Diseased #Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[NSA]

dead egger

Name one

Here at KF we try not to t-o-u-c-h the poop. The thing I hate about this thread is that the poop comes in here touches us.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

I don't get it. Did someone really take the time to draw this for me?

Will you finally comment on your and Vox Day's involvement with the Jack Murphy cuck/wife-swapping/porno/right-wing grifting scandal or will you just go radio-silent for another week again after being asked about it? Either way works for me.

That's how we know your fake internet feuds are actually fake - the people pretending to fight with you won't bring it up either.

 

[Analog Devolved]

The Magistrate Judge in Texas has recommended the Poulter defamation case against me be dismissed.

Dean and Vikki are still fucked tho.

How can you defame someone who is on video licking shit off a dildo and putting his face next to a black dudes dick lmao.

 

[Pilule Noire]

Speaking of war on customers, Liam recently had to suffer the trauma of blocking one of his big backers, a fellow named Pete Callan, who turned out after all that money to hate him:

Liam's conclusion: you just can't be hung up on trying on make right with people that hate you.

He brings up Pete again around the 40m mark, but forlornly laments that nothing can be done to correct this intractable situation, of all these liar people lying about Liam being a liar.

Then Wendy B comments, "I don't pay attention to what people say anymore." Which Liam reads out as, "I don't au pair what people say anymore."

He then agrees that he also doesn't care, and then without skipping a beat, in a superbly Liamesque fashion, remarks that "This will get sorted when someone eventually gets stabbed in the throat, or, or, or in court, like that's just, uh.... karma will come for people. Karma will come for people." Why so many ors there Liam? Surely it's more of an and situation, stab and court. Stab and then court.

Anyway, luckily for Pete I happened to be passing by that way, and I saw his comment on Liam's channel and immediately sensed it would be 'not long for that world', of Liam's Youtube channel.

So I saved it, and am preserving it here, and giving it a home on Liam's thread:

 

[TheCosmicWarrior]

Will you finally comment on your and Vox Day's involvement with the Jack Murphy cuck/wife-swapping/porno/right-wing grifting scandal or will you just go radio-silent for another week again after being asked about it? Either way works for me.

That's how we know your fake internet feuds are actually fake - the people pretending to fight with you won't bring it up either.

I don't know who Jack Murphy is.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Here at KF we try not to t-o-u-c-h the poop. The thing I hate about this thread is that the poop comes in here touches us.

I had never thought about it that way, but there's a certain elegance to the phrasing.

To the point where the occasional turd even needs to be flushed, as with Liam.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

Here at KF we try not to t-o-u-c-h the poop. The thing I hate about this thread is that the poop comes in here touches us.

That's the thing. If a cow makes an account here and engages with the users in a thread, that's one thing.
If users are actively trying to turn the cow's whole livelihood upside down, that's another.

 

[Analog Devolved]

I don't know who Jack Murphy is.

I think that's Martina markotas white supremacist husband.

That's the thing. If a cow makes an account here and engages with the users in a thread, that's one thing.
If users are actively trying to turn the cow's whole livelihood upside down, that's another.

Do people from here actually ween that hard on comics cows? In my opinion these faggots don't need trolls to act like clowns the CG people are funniest when left alone.

This malt liquor guy has actually provided entertainment which is rare.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Do people from here actually ween that hard on comics cows? In my opinion these faggots don't need trolls to act like clowns the CG people are funniest when left alone.

This malt liquor guy has actually provided entertainment which is rare.

Comic book nerds are some weird people.

 

[A nameless trool]

I think that's Martina markotas white supremacist husband.

His Beard is no Martina, unfortunately.

Jack Murphy is a Tim Pool regular with a stupid beard, who claimed he went from Democrat to Deplorable and charged men $99 a month to teach them how to be men, only to turn out that he is also a cuck and did webcam shows where he fucked himself with dildos.

 

[COMMI3 MARK]

His Beard is no Martina, unfortunately.

I was about to make this correction. Martinas husband is not Jack Murphy.

I expect better fact checking from kiwis.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

I was about to make this correction. Martinas husband is not Jack Murphy.

I expect better fact checking from kiwis.

