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

[BlueKnight]

Nice! The site is back!

I only ever come here to observe CG drama. It's good to see it again.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

I thought to myself today, where am I going to get news and make uncensored shitposts about comicsgate and pop culture with like-minded autists now? I clicked on a Nerdrotic stream. I took one look at Az's doughy face and X-Ray Girl sitting there like a bored pair of ambulatory tits, and felt more blackpilled than ever. Good thing I bookmarked the link to Null's poast account. Fucking unbelievable the lengths that man goes to, to keep this thing up.

I need a poast account too, and a tor browser while I'm at it. And to all you guys, even Frog, even Nasser, not JDA again,

 

[Captain Manning]

Nice! The site is back!

Barely. We're on like on Emergency Life Support now.

I need a poast account too, and a tor browser while I'm at it. And to all you guys, even Frog, even Nasser, not JDA again,

Brave is a fork of Chrome that has Tor integration. I think you use alt-shift-n to open a Tor tab. There's also a plugin for Firefox. Poa.st is clearnet tho.

@FROG and @NasserRabadi13 don't appear to be on Poa.st yet. @TheCosmicWarrior and @5t3n0g0ph3r are.

Hit me up if you get on there. You can use the direct chat function if need be.

 

[Mister Dongs]

There seems to be a mass immigration to poa.st going on right now. My understanding is it's basically Twitter for shitposters.

They might let @Mister Dongs post his CG reports there.

If anybody cares to, hit me up:

Fuck any place that "might let me" post, quite frankly. I might get an account to say hello.

Since this may be the last opportunity to secure one of the few linear records of Comicsgate as it happened before it is wiped off the internet, I've been busy with that over the past few days. It's slow going so far but it is going. Going through it and seeing troves of information from erased social media accounts only accessible through archived links, seeing more livestreams privated or whose accounts were terminated than still uploaded, it left me with the feeling of how ephemeral and impermanent everything on these unaccountable oligarchical platforms truly is.

It's an interesting read in it's own right, sifting through the oceans of mostly irrelevant and unimportant daily happenings and seeing a greater narrative start to play itself out. Back in September 2018 it was nearly every day that some new happening was down, Marvel EiC Joe Quesada personally calling out Ya Boi Zack, Peter Simeti and Edwin Boyette getting swatted, Frog and Nick Rekeita building a warchest so Meyer could sue Mark Waid, all during unprecedented crowdfunds. Kiwis were very eager to lend their support in whatever way they could, whether it was doxing Comicsgate's most ardent opponents or just lending their enthusiasm and approval for what was a clear cut case of good guys vs bad guys. As 2019 progressed the threats to Comicsgate from without seemed to pale to the threats to the movement from within, between internal conflicts, gayops, vendettas and the incapacity for a number of people given hundreds of thousands of dollars to deliver anything, let alone the promised "superior alternative to the mainstream". The threat posed by Twitter retards like renfamous, Chloe Handler and SJW Spider-Man was small in comparison; the quality of work by people like Ewe Ewing or Joe Glass became far less immediate problems.

As discussing drama and retarded gay shit going on in Comicsgate became unavoidable and seemingly all-consuming, many of the original posters who started and grew this thread because they were interested in mainstream comics insanity and those who oppose it lost interest in the thread and moved on to shit like Weeb Wars (where they got disillusioned a thousand times worse than they were here lmao). Contrariwise, those who had strong feelings or criticisms towards Comicsgate found it a golden age of chaos; livestreamed bloodsports between Comicsgaters blew tetchy reviews of some shitty comic out of the water. In time though the movement survived its schisms and, if not overcome them, has stabilized over the past two years. Frog traded his dildo meme personal internet army for a cadre of actual comic professionals, a move that for some reason was as difficult as cutting off his own arm for him. Although it might have turned out to be a prescient move anyway as "the culture war between Comicsgate and the mainstream" became a much more difficult sale as the presence of neoliberal apparatchiks, woke demagogues and corporations has faded into the background. Targeting the job of a someone employed by a liberal media corporation for an errant tweet turned out to be a lot easier and appealing than targeting a self-employed entrepreneur who's embraced a business philosophy of building their business to be as uncancellable as possible, along with promises (and precedent) to make it as costly as they can to whoever tried it. COO of Image Comics Erik Larsen agreeing to go on 'Vox Dei acolyte' Jon del Arroz's channel recently, uncontested, is a staggering sign of how little opposition is being directed at a movement where attempted murder was not unheard of only 4 years ago. Comicsgate's opponents claim victory in that their consumer revolt failed to stop them to make their latest alternate universe faggot Spider-Man or whatever, but it rings hollow when SJW comic commissar Tess Fowler is selling furry art commissions for $45 a pop while Eric July is pushing 4 million dollars in sales built on shitting on them every day. They lost.

