#Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[Analog Devolved]

Pride?

Pride is sin.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Gabe Eltaeb went on Perch's show and he just crashed around like a bull in a china shop full of "new CG" chud culture war energy like Micah Curtis on PCP for two hours and he wasn't blacklisted from anything. The only reaction as I recall was Gabe getting asspats from his fellow CG Kings for shutting down Perch every time he tried to toss out an empty declarative about how leftist cancel culture was just, like, Gabe's opinion. After this I guess Gabe-like people "stop being allowed" to go on Perch's show. Weird.

Maybe independent creators don't want to go on Perch's show (or want Perch on their show) because Perch's whole brand is built on peddling bromides tailored towards appealing to a niche that is unable to deny the dire state of the traditional American comic industry but unwilling to acknowledge any of the causes of these problems, like the ongoing effort to blacklist any creator right of Mao Zedong, if those causes lead to inconvenient conclusions, for example creating problems with landing interviews with mainstream creators. In his interview of Sean Gordon Murphy, Murphy asked Perch what he'd do to "fix the industry", which amounted to the most simplistic, empty recommendations imaginable like "getting creators off of social media" and "take ads out in magazines" which, if only the big wigs in charge would just listen to Perch, would be able to miraculously reverse the 20+ year trend of losing ground to manga, webcomics and video games. The important thing though is that SGM feels safe with his career being associated with such a statement, not its veracity.



I remember having this debate with Liam a couple years back, when Liam was bemoaning that he doesn't to be a youtube merchandiser and just wanted to be a creator unconcerned with having to market himself. Personally I side with Frog on this matter - given that creators in Comicsgate are closed off from the few anemic paths of making a living in indie comics, every means of being able to make them should be considered . If one's principles make you unable to act on them or put them into practice, then they're pretty worthless principles.

By that same reasoning though I've had very little patience for the sort of dogmatic thinking that has always gone on in Comicsgate since it's beginning, like platform boycotts, insistence on crowdfunding, or weird limiting purity tests like saying that all CG creators must self publish or complaining that Charlie's London distributing comics in museums because the British government in insufficiently conservative, or whatever.

My point is whether or not it even qualifies as “making a living in indie comics” when the comics themselves are just glorified YouTuber merch for the real product that people come for, which is @FROG’s web show.
EVS’s success (and in extension the success of the CG brand) isn’t a win for indie comics, any more than boosted first-issue sales of gay Superman is a win for DC comics. At the end of the day they’re not buying the book because they care about the story, but for some extrinsic reason unrelated to the story.

IMO, for it to be a win for indie comics, CG comics would need success outside of the small CG bubble. The stories need to be good enough that someone can say to their faggot friend, “I know the author is PrObLeMaTiC but the story is actually REALLY good, you’re missing out if you don’t read it”. If the main selling point of your book is “it’s written by X, he is BASED and OWNS THE LIBS”, is that REALLY any better than the drek Marvel and DC try to sell on the basis of muh queer POC wxmyn writers? At least someone like Tim Lim who sells books by virtue of anime tiddy and lol Trump is attracting customers on the basis of the content contained within the book rather than his identity as the book’s author.

 

[Newman's Own]

If one's principles make you unable to act on them or put them into practice, then they're pretty worthless principles.

If your principles don't work in practice then you've likely built something on a foundation of bullshit.

If principles DO work in practice but they are ignored whenever expedient then the foundation is also bullshit.

ComicsGate, as it turns out, is bullshit because it's in a state of perpetual contradiction of it's perceived "principles" to justify it's failings.
Books late? "Ignore CG principle of customer service".
Wart the Wizard needs promoting? "Ignore the principle of beating the mainstream with quality books and not pushing crap for political reasons."

As far as I can tell, ComicsGate "principles" are mainly "anti-woke" and "anti-cancel culture" in nature. But of course that was proven to be bullshit the moment they threw a fellow gater under the bus for the relatively milquetoast edgelord act of tweeting "Pride is a sin" to piss off the rainbow mafia. ComicsGate in that moment engaged in woke politics and cancel culture against itself to "present itself as a centrist alternative".

This is absolutely no different than Disney throwing say Gina Carano under a bus for an edgy tweet to placate the woke mob and maintain centrist appeal.

No, if Smiller tweeted that out now, we'd just retweet it and laugh.