I'm trying not to shit the thread up with Jack Murphy degeneracy (even tho I brought it here in the first place). It's tangentially related due to his relationship with Vox Day, the guy who latches on to every right-wing grifting opportunity that comes along.

 

[A nameless trool]

I'm trying not to shit the thread up with Jack Murphy degeneracy (even tho I brought it here in the first place). It's tangentially related due to his relationship with Vox Day, the guy who latches on to every right-wing grifting opportunity that comes along.

Jack Murphy is relevant to every Reactionary Youtube Circlejerk topic, because he is the peak cowness of the personalities involved in those grifts.
I mean, we laugh about pizza places in NJ, wife's boyfriend's pizza, Leroy but Jack Murphy ended up as the gift that kept on giving, the manly man who pegged himself on webcam.

Next time you are about to defend any comicsgater go to the Jack Murphy topic and see the photos.
Then come back and feel free to mock any CGer with zero guilt.
Just don't be a stupid a-log and be creative about it.

I was about to make this correction. Martinas husband is not Jack Murphy.

I expect better fact checking from kiwis.

Have you made any videos about him? I kinda enjoy your streams occasionally and I am listening to them when doing something else.

Now, on my favourite contribution to this thread, video with dumb takes from GenXers in Texas babbling in their car about comics, Perch made this video;

TL: DW BOOBZ
Apparently Jim Lee draw some awesome boobs in X-Men that he enjoyed when he was younger.
It is probably sarcasm but being mentioned here gets under his skin plus as we know he is killing comicsgate so I want to promote him to its audience here.

 

[Mister Dongs]

I hate to interrupt the current fare in this, the Year of Forgiveness, so far consisting of endless recriminatory e-faps and howling VikkiVerse vengeance in the windswept comicsgate bloodewastes, but after shitposting for a while in one of Nasser's streams, I felt it upon me to get in on the spirit of things by conduct an annual financial report of Comicsgate in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty One - the Year of Fulfillment.

Comicsgate 2021 Fiscal Year In Review

Red: Comicsgate funds raised for that month Yellow: Comicsgate funds raised, not counting Frog or Richard C. Meyer Orange: Monthly average for previous year 2020 Green: Number of active crowdfund campaigns/individual activity in CG at that point in time.​

Method: All figures have been scraped from CreatorGo.com, a pro-Comicsgate website dedicated to tracking and collecting all CG projects. The site's owner, Nodsaibot, does a fairly commendable job of zero to little gatekeeping, which is good in that it saves me the trouble of having to add excluded campaigns to the total, but (for purposes of full disclosure) does require the pruning of clearly non-CG IGGs like Johnathan Paguea's God's'doG and Kamen America campaigns. It serves a pro-CG bias to make the group look as large as possible. In the interest of presenting as balanced a picture as possible, I did go ahead and add clearly pro-CG Kickstarter campaigns like Billy Tucci's Shi Omnibus to the total. These adjustments account for all deviations from the "official" CreatorGo figures.

This begs the question (as Nasser raised in the previously mentioned stream) of what I personally consider "qualifies as CG or not", as it's well known that if you put two Comicsgaters in a room together you'll get three opinions on the matter. I went by the the loose and open definition that "any campaign/creator that could or is feasibly be portrayed as, smeared, boycotted and blacklisted or the mainstream from association with Comicsgate, is Comicsgate". For example, I don't consider Kamen America a "comicsgate book" and removed it from the totals, but left Ark Athena by Eric Canete and Iconic Comics, as that does have Comicsgate people like Joe Fulton and Eric Weathers on the creative team.

Analysis: 2021 started off for Comicsgate at around half of the previous year's average activity with only 12 active campaigns, a state that at the time I described as "in a malaise". Lacking hard data at the time, I did not have enough information to determine if this was a temporary state of affairs, a permanent decline or a recurring seasonal cycle, and was unwilling to draw any conclusion. This did turn out to be shortlived as dozens of small-scale Comisgaters decided to launch their campaigns with the end of the holiday season. February-April saw the number of active campaigns quadruple while the total amount of funding raised only go up about 50%, the demand for these CG comics not quite matching CG supply. I predicted this would most likely be resolved by a "market correction" in the form of a complete bust, which in fact did happen at May through with the steep collapse of both campaigns launched and funding raised. With the InDemand revenue from Frog's multiple campaigns (Reignbow the Brute, Snowman, Creed) launched in Dec. 2020 and Jan 2021 drying up at around June; the Summer of 2021 being the lowest point on CG record.