The character of this thread had likewise changed over the past two years; the more vitriolic detractors giving way for the thread to take on the form of an (arguably worthwhile) critical organ within the community/movement/whatever itself. Or so I sometimes like to tell myself. It's the only place I know of where there's critical reading of perhaps the lowest form of creative expression yet devised by man - youtube livestreams. Overall, the story of the thread is it started with a bunch of true believers who went on to be completely disillusioned, and a few inveterate a-logs who eventually came around. I might write about it in full sometime, somewhere.


Anyways @Null even though I know you couldn't give a single fuck about comics, I'll always be thankful that you gave us a place to talk about them freely here.

 

[FROG]

I copied that essay and preserved it for myself, thanks Dongs.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

@Mister Dongs you get an extra with emphasis.

Comicsgate's opponents claim victory in that their consumer revolt failed to stop them to make their latest alternate universe faggot Spider-Man or whatever, but it rings hollow when SJW comic commissar Tess Fowler is selling furry art commissions for $45 a pop

Why do $45 furry commissions feel more... valid and worthwhile than a mainstream published comic these days? Touting 'alternate universe faggot Spider-Man' as a victory is like propping up a shelter consisting of a dirty sheet and two sticks against a ruined shell of a building and shouting 'suck on that!' to the people across the river who are building a proper town. Building rather slowly and for the most part inexpertly, but still.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

It's September. Has Rippa delivered his fucking comics??

 

[The Coon]

BTW, there remains the question as to where to continue this shit.

There seems to be a mass immigration to poa.st going on right now. My understanding is it's basically Twitter for shitposters.

They might let @Mister Dongs post his CG reports there.

If anybody cares to, hit me up:

CaptainManning (@CaptainManning@poa.st)

Emergency backup to keep in touch with cooler KF people due to troon fuckery. Probably won't use much otherwise. Also, Keffals will never be a real woman.

poa.st

And if that doesn't work, well... I have no fucking idea. I guess we all bow down to our new troon overlords, or some shit.

Hear me out. I know this is going to sound really fucking gay, but I got really desperate and started a Thread on the Grift and Gamers forum. They are supposedly mostly free speech over there and it may be an alternative if the Farms goes down again. It looks like @Mister Dongs should be able to do write ups as long as he wants.

 

[Cuckoman]

It's September. Has Rippa delivered his fucking comics??

I don't think he has delivered on the comics yet, could be wrong.
But he absolutely is delivering the salt.
Woke creators: "Who does he think he is, just waltzing in and being successful, he doesn't even have to eat cat-food like the rest of us. It is so unfair. He is a white supremacist and racist".
I love it.

 

[Captain Manning]

Hear me out. I know this is going to sound really fucking gay, but I got really desperate and started a Thread on the Grift and Gamers forum.

You're lucky I like you, because I would hit you with like 50 trash cans for this otherwise. Instead, I rate that horrifying. LOL.

 

[Sinner's Sandwich]

Who does he think he is, just waltzing in and being successful,

Sucessful in making retards give him money.

 

[Dixieland Buckaroo]

Sucessful in making retards give him money.

Ah yes, the Comics Gate Grift. Even if he's not CG. Classic.

 

[Absurdity]

Whew! Well this is as good time as any to reflect on the importance this thread has within the entire CG movement seeing as we are one faked tranny suicide-by-swat away from alphabet agency obliteration. I can't imagine where this might have gone without anyone keeping tabs on all the developments, spergouts, backstabbings and gayops the way the farms did. @Mister Dongs has put in the most effort to keep everyone up to sped/speed and as a resident sperglord I appreciate it. It's Dongs' efforts along with many others who went through the trouble to provide links and documentation as well as to archive vital blink-and-you'll-miss-it internet ephemera (as far as you can call anything on a dry erase board an "archive"). It really gave us all a reason to tune in. More importantly, I think you could argue it served to help keep the creators more accountable. And of course, what thread would it be without the a-logs providing crucial critical feedback for the egocentrists of the comic book world?

