Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 216
Hello, all! Hope you’re well. I’m still at home for the time-being. Next week finds me in Lithuania and Oslo, so these 10 days are nice but offer me no opportunity to settle-in.
A thought before this week’s thoughts: these newsletters everyone has are only worthwhile if they’re offering different perspectives. I’m not tryna be contrary with anything I put here. It’s just stuff worth thinking about, or not. But this idea that you’ve gotta agree with everything you consume is idiot shit. No other way to put it.
All that is to say, it’s my natural orientation to defend people as they are piled onto. I don’t know why I’ve got such a revulsion to mobs, but it’s always been the case. I’ll always look for the point of view that humanizes the target of a mob. So, bear that in mind as you read me cape up for disagreeable people and difficult ideas. Refer to the Spinoza quote I’m always plopping in here:
I have laboured carefully, not to mock, lament, or execrate human actions, but to understand them…
BOOK PARTY
I’ll start this one out with a thanks to the people of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Playing your hometown can be a difficult thing for musicians. But maybe less-so for artists, because Paul and Wallace got a great turnout for the STRINGER book release. I chimed-in via video conference and said a few words. It was genuinely heartwarming to see Paul and Wallace’s friends, family, and fans celebrate the book.
Also nice to see Canada put on for its own in this report on Paul from the CBC. And thank you to any readers or critics who shared their experience. Appreciate you all checking it out. If you haven’t, well, you can guess what’s next: Pick that one up at your local comic shop or online retailer. We’re very proud of it.
ORDER A MURDER
My mid-year resolution is to work with publishers more closely so I’m never lost on solicitation dates. Yes, it’s not that difficult. No, I am not a smart man.
Available for order now (that means walk into your store and ask) is the final issue of LEADED GASOLINE. Lorenzo is really doing moody and disturbing work on this title. I am over the moon about how it turned out. We shot for a vibe above all things and I believe we succeeded. Even told a compelling and scary story too! Shoutout to Black Mask for the trust. Pick up all four issues and double-check your locks!
WHAT ARE WE ACTUALLY SAYING THO?
It’s a thing we all do. When a company has layoffs or closes, we all do our ‘but for the grace of God go I’ equivocation in which we say “it’s sad that people have lost their jobs.” Maybe we follow it up with something about how corporate greed is at fault. We all do some variation on this 10c sermon.
And I’m starting to wonder why.
A bad game inspired this thought. There’s a by-all-accounts terrible Gollum game out at the moment. The reviews are brutal. The footage is shocking. The studio apologized. “This is a bad game and we’re ashamed,” they said in other, carefully chosen, words. For a month everyone has been shitting on this poorly conceived and miserably executed game.
The studio who made the game, it was announced this week, will be closing its doors. Because of this bad game.
And what I found curious was one of the games news people I follow reported on the closure with the same pathetic bit of throat-clearing we’ve all come to expect. “It’s sad that so many people have lost their jobs.”
This was the same outlet that devoted a 30min video to ripping the game apart. The premise of the video was total confusion that a product this bad could make it to market. The commentator was unapologetic and spared no one involved.
But, there he was, a month later, talking about how unfortunate it is that anyone should be outta work.
So what are we saying? Which is it? When something is of such low-quality that it demands personnel change, when incompetence fully defines a thing, why is it sad that someone who wasn’t fit for a job will have to find a more suitable one?
Again, I am guilty. I do the song and dance every time too. But I may not anymore. I don’t know if this social ritual is particularly adaptive. Being bad at a thing isn’t a moral judgement. I was the world’s worst personal assistant. I shoulda been fired week one. But my employer loved me as a human and kept me hired for a long time. Would it have been ‘sad’ if my boss let me go so he could find someone capable? Someone who didn’t burn his money with poor productivity?
I don’t think it would’ve been all that tragic. I woulda found another job. I’m an adult and I don’t see labor as beneath me. Carrying bags of mulch isn’t an affront.
Obviously this is a comics newsletter, so let’s apply it to comics. Publisher X let go of staff. “Very sad,” all the news sites say. But maybe it’s just not that sad. Maybe we’re not giving each other enough credit. Life will carry on, even when someone has to get a job -wait for it- they don’t like. If you go from working at Marvel to working at Tacos Gavilan, is it an acute human tragedy worthy of a Russian novel? I wouldn’t assume.
