So much to catch up on.
F OFF WELL READ -
06/27/2021 -
Well Read Reviews (LIVE) - BOOM! Studios Dune: House Atreides 5 & 6
"WellReadUser1", going by
Well Read these days, is a long-time Comicsgater. Starting around two years as a humble chat janny for various youtube shows, Well Read started sticking out from the herd when he was the last vocal Smillerite within CG after the "Fall of Rome" stream in 2019, whereupon he was dragged into various 5v1 dogpile struggle sessions by Cecil and Liam (
which I wrote up here) for daring to speak ill bad about Warcampaign. WC of course turned on Cecil (I believe he and Well Read have since mended fences), and Liam went on to immolate in an orange bonfire.
Despite the unpleasantness of all this, it did apparently wake in Well Read an interest in going on Comicsgate livestreams, going on to be a irregular guest of
Oz Art's Oz Show, where he was typically shouted down and jeered by both the chat and fellow panelists for being too monotone and boring/sober, serving as a natural foil for the drunken, belligerent incoherence of Oz's usual guests. As Oz tried to reinvent his program into something different after it was apparent his channel had stagnated both in terms of creativity and channel growth, Well Read made the surprise move of declaring fatwa on Oz, declaring that his refusal to engage with Wiggle Wiggle over an allegedly unfulfilled backer tier as tantamount to treason against the principles Comicsgate was founded on as well as proclaiming his channel as the Oz Show's true spiritual successor. Which is saying something given that Oz was still technically making shows at that time.
Oz went on to dedicate his final Oz Show update, titled "
The Truth About Well Read", to cursing Well Read as prolonged exposure to Comicsgate and the Oz Show specifically transformed him from boring moral busybody to abrasive internet psychopath, coordinating with like-minded individuals like Testefy_HD and Amit Raina against him.
Well Read went on to continue his own small stream program; the show is structured where the first half of the show is a review of a crowdfunded comic (previous entries include
Pandemic, Xenotype, Brutas the Badass, White Lilly) held between Well Read and fellow monotone reviewers Etsy
Moonshine (if that name still applies given Stu Moran has parted ways) as well as
Smug Pug. The second half is a free-for-all call in show in the style of the Oz Show that is unofficially reserved for bloodsports. Given the pannings dealt out regularly by the jaded trio of backers as well asthe thin skin of some of the creators, it's more often than not that the review portion results in more drama than the bloodsports half.
The subject of this review was the
Dune: Altreides series by Boom Studios, a comic book adaptation of various background details on the Dune universe. Spoiler: the book was boring and also the review was boring. But even a below average superfluous book is better than most CG crowdfunded comics, the panel largely concludes. At 1:06:00, Well Read excitedly tells his cohosts that he's decided to break with tradition and actually has some topics planned as he opens up the panel to fellow Oz Show refugee
Amit Raina and ask about his thoughts on Warren Ellis being cancelled by the whisper network. Or maybe his thoughts on Dune. Amit is not interested in this subject, choosing to shittalk
@Spectre_06 and his appearance, apropos of nothing. Fuck Spectre. Well Read forcing the topic, Amit says if you let publishers or employers look for sexual misconduct nobody would have a job, the basis of this witchhunt is completely ridiculous. Smug Pug's stance is to say fuck Warren Ellis, he brought these people in and he's getting what he deserves.
SpiritScar joins to say Warren Ellis is a great writer and comics deserves to have his talent shared, but SJWs took that away from everyone. Smug Pug reads a comment from the chat saying "Warren Ellis wasn't into progressive causes, he was into dumb groupie sluts humiliating themselves on the internet for him." SpiritScar agrees; Warren Ellis did nothing wrong.
