attacking a talented gifted writer with lies, and innuendo and hate, going so far as to call him ‘Black Hitler’ says incredibly more about the stupidity of this anti-sjw crowd than it could ever say about their targets.

Now , regarding the Youtube and blogosphere people who tend to go on endlessly about “sjw this is bad”  and “sjw that is bad”.

Here’s the magic advice: try using the whole word and you will know what you are really arguing against.

Social Justice Warrior, acronyms only serve to try and denigrate a position you do not understand. If you do not like Social Justice Warriors, you should not be reading Superhero comics. The origins of Superhero comics is about Social justice Warriors sticking up for the little guy, against the fat cats and exploitative, evil regimes.

Superman in his beginnings is very much a Social Justice Warrior. So is Batman. They all are. And none more so than Captain America.

When Jack Kirby and Joe Simon decided to have Captain America punch Hitler, that was in the time very dangerous, as you were dealing with an America that had segments of the population that did not want to oppose Hitler, and other segments that actually supported Hitler. And the creators received Death Threats and name calling. Sound familiar? 🙂

This Anti SJW crowd, are comprised of people who if they were alive back then, would have called Kirby and Simon ‘Jewish Hitler’. Because that is the level of what they think passes for discourse. It is a tact racists have used of late, taking what they are, and labeling others with the failings of racism and bigotry that they posses. The jackal, trying to place himself as victim, while his teeth are at your neck.

 

And even to use the appellation of Hitler, a  racist and mass murderer, responsible for the death of millions, who sought to slaughter marginalized people; to use that appellation to object to  someone writing a comic book, shows a level of delusion and hostility and hate that is completely out of bounds with the relatively innocuous and unimportant world of comics.

It is also to insult the large population of people, Jews, Russians, Canadians, Islanders, and quite a few Americans, who lost lives in the real world, to a real person and movement. And for you to minimize all those murders by using it to try and win an argument over a comic book, marks you as particularly vile and immoral piece of work, with no sense of value or values.

So yeah it is this type of rhetoric of hate that people spew out at the least provocation of an opinion beyond the mob, that is the real comparison ground for talks of a Nazi Germany. And it is a self inflicted designation.

Another trick of racists, appropriating and coining acronyms for the sole point of, using that as a base to attack.

So you have channels like:

DIVERSITY & COMIXX (which is definitely not about diversity. This is using an innocuous title to spread anti-diversity rhetoric.)

JUST SOXX GUY

COMICARTISTPXX SECRETS

CAPN CUMMINXX

DOUGLXX ERNST

YELLXX FLASH

MICAH CURTXX

[And fun fact, any of the idiots saying they are boycotting CAPTAIN AMERICA  were not buying or reading the book in the first place. These racists don’t read comics, they regurgitate other racists half formed opinions about a medium, comics, and a character Captain America, that if he were alive, would be on the side of Mr. Coates, rather than on the side of these basement Red Skulls.]

 

It is funny, how ignorance perpetuates. These racists in 2018, are very similar to racists a hundred years ago in 1918. Back then the Minstrel show, White people performing in Black face, occurred because they were scared of a changing America, with changing roles for many, and the Minstrel show was created as a way to denigrate the startling advances occurring at the time for many, particularly people of color. Rather than seeing changing times as an opportunity for everyone to advance, rising waters lifting all ships, certain people wanted to concentrate on stopping advancement and turning back the clock.

That hundred year old mentality of lynchings and minstrel shows, and step n fetch its, field negroes who buy into their master’s racist dogma, is unfortunately alive and well in  2018 America, except our lynchings are more sophisticated, we do it courtesy of the 24 hour news cycle and Twitter, and our Minstrel shows are Youtube channels and bloggers,  who can only denigrate the things they fear, rather than expend energy telling us of the things they love.

If you are subscribed to any of the above channels, you can do better,

 

 

Much, much better,

 

You can see with better eyes than that.

Check out some of the other channels I mention in previous posts.

 

As far as Ta-Nehisi Coates, I quite enjoyed what I read of his Black Panther run in singles, and intend to pick it all up in trade.The nature of Captain America is change, and is challenging the status quo, from Steve Englehart’s run, from his time giving up being Cap, to being Nomad, to being the Captain in Gruenwald’s run, to Dimension X in Remender’s run, to Falc Cap in Nick Spenser’s run, to Kirby’s Bicentennial run, to a resurrected Bucky in Brubaker’s run, there is no one Cap for all seasons.

There is a bunch of story-lines for this 80 year old character, some which work, some which may not, but all worth the trying. Ta-Nehisi Coates Cap seems like it will be much of Don Glut and Gerber in it (they did one off Cap stories, but were some of my favorite cap stories) so I am looking forward to it. Will he hit a home run or strike out? I don’t know, but like this country we should give people the opportunity to excel. To succeed or to fail on their own merits, not on our bigotry and our baggage.

I’ll probably make an exception to my Marvel pricing hate and pick up the first few issues of his run in singles and then switch over to cheaper trades or digital. But yeah, getting me to do that, is already a win in his column.

(Quick aside: At $4 a pop Marvel has priced themselves out of the Monthly Market for sequential books for me. I made the rare exceptions for Ta-Nehisi Coates BLACK PANTHER and David Walker’s POWER MAN AND IRON FIST. But yeah Marvel has definitely made itself a trade only company for me, As well as digital if the price is right, I just refuse these days to pay more than $2.99 for a comic from the big two. And damn you Bendis!!! You go over to DC and all of a sudden they are doing away with their $2.99 books???!!! I smell trojan horse! 🙂

I was buying quite a few books from DC, and DC was beating Marvel in terms of interest, and suddenly Bendis arrives, and no more ‘holding the line at $2.99. Man, if this is Marvel’s idea of a trojan horse, to stop DC’s comic momentum, it certainly succeeded with me. I’ll be a trade waiter for this company as well, since they are also ruining Priest’s run on DEATHSTROKE by putting the character in Snyder’s JLA.

And further swimming against the tide, when it comes to DC,  I completely cannot stand any of what I’ve read of Tom King’s BATMAN. Loved his VISION. Really enjoyed his OMEGA MEN. Liked what i read of his MIRACLEMAN (waiting for it to be traded), absolutely do not like his take on BATMAN.

Now, Unlike the Coates haters I picked up the first four volumes of his Batman run, before coming to that decision. Tried it not for me. Some people love it, so not boycotting it, not hating it, not hoping it gets canceled, I’m just quietly not buying it. If you like it I’m happy for you. See, that’s how adults do it. 🙂 )

 

Okay, that was longer than i thought.

Hope you can make sense of all that, but long story short, stop subscribing to the haters. It is a sad indication of how poorly we relate to each other as a society, that the people who are sharing their hates, have larger subscriptions than the people who share their loves.

We are the things we obsess over, the things we devote time to.

Devote time to raising things up, and un-subscribe from those who wallow in tearing things down,

 

Here Endeth the Lesson!