Comics, Culture War and the Arkhaven Experiments

I was torn on whether or not to write this piece. I’ve increasingly found myself doing a great deal of Culture War commentary. Right now the culture war is raging hottest among the comic stands and racks upon racks of zombie eyed funko pops.

While I find the culture war aspect deeply interesting and since I do make it a point to have at least basic understanding of what is going on in the rest of geekdom, I am not a comics guy.

Seriously people I own two comics (and one of those I impulse bought last week, just to see how much of a story can you tell in a hundred panels.) Most of what I knew about comics before 2015 was learnt against my will.

This gives me a bit of a detached view of ComicsGate and related topics. On one hand because comics is such small concentrated aspect of the War for the Heart of Geekdom it’s very easy for me to pick out elements of the wider culture war without getting personally and emotionally involved. On the other hand many of my friends (and readers) do enjoy comics and I don’t like to see my friends in pain. And there is plenty of pain in the modern comics world. We are beginning to see the first signs of the SJWs being driven out of territory that once thought secure, truly a beautiful sight. The SJWs of course are lashing out frantically but that’s more funny than threatening.

The recent attacks on Ethan van Sciver and Jon Malin are in part an act of desperation as the SJWs lodged in the comics industry are beginning to sense just how vulnerable they are.

http://www.brianniemeier.com/2018/01/fake-journalists-vs-evs.html

The entire comic industry is in very bad shape and it becoming increasingly obvious to everyone just who is to blame. The books simply aren’t selling at a time when America hasn’t been so enamoured with superheroes since GI’s were reading Captain America in the trenches. How could this be? Only the dark magic of SJW convergence can explain this state of affairs. Luckily brave heroes are rising to the occasion to do something about it.

 

Diversity and Comics reviewing the latest death spasms in the Comic twittersphere. [12mins]

He gets to the to point around the six minute mark. Also there’s a lot of cringe here.

 

I didn’t feel the need to talk about the Will Calligan incident as others in my internet friendosphere already had the bases covered but truly that was a perfect storm event and the anti-SJW forces spotted a target of opportunity and then PROCEEDED TO NUKE IT FROM ORBIT

https://pjmedia.com/trending/internet-rallies-disabled-veteran-besieged-sjws-raises-21000-counting/

It is very difficult to overstate just how much of a win the Will Calligan kickstarter was for Arkhaven. Possibly even a bigger win the initial Alt*Hero one. Again the suspicions of Divine timing begins to arise. The SJWs couldn’t be doing more to boost Arkhaven’s chances of success if they were directly on the Supreme Dark Lord’s payroll.

Okay a quick glossary for people who aren’t daily readers of Vox Day’s blog like I am.

Alt*Hero: That kickstarter comic thing that pissed in everyone’s cornflakes and got this whole thing going. Intended to be the main showcase series for Arkhaven comics. Note that by it’s very nature Alt*Hero will be by necessity highly political.

Arkhaven Comics: This is the imprint that Castilia House is going to use for comics that they are going to make themselves in house.

Avalon: A Chuck Dixon lead series that is going to set in the same universe as Alt*Hero. Avalon will be focused on street level crime fighting on noticeably less political than the flagship series.

Dark Legion: A secondary imprint for comics Castilia House is ‘indirectly’ publishing. Basically an indie comic that is using CH is a publishing outlet while retaining creative control.

 

Vox Day giving an update (Jan 28^th) on various Arkhaven projects [16 mins]

More importantly he shows off an example of the 24 page ‘single issue’ comic with a trade paperback cover that had me so confused.

Vox also discusses briefly how all Arkhaven/Dark Legion comics will be available in Kindle unlimited and that this is a key part of their distribution plan.

The other part of the plan is far more intriguing (if at the moment very secretive) those $2.99 single issue comics are going to be available to local comic stores through a currently unnamed distribution company (Distributor X?) in effect breaking the current monopoly that be been in force since 1997.

https://infogalactic.com/info/Diamond_Comic_Distributors

Alt*Hero will not ‘save the comics industry’ but it is the second and third order side effects that are happening around the Alt*Hero project that are going to breathe new life into a nearly dead industry.

First of all if Arkhaven can delivery on even half of what has been promised how are the other independent comic creators going to react? Are they going to curl up in a ball and crawl into the nearest safe space, or are they going to get “high energy” and increase their output and creativity. It doesn’t even matter whether they are mad at Vox Day for invading their turf. Energy is energy and the Arkhaven disruption will breathe new life into the fringe creators. Culture war after all requires culture and the more non-SJW comics being made the better.

