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

[TheCosmicWarrior]

Now the question I have for the CGers that lurk the thread. Is it fair for the "head" of CG to promote somebody else's comic on his own Indiegogo?
View attachment 1917134

SNOWMAN: A COLD DAY IN HELL

ALL CAPS COMICS presents the return of Matthew Martin's 90's smash indie comics hit! | Check out 'SNOWMAN: A COLD DAY IN HELL' on Indiegogo.

www.indiegogo.com

Frog is doing nothing but publishing it, not even a cover for it. Does this Matthew Martin guy even fly the CG flag? Did he speak up against the cancel culture or is he getting a free pass cause he's Frog's old Hall of Heros days? How much is going to the crew? How much is going to Frog? Who knows?

I backed it. @FROG explained to me Martini is a great guy and devoted Christian artist and that's the kind of thing I want to support. I'm glad he's supporting him and signal boosting him too. Plus it's really good work. I'm hoping he returns to his Christian superhero roots with the next one. That book looked bad ass.

 

[FROG]

I backed it. @FROG explained to me Martini is a great guy and devoted Christian artist and that's the kind of thing I want to support. I'm glad he's supporting him and signal boosting him too. Plus it's really good work. I'm hoping he returns to his Christian superhero roots with the next one. That book looked bad ass.

Matt is a devout Christian, and not a hypocrite. He’s been drawing smut to pay the bills for the last decade, and feels unworthy to preach Christ thru his comics right now. He’s trying to repent and get his life back on track with SNOWMAN. So we’ll see. He told me that when the time is right, a new VORTEX story will strike him, and he’ll do it.

And yes, he’s sided with ComicsGate publicly many times.

 

[NasserRabadi13]

Matt is a devout Christian, and not a hypocrite. He’s been drawing smut to pay the bills for the last decade, and feels unworthy to preach Christ thru his comics right now. He’s trying to repent and get his life back on track with SNOWMAN. So we’ll see. He told me that when the time is right, a new VORTEX story will strike him, and he’ll do it.

And yes, he’s sided with ComicsGate publicly many times.

Hell yeah, love Matt's art and I can't wait to get my copy of Snowman.

ANYTHING Matt draws I'll buy.

 

[Mister Dongs]

I think anyone is going to have a challenge convincing Frog to drastically change what he's doing; doing business on IndieGoGo looks to be working well for him. The platform doesn't take as big a cut, allows him a lot of flexibility regarding lateness and multiple campaings, apparently have a negligible loss of customers since he's the one bringing them to his campaigns and not the search function and in addition will be very unlikely to try and cancel him.
It's the people on the "long tail" end of things (which, as pointed out, is going to get a lot longer soon) who should be considering alternative ideas like trying what Tim Lim has. It's ultimately on them to find a solution to their problems, not Frog.

Frog is doing nothing but publishing it, not even a cover for it. Does this Matthew Martin guy even fly the CG flag? Did he speak up against the cancel culture or is he getting a free pass cause he's Frog's old Hall of Heros days? How much is going to the crew? How much is going to Frog? Who knows?

Matt Martin has declared himself CG, but you'd never know that because nobody watched his channel, which really is the problem that led him to working for Frog in the first place. As @Greed pointed out, not every creator is cut out for entertaining an audience of thousands regularly (Kyle Ritter being the best example). Logically, Martin exchanging his craft and labor in return for Frog's promotion (as well as resources to facilitate publishing) makes total sense. However, as Comicsgate was founded on an idea that there would be zero point of interference between the creator and a customer in response to publishers blocking customers from buying the product they wanted from creators, the idea of a "Comicsgate Publisher" is something of a paradox to many people.

As an example, suppose Matt Martin, devout Christian he be, tweets something like #prideisasin and Frog cancels him for political wrongthink like a DC executive. It's not a question a lot of people seem very comfortable facing. The common criticism launched at Frog over the years was that his platform placed him in a position of control over which Comicsgate projects get funded and which do not, much like a publisher. Now he's officially a publisher.

On the other hand, every person independently self-promoting and self-publishing is extremely inefficient, expensive for the consumer and no real guarantee of quality results. And the mood of the consumer is increasing dissatisfaction with this as well (as reported by @Smug Freiza ). Perhaps worst of all, it is impossible to scale up if the business is successful, the more sales you have the more time you spend individually fulfilling orders and the less you have ensuring timely quality product - even Richard C. Meyer, the biggest advocate of a "zero pipeline" model relied on a "secret" fulfillment agency to do all his logistical work for him (as well as other people to write and draw his comics for him).

