#Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[Newman's Own]

Spoiler: JSG doesn't understand what happened with Shkreli

JSG talks about Martin Shkreli in his video. He talks like Shkreli was raising the price to keep the drug from people who need it. What he doesn't mention is that the drug was not widely available because at the current price it wasn't profitable. Shkreli bought up production and used existing FDA regulations to manipulate the market. The result being the drug being available again but insurance companies and public healthcare providers would have to pay big money for the drug.

Previously the drug was widely available cheap as an anti-malarial but is effective against Aids. Resistance built and it was no longer a feasable anti-malarial making it only efficacious for off label treatments like fighting AIDs but not at 13 bucks a pill. So no one had plans to sell it at all leaving AIDs patients with nothing until dirty Marty came along.

What JSG doesn't mention is that without Shkreli's play the drug simply isn't provided at all. Damn Shkreli for trying to make as much money as possible while providing life saving drugs no one else will.

He also doesn't mention that because the drug isn't patented any other pharmaceutical company looking to profit could easily gear up to provide the drug at lower prices which is exactly what happens in these situations.

I don't know if Shkreli's evil or not (having read up on him I think he's an epic troll) but I do know that without his actions no one would have access to the drug.

I'd argue that the existence of bad laws does not invalidate the necessity of good laws

I wouldn't either. I'd argue that expecting politicians beholden to monopolies to write good laws protecting us from them is naïve.

Democratic republics can pass laws that are consistent instead of being at the whim of a magnate, and those laws are (at least theoretically) able to affected by the common man.

They can. They just don't. The system has a bug in it but the bug isn't capitalism. It's that politicians tend to act in their own self interest before the public good. That's why you have to ad the caveat "theoretically".

Because we both understand that it doesn't actually work that way.

I'm of the mind that the absence of any authority within a system leaves a vacuum to be filled in with something else, whether it be state, a corporate monopoly, a Chicom Presidium or a despotic tyrant.

I'm of the mind that government needs regulation far more than the market.

Maybe it's the coming vaccine passports that make me think that.

As it stands, the biggest threat Google and Youtube ever faced in the United States was in the early 2010s when they went to war with the Big Telecommunication firms (a rival oligarchy) over the threat of abolishing "net neutrality", This was framed to the plebs as telecoms making internet users pay a toll bridge for accessing certain sites but in reality was preventing the telecoms from charging Youtube, Netflix and Google a toll to access internet users. President Obama personally campaigned for net neutrality, Google won the day, and Obama was rewarded with a 9 figure deal for a Netflix documentary once his terms ended.

Two monopolies trying to use government regs to destroy or enslave each other.

Yeah. I'm against that. More regulation isn't the answer. It stifles innovation and makes rich men of people like Obama instead of entrepreneurs.

The notion of positive government involvement presupposes that the government can't be a bad actor and the pharmaceutical industry alone destroys this argument.

The United States government, along with governments around the world, have raised hundreds of billions in capital to build the broadband infrastructure that has all but become a public utility in modern day life. Holding out hope that the free market will conjure hundreds of billions of capital for a competing parallel network is far more idealistic than thinking that laws could be passed forcing large corporations to, in certain circumstances, act in the public interest. It'd be more realistic to think Liam could topple Frog for control of the CG ship.

You mean like when cell phones replaced land lines. Thank God the government was their to innovate for us on ... no wait, if it was up to government we'd all still be on party lines.

And once again you presuppose that politicians would chose the public good over self interest when they can dress up any decisions made in self interest as for the public good. That does seem idealistic to me.

 

[Captain Manning]

But increasingly less so. Moreover, bigger producers are consulting with Western streaming services on content.

Said streaming services have had no real meaningful artistic influence on the underlying content. Two examples here are Rising of the Shield Hero and Goblin Slayer. Both of which were savaged by SJWs for the usual idiotic made-up reasons, despite having some western funding. They'll take western money to produce a show for the JDM (with western distro rights), but it's not going taint the actual content because it's still predominately for the JDM.

This comment by Junichiro Tamura, in response to ANN's whining about Shield Hero, is just beautiful:

"In the case there were any controversy domestically" = "We don't give a fuck what western SJWs complain about."
"customers" = "the Japanese."

