So this is about comicsgate, right? How is substack affecting major publishers? I know a few people are doing exclusive shit for indies, but most of those read like TV pilots. I know comicsgate is more about the direct market, but I'll be honest most of these titles don't have me thrilled. Western writers seem to not really do the visual medium as a visual medium and I don't know if it's the artists declining in skill or them never learning how to do proper caricature and other skills.
To answer the substack question (
@GoPro eloquently and thoroughly described the decline of visual storytelling in western comics) Substack approached top Marvel creator Nick Spencer to go recruit as many big name writers to join substack as possible. For Nick Spencer to lead these writers into a substack lifeboat, if you will, against the sinking Titanic that is the comic book industry. To that end, various writers like Donny Cates, Chip Zdarsky, Ryan Stegman, Skottie Young, Kelly Thompson, Scott Snyder, Al Ewing and James Tynion IV were all brought in on the premium blog site's payroll. Given that writing a monthly comic book can be done in a day or two, as Dan Slott or Richard C Meyer have shown, there's no pressing need to leave their day jobs. Tynion for one did so anyway, leaving Batman to go work on his creator-owned properties. Something unthinkable to an industry where a Batman gig is considered the apex of a professional career.
Since many of these figures, between terrible creations like
Secret Empire by Spencer and backroom politicking by people like Cates, were the driving force behind Comicsgate in the first place for both customer and creator (along with a healthy dose of dislike for comic book writers in general), Comicsgate hasn't been particularly supportive of this transition, with Jon Malin declaring his contempt with statements like "they don't have any fans, only fans of the characters they were handed. Let's see how good they do without Batman". This is paraphrasing as Jon probably added a few 'fuck them' and 'eat shit' in there too, but I don't recall. He may be right though, there's no shortage of aspiring and struggling comic writers out there and readers don't really seem to mind what slop they're handed.
The comics SJW set aren't very happy about this loss of leverage over their careers either, revising history to say that Nick Spencer is "alt-right" for his story arc turning Captain America into a Nazi and griping that, as a self-described 'free speech platform',
SubStack has not banned 'transphobic content' before and is therefore a hate speech site; so all the comic book writers should boycott substack and turn down the six figure payouts out of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. However, as there is actual money involved here these complaints have been completely ignored.
However, there is someone who bridges these two worlds.
Bill Willingham,
Fables creator, Substack writer and Comicsgater was secured for a massive three hour interview a couple of days ago. With fourteen Eisners stretching across a 40 year career in comics, Willingham lends considerable prestige for the youtuber
Frog,
Dan Fraga,
Yellowflash,
Art Thibert,
PopXP,
Graham Nolan, L
ord Finatra autistic comic shop owner
Dan Shahin that scored this inaugural interview for their channel
For the most part the interview consisted of Shahin gushing about WIllingham's nearly four decades old indie superhero
Elementals series, and Willingham calling Andrew Rev, the publisher who bought the rights to
Elementals, a subhuman troglodyte and a legal paper tiger, declaring
Elementals in the public domain on the grounds that Rev ceded his rights to the IP by abrogating the conditions of the sale, that any viewers who want to make
Elementals comics have his blessing and they should know that Rev is a coward who will cuck out of any threats of litigation he makes. "Know that you have my emotional, spiritual, but not financial, support". Fun stuff.
This does also answer some questions about Willingham's absence from CG Youtube. Is it because he disagrees with the rhetoric regarding the industry being thrown around in Comicsgate? Not really, given in the interview he parallels many of their positions except more articulately. Maybe as an old writer (an introverted trade by nature) he simply doesn't have the showmanship to entertain a live audience? That couldn't be further from the truth; it turns out Willingham is actually a gifted storyteller verbally as well as on the written page. Playing Dungeons & Dragons since drawing the original Monster Manual for Gary Gygax probably does hone one's ability to speak.
So why? Willingham considers himself too old to be arsed to learn streamyards and he could only muster up the energy to figure out how to use zoom calls, so Shahin agreed to interview him via prerecorded zoom call. Substack was extremely easy for him to use and was designed from the ground up for writers as opposed to clunky, makeshift adaptations from platforms meant for multimedia premium content, like his experiences with Patreon.
Of course, it wouldn't be a Shahin interview without several jabs "subtly" thrown out there, which, uh, didn't go well.
Dan Shahin 1:51:54
Great. Well, you know, for the record, I'm Palestinian, right. But I also, you know, I find people get so outraged of even this the hint of political ideas in comics, and there have been some, some at DC, that said that they were sort of outed and castigated by the DC editorial and higher ups because of their political leanings. Have you ever felt anything like that? Or feel like that's a that's a real thing?
Bill Willingham 1:52:23
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. People are vicious. If I can steal a joke about academics, the reason the fights in comicdom are so vicious is because the stakes are so low. Oh yeah. You're never going to see the blacklist because the one thing we learned about blacklists from way back when is: never write it down you stupid fucks. But, um, but I've encountered the blacklist, I've encountered the blacklist a few times because I was on it. Deservedly so in a sense that I was a screw up I wasn't getting work done, and from time to time the word comes down, it's like "don't hire this guy anymore, he will waste our money and and and get us in trouble."
Dan Shahin 1:53:16
Which is, that's a reasonable reason to be, wouldn't call that a blacklist per se as just like, just like a bad reputation in the industry.
Bill Willingham 1:53:26
Right. Many times one of the things with Fables is use that as a, a mechanism for getting to work with all the artists I've always wanted to work with. I get to finally work with, with Neil Adams. I mean, who knew? Jack Kirby died before he could, but you know, Bernie Wrightson I got to work with mystery. Richard Corbin anyway, I asked for Barry Windsor Smith. Barry Windsor Smith is beloved to me. And he, I was just told in no uncertain terms, it's like Shelley would say "I'll ask but they will not let Barry Windsor Smith work for this company again." I don't know why.
Dan Shahin 1:54:17
Barry's on the blacklist? I thought you were gonna say he didn't wouldn't want to work with you or something like that.
Bill Willingham 1:54:22
Maybe. But no, we never got to ask him. Dave Sim. Dave Sim, it was just like, "No, no, no, no, you can't get him here. He's a troublemaker, etc." The blacklist exists, it's constantly being updated or whatever. The Blacklist is basically, I mean, almost every company has one. It's like, these are the people we like these are the people you don't like. No one can look at the the fights and the sniping and the what have you that that's going on, mostly because now things like YouTube and all that exists to give a platform for all this and not understand it's like, "I won't work with this person".