CG had its moment, but its failures have long since exceeded its victories. I don't like most comics, but I know what I like when I see it. The first thing about any successful comic book is to make it a compelling read on its own to just enough people that one might derive a profit from it. The extra SJW dunking is nice, but it cannot be the bread and butter of a great brand or IP (outside of being a fulltime cultural commentator). We went from one thrilling personal story selling a comic book to a whole genre of it and one by one, those personal stories fall apart leaving a barely recognizable pulp behind. Old news I know, but we haven't even begun to hit the Cecil Accountability Arc or as I have come to view it as Mambo #5 for Scivergate. So the thread might not have held the big names' feet to fire, but hopefully it has helped spare the community from future smalltime grifting campaigns.

To my fellow a-logs, it's been an honor sperging alongside you. Keep it real Newmans! I salute you from my theatre box until we are all nuked by reptilian space troons and I am forced to walk the Earth. My hope for our near future is that middle-aged Rippa never paid any serious attention to any of this because know we'll get to see him make the same mistakes all over again!

And finally to a certain set of beleaguered self-beguiled creators whose rotten consciences have been my main source of sustenance these few long years: The closer you get back to what made you a success to begin with is the closer you get to truly making comics worthwhile. It seems as though the industry is inundated with no-talent journeymen amateurs pushing their xerox copies on one end and big-talent pros who love money more than they love the profession on the other. You need to have something important to say but you also need to use good storytelling along the way. Do not make the low-hanging fruit of the one-note reactionary your primary export.

 

[Cuckoman]

To my fellow a-logs, it's been an honor sperging alongside you.

I wouldn't write this place off just yet. There will always be a need to have a place to talk frankly and sometimes harshly about things that are important. Even if Liam-faggot gets offended.

I do not want this thread to just go away.

 

[Elite Miko]

Saw this pop up on another forum I frequent:
https://twitter.com/MarkBrooksArt/status/1567029351203438594?s=20&t=uVa5y2K4rH0pMzilqy_m3A

Couldn't believe people praising this faggotry.

 

[H. Bergeron]

Never knew there was a thread on Comicsgate. Honestly I felt that unlike gamergate comicsgate kinda never quite had the same level of widespread sanity to keep it from going overboard. Got tiring after a while. Then again, I think the other problem was that in a very real way, Comicsgate lost. DC did better for a while after Rebirth, but then went full on troon worshiping SJW, Marvel followed up its own cinematic success with the same characters that killed their comics popularity, and 95% of them could do nothing but bitch all the time.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

Never knew there was a thread on Comicsgate. Honestly I felt that unlike gamergate comicsgate kinda never quite had the same level of widespread sanity to keep it from going overboard. Got tiring after a while. Then again, I think the other problem was that in a very real way, Comicsgate lost. DC did better for a while after Rebirth, but then went full on troon worshiping SJW, Marvel followed up its own cinematic success with the same characters that killed their comics popularity, and 95% of them could do nothing but bitch all the time.

Like GamerGate, the initial version of ComicsGate fell apart due to infighting.
You have to give ComicsGate credit, though: unlike GamerGate, ComicsGate provided an actual product.
I believe interest waned in several factors.
1. More infighting, particularly everything surrounding War Campaign (the @FROG vs. Doug TenNapel squabble didn't help).
2. Tardy distribution of products. You can only get away with late products for so long before your customers decide to cash out.
3. Quality of products. The lack of editors to help the artists are painfully obvious (just look at Richard Meyer's story structure, for example).
4. The result of Meyer v. Waid. Meyer throwing in the towel changed a LOT of perspectives of ComicsGate, including Meyer himself.
From a principle standpoint, Meyer from 2017-2019 is not the same man in the present.
5. The success of crowdfunded comics outside of the ComicsGate umbrella (Kamen America, Rippaverse) gave the movement competition that those within weren't looking for.
If ComicsGate was centered on being a viable alternative to mainstream brands, then I agree, there has not been significant growth to back such a claim.
Right now, I'm not even sure what ComicsGate is supposed to be except something @PocketJacks wants to take away from @FROG.