You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Similar to how you previously tried to create a false equivalency between DAMEGANG's macrophilia fetish content and the skimpy costumes in KA. It's EVS-tier ignorance. Just stop.

 

[Newman's Own]

No. I can cite to American Railroads or other Anti-trust actions. Americans have successfully regulated in the past and can do so again.

Who got rich off the railway regulations and what monopolies do they run today using government regulation to maintain them? I'll give you a hint. Google "JP Morgan, Kuhn, Loeb & Co, 1910".

Everything comes with consequences.

They'll take western money to produce a show for the JDM (with western distro rights), but it's not going taint the actual content because it's still predominately for the JDM.

That's like saying Hollywood doesn't tailor content to the Chinese market. It's simply not true.

 

[jspit2.0]

That's like saying Hollywood doesn't tailor content to the Chinese market. It's simply not true.

Trigger et al don't exist I guess? Suffice it to say, money talks and it talks loud in all languages.

American History is replete with decadence and reform. Someone is going to enrich themselves no matter what. What really is different is the degree to which that bounty is spread/corruption and decadence restrained. Gilded eras give way to Depressions give way to Great Societies. I just wonder what the figurative straw will be that causes a shift toward restraint.

 

[Newman's Own]

Trigger et al don't exist I guess? Suffice it to say, money talks and it talks loud in all languages.

American History is replete with decadence and reform. Someone is going to enrich themselves no matter what. What really is different is the degree to which that bounty is spread/corruption and decadence restrained. Gilded eras give way to Depressions give way to Great Societies. I just wonder what the figurative straw will be that causes a shift toward restraint.

I'd say the Federal Reserve (which was born from fortunes made in regulated railway lending) is the biggest and most predatory monopoly in the world and is arguably responsible for the Great Depression and is of more significance than some railway barons not playing nice in the 19th century.

All thanks to the government helping the people through regulation. I'm hard pressed to find anything on Earth more "decadent" than the Federal Reserve regulatory scam but if you can name one by all means do.

This happens every time the government steps in to "help poor people against rich oligarchs" the oligarchs game the system for even more and the politicians sellout the public trust (making it look like they are helping not hurting) all for a bigger boat or a second house near a lake.

We watched the largest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the billionaire class in human history under the guise of regulation to help the most at risk last year. That's what government "help" gets us.

Poor people need to learn how to say "no" to the governments best efforts on their behalf against corporations who finance their election.

 

[Captain Manning]

That's like saying Hollywood doesn't tailor content to the Chinese market. It's simply not true.

You're right. It's not. Fortunately, we're not talking about Hollywood live action movies.

Of course Hollywood tailors to the Chinese market. That has become a massive slice of Hollywood's revenue, to the point where they're thinking about the Chinese market thought all stages of film development. You simply don't see that degree of deference shown to the US market in anime and manga. The sales potential for anime in the US is nowhere near as big as the sales potential for US films in China.

When you see "tailoring content," it usually consists of censorship cuts made on the US end. Which really isn't the Japanese tailoring content at all.

Example:

In any event, I think we're getting off the thread subject now. It's been interesting, but the important point about KA's success was made much earlier.

 

[Newman's Own]

Looks like Image/Marvel artist Eric Canete. Is joining the 'creepers' over at Iconic Comics.

Home | ErIc Canete

www.ericcanete.com

Eric Canete

Eric Canete works as an artist in comics, animation, and video games. His past work includes Iron Man: Enter the Mandarin for Marvel, TRON Uprising for Disney, and League of Legends for Riot Games. His most recent offering in comics is called RUNLOVEKILL, which he co-wrote with writer Jonathan…

imagecomics.com

https://twitter.com/PelleCreepy/status/1438167939371311109

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_WeuiYUYAE0BNv?format=jpg&name=large

Looks decent.

 

[Captain Manning]

Looks like Image/Marvel artist Eric Canete. Is joining the 'creepers' over at Iconic Comics.

Good for him. Iconic Comics is a good company. Just got my KA+BH copy today. Still the best packaging I've ever seen. Came with a free trading card and another $5 off coupon. 10/10. Will order more "gay books" from them again.

