in other news, I was watching Comicsgate Kings for a little bit and it appears that Ethan and his inner circle have finally thrown JSG under the bus while they were E-Fapping his latest video about a new X Man mutant based on Jesus Christ. Apparently, JSG was going after Christians being offended over this character and that seemed to the tipping point for them. Ethan’s chat didn‘t like JSG at all because they think he’s a pedo and a grifter.
"Comicsgate Kings" always seems to be struggling to reach a kind of golden mean between the two excesses of either giving the oldtimers too much free form discussion where you get Billy Tucci and Aaron Lopresti sharing their favorite metamucil recipes, or Frog trying too hard to shoehorn these comic creators into the role of outrage peddling youtubers and you wind up with him trying to prod 72 year old Mike Baron into giving a shit that "funko pops are woke now" or whatever in futility.
However this week's show actually succeeded in hitting that sweet spot and engaging both audience and panelists, the focus on the anti-Christian sentiment of Marvel's X-Men and shitting on JSP definitely a step up from the "CG KINGS ARE COMING" stream of last week. I tend to measure the success of Frog's ensemble shows by how much carrying he has to do of everyone else; in this one he was even able to play the role of a real host as the panelists needed no prompting to take up the presented topic. Lopresti gained ~150 backers for his crowdfund by simply speaking passionately and coherently on behalf of Christian comic fans. Even if the comic industry pros give away how unfamiliar they are with comics they personally haven't made like the Hope Summers' sacrilegious "
Mutant Messiah" status that has been a mainstay story driving the
X-Men franchise for the past 15 years.
There was a crossover between Comicsgate and
lolcow du jour @Flamenco on YellowFlash's Flashcast, the recently doxed peg porn and underage hentai enjoying former Killstream cohost joining to answer for himself to his fellow weebs. I dunno, maybe Yellowflash was trying to recapture
the unforgettable performance on the Kino Casino? Whatever his goal was, guys like RagingGoldenEagle, LoftiPixels and Crow are the last people who are going to press anyone on masturbating to depictions of children so that was a wash at the onset, as Frog quickly vacated the stream without warning instead of entertaining a frank discussion on the material Flamenco pleasures himself to. Even Flam got upstaged when YellowFlash was sidetracked by going after former WC member TJ Dopeness who was heckling him from the chat.
The stream petering out Yellowflash moved on to making some video about how the Sonic 2 box office turnout "
DESTROYS the Hollywood agenda" somehow while RagingGoldenEagle took the time to rally his weeb brethren around another case of woke censorship very dear to his heart - Steam removing the panty upshots of a low-poly 9 year old in Chrono Cross. Is there
anything the SJWs don't consider sacred?
Very cool RGE, very cool.
Finally, in the CG Slums
(an excellent watch)
Things began on
Peter Simeti's show "Crowdfunding Presentation", where creators go on Pete's show to solicit his sober and serious analysis as the publisher and owner of Alterna Comics for 20+ years on how they could make their crowdfund campaigns more professional and successful, and Pete thinking this is entertaining content fit for public consumption for some reason.
However, the Elasi-esque format of "Indiegogo campaign page review" suddenly and without warning came into its own when
Pops Van Zant of
Madness Comics joined Pete's show looking for advice on how he can campaign in new fresh ways for the anthology
Enter The CRoMniVerse: Anthology Vol #1 (sitting at 38 total backers). Pete asks if there's one of the stories or art panels that Pops liked in particular - Pops answers that he has no idea what will be going in the comic and he doesn't want to know until the physical printed copy is in his hands. Peter Simeti expresses his confusion about why anyone would or indeed
should give the time of day to the shilling of a campaign with zero description or preview of the contents by someone who has no idea of or control over what the comic will look like. Pops, who evidently believes this can be done by force of personality alone, reiterates that he has no idea what's going on the comic and is merely a fan, but also mentions that he is fielding concern from would-be customers and shouldering responsibility for problems that the creators of the comic are coming to him with. In short, Pete
does not understand the madness brudder.