The second aspect depends on the combination of Distributor X and the Dark Legion imprint opening up the comic industry and making it easier for physical books to get to market. Once local comic store owners get used to ordering from a second distributor, things should begin to snowball. Diamond will respond to the new competition (by all accounts they are a very smart company,) and they will probably be forced to start treating the store owners better.

And if more and more small indy publishers start switching to Distributor X or pressing Diamond for better deals… well again things will snowball quickly.

Of course this all depends on there still being local comic stores around in 2019.

But don’t mind me… you all know what a pessimist I am.

—Wolfman Out–

Related:

AltHero Vs ComicsGate : A quick overview of the difference in philosophy between the two approaches.

Jim Fear was Right

Manowar are simply the pulp-est metal that ever existed and worthy of blasting in the background while you hold a candle-lit vigil to mark the last days of his twitter ban.

Stay strong Jim. Harambe watches over us all.

But yes Manowar is awesome.

And just like that Talidor the Axe* might just have a theme song.

 

And here a song that has thinking about getting all Crusady**.

 

* Still too early to make any promises but I do need to learn how to write action scenes and Talidor doesn’t have time to for plot or backstory he mostly just shows up and starts kicking ass.

** Actually reminding me of another character Talidor meets in a tavern…. I really need to stop overworldbuilding.

80’s Cartoon Intros Were Awesome

Yes I watch a lot of youtube… most of you have figured that out by now. 

Ring Raiders? Don’t think I’ve seen that one, before.

Still it’s all a little depressing to look back at these 30 minute toy commercials and ponder just how much care and attention went into them.

There was a certain craftsmanship and pride in one’s work that shows through especially when you contrast it to what is being produced for children’s’ entertainment in the modern West.

You need us sell toys? Well Goddamn It the boys in creative are just going to have to roll up their sleeves and show you marketing people how to sell some motherfuckin’ toys!

…

and come to think about it those toys were actually meant to be played with and would stand up to normal wear and tear long enough that a boy had to go out of his way to break them. And that was a lesson all by itself.

 

Update: Okay I hadn’t heard of Spiral Zone either but I do have to say it looks pretty pulpish.

Okay you had me at Commander Dirk Courage.

Off On a Lark

So the other day I was bored enough to do a generic search for “crusade” and one of the things that came were a couple of obscure metal bands.

Brazil? I was wondering about that accent. Good stuff, if a little muddled.

 

 

Old Interview. Worth Revisiting

Here is Milo Yiannopoulos interviewing Chuck Dixon back in Aug 5th 2016.

Very interesting in the wake of Alt*Hero and recent events. The first half of the interview is probably worth your time.

A Story Fragment

Had an unexpectedly busy last few days so I’m posting this in lieu of actual content… because brain not work too well right now.

 

Illegal Alien (Can’t remember why I titled it that)

“Worse disguise ever,” the figure in the full body suit burka sulked.

Markus had to admit she had a point. Walking through the Nebraska state fair dressed as a Arab couple two days after a major terrorist attack was turning out to have been a less than ideal choice, “I didn’t have to time to rig a magical disguise and if any of these people saw a non-human there would be a massive freak out.”

Zunni whined some more on sheer principle her hands almost shaking in frustration as they walked past a pulled pork BBQ kiosk with its very delicious smelling wares. It took every ounce of Markus self-discipline not to crack up laughing. Danburi elves were rather enthusiastic meat eaters whenever they got the chance to indulge their carnivorous instincts and pork in all its glorious multitude of forms was at top of their favorite things to eat. Probably because as subterranean dwellers they so rarely got the opportunity to eat mundane surface living livestock. The other possibility was that pork was the closest they could get to eating human flesh without breaking their religious codes. Not something that was discussed in polite company, mind you. Zunni however firmly insisted that she was a people person not a people-eating person.

“I’ll get you a ham when we get to the safehouse,” Markus promised as if to a small child. Zunni really didn’t seem to understand just how much danger the two of them were in. Especially since they couldn’t just start hurling fireballs around without killing and injuring dozens if not hundreds of innocents. “In the meantime just keep quiet unless you want to wind up locked up in Area 51.”

“Aww… I’m missing all the fun,” Zunni pouted. “and the bacon. Especially the bacon. Americans put bacon on everything.”

So this wasn’t Zunni’s first visit to Earth… interesting. Markus filed that thought away for later. The Order never told its field agents anything more than they absolutely needed to know. To be honest he really didn’t know that much about his companion only that it had taken a lot of horse trading and frantic diplomacy to convince her to get involved. What ever this current crisis was, it was serious enough that the Order was calling in a lot of favors.