 

[Newman's Own]

Zach likes his stuff but I won't hold that against him.

 

[Mister Dongs]

And once again you presuppose that politicians would chose the public good over self interest when they can dress up any decisions made in self interest as for the public good. That does seem idealistic to me.

I presuppose that a politician that needs to be re-elected by the public to wield power would find regarding the public good more in their self interest than an unaccountable CEO or a faceless corporate apparatchik. The more accountable the public holds them to be, the more in their self interest they find it to serve the public good; there is no equivalent mechanism to coerce oligarchs in a similar manner. None of this seems very idealistic or naïve to me.

In any event, I think we're getting off the thread subject now. It's been interesting, but the important point about KA's success was made much earlier.

The manga industry is extremely healthy, that's hardly news. Comicsgate is about comic books in the western American style. Saying everyone should buy and create manga instead or whatever is not a very important point of discussion and if it were, there are a lot more manga creators out there than just Tim Lim.

 

[Newman's Own]

I presuppose that a politician that needs to be re-elected by the public to wield power would find regarding the public good more in their self interest than an unaccountable CEO

No ones ever offered you enough to buy a house in the Hamptons to tweak legislation in their favor then I guess. I've got some Hunter Biden "art" I'll let go for a few hundred K.

As you are well aware Obama didn't go from student loan debt to 10s of millions in net worth because he was saying no to rich people but getting re-elected in 2012 wasn't an issue really.

Good politicians are masters at looking like their making the medical system more affordable for poor people while they help make record numbers for the medical insurance corporations.

There are literally hundreds of thousands of comparable examples of politicians screwing citizens with regulatory structures ostensibly there to help them.

It's not productive ignoring the nature of things in an attempt to attain unattainable fairness.

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

This is a common fallacy. Blaming markets for the actions of bad actors. This leads to eventual regulation which leads to government induced monopolies.

Take YouTube as an example. YouTube is a naturally occurring monopoly bought by the Google monopoly tzars. Strangely these monopoly tzars support government regulation of YouTube (to a degree) and dump massive amounts of money into the Democratic party in hopes of shaping those regulations. The inevitable result is a regulatory system that protects YouTubes monopoly on video streaming by creating barriers to entry or growth to innovating upstarts.

The very best example (of which there are thousands) to this I can think of is the story of the death of the butcher shop. Decades ago butcher shops were the norm but supermarkets managed to compete poorly. But there was a problem with supermarkets. Unregulated supermarket meat was far less clean and safe than the stuff supplied by the journeyman butcher at the store on the corner. People got sick and complained.

The government decided to increase regulation on the meat cutting industry with the full support (and arguably hand greasing) of the supermarkets and against the wishes of the small businessmen. The result was a new regulatory burden which supermarkets with deep pockets and thousands of customers per location could handle easily. The small businessmen with far fewer customers per location mostly could not afford the new regulatory burden and within a few years their numbers dwindled to almost nothing. Then the supermarkets with the market cornered were free to lobby for reduced regulation if they wished.

The incidence of government regulation being gamed by large corporations to create and protect monopolies is the rule. Effective regulation to prevent price gouging or monopolistic behavior is a fairy tale that's easily sold to those without an economics degree and a resentment toward rich people.

This is the reason why Google supports censorship which ostensibly hurts their profits, because they can use it to maintain an artificial strangle hold on their market share. Reduced profit margins are an easy price to pay for market dominance.

Every mega corporation with a monopoly supports regulation because they know they can use it to protect their monopoly from the eventual market disruptors.

The unfortunate side effect of not regulating the market is the occasional guy who fills a storage unit with hand sanitizer and sells it for 30 times it's price but going after that guy plays right into Walmart and Amazon's hands (only they should be allowed to fuck with market pricing) and results in a net loss to the consumer in the long term.

If you were wondering why Zucherberg is so friendly with all the politicians who haul him in front of congress to explain himself over free speech issues every ten minutes now you know.

JSG is a kid who thinks he knows it all and is far more communistic in his thinking than he realizes. Rekita is just right (maybe by accident IDK I haven't watched his video).


This is the best self own I've seen in days.