 

[FROG]

I think anyone is going to have a challenge convincing Frog to drastically change what he's doing; doing business on IndieGoGo looks to be working well for him. The platform doesn't take as big a cut, allows him a lot of flexibility regarding lateness and multiple campaings, apparently have a negligible loss of customers since he's the one bringing them to his campaigns and not the search function and in addition will be very unlikely to try and cancel him.
It's the people on the "long tail" end of things (which, as pointed out, is going to get a lot longer soon) who should be considering alternative ideas like trying what Tim Lim has. It's ultimately on them to find a solution to their problems, not Frog.


Matt Martin has declared himself CG, but you'd never know that because nobody watched his channel, which really is the problem that led him to working for Frog in the first place. As @Greed pointed out, not every creator is cut out for entertaining an audience of thousands regularly (Kyle Ritter being the best example). Logically, Martin exchanging his craft and labor in return for Frog's promotion (as well as resources to facilitate publishing) makes total sense. However, as Comicsgate was founded on an idea that there would be zero point of interference between the creator and a customer in response to publishers blocking customers from buying the product they wanted from creators, the idea of a "Comicsgate Publisher" is something of a paradox to many people.

As an example, suppose Matt Martin, devout Christian he be, tweets something like #prideisasin and Frog cancels him for political wrongthink like a DC executive. It's not a question a lot of people seem very comfortable facing. The common criticism launched at Frog over the years was that his platform placed him in a position of control over which Comicsgate projects get funded and which do not, much like a publisher. Now he's officially a publisher.

On the other hand, every person independently self-promoting and self-publishing is extremely inefficient, expensive for the consumer and no real guarantee of quality results. And the mood of the consumer is increasing dissatisfaction with this as well (as reported by @Smug Freiza ). Perhaps worst of all, it is impossible to scale up if the business is successful, the more sales you have the more time you spend individually fulfilling orders and the less you have ensuring timely quality product - even Richard C. Meyer, the biggest advocate of a "zero pipeline" model relied on a "secret" fulfillment agency to do all his logistical work for him (as well as other people to write and draw his comics for him).

Being a publisher in ComicsGate isn't the same as the mainstream. We've got contracts to do one project at a time. So I'm committing to publish and fulfill SNOWMAN #1. If it works out, and we both want to do the second book together, we will.

 

[Mister Dongs]

Being a publisher in ComicsGate isn't the same as the mainstream. We've got contracts to do one project at a time. So I'm committing to publish and fulfill SNOWMAN #1. If it works out, and we both want to do the second book together, we will.

Out of curiosity, how does All Caps Comics differ from a comparable underground publisher, namely Avatar Press? I was going over their company biography earlier (a lot of familiar names like Pulido and Tucci come up) and hard details about how Avatar does business still isn't clear.

 

[Fluoxetine Man]

Fun Fact- Gina is the only woman in the history of the world who can get more, um,..."Rubenesuque" and still be hot

Its always a pleasure watching a master at work.

Spoiler

 

[FROG]

Out of curiosity, how does All Caps Comics differ from a comparable underground publisher, namely Avatar Press? I was going over their company biography earlier (a lot of familiar names like Pulido and Tucci come up) and hard details about how Avatar does business still isn't clear.

AVATAR has been around forever. The publisher owns BLEEDING COOL. I'm not really sure how they do business, but they'll publish some pretty dark shit without censorship, and even encourage creators to get sicker. That's why creators like Garth Ennis do work there.

My little publishing house isn't on their level. We aren't nearly that prolific, obviously. The arrangement that I'm offering my two friends, Matt and Trent, is to promote, publish and fulfill their books for a percentage of the IGG take. And it's a one time thing, unless we decide to do it again.

edit, I just read that article. Man, I lived through all of that shit in the 90's, with Bill Christenson starting out as a big retailer and then branching out into publishing. Mike Wolfer, all of those names listed. AVATAR published SNOWMAN and everything Matt Martin was doing, recently for sub poverty wages. I mostly stayed away from that company...I just didn't get a good feeling from them.

 

[Mister Dongs]

AVATAR has been around forever. The publisher owns BLEEDING COOL. I'm not really sure how they do business, but they'll publish some pretty dark shit without censorship, and even encourage creators to get sicker. That's why creators like Garth Ennis do work there.

My little publishing house isn't on their level. We aren't nearly that prolific, obviously. The arrangement that I'm offering my two friends, Matt and Trent, is to promote, publish and fulfill their books for a percentage of the IGG take. And it's a one time thing, unless we decide to do it again.

I have a good sized collection of Avatar's Cinema Purgatoria, an anthology periodical with Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Kieron Gillen, Christos Cage and Max Brooks. I would describe the content as edgy, but mostly fucking stupid. One glaring thing is the apparent offshoring of the art duties.

