Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 261
Say Hello To the New Boss
ANOTHER WEEK ALIVE ON EARTH
LET’S GO! We got all sorta things to sell and despite potential jackals out there watching us all from the tree line, we’re getting down to business. First, let me do some promotion. Rare event: I’m doing signings.
I’ll be signing at the locations above and I would appreciate anyone in the area coming out. Comic shops do signings as a means of bringing customers in, sure. But it’s also just a goodwill thing with creators. We’re partners in the business of selling the books. It’s nice of these stores to have us, so if you’re able to come by, do so. Make us look good.
The stores should have my Image books and Black Mask books. And I’ll sign whatever you got. Books, records, the hood of your Camaro, etc. But no boobs. I’m married.
THE PART THAT OFFENDED ME WAS THE OTHER PART
Somehow I got suckered into watching two hours of Youtube drama this week. Or, listen, really. I guess I won’t make excuses. I was tending to chickens.
The scandal of the week is that a horror Youtuber with 300k followers took aim at Youtubers with a million+. And the fallout was heavy. People generally like a callout, but this guy misjudged the climate. And more than anything, he was yelling from inside his silo.
His proposition is that horror, the genre, is inherently leftist and punk (already confused because those two aren’t necessarily married), hence there is no space for conservative (‘rightwing’ by his measure) critics.
I could give a shit about the left/right of the thing. And I’m not Mr Horror, so I’m not here to defend a genre (as though a genre needs my advocacy). Rather, I’m set off by the idea that anything needs to be anything.
Who told this fool that horror, a genre that’s fundamental to the human experience and found in the oral tradition of every peoples throughout history, was ‘leftwing?’ Did Chinese folklorists have a conception of the 21st century’s political axis? How would that work? Did storytellers in Mesopotamia have the foresight to build Internet-brained ideas about northern hemisphere social order into their horror?
The aggravating thing was how sure this idiot was.
You see these proclamations about art all the time. “Satire takes aim at the dominant power, otherwise it is punching down.” What does that mean and who told you that? It’s perfectly fair to say that’s how you like your satire, but where did you learn such a definite idea about a concept? And did you not think to Google it before repeating the phrase?
The silos are annoying, man. They prompt people with average IQs to behave in a low-IQ fashion while believing they’re high-IQ.
You don’t decide anything, simple person. You can have opinions about your preferences or how you think things should be. But you don’t change the accepted definitions of things by repeating things you read on Twitter.
No critics without credentials. If you haven’t created a decently good model of the thing you’re critiquing, just shut up until you have. You’re just saying things. Speak from experience, not a playbook handed to you by some goofnugget on Bluesky.
SPEAKING OF BLUESKY NEW SOCIAL MEDIA DROPPED
We’re supposed to all join Cara, the AI-resistant art portfolio social media platform(?), this week.
Alright, man. You first.
The prisoner’s dilemma of social media. For it to ‘work’ we’d all have to go. And we won’t. And nobody is bettered by 1/8 of people going someplace. We have that with Bluesky and it’s a circle jerk of people who think the same things promoting their work and ideas to people already aware of it but not buying it.
A new social media platform will ascend when a new generation that wants one of their own develops it. And people 40+ will stay on Facebook. People 27-40 will stay on Instagram. People without friends or meaning, ages 26-60, will stay on Twitter. Deal in reality.
AN ACTUAL LOSER CONVENTION
If you wanna waste 15min of your life, follow the above statement backwards to the start of the story.
I’ll help, but I’m likely to zone out because these people suck.
I became aware of the debacle through people sharing the first round of cockups, which started with this (now deleted) statement:
“At this year's 2024 Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, community members approached us to share important public safety concerns involving one of the exhibitors we allowed to participate in the festival. The concerns regarded this exhibitor's prior role in the Israeli Military and their subsequent collection of works which recounts their personal…”
Blah blah. Etc. Etc. Woof.
So who was the safety concern?
American Jew serves in the IDF and writes a comic about it. She’s a member of the… Vancouver comics scene… for awhile. But the thing about scenes is they’re toxic nightmares where grievances can fester into civil wars, coups, and witch hunts. Locals had tried to force this woman out of the festival in the past and thought this was the perfect moment to deliver the killing blow. Surely nobody will defend this babykiller!
And that’s how it looked like it was going. They issued some statement about how she made people uncomfortable and wasn’t welcome. I don’t recall. I tried to ignore it. But then the backlash hit. With credible artists asking, “wait, what the fuck is this? You kicked someone out for… what? We like this lady and her book isn’t a piece of propaganda.”
So now VanCAF has to “learn and grow and accept accountability” in the… other direction? Backtracking to “our bad.” My understanding is that the people who actually make things spoke up, but the language in the above post feels like someone went legal.
It’s all just ass. The woman was selling her comic. You have the choice to buy it or not. And should you buy it, you have the choice to process its message (assuming there is one) in whatever fashion you choose. And should you choose to take it as advocacy for a worldview you don’t share, you can drop it in the recycling bin. Or, keep it because not everything under your roof needs to reflect your closely held values. There are no points allotted for “most consistently narrow.”
Reminds me of that ugly-hearted fool in England who rallied to keep Frank Millar from a convention. Reminds me of every effort to write Manara out of the history books. Or diminish Chaykin in an effort to rewrite his place in the industry. Or the yearly effort to put Crumb on a slab.
Self-righteous censors who never make anything but are happy to blow things up.
Fuck your stupid conventions where people who will later stab each other in the back trade books they’ll never read. Politics is your art.
THIS WEEK’S VIDEOS
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Ok, finally got my hands on a copy of Sean Lewis and Johnathan Marks Barravecchia. This one is wild. When your artist co-creator has a style that will be the takeaway no matter how great your script, just let’m cook. And that’s what Sean does. He knows better than to block the art.
Barravecchia is GOING IN on every page. Part of it made me sad. Because I’m sure Barravecchia will get offers after this, but I can’t help but think they’ll be 1/10 the opportunities he would’ve had in the 80s and 90s.
I really enjoyed the willingness to commit full pages to setups and payoffs. Here’s “we’ve decided to sail into the storm:”
Followed by the page-turn payoff of “the storm:”
Would recommend.
Would’ve liked to watch more movies this week, but you know I was consumed by worthless Youtuber drama about people I’ve never heard of in fields I don’t care about.
But I did finish Destroyer and thoroughly enjoyed it. As I said least week, it was a bit too post-True Detective, but the way it tied itself up neatly and said goodbye was great. Would recommend.
And I watched Yes, Madam!
Cited as the first ‘girl with a gun’ genre film, it embraced the goofy side of Hong Kong action. Every minute Michelle Yeoh is on screen is great, and every minute the camera defers to the slapstick criminal subplot is ass. Would recommend watching highlights on Youtube.
OK. THAT’S IT. IT’S LATE HERE.
I’m headed to bed. I am gonna try to get through the Dennis Hopper-directed The Hot Spot this week. Yes, it does take me a week. Remember, signings in a week and a half. I’ll remind you, but mark the calendar now.
Stay healthy as best you can. So many people dying out here or dealing with illness they may’ve been able to dodge if they had seen it coming. Let’s all have as full lives as we can for as long as we can. I’m shooting for 80.
Get something done. Do for self.