Between the "Small-time creators" having imploded the market for their wares earlier in the year and few if any of the "top-fifth" creators of 2020 having delivered any of their campaigns, Comicsgate collectively dipped to around around $157,000 in the month of June, the entire "movement" having about as much as impact as Another Case of the Littlest Umbrella by ThatUmbrellaGuy. It was in this environment that Frog decided to launch his wave of Cyberfrog Action Figures, the outcome of which I (and I suspect on some level Frog) was far from certain whether it would reach its $400,000 target goal or not. In order to reach it, Frog would have to raise more than the rest of Comicsgate combined over the course of July and August of 2021. Which in fact he did. And far from depleting a collective pool of "Comicsgater backers" to do so, a number of other large campaigns sucessfully launched during Frog's toy campaign/Bloodhoney Box, namely Inglorious Rex, Godlike, Earthbound 2 and even newcomers like Aaron Lopresti'sWraith of God, raising Comicsgate in late summer to just short of $800,000. If nothing else, this episode I'd argue demonstrably puts to rest the notion that the larger creators (or for that matter possibly the smaller creators) are limited by the existing surrounding market.

This brief surge in autumn however did not last, and the year closed with a dramatic decline in both number of projects launched and funds raised before the holiday season.

Is Comicsgate Shrinking?

Red: Comicsgate funds per project over the course of 2020 Blue: Comicsgate funds per project over the course of 2020

Yes. No matter how you slice it, 2021 Comicsgate's collective take of $4,441,182.90 (not including the $315,222.57 raised from 2020 projects going into 2021) is less than the $5,978,621.71 raised over the course of 2021. Campaigns that raised over $27,885 in 2021 collectively raised $1.468 million less than last year, while campaigns that raised less than $27,886 raised an additional $189,102. However, since there were 40 more campaigns launched. However, since there were 39 more sub-$27k campaigns launched in 2021 than 2020, this lowers the average per each campaign from $7,729 to $7400. In short, the rich got poorer and the poor also got poorer. The decline also exhibited itself in subtler ways as well - the 80-20 power law, the barrier between the "short head" and the "long tail" of CG's Pareto distribution (which I'd argue is what separates major from minor campaigns), has lowered from the $52,500 set by Pandemic in 2020 to $47,285 in 2021.

Taking these findings to a panel of Comicsgate creators, I was entreated to a series of apologetics explaining this development.


"It's Frog's fault"

This somewhat myopic explanation, perhaps surprisingly put forward by Frog himself, dismisses the shortfall between 2020 and 2021 as directly correlated to his not launching Cyberfrog 3 or another major comic campaign due to his blowing past his deadline dates for things like establishing a toy line and a publishing house. Given that Rekt Planet outdid Bloodhoney despite the well known lateness of that outing, the argument goes that a year-by-year measurement of success is therefore an arbitrary metric imposed on his and therefore Comicsgate as a whole's well-being that serves only to paint its prospects in a negative light. There are a few flaws in this argument; Frog's ability to outdo Bloodhoney with Rekt Planet while paying lip service to deadlines does not appear to be a feat that is universally replicable. Why exactly this is is a matter up for debate, but countless figures, ranging from Mitch Breitweiser to Antonio Brice to Micah Curtis to Richard C Meyer are testament to Frog's busines model not being a one-size-fits-all. It's not as though Frog chose to make no money in 2021 either - between toys and the several runover campaigns from 2020, Frog crowdfunded a total of $1,231,535 over the course of the yeer. In order to even out the deficit, Frog would have to had to raise an unprecedented $2.7 million in 2021. Since his ability to do so has not been demonstrated (and for good reason, since attempting the short-term gain likely would have been ruinous long term), a frogo culpa explanation is insufficient. It may have something to do with the several other top-grossing creators of 2020 who also have not launched campaigns in 2020.