Your position hsd been proven wrong over and over and over. We're watching it happen in crypto as I type. It took less than a decade for crypto to be completely hijacked by sociopaths and greed-driven fraudsters who dominate that space now. That will always 100% happen where no regulation exists.

We see it on Wall Street too where regulation does exist. There it's the lack of enforcement or discipline that allows those few bad actors to create the systemic risks that can collapse entire countries. There are no consequences for breaking the rules that do exist.

Honest people can not compete against dishonest people, its really that simple. You system incentivizes and encourages the dishonest.

 

[Newman's Own]

We see it on Wall Street too where regulation does exist. There it's the lack of enforcement or discipline that allows those few bad actors to create the systemic risks that can collapse entire countries. There are no consequences for breaking the rules that do exist.

Your making my point for me.

Selective enforcement of regulation is a feature of regulation not deregulation. Regulation encourages corruption and gaming the system. It was housing finance regulation and government looking the other way that led to the 2008 crash.

Bush gave lenders a sweet heart deal and looked the other way to pump up an already growing housing bubble.

Then Obama bailed out the criminals when it blew up in their faces.

Bush's stated intention was helping poorer people get into their own homes. No one would have lent them money for homes they couldn't pay for if they thought they would be held responsible.

And they weren't. The government made rules for everyone and then did not hold the richest among us to them. This is not uncommon.

The GameStop manipulation is protected against by regulations but hedgefunds were never held to account for it. But you will be.

Regulation is the easiest way to protect the rich while fucking the poor and getting the poor to demand more.

Honest people can not compete against dishonest people, its really that simple. You system incentivizes and encourages the dishonest.

Regulation incentivizes politicians to fuck poor people so they can get a bigger speed boat. Do you think politicians are honest?

 

[Smug Freiza]

The product has been well reviewed. People talk about KA more than Tim and Mark.

I was going to press X to doubt on this but google proves you right, Kamen America has overtaken Cyberfrog in interest in the US. Cyberfrog still reigns supreme in Canada and the UK though.

Interest doesn't equal sales however and FROG still outperforms Tim and Mark by leaps and bounds, but they've certainly positioned themselves well.

 

[Captain Manning]

I was going to press X to doubt on this but google proves you right, Kamen America has overtaken Cyberfrog in interest in the US. Cyberfrog still reigns supreme in Canada and the UK though.

That might have something to do with the fact they've only recently started offering International shipping to select countries, including (IIRC) Canada, Australia, and the UK. I know at least one Australian (no, not Liam or Oz) that was able to order directly, for the first time, this last go around. Whereas before, he had to go through at intermediary in the US ,or settle for digital copies. It's hard to have interest in something if it's a PITA to get.

Interest doesn't equal sales however and FROG still outperforms Tim and Mark by leaps and bounds, but they've certainly positioned themselves well.

It will be interesting to see how things develop. Barring a major fuckup, I think Tim and Mark have been making outstanding progress in this venture.

 

[EGB]

Just a quick post to congratulate Tim Lim for "deafeating the evil" of Malin and Davis - looks like he's on track to have 1,400+ 1st day backers.
Apparently Lim didn't get the CG memo that you can't fund and ship a comic in the same year...

 

[Strix454]

Interest doesn't equal sales however and FROG still outperforms Tim and Mark by leaps and bounds, but they've certainly positioned themselves well.

Well. Maybe by leaps and bounds. But its getting more complicated to say that in terms of comics and customers.

Kamen America 3 was around 3133 total backers.
Reignbow Brute is 3728 backers but was 2929 before in-demand

FROG does far better in terms of total money raised on campaigns and being able to sell through tons of merchandise & variant covers. But in terms of selling comics as comics and interest in the property, he isn't really doing that well. He is basically replicating the current Marvel/DC strategy of generating more money from fewer older readers with lots of money. That is working out well for him financially, but its not clear that it would at all for much of anyone else.

The obvious response from certain people is the Rekt Planet numbers, but as I've said before its impossible to determine much of anything from them beyond total money raised. There are too many products sold seperatately that inflate the backer numbers. Its really difficult (and I've tried several times) to come to any solution conclusions about how many customers he really has these days. And that matters for anyone else. Because a business model around an old DC guy milking an aging & declining fan base for every penny they have got only matters to other old men who worked at DC or marvel.

