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

New Article debunking the Hit Piece against Ethan Van Sciver (Archive Included):

EthanVanSciverComicsGateCover.png


https://nickmonroe.blog/2018/02/12/on-ethan-van-sciver-and-comicsgate/
https://archive.is/CDkHM
 
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LetterlandMafia said:
#movetheneedle is a nice idea but I don't see it working. Comics industry is in the shitter but I'm not convinced DnC has the reach to significantly swing sales. And even if he does succeed, I imagine the artists will just go crying to the media that there's a racist/sexist/homophobic conspiracy against them to generate some good PR for their useless asses and Marvel will stand by their artists even as they continue to piss away their money.
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The problem with an idea like #movetheneedle is that the sales numbers Marvel and DC care about aren't calculated by individual customer sales. What they really look into is the Direct Market, which is the number of issues a comic shop orders. A lot of terrible books were kept on life support because comic shops continued to buy issues of them and all their variants, or didn't learn the mistakes of previous runs and bought a bunch of issues of #1 relaunches despite it still being the exact same creative teams and the #1 on the cover being meaningless. And that's not even getting into how the common practice of trade waiting has often screwed over really good books.

Really, a harder wake up call for the industry would be to reach out to the comic shop owners - many of whom are already frustrated with Marvel especially - and convince them to cut loose the books and creative teams that aren't selling and stop ordering them entirely instead of feeling like they have to order a couple issues of everything in Marvel and DC's line-up just in case that magical customer who likes that garbage happens to live in your city will one day feel like wandering into your comic shop and pick up an issue.
 
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One Man Bland said:
The problem with an idea like #movetheneedle is that the sales numbers Marvel and DC care about aren't calculated by individual customer sales. What they really look into is the Direct Market, which is the number of issues a comic shop orders. A lot of terrible books were kept on life support because comic shops continued to buy issues of them and all their variants, or didn't learn the mistakes of previous runs and bought a bunch of issues of #1 relaunches despite it still being the exact same creative teams and the #1 on the cover being meaningless. And that's not even getting into how the common practice of trade waiting has often screwed over really good books.

Really, a harder wake up call for the industry would be to reach out to the comic shop owners - many of whom are already frustrated with Marvel especially - and convince them to cut loose the books and creative teams that aren't selling and stop ordering them entirely instead of feeling like they have to order a couple issues of everything in Marvel and DC's line-up just in case that magical customer who likes that garbage happens to live in your city will one day feel like wandering into your comic shop and pick up an issue.
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Doesn't help that Diamond will send comics to shops that they don't even want and it would cost more money to send them back so they just keep them and hope the products sell. It's at least an issue in my country, not sure if it is in the States though I could check in with a few store owners I know.
 
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CatParty said:
why are they frustrated?
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Mostly because for pulling shit like holding their best sellers, Star Wars particularly, hostage by withholding access to them unless a shop ordered double or triple the number of books to another series than they would've normally ordered so they could brag to the media that a diverse "woke" comic was the top seller that month, overstocking comic shop orders with extra issues of junk that had poor sales so they could lie to Diamond about the sales while the shops were left with extra inventory they couldn't use, sending boxes of junk they didn't order so Marvel could continue to lie to Diamond about the numbers (and footed the shops with the shipping costs), and overall be very rude and dismissive to comic shop owners who have voiced their complaints and seem more than content to let the writers and artists who work at Marcel spew vitrol at shop owners when they point out that they know for a fact which books aren't selling.

So the usual.
 
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One Man Bland said:
Mostly because for pulling shit like holding their best sellers, Star Wars particularly, hostage by withholding access to them unless a shop ordered double or triple the number of books to another series than they would've normally ordered so they could brag to the media that a diverse "woke" comic was the top seller that month, overstocking comic shop orders with extra issues of junk that had poor sales so they could lie to Diamond about the sales while the shops were left with extra inventory they couldn't use, sending boxes of junk they didn't order so Marvel could continue to lie to Diamond about the numbers (and footed the shops with the shipping costs), and overall be very rude and dismissive to comic shop owners who have voiced their complaints and seem more than content to let the writers and artists who work at Marcel spew vitrol at shop owners when they point out that they know for a fact which books aren't selling.