TUG for example, despite having no issues with fulfillment, decided for whatever reason not to launch a new campaign in 2021. And that's not getting into Richard C Meyer, who went from raising $820,740 in 2020 to $270,660 in 2021, a loss of two thirds of his business within a year as he went from #2 to #5, eclipsed by Jon Malin, Shane Davis and Billy Tucci (in that order). And you can't say he was choosing not to launch new campaigns either. Equally absent for that matter in 2021 were RagingGoldenEagle, Cecil, Dan Fraga, Clint Stoker, Eric Weathers, all the way down to Camel Moon.

News was not universally negative however - a fair deal of the decline was abated by other creators who showed signs positive growth in 2021, namely Jon Malin (at 370K), Shane Davis, Billy Tucci, Andy Smith, Graham Nolan, Mandy Summers Mark Poulton, Jon Del Arroz and Art Thibert, as well as a handful of newly introduced creators like Kenneth Rocafort, Adam Friended, Irene Strychalski and Mike Baron.


"Dude, COVID"

Assigning the decline due to economic downturn by Nasser, the most cavalierly thrown out of the counter-claims, turned out to be the most annoying to substantiate one way or another. The easiest way to get to the truth of the matter is to compare Comicsgate against comic book crowdfunding as a whole, but Kickstarter's collective finances are far more opaque than the resources available on sites like CreatorGo. Forbes relays a press release from the lead of Kickstarter's comics division that, far from shrinking, comics on Kickstarter had their third strongest year ever in a row, increasing from 27.4M to 30M. And that should be enough to debunk the argument, however full site scrapes of all available Kickstarter campaigns show a large gap between Kickstarter's reported earnings in comics vs the collective total of all publicly available campaigns (even adjusting for the lack of a site scrape in December 2021).

So, depending on whether you believe Kickstarter's press releases or their publicly available campaign data, Comicsgate is either uniquely in decline or Kickstarter is deliberately wildly misrepresenting the state of crowdfunding comics, with no clear answers. I for one am very curious as to where the additional 18 million in comics-related funding they're reporting to figures like Chris Arrant of Newsarama actually is. Either way, even with the most favorable interpretation to Comicsgate as a whole possible, the size of the group decreased significantly (12.1%) in relation to the rival Kickstarter system.


"Individuals"

The final argument, put forward by Jon del Arroz, was that individual members of Comicsgate succeed or fail regardless of whether they are part of the group and that measuring the group's collective success is imposing a meaningless abstract upon a chaotic and unassociated group of individuals. While I agree with the former assertion (and I believe the data bears that out), I disagree with the latter. Success in the crowdfunding sphere, from what I'm able to see, amounts first on the ability of a creator to build a customer base for his goods with whatever platform is available and then second to retaining those customers with the timely delivery of what is expected. Comicsgate as a group's success (at least as I would define it) in turn would be the ability to attract, retain and support people capable of doing so.

One major difference between Comicsgate was the surge in small-scale creators over the course in 2021, something that was not seen in crowdfunded comics as a whole. The next few months will be of interest to see if the movement's attractiveness to small-scale creators holds out.

 

[Mister Dongs]

Things to look for in 2022

"Lord Crackhead33", the prosaically named former panelist of Leroi's "The Chat" now on his own after the demise of his master at the hands of the CG Hitman, along with his co-host Aldous (editor of Cecil's Cash Grab), the two of them going over their own hopes for CG in 2022 in the form a longform discussion that resembles nothing if not Comicsgate PBS. Aldous holds out hope that future Comicsgate projects will go to the trouble of hiring editors so that the end product will be less embarrassing to own. Crackhead's outlook is irrepressibly optimistic, putting forward that once the creators of 2020 start finally fulfilling their projects and launching new ones, this will result in a thawing of funds and what Frog prophesies as "the biggest year in CG yet".




Yellowflash is said to be going ahead with his own foray into launching a CG title in 2022 after at least two years in development with Bulletmaker and Super Harem artist Joe Ball. This is fairly significant as, once an officiald creator Yellowflash would have the largest platform of anyone in the group. There are also other challenges like selling his weeb audience on a non-manga comic, Ball's very unconventional style and, god help us, Yellowflash apparently going to write the thing himself.