There's a brief diversion where the panel evaluates of the attractiveness of Warren's various conquests, Well Read asks as he looks at a picture of Warren's face being mashed between two fat chicks' breasts if it was really worth it. Well Read follows this by asking about Warren Ellis joining Comicsgate, but this idea is shot down as absurd by the rest of the panel - Warren is such a famous creator that there is no feasible reason on why he would choose to be CG. Then a chat is highlighted saying this:
Dan Fraga apparently dislikes Warren Ellis, but this apparently has nothing to do with writer/artist bias and is instead based on insulting comments Ellis made towards Jack Kirby. Shane Davis' take however, the write up
made here, is directly shared and put on screen by Well Read. Amit speculates that Shane's reasoning is that if real writers joined Comicsgate, his wife/co-creator (Yanzi) of
Starlight Cats would be out of a job. Smug Pug asks for clarification, and Amit helpfully does so, saying she'd be unemployed due to being a shitty writer. SpiritScar says anyone in CG with an "anti-writer" sentiment is fucking retarded idea, it was stupid of him to say and Shane Davis is a fucking idiot for saying it. Amit wonders if Shane hates Frog's good buddy Geoff Johns and how Frog-boi would feel about this followed by making some veiled jabs at his wife's appearance, as Amit is wont to do. For some reason
Ryzie Lee joins. Ryzie doesn't keep up on this Warren Ellis nonsense, asking simply "if he is shitting on CG or if he is being a cuck?" It's at this point Shane Davis shows up in the chat:
Well Read's co-host Smug Pug starts to disavow Amit Raina. Amit in turns disavows Ryzie Lee for his longstanding record of racism against the indigeneous people of Australia (true). Ryzie loudly disavows Amit as a "Yanzi-hater". Amit switches to overt insults, saying if you trace over Yanzi's face you can get a picture of a praying mantis. Things are off to a good start as the rest of the panel yell-laughs at Amit to shut up.
Well Read plays the clip of Shane pointing out when the SJWs cancel a writer's works, people don't realize the low labor ratio a comic book writer puts in ("one or two days") compared to a month of work put in by the penciller, inker and colorist each. SpiritScar reacts to this by saying "that sounds like a real scumbag thing for Shane to say, and I don't care if he's in the chat. He's essentially saying 'Warren Ellis almost deserved what he got, but what about these other people around him? No it's all bullshit Shane, and to suggest that Warren Ellis shits out his scripts in a day or two, I think that's bullshit too. And I think Shane is not understanding or appreciating the role of what writers like Warren Ellis contribute to the medium overall. And for him to suggest Warren Ellis deserves what he's getting but what about everyone else? No it's a bullshit take, it's pussy-ass take, and you're a dick for saying that Shane." SpiritScar then abruptly cedes the floor to Moonshine, who tries to clarify that Davis simply was pointing out the labor differentials in play.
Ryzie gives his unusually measured (especially for Ryzie) thoughts about how he himself is an art-first customer, but you can't shit on a writer for getting bigger than you for doing the art. Moonshine goes from supporting Shane Davis to supporting Ryzie, adding to Ryzie's argument by saying that George Lucas got the lion's share of the profit although he didn't act in it, and hundred of others worked on making it a reality, and that is because at the end of the day, "Star Wars"
was his idea. Spiritscar, fervently pro-writer, goes so far as to say that the only reason any of these artists are getting royalties years later is because the stories the writers made gave the works any sort of longevity. Well Read shares his own theory of quality within comic books, a triad of "Concept + Writing + Art" and that a comic must have at least two of these qualities in order to be considered good and all three to be considered great. Amit shitposts something about how its the time put into a book that matters, then
Red Rooster should be praaaaiised as the greatest comic of all time and, contrariwise,
Killing Joke sucked because it came out on time. This sets the panel off in a tangent discussing 80s classics; Shane says from the chat he was only saying totally unrelated, innocent people are suffering the consequences from Ellis' cancellation, but this is dismissed as backpedalling by SpiritScar.