Code Pru by Garth Ennis and Raulo Carceres - This was supposed to be about a paramedic named Prudence who responds to medical emergencies from generic Hollywood movie monsters who live among the unaware public. Ennis has no idea what do with this premise and instead the series is actually focused on Pru's coworker, a guy who is both black and gay. Being a sheltered Irishman, Ennis finds this concept mindblowing and the series becomes mostly about racists and homophobes bullying the coworker, Pru coming to his defense and him and loudly talking about his love of not dating men, resenting racists and eating cock and drinking cum as the "monster paramedic" thing goes nowhere, My main takeaway is that Garth Ennis would definitely accept an invitation to an interview from Just Some Guy if only to gawk at him like a circus sideshow attraction.

Cinema Purgatorio by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill - This wasn't a coom production like Moore's other Avatar work (Providence and Neonomicon) and instead is based around silent movie stories told at the Cinema Purgatorio. The art and the subject look like like cartooning out of the 1910s and is symbolic of Moore, who started off as a left-wing anarchist hating the status quo and deconstructing superheroes and, after seeing what he wrought, retreated totally into Victorian-era past, culture and values. The work itself is completely unremarkable.

Modded by Kieron Gillen & Ignacio Calero - This one is a Western isekai which takes place in a Pokemon-resembling world, where roaming bands of "trainers" go around abducting pocket monsters and upgrading them for fighting other pokemon by chopping off their limbs & organs and gruesomely grafting on weapons and muscles to the cute little critters. Sometimes they graft lots of sex organs onto the Pokemon for trainer team morale. This is probably the best drawn book of the lot.

A More Perfect Union by Max Brooks and Michael DiPascule - This one is about Civil War Union soldiers fighting a giant louse. Brooks has no idea how to write in a visual medium since entire issues are just dialog from the protagonist Col. in his tent. It's about 8 pages and I was still so bored that I did not finish it.

The Vast by Christos Gage & Gabriel Andrare - This is a more traditional kaiju comic about fighting a giant bug, chronicling the a team of jet fighters who fight kaiju monsters like some sort of mix between Top Gun and Pacific Rim. This was probably the best story out of the five, which isn't saying much because its a generic action movie turned into a comic.

 

[cow-wannabe]

edit, I just read that article. Man, I lived through all of that shit in the 90's, with Bill Christenson starting out as a big retailer and then branching out into publishing. Mike Wolfer, all of those names listed. AVATAR published SNOWMAN and everything Matt Martin was doing, recently for sub poverty wages. I mostly stayed away from that company...I just didn't get a good feeling from them.

Again, more interesting insight into the mainstream comics business. Asking a couple of serious question, firstly, how successful do you think Comicsgate has been, on whole, offering an alternative to the mainstream model? I mean I can see it, certainly, in terms of funding, production, and creator rewards, but in terms of quality-of-life Comicsgate seems as bad, if not worse, than the mainstream.

War Campaign, let's face it, were worse than the most rainbow-haired of the SJWs and most stringent Human Resources departments when it came to punishing and publicly shaming people for wrong think, and my experience of being in CG was one of feeling constantly restricted about what I could say, who I could criticise. what I could admit to buying, and who I was allowed to be friends with lest I incur the wrath of Caeser's Centurian.

(Needless to say I got out. There's was only so long you can segregate social media from the healing and truth-speaking properties of booze, and once you tweet drunk you've committed yourself to a course of action.)

So, back to my second question, can CG now, without War Campaign, go forward and actually be an environment where not only you can make money from Indie Comics, but feel good about yourself doing it?

Looking at CG now it does seem to have improved, Jon and Nasser are back in (not that they were 'my guys', but they were unfairly ousted), and you have a whole 'generation' of fresh-faced younglings who entered after the burning times. I still worry about the old-guard though, the long-term CG people, who I, possibly unfairly, break down into three categories:

1) The Wise Monkeys, who spent exhaustive effort on seeing no evil, hearing no evil, retweeting no evil.
2) The Kicked Dogs, those who had there tussles with WC, but it left them so beaten and defeated that any autonomy and self-respect has gone, and now they just whimper obediently at the most dominant CGers feet.
3) The Princes (cause I'm like to pretend I'm well-read and shit!) - The Machiavellian types with a history of back-stabbing, betrayal, lying, and sucking-up, who took every advantage of WC's behaviour to scupper their rivals and elevate their own position.

(And it is for this reason, personally, I'm never going back to CG, because you never know when the next WC will show up.)