Pete Simeti reiterates that describing what's in the book with at least one page of interior art is considered the bare minimum for a crowdfunded comic, so that prospective backers would have at least some idea of what they would be receiving. Pops answers that the bare minimum requirements for the campaign will be put up on 4/20 brudder (dude weed lmao), to tease out and build excitement and hype for the campaign instead of just dumping it all at once. Simeti thinks Pops isn't understanding what he's saying here and elaborates that people's first impression of a business is crucial, that the first few days are what make or break a campaign and it's "absolutely imperative" that entrepreneurs put their best foot forward. If an Alterna creator, an increasingly direct Pete adds, came to him with a pitch like "Enter the CroMniVerse", he'd order them back to the drawing board until they came back with an actually completed proposal. Was there some sort of time limit when throwing this shit together, Simeti (more tactfully) asks?
"All part of the plan" assures Pops about this project that will in all likelihood not reach its funding goal, 4/20 will come and once preview art and a synopsis of the content start to be posted the campaign will surge. Peter Simeti expresses his exasperation over someone coming to him asking for advice and arguing with him when said advice is given and concludes the consultancy with "It sounds like I'm talking to the wrong person anyway since you don't have the ability to affect the changes that need to be done".
Now, for those of you mostly familiar with the CG Kings show and similar programs, I'm sure questions have come up along the lines of "why Frog hasn't teased a crowdfund for a Cyberfrog-themed mobility walker?" or "why don't CG campaigns take AARP points?" Valid questions to be sure, but it might surprise you to learn that a group of punk snotnosed Comicsgate kids ranging from ages 18 to 30 exist, and what's more gathered to laugh at and efap the old man Pops as he's unsubtly felted by Peter Simeti to his face without even realizing it.
Taking measure of the stream, there's a number of reasons given for the youths' ill-will towards their CG elder. For one, they don't like Pops' perceived attitude that these younger creators should be deferential to him despite his only accomplishment is being alive way, way longer than they have, accusations of backroom influence peddling by Pops, and according to "Lord Crackhead33 "subtle jabs made by Pops" towards the 19 year old Black Rose over the past few weeks. There's also a number of other unresolved grievances, like Pops' dogged attacking of anyone who questioned his pals Varian and Lola Grant of IndieVolt who in fact did defraud multiple small CG creators like themselves of tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a year. Another running joke is the matter of Pops allegedly punching his dog on a livestream one time for making too much noise and then laughing about it, which seems to have not endeared him to the community either.
Michael Oden of
Hybrids points out that there's a $200 deluxe tier consisting of 4 paltry variant covers like Frog's "Executive Honeycomb" package despite if you purchase all the constitutent addons separately they come out to $160. Phoenix Animation takes it further and accuses Pops of running a con like his pal Varian Grant as well as Pops giving him COVID at a convention for good measure. Oasi of
Veilwalkers relates that Pops' dismissive attitude is simply typical of the old people he encounters in his day job as a clerk for medicare services, "You can't tell them shit". Everyone laughed. Well, almost everyone.
One person who wasn't laughing was DarkGift Comics, aka Anthony Romano, artist and publisher of such classics like
Hunting Alice and
Lightbringer who fired up a "Comicsgate Neutral Ground" stream. As always with Grift, the more pissed off he is the more "neutral" he gets.
These kids sneering about how Pops launched a campaign with no details, no preview art and a mathematically incorrect tier pricing system, that Pete Simeti flat out said was not ready to to be launched, these complaints are way off base - it's actually
DarkGift's campaign. Critics BTFO. To hear Grift tell the tale, he would have done things differently if it were up to him but the project was already underway and deadlines were set when the original campaign manager had to bow out on account of illness. The proverbial burning trash vehicle was already rolling down the tarmac when Grift got there and he merely hopped in the empty driver's seat offered to him. So really, both Grift and Pops are blameless here.
And when they trash the face of the campaign and its representative who they actively dislike, did they stop to consider the creators working for him? No. There's also some damage control regarding the dogbeating incident - Grift argues that Pops' dog was in heat at the time which called for extreme measures. Point being, if these people had legitimate concerns they could have gone to him but instead they're intent on heaping shit on Pops.
"Lord Crackhead", who inherited Leroi's show is brought on to answer for taking part in the Pops efapping and how after all the promotion and friendship DarkGift offered him, he was repaid
Caught off guard, Grift sheepishly admits he didn't watch the entire video and intended on responding to it in real time. His main point defused by simply by watching further along the stream, Grift makes small talk with Crackhead about various CGers who offer printing services instead. The stream then closes with JDA and Alazmat taking advantage of the open invite link to shill some stream snipe of MechaRandon42 on Alazmat's channel for half an hour.