So that’s it. Call me insensitive or whatever makes you feel better. But there’s a difference between “hasn’t found its audience” and “pile of shit.” And we gotta (across all mediums) stop excusing the latter. Or at least stop talking outta both sides of our mouths. “It’s sad people are out of a job” is the new thoughts and prayers.
I am my work. Not in real life, where I’m a partner and stepfather. But insofar as any stranger may know me, I am my work. If I was derelict in my duties as a husband, I would expect my wife to leave me. And if I was terrible at my job, I would expect to be fired. I don’t think it’s unkind to recognize this.
INDIVIDUAL MOTIVATIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL BRAINS
The writers’ strike is still in full-swing, now with a predictable wrinkle. One of the big-name showrunners is threatening to sue strike leadership over scab accusations. An East Coast Strike Captain tweeted that the showrunner’s staff would like to join the picket line, but they fear reprisal from the boss (the show is still shooting pre-strike scripts, which is allowed). The showrunner called up his lawyers, the tweet was taken down, the captain stepped-down, and now the Eye of Sauron is glaring.
The real issue is they want to catch this guy breaking guild rules and they haven’t been able to. Screenwriter Twitter, which is 98% unemployed-even-when-times-are-good, wants his scalp. That’s “solidarity,” don’t you know.
Here’s where I’ll defend the indefensible. You knew it was coming.
The Guild’s current demands are -largely- for the benefit of rank-and-file members. That’s good. That’s the Guild’s job. But the strike, at least in the near-term, in no way benefits the mega-successful. Or, at least that’s how many see it. So here’s my question, and it’ll require you taking off your WGA hat and putting down your megaphone.
WHO are you paying your union dues for?
Yes, yes, I get that the showrunner is successful now because someone fought for him in the past. But he’s successful now. And the ultimate scab quandary is, “is my loyalty to my union brothers… OR MY ACTUAL GODDAMN FAMILY?” This is what those inflating the Scabby the Rat effigies never ask themselves. The Guild is compulsory. As such, it represents a wide range of screenwriting careers. From a guy who is barely hanging onto his member status because he’s so sporadically employed, to the showrunner in question, whose last deal was for $300M. Do these people have anything in common? And points deducted if you give me a platitude like “they should both want what’s best for writers!” I find people who have never been offered $300M always know how they would conduct themselves should it ever happen. Weird.
The Guild has to sell a strike as a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Members with disparate situations and goals must believe that the most MUTUAL good is done by not breaking ranks. But at some point it becomes impossible to maintain.
IF this showrunner is actually breaking strike rules, I’m not suggesting that’s ‘good.’ But I do think it’s important to consider other people’s motivations, incentives, and alienation thresholds. And I think there’s NO utility in villainizing this guy for what would be understandable human behavior. When something no longer represents your interest, you disaffiliate. This is not always ‘good’ but it is always understandable.
And, this part is important, shame only works on losers. Successful people will themselves into winning situations against impossible odds. They do not lose their nerve because FURRY_FERRIS420 tweets “nobody I know even likes [showrunner x’s] shows! i hope they kick him out of the guild! no excuse for scabs!” You can take those attacks and whisper them into your pillow for all the good they do.
Talk to people as if they have relatable drives and real reasons for the things they do. Then convince them there’s an alternative. That’s the only way to win an argument [in real life].
CHICKEN LITTLE RIDES AGAIN
Comic pros are doing their quarterly multi-level marketing on behalf of tech companies. Twitter did, something, who cares, and people who should really get off social media lost their minds. “Go to Bluesky! Go to Threads!”
Poor Mastodon.
If your relationship with these apps is compulsive and desperate, there’s no need to join another. Just leave. I’ve seen people do it. They’re happy. You’re not missing anything. Go love your wives.
PLEASE STOP UPPING THE PUNX
I’m not a snob. I’ve played a thousand basements in my life and I do not consider that experience crucial to anyone’s understanding of… anything. I think music subcultures can offer you as much or as little as you care to take from them. I don’t feel any real need to defend subcultures I’m part of.
But, goddamn, there’s such a thing as just being a cornball.
This is a real character appearing in Marvel comics and the Across the Spiderverse movie. Look at this. “Who is this?” Right? That’s the question of a character. “Do you know this person? Do you believe they exist, somewhere, even if that somewhere is just a fantasy of some type?”
I don’t believe this character.
This type of streetpunk fashion definitely ‘exists.’ But… it’s so dated an idea, so tired a caricature, that you’d have to feel bad about grabbing it off the shelf and calling it a character.