Just as a side a side-note, when I first left CG I pretty much hated you @FROG, but I was wrong. You can't blame the figurehead for the actions of the ships-crew, and while you do have a fair-few faults, people are autonomous and they have to answer for their own failing. Making you responsible for their collective actions, in my opinion, absolves them of their own guilt.

 

[Smug Freiza]

Time for another Comicsgate News Update

FROM KICKSTARTER AND INDIGOGO
Given the current glut of Comicsgate books flooding the crowdfunding market in the first two months, it would be impossible to feature them all. Instead our first two examples will focus on the recent embrace of manga by Comicsgate creators that was previously paved by Liam Gray, Raging Golden Eagle and Keung Lee. Our first book is called BONDS: The Drive by a creator called Nyriam Bonds. The book offers 72 pages of impressive black and white art for $25 and has currently raised $7285 from 148 backers with 16 days remaining on the campaign.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bonds-the-drive#/

The book has a trailer here and Nyriam was interviewed on Dark Gift Comics channel here.

Our second manga offering from Comicsgate comes from Donkey Madness with Shotgun Samurai Vol 1. Shotgun Samurai has a simple premise which is somewhat interesting. Featuring over 200 pages of black and white art for $20, it's certainly one of the more reasonably priced crowdfunding campaigns and features a cover from Xenotype artist Mangaka Ody. Despite having graphic violence, an interesting concept and a great price point the project is failing to resonate with the CG audience raising a mere $1415 from 36 backers with 23 days remaining.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shotgun-samurai-vol-1--2#/

The book has a trailer here and Donkey Madness was interviewed on @COMMI3 MARK's channel here.

Moving on from our manga theme, former industry veteran Kenneth Rocafort is progressing along nicely on his first entry into Comicsgate crowdfunding with GROKEN. The Sci-Fi fantasy has earned $39,115 from 473 backers with 45 days remaining. The book offers 42 pages of colored story for $25 and features some fantastic art from the former DC artist. While doing better than most of our previous entries, it does feel like the campaign is struggling to replicate the success of previous entry level pros into Comicsgate namely Ethan VanSciver, Mike S Miller, Mitch Breitweiser and Dan Fraga. This shouldn't be an issue since with 45 days remaining there's plenty of time for Comicsgate customers to make a decision on whether to back the book.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/groken#/

The book has a trailer here and Kenneth Rocafort was interviewed on Michael Bancroft's channel here.

EDIT: I forgot to include that Kamen America 3 closed on Kickstarter with $87,363 from 2,273 backers and BOOM Studios Power Rangers closed with $804,018 from 1,584 backers.

FROM THE TWITTERVERSE
Twitter has recently been flooded with customers showing off their copies of Xenotype, which was going through fulfillment apparently.

Spoiler: HAPPY BACKERS

Liam in response took the time to dab on fellow kiwis @TESTEFY-HD and @SargonF00t posting a screenshot from his thread putting the Xenotype truthers on blast.

Liam Gray - Australia's #1 Crowdfunder of Comics! on Twitter: "#BigBr…

archived 14 Feb 2021 07:38:21 UTC

archive.is

I wouldn't let it bother either of you, this humble reporter also previously expressed doubts that the book would be fulfilled. I'd like to take the time to congratulate Liam Gray/@Tyne on fulfilling his book and setting a good example that Chris Chan should follow in future.

Fellow kiwi and comic creator @COMMI3 MARK recently posted an interesting tweet concerning the current glut of Comicsgate books that have entered the market in the first two months of CG 2021. According to Commie Mark our recent information regarding the number of launched campaigns in 2021 needs to be revised upwards to 40.

https://archive.vn/GhK0a

In response Commie Mark very graciously offered his platform to the plethora of Comicsgater's who all launched within the same two months. While a generous offer, it remains to be seen whether or not the peoples channel of Markostovia can accommodate the demands of the Comicsgate proletariat. According to @Mister Dongs reporting via the CG Tracker there were currently 28 active CG projects launched in 2021, however the onus to register lies with the creator so there may be more projects than originally reported.

FROM YOUTUBE
DA Talks and fellow kiwi @VIkkiVerse continued their weekly Comicsgate News wrap up "CGDG" and reported on all the happenings over the past week including Zack's relaunch of Rock N Roll Ninja and Martina Markota's legal woes.

Rival broadcaster Preston Poulter released another "Last Week In Comicsgate" going over the feud between Mandy and Piper, Ro's permaban from twitter and Martina's trademark dispute.

The Comic Book Hut produced a 36 second video dunking on "the pencil neck" Mitch Breitweiser for what seems like the hundredth time.

Yellowflash reports that DC is considering renaming Shazam villain "Black Adam" to "Shazadam" due to obvious reasons. Flash also follows up on the anti-Semitic Hulk allegations that was reported on several weeks ago.