So the usual.
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just don't buy the evil comics?
 
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One Man Bland said:
Really, a harder wake up call for the industry would be to reach out to the comic shop owners - many of whom are already frustrated with Marvel especially - and convince them to cut loose the books and creative teams that aren't selling and stop ordering them entirely instead of feeling like they have to order a couple issues of everything in Marvel and DC's line-up just in case that magical customer who likes that garbage happens to live in your city will one day feel like wandering into your comic shop and pick up an issue.
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You mean the ones who haven't already been driven out of business by these shitheads? Comic book stores are in an even worse business position than the actual bookstores that still exist, most of which are a) now chains or b) have had to turn into combo bookstores/music stores/coffeeshops in a desperate attempt to continue to exist, because comic book stores have a smelly, gross clientele that those things won't appeal to.

Scum like Marvel have driven a lot of them out of business because they don't care about jobs for people in the business, they just care about catering to bulldykes and trannies on tumblr.
 
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CatParty said:
just don't buy the evil comics?
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Well yeah people aren't buying them but comics stores have to, otherwise Marvel won't let hem order the actual good titles. Many of these store owners are in their 40s-50s, it's hard to close shop and find another job at that age. It's especially frustrating given that they're not failing cause there's no market for what they're selling, I mean for goodness sake there's miniature/collectibles shops, why not comics.
 
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Somsnosa said:
Well yeah people aren't buying them but comics stores have to, otherwise Marvel won't let hem order the actual good titles. Many of these store owners are in their 40s-50s, it's hard to close shop and find another job at that age. It's especially frustrating given that they're not failing cause there's no market for what they're selling, I mean for goodness sake there's miniature/collectibles shops, why not comics.
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then buy them to support the stores?
 
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CatParty said:
then buy them to support the stores?
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The stores are smelly and weird. No normal people go into them. If you aren't Comic Book Guy, you buy them on the sly and get a cup of coffee or something at Barnes & Noble.

The SJWs aren't doing much to establishments like that, but they have actually succeeded in killing comic shops.
 
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Somsnosa said:
Well yeah people aren't buying them but comics stores have to, otherwise Marvel won't let hem order the actual good titles. Many of these store owners are in their 40s-50s, it's hard to close shop and find another job at that age. It's especially frustrating given that they're not failing cause there's no market for what they're selling, I mean for goodness sake there's miniature/collectibles shops, why not comics.
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A lot of comic shops I've seen have moved into the collectable and tabletop gaming circles in order to keep themselves in business. At this point those avenues seem to be much more profitable for them than comics by themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the next logical step for them would be to stop ordering from Marvel, Image, IDW, and some of the smaller publishers so they can make room for more inventory that actually sells.
 
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One Man Bland said:
A lot of comic shops I've seen have moved into the collectable and tabletop gaming circles in order to keep themselves in business. At this point those avenues seem to be much more profitable for them than comics by themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the next logical step for them would be to stop ordering from Marvel, Image, IDW, and some of the smaller publishers so they can make room for more inventory that actually sells.
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I went into my local ‘geek’ shop yesterday. It has two floors, the main one and a basement (suitingly). On the main one it was all collectables, tabletop stuff, DVDs, posters and shirts. While they had a sizeable comic and book collection, it was all downstairs. What’s more, the comics that were highlighted on display were classics (eg Killing Joke) or well known characters, with the exception of Black Panther because of the recent film. Stuff like America and Ms Marvel were one or two copies tucked into the shelf.

Maybe this proves very little, but I think that’s a nice microcosm of where comics/SFF books are atm. They’re there, but mostly for sentimental reasons and tucked away because of it, with only the iconic names people know on display, while the stuff people are actually buying is upstairs.
 
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