Shane Davis joins at 1:55:00 sporting a happy South Park avatar. It's a poor fit for the irritated-sounding voice behind it; he does not come across particularly thrilled for his first visit on Well Read's review show, asking immediately "what was the question?". Well Read for his part is elated to have Shane Davis on his show, showing an astounding lack of situational awareness. The question is 'how does Shane feel about Warren Ellis possibly joining CG' (something that only Well Read really considers a possibility). Shane tries to say that he said nothing in his video one way or another about that, but SpiritScar starts talking over him mid-sentence about "the writer". This goes on for a bit as Shane must fight SpiritScar, who is operating under Oz show rules, to get three words out before being interrupted. Overall he does quite well. Improbably, drunken schizophrenic bogan Ryzie steps up to start actually moderating the discussion in the face of Well Read's laissez-faire approach to his show (as Prime Oz woud have done), gently asking that Shane be allowed to speak.
Shane clarifies that what his video was about was pointing out the unacknowledged injustice that cancel culture mob against Ellis did upon Templesmith and other creators, and absolutely had nothing to do with resentment towards writers. Personally I wonder what (and this
is a quote) Shane's saying "
the reason they're writers [is because] they don't know how to draw okay? They would just be creating the books on their own" has to do with either Ellis' guilt or Ben Templesmith, but that's just me. The panel re-asks if Shane would be interested in working with Warren Ellis. After hemming for a bit, Shane answers that he's not really interested in working on anything that he doesn't 100% own; partially owned IPs between creators are, historically speaking, a legal minefield; one classic example being Todd McFarlane's decades-long dispute with Neil Gaiman over ownership of the character of Spawn's wife Angela. Or for an example closer to home, the Nasser/Donal
Brutas the Badass partnership. SpiritScar asks his opinion on Ellis joining CG; Davis answers that he's fine with him or really anyone that doesn't shit on the fans joining Comicsgate.
Spiritscar moves on to the next question of his interrogation, asking if Shane really thinks Dave Gibbons' art is what moves copies of Watchmen. Davis objects that he didn't even say anything about Watchmen. Ryzie, again the
moderator, backs Shane up on that, but agrees that he didn't peronally care for Gibbons' art either. Shane Davis talks about how he'll buy anything Alan Moore writers, but is cut off by his own supporter
Finatra, who starts screaming "HAIL CAT PAPPY" and demanding everyone shut up before getting ejected immediately. Well Read reiterates the perceived stigma against writers in CG, now that Shane has clarified that he didn't meant to say anything against writers; how do good writers get ahead in Comicsgate. Shane more or less repeats his statement that he is not going to take on the logistical and legal risk of adding additional people to his projects if he can at all avoid doing so, as well as pointing out the economic reality of if bringing a writer with zero sales platform that takes 20% of funding result in 20% higher sales. Ryzie agrees with this reasoning. Spiritscar again makes his assertion of quality writing = longevity of work = royalties/resale value, and the dialogue begins to run in circles. Shane again restates that the intent of his viideo was to stick up for Warren Ellis by pointing out the punishment harms people like Ben Templesmith. SpiritScar says it sure didn't sound like that. "Yeah well that's why I made a fifteen minute video" says Shane, who then abruptly leaves the show.
SpiritScar turns his ire towards Amit, who is getting mocked from the chat for his cowed silence when Davis entered the stream, taunting that he "shut his mouth like a good fucking boy, huh?" while Well Read loads up an article of dubious provenance about how a brother and sister conceived a child at an Arkansas furry convention. Shane for his part went on to his own channel to start streaming right away and pretend this whole episode never happened, despite superchatted overtures of friendship from an oblivious Well Read.
So what did we learn? Well Read learned if you want someone on your stream, have a bunch of people on your show to shit talk him until he shows up. Shane Davis learned that when the chip on your shoulder about artists being in the shadow of celebrity writers bleeds into an unrelated rant, the best approach is just pretend you never said it. I'm not sure there was a lesson in this for SpiritScar, and we all know Finatra's ass didn't learn shit. And so ends a brief foray of a cat book creator into what Burbank resident Sheila Allen so vividly called the "CG Sewer".