An old man yells at his comic books for the thousandth time.

In our final video @FROG livestreamed from the new ALL CAPS COMICS warehouse where "illegal immigrants will package Cyberfrog trading cards and PVC toys for $2/hour" to his legion of fans. The excitement in Frog's voice is slightly contagious and the stream was actually quite entertaining for what was just him waiting for over an hour for a locksmith to turn up.

That's our news for today, the big news is the obviously massive amount of Comicsgate books that have launched over the past month and half. Both BONDS and Shotgun Samurai feel like they would be earning more if they had launched in CG 2020, when Comicsgate poured over 6.5 million dollars into crowdfunding campaigns. I'm sure the other campaigns are doing less than stellar, however I honestly couldn't be bothered to go through and report on what now is allegedly 40 campaigns. In a follow up to our Martina Markota news it would appear she also did an interview with Bleeding Cool [archive], why a Comicsgater would go to Rich Johnston for coverage is beyond me, especially one as controversial as Martina.

As always take care and stay safe out there.

 

[TESTEFY-HD]

Time for another Comicsgate News Update

FROM KICKSTARTER AND INDIGOGO
Given the current glut of Comicsgate books flooding the crowdfunding market in the first two months, it would be impossible to feature them all. Instead our first two examples will focus on the recent embrace of manga by Comicsgate creators that was previously paved by Liam Gray, Raging Golden Eagle and Keung Lee. Our first book is called BONDS: The Drive by a creator called Nyriam Bonds. The book offers 72 pages of impressive black and white art for $25 and has currently raised $7285 from 148 backers with 16 days remaining on the campaign.

View attachment 1919327

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bonds-the-drive#/

The book has a trailer here and Nyriam was interviewed on Dark Gift Comics channel here.

Our second manga offering from Comicsgate comes from Donkey Madness with Shotgun Samurai Vol 1. Shotgun Samurai has a simple premise which is somewhat interesting. Featuring over 200 pages of black and white art for $20, it's certainly one of the more reasonably priced crowdfunding campaigns and features a cover from Xenotype artist Mangaka Ody. Despite having graphic violence, an interesting concept and a great price point the project is failing to resonate with the CG audience raising a mere $1415 from 36 backers with 23 days remaining.

View attachment 1919360

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/shotgun-samurai-vol-1--2#/

The book has a trailer here and Donkey Madness was interviewed on @COMMI3 MARK's channel here.

Moving on from our manga theme, former industry veteran Kenneth Rocafort is progressing along nicely on his first entry into Comicsgate crowdfunding with GROKEN. The Sci-Fi fantasy has earned $39,115 from 473 backers with 45 days remaining. The book offers 42 pages of colored story for $25 and features some fantastic art from the former DC artist. While doing better than most of our previous entries, it does feel like the campaign is struggling to replicate the success of previous entry level pros into Comicsgate namely Ethan VanSciver, Mike S Miller, Mitch Breitweiser and Dan Fraga. This shouldn't be an issue since with 45 days remaining there's plenty of time for Comicsgate customers to make a decision on whether to back the book.

View attachment 1919379

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/groken#/

The book has a trailer here and Kenneth Rocafort was interviewed on Michael Bancroft's channel here.

EDIT: I forgot to include that Kamen America 3 closed on Kickstarter with $87,363 from 2,273 backers and BOOM Studios Power Rangers closed with $804,018 from 1,584 backers.

FROM THE TWITTERVERSE
Twitter has recently been flooded with customers showing off their copies of Xenotype, which was going through fulfillment apparently.

Spoiler: HAPPY BACKERS

View attachment 1919387
View attachment 1919389
View attachment 1919391

Liam in response took the time to dab on fellow kiwis @TESTEFY-HD and @SargonF00t posting a screenshot from his thread putting the Xenotype truthers on blast.

View attachment 1919397
View attachment 1919398

https://archive.md/BT1Qb

I wouldn't let it bother either of you, this humble reporter also previously expressed doubts that the book would be fulfilled. I'd like to take the time to congratulate Liam Gray/@Tyne on fulfilling his book and setting a good example that Chris Chan should follow in future.

Fellow kiwi and comic creator @COMMI3 MARK recently posted an interesting tweet concerning the current glut of Comicsgate books that have entered the market in the first two months of CG 2021. According to Commie Mark our recent information regarding the number of launched campaigns in 2021 needs to be revised upwards to 40.

