So there's been a lot of new events this past week,
@edwin_boyette 's presentation by the global media as an insurrection-supporting far right conspiracy theorist being by far the most attention getting. But which Comicsgater would be the first to reestablish contact and score an interview with Edwin and his newfound celebrity? The answer would be the oft-overlooked channel of
Jon Del Arroz
2021/01/25 - JON DEL ARROZ - THE DANKSTREAM #12: AT WAR WITH THE ALGORITHM
The stream does not start off promising, with a solo Jon reading a fluff piece from
Bounding into Comics reporting on a blog entry by Jon. Jon says that the way to fight the algorithm is to spam links to countercultural content wherever you can, which sounds somewhat backwards from the perspective of a SEO administrator but whatever. Along with legendary Punisher writer Mike Baron, Edwin appears in the chat and JDA invites him on to the show. There's no immediate answer from Edwin though so Jon goes ahead and starts reading the Bounding into Comics article, albeit clearly less interested than he initially was in doing this.
Jon proceeds to make a lot of arguments about how the dying scifi and comics industries are being held hostage by SJW racebaiters as well as the latest controversy about LucasFilms taking on some actress named Krystina Arielle,
a loud negress who left the intersectionality camp to rail on how white women as a caste are complicit with white supremacy, bucking the orthodox critical theory dogma that white
men and not white people are to be targeted by Critical Theory. Jon then segues into an argument about how conservative voices in media need to bandy together and amplify each others' voices instead of allowing themselves to get picked off one-by-one as individuals by powerful groups with the backing of global media oligopolies. So far nothing out of the ordinary.
After some talk about his latest outing on Amazon,
AI Wars #1 , Jon invites the psuedonymous illustrator
Yakov Merkin to discuss their co-project. At 24:50, fellow born-again Comicsgater
Nasser Rabadi joins the stream. For some reason Nasser on JDA's show works but with Nasser running the show the results are unwatchable. JDA wants to read the Bounding into Comics article again, and does so, but then thinks to ask Nasser about the learning process with his journey back into Comicsgate. Nasser speaks of rebuilding connections like one would a derelict building, and also the choice of title for "Ass-ile" (actually pronounced
Az-yuhl for those curious) since he got a lot of complains about "buying Nasser's Asyl". Frog offers encouraging words from the chat. Jon says to cheer up; there's plenty of people out there willing to go into crowdfunds, even
socks. Nasser audibly groans at the mention of socks after being mailed his own complimentary copy. Still, content is content
and Nasser made an unboxing video about it anyway.
Edwin Boyette joins at 41:10, presumably because all his actual friends like Mike S. Miller and Doug TenNapel's channels are locked down by YouTube and potentially awaiting termination after they got it in their minds that, after the POTUS was removed from all social media for pumping out content disputing the election, this was a great vacuum for them to manufacture clickbait along those lines with. So Jon Del Arroz's channel it is. Edwin says it's alright to ask him questions about his resignation from the GOP and at least one denouncement by an anti-antisemitic activist group for supporting styxhexenhammer666 and QAnon theorists. Edwin clarifies that what he was trying to do was deescalate the partisan hatred by pointing out that the QAnon believers and their actions were motivated by sincere love of the country and desire to protect children but this was interpreted as Boyette performing apologetics for a group that attempted to storm the Capitol during a transfer of the Presidency.
It's at some point during this monologue from Edwin that JDA sneaks
"Soy Rage" in without warning. The...
vocal Etsy coozie and sock merchant starts yelling that Edwin went wrong when he didn't post these hot takes of his with a
sock account, which are available now on IndieGoGo! Nasser is jarred back into wakefulness after being lulled by Boyette's dulcet tones while Edwin tries to regain his equilibrium. Edwin tries to say something about Twitter's inability to serve as a true communication medium when JDA's colorist for
Deus Vult and
Kyrie creator
Matt Crott joins to fill the stream with incomprehensible feedback and white noise. At this point any hope of remaining on topic is dashed as Edwin threatens to leave if someone (Soy Rage) continues to act like a jackass for the assembled audience instead of making space for Boyette's political ruminations. No such luck, Edwin.
Edwin continues to elaborate his dislike of Twitter; its social and medium constrictions making it useless for anything other than sterilized advertising, brushing off Jon's attempts to bring it back to comics as he closes with the statement that there's no such thing as an illegal
opinion or thought.... yet. Soy Rage says he for one has seen Q, and he got up to all sort of hijinx on the USS Enterprise just like he did in this election while Jon busies himself highlighting his shitposts in the chat then helpfully starts googling pictures of Q from TNG while Edwin starts laying out the Democrat Party agenda for mass targeting and effective disenfranchisement of political dissidents. "And beyond, like in Star Trek!" adds Soy Rage.
Audibly hitting his mic, Boyette says "Alright
del Arroz, I'm going to duck out" and promptly leaves the stream.
The rest of the stream is a sedate mix of JDA and Soy Rage tormenting Nasser, going over Jon and guests' latest projects (the two illustrators giving a more in-depth talk about craft) and a tour of Jon's two floor-to-ceiling shelves of comic book omnibuses and trade paperbacks.
The stream closes with Nasser off-handedly mentioning his letter correspondence he had with co-creator of
Spider-Man, Steve Ditko at around the age of 90. Jon, holding Ditko as one his creator idols and role models, is genuinely thrilled at this. Spoiler: Ditko told Nasser to fuck off.