 

AltHero Vs ComicsGate

Just a quick point about the difference between ComicsGate and AltHero.

#ComicsGate is about FORCING A REFORM on the comic industry.

This might be possible. This is no doubt a worthy cause. Time will tell.

#AltHero on the other hand completely WRITES OFF the existing comics industry as a LOSS and seeks to BUILD completely NEW institutions.

Which approach is correct?

We don’t know.

The advantages of stopping the enemy short of the main line of resistance are considerable. If such a thing is possible no effort is completely wasted.

But can an SJW converged company be de-converged? No one knows. I can think of no examples.

So which approach should be the focus? That’s not my decision to make.

Three Quick Videos

Just a quick Youtube selection since I needed to step back a little from current events. Also I’m sure some of you are getting a little sick of the tinfoily stuff.

 

Skallagrim shows off a very nasty piece of #PulpRev worthy kit. [8 mins]

Kind of gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside doesn’t it?

Note that this isn’t really a battlefield weapon as it is a little too heavy and overbuilt. This is a gladiator weapon, most likely a crowd favorite. Or perhaps the weapon of a wandering barbarian champion? Does the hero carry a weapon like this? Or is this the tool of a black hooded adversary?

 

Weaponized Nerdrage on how China did not like the newest Star Wars. [12 min]

He makes a lot of good points here. Also you’re gonna want to stick around for the anti-Michael Bay rant around the ten minute mark.

 

I honestly didn’t know Brian Blessed was Boss Nass [7 mins]

“I always made sure that my noises never interfered with my dialogue because I had a lot of plot…”

The video ends with Brian Blessed reading lines from Braveheart in his Boss Nass voice.

A Completely Hypothetical Scenario

Humor me for a second. Let’s say that there was a planet that was experiencing a covert civil war. By this I mean that most of the fighting was being done cloak and dagger, by various factions within intelligence agencies and the corporate bureaucracies. Of course the occasional open skirmish between paramilitaries erupts from time to time but for the most part there is a gentleman’s agreement to keep things as quiet as possible and not alarm the public.

Now assume for a moment that one of the two major factions had control of the planetary weather control system. On one hand this is a powerful weapon but they need to be very careful not to push their luck too far. After all they are trying to conquer the planet, not destroy it and all major factions have access to WMDs. There is also the problem that if they keep messing with the weather too much the general population is going to notice something’s up and the last thing any of the elites want is the average citizen pulling his grandfather’s rifle out of the closet and getting involved.

Therefore use of the planetary weather control system is limited not so much by capability but political factors and the need to avoid escalating the conflict into open warfare.

So now that we have the basic parameters let’s ask the real question. What advantages would causing a continent-wide cold snap around the time of the major winter holidays confer?

Interestingly is not the northern cities that suffer. As a population that is prepared for -35C winters at least know what to do in -45C weather even if they are not particularly fans of it. Plus even the poorest citizen of a northern city is going to own a proper winter coat.

The southern cities also are barely effected. While snow in unexpected places can cause panic and a few traffic accidents, there will be no real damage to infrastructure.

It is the temperate cities in the middle of the continent that are most effected. A population that does not normally experience harsh winters is unlikely to own heavy winter clothing and infrastructure may fail if suddenly subjects to unexpected stresses.

Now what if the major political centers on this hypothetical continent were moderate temperate cities near a coastline. Well not only would we have cold weather in a city where the general population is unprepared for severe winter weather but there would also be much heavier snowfall than usual.

And this of course is during the major winter holidays, the time of year where air travel is highest. A northern airport is going to have a great of snow removal capacity, a temperate city airport is not. Therefore causing a cold snap is going to have the effect of shutting down or restricting air travel near the politically important coastal cities. Why do this?

Perhaps it’s a measure to make moving key personnel very difficult for the opposing faction.

Fire, Fury and Autism

Roy Potter is Pissed!! ! [9 mins]

Not too sure what is happening with The Storm and related topics. As a general rule I’m always going to be a few days behind on current events but this could be something big.

LTC Potter (ret) tends to be a very calm and collected man (even when he’s doing secret agent podcasts from random food courts) so seeing him just let loose like this instantly got my attention.

Twitter and Gab also gone completely insane in the last few hours… but that’s not always an indication of something.

 

Update:  A much calmer Roy Potter follows up. [29 mins]

The take away here is that the use of DefCon 1 by Q was poorly chosen allegory. Q intended to remind people to be on the highest alert. The use of the military term however rattled a lot of cages.