View attachment 1919399

https://archive.vn/GhK0a

In response Commie Mark very graciously offered his platform to the plethora of Comicsgater's who all launched within the same two months. While a generous offer, it remains to be seen whether or not the peoples channel of Markostovia can accommodate the demands of the Comicsgate proletariat. According to @Mister Dongs reporting via the CG Tracker there were currently 28 active CG projects launched in 2021, however the onus to register lies with the creator so there may be more projects than originally reported.

FROM YOUTUBE
DA Talks and fellow kiwi @VIkkiVerse continued their weekly Comicsgate News wrap up "CGDG" and reported on all the happenings over the past week including Zack's relaunch of Rock N Roll Ninja and Martina Markota's legal woes.

Rival broadcaster Preston Poulter released another "Last Week In Comicsgate" going over the feud between Mandy and Piper, Ro's permaban from twitter and Martina's trademark dispute.

The Comic Book Hut produced a 36 second video dunking on "the pencil neck" Mitch Breitweiser for what seems like the hundredth time.

Yellowflash reports that DC is considering renaming Shazam villain "Black Adam" to "Shazadam" due to obvious reasons. Flash also follows up on the anti-Semitic Hulk allegations that was reported on several weeks ago.

An old man yells at his comic books for the thousandth time.

In our final video @FROG livestreamed from the new ALL CAPS COMICS warehouse where "illegal immigrants will package Cyberfrog trading cards and PVC toys for $2/hour" to his legion of fans. The excitement in Frog's voice is slightly contagious and the stream was actually quite entertaining for what was just him waiting for over an hour for a locksmith to turn up.

That's our news for today, the big news is the obviously massive amount of Comicsgate books that have launched over the past month and half. Both BONDS and Shotgun Samurai feel like they would be earning more if they had launched in CG 2020, when Comicsgate poured over 6.5 million dollars into crowdfunding campaigns. I'm sure the other campaigns are doing less than stellar, however I honestly couldn't be bothered to go through and report on what now is allegedly 40 campaigns. In a follow up to our Martina Markota news it would appear she also did an interview with Bleeding Cool [archive], why a Comicsgater would go to Rich Johnston for coverage is beyond me, especially one as controversial as Martina.

As always take care and stay safe out there.

I feel informed

 

[COMMI3 MARK]

Fellow kiwi and comic creator @COMMI3 MARK recently posted an interesting tweet concerning the current glut of Comicsgate books that have entered the market in the first two months of CG 2021. According to Commie Mark our recent information regarding the number of launched campaigns in 2021 needs to be revised upwards to 40.

View attachment 1919399

https://archive.vn/GhK0a

In response Commie Mark very graciously offered his platform to the plethora of Comicsgater's who all launched within the same two months. While a generous offer, it remains to be seen whether or not the peoples channel of Markostovia can accommodate the demands of the Comicsgate proletariat. According to @Mister Dongs reporting via the CG Tracker there were currently 28 active CG projects launched in 2021, however the onus to register lies with the creator so there may be more projects than originally reported.

I thought the count was at 38 not 28. My bad. But it will almost certainly be past 40 by Tuesday. The next three days are going to be a bloodbath of creators fighting for attention. I know of at least four books dropping on the 14th, 15th and 16th and despite my posturing my tentacles only reach so far I have no doubt there will be more.

That's our news for today, the big news is the obviously massive amount of Comicsgate books that have launched over the past month and half. Both BONDS and Shotgun Samurai feel like they would be earning more if they had launched in CG 2020

Shotgun Samurai is my pick of 2021 so far. Its unusual to have read a book before it's campaign has even launched. I'm usually very careful about what endorsements I offer when going over campaigns (due to the limited information you have at that point) but I legit think Shotgun Samurai is both a great book and incredible value.

Interestingly both Shotgun Samurai and Bonds are / were both available for free on webtoons before the creators were convinced to step into crowdfunding. Personally I'm a huge champion of digital and even piracy because I know if the work is good enough it sells books. I read Shotgun Samurai in digital and was like "damn now I want a physical copy".

 

[FROG]

Again, more interesting insight into the mainstream comics business. Asking a couple of serious question, firstly, how successful do you think Comicsgate has been, on whole, offering an alternative to the mainstream model? I mean I can see it, certainly, in terms of funding, production, and creator rewards, but in terms of quality-of-life Comicsgate seems as bad, if not worse, than the mainstream.

War Campaign, let's face it, were worse than the most rainbow-haired of the SJWs and most stringent Human Resources departments when it came to punishing and publicly shaming people for wrong think, and my experience of being in CG was one of feeling constantly restricted about what I could say, who I could criticise. what I could admit to buying, and who I was allowed to be friends with lest I incur the wrath of Caeser's Centurian.