 

[Cuckoman]

If ComicsGate was centered on being a viable alternative to mainstream brands, then I agree, there has not been significant growth to back such a claim.
Right now, I'm not even sure what ComicsGate is supposed to be except something @PocketJacks wants to take away from @FROG.

I don't think CG is viable alternative to mainstream and by that I mean that at this point I don't think printed comics at all is viable.
CG exists and survives and perhaps thrives, for now, but only because there still exists a comics book industry. So there is still comics book customers and some of them will buy CG books.
But when the industry collapses and goes away there will be no market or customer for anyone, CG or not.

When the big two falls and all comic books close down then all publishers will go down as well. How long will crowdfunded comics survive once the whole world has moved away from comics? Well, long enough for some folks to continue selling their books, but without the comics stores
there will be no replacement customers, there will be no new fans adopting the hobby of reading books.
Sure, Frog and Meyer will still be able to sell to their fans, but it will not last forever since no new blood is brought in to the customer base.

CG comics will survive a lot longer than the established publishers and stores simply because they can operate at a much lower cost, which will allow them to continue to operate for quite a while, but not forever.


Anyway, a few really though years are looming right now where people will seriously cut down on discretionary spending. I wonder how hungry Marvel/DC are on pushing moneylosing comics just to get twitter clout. Or at least I wonder how the people holding the purse strings at Marvel/DC will think about running unprofitable projects to please twitter going forward. I see massive cuts in woke publishing over the next 12 months. At the end of the day, you make money to suruvive as a publisher by publishing books that will sell.


At some stage I expect DC to end publishing completely and only be a licensing house. "You want a license to make a new superman movie? That will cost this much and it better not tarnish the IP". They just need a filing cabinet and one part time guy to spend a few hours a week to go over and approve/deny license requests.

 

[jspit2.0]

i'm a little suprised the thread...finally...died. If this is the end its fitting that thread death occurred before the cathartic comeuppance of a certain Arkansas ex-comicsgate figure Mitch Breitweiser. In character for the man behind Red Rooster. Always late.

Apparently the behind the scenes info shows that Mitch was defrauded by an investor, sold his house, and is in dire financial straits not having made money off of any of this.

Anyway, I've more or less had far more concern for the actually counter culture Kiwifarms then the griftgate train. That said, if any of you who bought Red Rooster are out there, how does this leave you feeling?

 

[Mister Dongs]

Right now, I'm not even sure what ComicsGate is supposed to be except something @PocketJacks wants to take away from @FROG.

These days Comicsgate has (either intentionally or unintentionally) adopted the stance and arguments of the underground comix scene from the late 60s/early 70s. Listening to the latest launch streams for Lopresti's Wraith of God 2 or Irene Strychalski's Fiendish 2 and how they are able to full realize their creative vision with these time-intensive works, it's all very reminiscent of the sort of things Pekar and Crumb fans would say.

The contention goes that true art is not achievable by the establishment mainstream because the drive for profits by the corporate owners creates censored work (60s underground comics) / rushed work (Comicsgate) and that therefore only those blacklisted/excluded from the establishment are capable of creating true art vs "corporate art".

On one hand, I'm of the strong opinion that if Comicsgate is going to have any staying power, it must at some point be able to deliver comics that are actually worth supporters' money. On the other, it's difficult to see how Comicsgate can be distinguished from other indie comics at all if it's ceded competing with or contesting the mainstream establishment.

Originally, backing crowdfunded creators by Comicsgate was the last line of resort after criticism and boycotting Marvel and DC failed, a contest between audience and publishers over having a say in popular/mass culture. Now after years of massaging in concepts like ESG, the argument put forward that consumers should back CG comics because they are better than the mainstream and that the idea of reforming a corporate IP or "contesting culture" instead of supporting alternatives is a waste of time. In other words, the means to affect desired change have become accepted as the ends in of themselves.

With Frog raising $213,480 in the span of three days last week across three campaigns on behalf of Andy Smith, Aaron Lopresti and Irene Strychalski (and Shane Davis already laying the preparations to launch Inglorious Rex 2 in October) Comicsgate remains brisk business for those that can deliver. At least for the Comicsgate Kings anyway.

Mitch Breitweiser by contrast is doing... considerably less well.