Is the above image from a real Marvel comic? I assume so by the lettering. Why is this ‘punk’ wearing a denim vest with… I dunno… heavy metal horns… on it? Yes, yes, I get that’s what Spider-Man does to sling webs. But it’s a double-meaning here with a nod to heavy metal trappings and some tacky signaling by fans of ‘rock-n-roll’ who later adopted it. In any case, it’s not just “not punk” but not punk by even the most ignorant layman’s standard. It’s just stupid.
Music subcultures are hard to get 100% right, but they don’t require a college course to get right-ish. Even if you were for some reason married to the idea of pressing a cartoon idea of punk into a ‘character’ you’d still wanna get ANY of the relevant details correct, right?
Look, I get shorthand (I’m writing a book with detectives in trench coats). And I would also understand if the POINT was to highlight how clueless and uninitiated the CHARACTER HIMSELF IS. I think that’s the point of the Adrian Brody character in Summer Of Sam, for example. But this. This is just careless dogshit.
A couple years ago there was a tweet that made comics twitter apoplectic for an afternoon. The tweet was to the effect of comic writers having no lived experience and as a result, unable to write informed or convincing stories.
If we could turn our reflexive anger off for a moment, can we maybe squint and see where that guy was coming from? The ‘punk’ found in this corporate product of Spider-Punk is even worse than you’d expect from a corporate product called Spider-Punk. It feels like it could only come from someone who went their whole lives without interacting with music-born subcultures.
THIS WEEK IN CRINGE MEDIA
My girlfriend is recovering from a surgery and I’m at home playing nurse. As a result, I’ve watched three Twilight films. Not where I saw myself at this age, but I’m a fool for love.
I didn’t read the books, see the films, or engage on the topic of Twilight when it was a massive property. I was not, and still am not, the target demographic. But on this late-in-life viewing, I did find the choices interesting. I know so much has been made of the original author’s seeming incompetence, and I don’t wish to join that chorus. The retort is simple and devastating: she’s sold millions of these goddamn things, so shut up.
The first movie is a pile in every regard. The direction and acting is sub-Canadian television level. The second movie tries a few things and is certainly better directed, though I still fell asleep. The third movie throws some action in the mix and is mostly rewarded for it, though the story itself is dumber than an adult can handle.
What I found really fascinating was how little the villain mattered. She shows up, runs away, shows up, runs away. Reminded me of how comic book villains in low-selling books tend to act. And the whole “my job is to put the books/movies out, it’s not to make them GREAT books/movies” feel of it was very familiar to how some see periodical comic books.
Anyway, the conflict was paper-thin and just window dressing for the real story, which is an unmistakably YA love triangle. The author’s mormonism, she says, is the biggest influence on her work. That’s no bullshit. The static “now’s the moment they DON’T have sex” situation somehow does not ratchet up the sexual tension, instead keeping us frozen in puppy love. It’s a real look inside someone’s mind who doesn’t process media like the rest of us. She’s read the same books we have, but took entirely different lessons from them. Which is inherently interesting, even if the movies themselves are pretty shabby work.
Also, the clan of werewolves who never wear shirts was very funny. Unintentionally, I presume.
BATMAN’S ON THAT GYM CANDY
This week’s BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT read was O’Neil/Von Eeden/Braun/Garcia-Lopez on the ‘Venom’ storyline. I had read this one as a kid and remembered it well. Batman is helpless to save a little girl because he’s not a super yolked powerlifter. So he accepts pills from the girl’s chemist father. Who is clearly a nut.
Then, as you can imagine, roid stuff happens.
I know I keep coming back to this, but the established creators of this era were OBVIOUSLY raised on 70s thrillers. They could claim they were fans of classic noir and all that. But their work tells the real story. Everything has superhero action in it seemingly as an obligation; when given freedom to do what they want the bulk of the action is grounded and of a ‘tough guy’ stripe. And the character work is largely of a ‘wish we could just linger on his expression instead of having to oversell it’ type. Though, this is after all a steroid madness tale and we do get at least a syringe worth of juiced action in here.
This one has a number of bad dads in it, making it touching by default. Even when the plot takes Batman to a Commando-inspired South American kingpin villa, there’s enough humanity at the core of this pulp story to make it work.
HAVE A GOOD ONE
Seriously, have a good week. Try to forgive each other for non-fatal transgressions. Don’t assume the worst of everyone. Do for self.