(Needless to say I got out. There's was only so long you can segregate social media from the healing and truth-speaking properties of booze, and once you tweet drunk you've committed yourself to a course of action.)

So, back to my second question, can CG now, without War Campaign, go forward and actually be an environment where not only you can make money from Indie Comics, but feel good about yourself doing it?

Looking at CG now it does seem to have improved, Jon and Nasser are back in (not that they were 'my guys', but they were unfairly ousted), and you have a whole 'generation' of fresh-faced younglings who entered after the burning times. I still worry about the old-guard though, the long-term CG people, who I, possibly unfairly, break down into three categories:

1) The Wise Monkeys, who spent exhaustive effort on seeing no evil, hearing no evil, retweeting no evil.
2) The Kicked Dogs, those who had there tussles with WC, but it left them so beaten and defeated that any autonomy and self-respect has gone, and now they just whimper obediently at the most dominant CGers feet.
3) The Princes (cause I'm like to pretend I'm well-read and shit!) - The Machiavellian types with a history of back-stabbing, betrayal, lying, and sucking-up, who took every advantage of WC's behaviour to scupper their rivals and elevate their own position.

(And it is for this reason, personally, I'm never going back to CG, because you never know when the next WC will show up.)

Just as a side a side-note, when I first left CG I pretty much hated you @FROG, but I was wrong. You can't blame the figurehead for the actions of the ships-crew, and while you do have a fair-few faults, people are autonomous and they have to answer for their own failing. Making you responsible for their collective actions, in my opinion, absolves them of their own guilt.

Looking back on the last three or four years of ComicsGate is pretty bewildering. I saw what we were doing as urgent for the comics professionals who, like me, faced unemployment forever. So for me, my efforts were all aimed at pulling my peers up out of the water with me. I wanted to make sure blacklisted professionals, people who actually had done this full time and had families to support, had a means of continuing to make comics, and I thought if we all worked together, we could create some momentum.

I thought this was the most practical answer to the complaints that ComicsGaters shared. The industry is being hostile to criticism, and downright evil to it's critics, so we have to create our own thing.

But other people in ComicsGate didn't see it that way. Since our campaigns were earning big money as capital to create comics, bitterness and jealousy from those who didn't feel included lead to chaos. People either wanted to be in my circle, or they wanted to tear us down. There was blackmail, gay ops, threats, self-sabotage, just strange behavior all around.

I guess in trying to control that chaos, a lot of rules were self-imposed that lead to more abuses, and that lead to abusers like War Campaign, obsessive stalkers like Preston Poulter, and weird martyr characters like Liam Gray.

Last year I just decided to quietly give up my efforts to try to help everyone, and just go back to my original notion of helping comics professionals who had been blacklisted, or who wanted my help.
But mostly, for the sake of my own sanity, I've gone solo. I'll do livestreams with people I trust, like Malin, Cecil, Fraga etc, and occasionally find a hidden gem like BONDS: THE DRIVE, but my promotion of these books is quick and limited, so that I don't foster dependency.

Everyone has to do this on their own. ComicsGate has succeeded in blazing a trail for indies to use YouTube, Twitter and IGG to fund their books. It's a normal, everyday thing now.

But no, it's never going to be comfortable being CG. Even if we were all properly allied, the SJWs are still out there calling us a "hate group" and trying to stamp out our existence. But I don't think people join ComicsGate for "quality of life." I think people align with CG because they see what's going on with pop culture and want the freedom to oppose it, either in the comics they buy, or the comics they create. It's going to be uncomfortable forever. But it's also kinda fun. I am proud of ComicsGate and do feel good about myself for helping to keep it alive.

 

[NasserRabadi13]

my efforts were all aimed at pulling my peers up out of the water with me. I wanted to make sure blacklisted professionals, people who actually had done this full time and had families to support, had a means of continuing to make comics, and I thought if we all worked together, we could create some momentum.

You've done more for indie comics than anybody else ever has.

Preston Poulter

Peggy*

But no, it's never going to be comfortable being CG. Even if we were all properly allied, the SJWs are still out there calling us a "hate group"

Yeah, I just had a cover artist quit on me (for a BOOK series, not even for a comic book) because I'm "part of a hate group", so now 3 of my covers will be from one artist, and the next 2 from another

But it's also kinda fun. I am proud of ComicsGate and do feel good about myself for helping to keep it alive.

 

[The Holmes]

Let's be honest, plenty of us thought the ever stalwart defender of the children and bane of crackheads everywhere, Liam Gray, would be late on his shit on the sheer fact that he was retarded and spergy enough to get his own thread here on the Farms. But, even helmet kids can have their moments, so we can let Liam have his. We still have plenty of other shit that he says and does to mock him with, and I'm sure he'll fuck up shortly on down the road for us to giggle at.