Libertarian youtuber Eric July / "Young Rippa" is also making steps towards going through with his long-rambled about comic book line "The Rippaverse". Unlike the rest of the FNT-associated crowd, July sided with Frog during the great Snyder fiasco and ties between the two appear to remain solid. In the above stream, Comicsgate theoretician Michael Bancroft struggles to comprehend Eric July's described business model of investing some of his youtube riches in making a product and once done, selling it from an online store. As opposed to, say, agonizing over which platform to use to pool the funds needed to create the comic with. Bancroft has never heard of this crazy "selling your product at a store" concept and, eventually, Eric July himself arrives on the show to explain this mindaltering "nuke on crowdfunding" to the Australian man.

 

[A nameless trool]

@Mister Dongs delivers once again.

Not sure if CG is failing or if CG is going through a re-adjustment after the initial growth, only time will tell how it evolves.
But CG definetely fails the small guys. It is no longer the far west, where one grabs a shitty webcam, some webcomics-tier panels and hopes to break six figures because The Cause but a very saturated market that is dominated by few big players.
So I will wait for 2022 to see the numbers.

 

[Rodeo Roadrunner]

Libertarian youtuber Eric July / "Young Rippa" is also making steps towards going through with his long-rambled about comic book line "The Rippaverse". Unlike the rest of the FNT-associated crowd, July sided with Frog during the great Snyder fiasco and there doesn't seem to me here.

Just to add to this, July 'sided' with Frog in the sense that he realized that after Snyder shitcanned them on their own charity livestream, there was no need to continue to try and appease mainstream creator types, since they will effectively never give youtube outrage people the time of day. Interestingly, while Frog has effectively been removed from the FNT 'full of zeroes' crew, July hasn't, and has consistently been a guest on their show, including playing mario cart with the G+G people basically every time they do their stream. I suspect the reason July is still allowed is he has a large platform, and he has actual political connections and connections outside of youtube.

Also, not sure if this was posted at all, Frog had July on a stream yesterday where they go over his planned comic book universe, July doesn't show up until later in the stream.

EVS and ERIC JULY! Laughing at these SJW Comic Pros! Live!

PLEASE LIKE, SHARE and SUBSCRIBE for more!Shop CYBERFROG Comic books, apparel and sketch cards on our eBay store here: https://www.ebay.com/sch/cyberfrog9/m....

www.youtube.com

The most interesting thing here will be when he decides to launch his campaign, which stream will be the starting stream? I suspect it will be FNT stream since there is a larger audience there, but it would be pretty funny if Frog got the launch stream, just to see how much internal seethe was generated by the gang of zeroes.

 

[Mister Dongs]

But CG definetely fails the small guys. It is no longer the far west, where one grabs a shitty webcam, some webcomics-tier panels and hopes to break six figures because The Cause but a very saturated market that is dominated by few big players.

Yeah but that's been the case for almost 4 years now. People just don't remember the hundreds of 'small guys' from yesteryear who eventually dropped off without notice. Things aren't much different in non-CG crowdfunded comics either, with a roughly (un)equal distribution of success on Kickstarter.

Another issue is just how small a pool that the indie comics scene truly is: Comicsgate may appear (and be) niche, but even at its current size it still counts for nearly a third of all crowdfunded graphic novels and webcomics. All it would have to do is double in size and Comicsgate would be the crowdfunding norm as far as comics are concerned.

 

[Crescent Fresh]

Yeah but that's been the case for almost 4 years now. People just don't remember the hundreds of 'small guys' from yesteryear who eventually dropped off without notice. Things aren't much different in non-CG crowdfunded comics either, with a roughly (un)equal distribution of success on Kickstarter.

Another issue is just how small a pool that the indie comics scene truly is: Comicsgate may appear (and be) niche, but even at its current size it still counts for nearly a third of all crowdfunded graphic novels and webcomics. All it would have to do is double in size and Comicsgate would be the crowdfunding norm as far as comics are concerned.

Which kind of metrics are you using? There are significantly more funding projects on KS, though if you’re talking about money per project, I could see it. Way more small projects compared to a few giant ones.

 

[Mister Dongs]

Which kind of metrics are you using? There are significantly more funding projects on KS, though if you’re talking about money per project, I could see it. Way more small projects compared to a few giant ones.

Money per project and how it's distributed. There are hundreds of more projects, like you say, but the results are distributed in the exact same pattern. I went into detail about in here several months ago but the jist of it is both KS and CG follow a 80-20 rule where 80% of the proceeds go to the top 20% of earners.