The really important thing is that the Tim & Mark model is a somewhat repeatable business model in that they were able to bootstrap from effectively nothing to (for crowdfunding) a rather large number of readers. And readers that were not gained from daily youtube drama streams. They were also able to do it in the face of a hate campaign by comicsgate. Is it going to "save comics"? Absolutely not. But should some of the people out there desperately doing one stream after another on youtube and getting tiny numbers of backers maybe look at how Tim & Mark did what they did? Absolutely.

 

[TESTEFY-HD]

I do. The number of unique KA backers has grown with each issue. The product has been well reviewed. People talk about KA more than Tim and Mark. Whereas I would wager that other CG creators count on their social media personality cult to cough up the dough. People who back the person more than the product. At some point, I think the former will supersede the latter.


I am still waiting for him to explain exactly how I'm "friends with Liam." I am almost borderline insulted by that claim. I am a far better judge of character than that.

I could simply call Jon a liar, but perhaps it is an honest mistake where he is confusing me with GreatLoner? Yet another person who recently managed to escape from Testecry's personality cult. Although what exactly convinced him to escape into Liam's arms is truly baffling. There are far more honorable and sympathetic people to talk to about Testefy.

View attachment 2539090


Sure... fine...

They have not taken the blue pill because they don't care what whiny ass westerners think about a medium that is predominantly for domestic consumption. More specifically, they're not going to bork up the far more lucrative domestic market to satiate busybodies in a foreign market that don't consume the medium at anywhere near the rate domestic consumers do. Which, of course, is simply good business.

Better?

I would maintain not taking the western blue pill is functionally similar to taking the western red pill in the case of anime and manga, even if you want to press the point that it's methodologically dissimilar. After all, in the end, the same result is achieved. The overarching point here is that they haven't caved to SJW pressure.

This whole idiotic tangent is because FROG doesn't comprehend why "hetrosexual conservative males" like manga so much. If I haven't convinced him by now, I probably never will. I also think he's scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to shitting on KA, and he's being really quite ridiculous. If he truly doesn't care about Tim and Mark, he should simply say "I don't care" when people press him on the issue. Otherwise you get salty sounding crap like "the book looks gay."

Again, I forgive you and VICTORIA. That is not the real Great Loner, it is DELTA aka JAZZCRAB aka LIMES DAD, ect.

DELTA - PAYPAL

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

Your making my point for me.

Selective enforcement of regulation is a feature of regulation not deregulation. Regulation encourages corruption and gaming the system. It was housing finance regulation and government looking the other way that led to the 2008 crash.

Bush gave lenders a sweet heart deal and looked the other way to pump up an already growing housing bubble.

Then Obama bailed out the criminals when it blew up in their faces.

Bush's stated intention was helping poorer people get into their own homes. No one would have lent them money for homes they couldn't pay for if they thought they would be held responsible.

And they weren't. The government made rules for everyone and then did not hold the richest among us to them. This is not uncommon.

The GameStop manipulation is protected against by regulations but hedgefunds were never held to account for it. But you will be.

Regulation is the easiest way to protect the rich while fucking the poor and getting the poor to demand more.


Regulation incentivizes politicians to fuck poor people so they can get a bigger speed boat. Do you think politicians are honest?

I thought I may have misunderstood your earlier posts after reading the first part of your post but then you went back to stupid on the second.

Your 100 IQ-level statement about Mr. Generic Politician fucking the people implies that that's the default state of all politicians when in reality you unwittingly validated my entire point. Honest people can not compete with the dishonest. That applies to bad actor politicians as well and they can only exist where there is no regulation or enforcement of existing regulations. We are there and have been for at least ten years - I would argue 20.

(sorry for derailing the thread about comics, I won't reply about this topic here again)

 

[Newman's Own]

Your 100 IQ-level statement about Mr. Generic Politician fucking the people implies that that's the default state of all politicians when in reality you unwittingly validated my entire point.

You're ass mad ad hom response is duly noted and will be considered with the commensurate level of seriousness.

I thought Obama was a pretty specific example.

I wish I lived in this fantastic land full of honest politicians you call home.