To follow up on Smug's excellent post a bit, I took a moment to read the Bleeding Cool article about Markota launching her GoFundMe, written by Rich Johnston. It's as stupid as you think it would be. While Rich doesn't outright shit on her, you can see the more subtle jabs as he mentions her political alignment and associations, as well as the story around her husband being travel banned due to his own right leaning political involvements. Then, Rich makes the super smert assessment that people that are right leaning totally aren't blacklisted because of their beliefs but because of the person themselves.

I can go on a tirade on why Rich is a dumb faggot who will eat any shit sandwich that liberal fags tend to feed him, but you all know this song and dance when it comes to him and Bleeding Cool. It's nothing new, and most with common sense and paying attention to the shit going on will know not to take the website seriously. A quick glimpse of the comment section on that article will tell you that there won't be any support for Markota. Unless perhaps they see her nudes. One look at dem titties and I'm sure the most hardcore horny liberal won't help but to open their wallets, such is the life of a true simp lord. Keep on rockin, Martina.

 

[Fearlessjay]

The problem with Comicsgate is there is way too many grifters and talentless individuals that makes it not worth supporting. In its own way it's not that different from Marvel. Always pointless drama that only puts people off. I've backed Frog and will again as he's obviously passionate about the whole thing and gives his all. I don't get the love for Zach. He has awful taste and his videos used to be basically him coughing for 20 minutes outside Wallmark. Fraga seems a decent bloke as well. But at the end of the day for the price of a Comicsgate comic I could buy a classic Omnibus with about 600 pages worth of material. Liam Gray is basically Randbot without the talent.

 

[Greed]

Have Jeff Hicks explain what Lucasfilm did with Shadows of the Empire in the 90s.

Not sure how often @FROG bumps into Jeff Hicks these days so I'll go ahead and attempt to explain it.

The idea was to create a massive multimedia project that took advantage of the commercial and cross-promotional opportunities of releasing a major motion picture without ever actually making a movie. This would entail releasing toys, comics, video games, trading cards, role playing games, vinyl dolls, books and even a full official soundtrack for a "Shadows of the Empire", a story set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Rather than a film, this overarching narrative was told across the multiple aforementioned mediums, requiring fans to engage with a litany of side materials in order to experience the full story. This had the twofold effect of making fans spend a lot of money on merchandise while also getting them hyped for the upcoming special editions and prequel trilogy.

 

[Absurdity]

Scivergate's main problem is the completely unnecessary closeted ops. Ethan had the excuse of WC before, but then he was here white knighting on behalf of Breitshiester against Ernst of all people a year or so after the fact. The talent even at its best in EVS can't erase the trail of turds he leaves behind wherever he goes. He remains successful at least in part because his default narcissism ensures he always has an oversimp-lified made-for-TV dinner narrative that most people don't care enough to challenge on a daily basis. As long as Ethan can play the enemy of my enemy, without getting into specifics and making it all about him. All of this helps disguise that his brands are derivative almost to the point of parody... except with a parody there is no expectation of being taken seriously on its own merits. Then we have all the disgusting hangers-on in his human centipede. That the parody of the parody himself, the human name drop, the more-money-than-talent JDA is perfectly at ease forming the caboose of this freakshow is turning out to be a perfect fit.

Zach had been successful operating under the everyman versus the corporate SJW fight card and it was primarily his story people were excited about, not his Gee I'm Not Joe: Suicide Squad. It's apparent now that he was a journeyman talent who always wanted to make it in the industry and now just wants to get along. I hate to say it, but the gimmick has run out. Comicsgate was only a useful term when Sciverfraud was weaseling the spotlight away from Richard. Any time you throw a -gate suffix, you know it won't stand the test of time.

This is how you know the industry is really dead: good artists and good writers will hardly ever be seen working together and the comics won't worth more than a hill of Youngblood #1s.

 

[TESTEFY-HD]

The problem with Comicsgate is there is way too many grifters and talentless individuals that makes it not worth supporting. In its own way it's not that different from Marvel. Always pointless drama that only puts people off. I've backed Frog and will again as he's obviously passionate about the whole thing and gives his all. I don't get the love for Zach. He has awful taste and his videos used to be basically him coughing for 20 minutes outside Wallmark. Fraga seems a decent bloke as well. But at the end of the day for the price of a Comicsgate comic I could buy a classic Omnibus with about 600 pages worth of material. Liam Gray is basically Randbot without the talent.

hmm... kinda funny this account just was created and you are making ALL the talking points of the last #WASCAMPAIGN stream. Do you know this guy? Mat?