Times were different then. We had tunnel vision about the scope of the problem, we were under constant scrutiny by activists who were blaming us for all manner of things in an effort to deplatform us from Twitter, YouTube and IndieGoGo, and everyone was anxious all the time.

Smiller kept trolling and giving CG bad PR moments. That thing with Mike Weiringo was particularly fucked up. Asking Mike to reel it in when CG was trying to present itself as a centrist alternative (even though most of us are conservatives) caused a rift with those who just wanted to push back hard from the right against SJWs.

I regret reacting the way I did, which was to publicly scourge Mike. I'd do it differently if I could.

This is all sound reasoning. Appease the woke mob and get them to lay off with the attacks. It's the same reasoning that canceled Carano and spawned the Gillette ad we all love.

ComicsGate stopped being a movement when it's principles were abandoned and it adopted the 'appease the woke mob to sell more product' mentality they criticize and deride in popular culture.

And that's fine because it's a very lucrative fan club that's making some entertainers some money.

But as an anti-woke movement it's a joke. It's the Black Rifle Coffee of comic books.

It would be interesting to see if CG would have kept gathering steam had they stuck to their principles instead of becoming a cult of personality in 2019.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, growth of CG began to stagnate and the group began to atomize not long after CG decided appealing to Pride parade attendees was more important than anti-cancel culture principles.

CG was unsuccessful at attracting the more centrist audience it had compromised for but did manage to alienate or simply turn off a significant portion of it's more principled base. Worse though is that the anti-wokeness, still paid lip service too, began to ring hollow and growth began to sputter. Even the woke mobs interest in CG as a threat began to wane. (Note: When your enemies are losing their shit trying to destroy you it usually means your bombers are on target. When you're missing the target they focus most of their resources on other battles.)

The grift isn't that YouTube is the driving force and not comics. The grift is saying ComicsGate is an "anti-cancel culture" or "anti-woke" movement. Those stopped being principles and became empty marketing platitudes years ago,

I don’t understand which “principles” ethically prevent you from promoting and selling your art.

Pride?

Don't worry about it. Your principles are about creating a fan club and selling a brand and you've done an excellent job.



EDIT:

Almost everyone manufactures action figures in China. I don't know what you mean.

What I mean is if you source anything from Chinese manufacturers you need to be aware of the differences in Chinese business practices, especially when it comes to dealing with smaller account foreigners.

I worked with a Chinese national who made a fortune on the side sourcing from China. He had some interesting stories.

Dealing direct with Chinese manufacturers is trickier than making an order from Print Ninja or Ali Baba.

 

[FROG]

My point is whether or not it even qualifies as “making a living in indie comics” when the comics themselves are just glorified YouTuber merch for the real product that people come for, which is @FROG’s web show.
EVS’s success (and in extension the success of the CG brand) isn’t a win for indie comics, any more than boosted first-issue sales of gay Superman is a win for DC comics. At the end of the day they’re not buying the book because they care about the story, but for some extrinsic reason unrelated to the story.

IMO, for it to be a win for indie comics, CG comics would need success outside of the small CG bubble. The stories need to be good enough that someone can say to their faggot friend, “I know the author is PrObLeMaTiC but the story is actually REALLY good, you’re missing out if you don’t read it”. If the main selling point of your book is “it’s written by X, he is BASED and OWNS THE LIBS”, is that REALLY any better than the drek Marvel and DC try to sell on the basis of muh queer POC wxmyn writers? At least someone like Tim Lim who sells books by virtue of anime tiddy and lol Trump is attracting customers on the basis of the content contained within the book rather than his identity as the book’s author.

You realize that I'm an established comics professional with a fanbase, right? The culture war stuff works against me more than it works for me. As such, you've got it backwards. It's the "faggot friend" who is saying, "Ethan Van Sciver might be a good artist, but he's a shitty perthon so I'm not interested in CYBERFROG."

Still, 12,000 people are buying CYBERFROG because it's rad. And it is!

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

You realize that I'm an established comics professional with a fanbase, right? The culture war stuff works against me more than it works for me. As such, you've got it backwards. It's the "faggot friend" who is saying, "Ethan Van Sciver might be a good artist, but he's a shitty perthon so I'm not interested in CYBERFROG."

Still, 12,000 people are buying CYBERFROG because it's rad. And it is!

Bullshit. How many subs and views did your channel get when you were doing the low-key softvoice drawing stuff? It only took off when you began the culture war grift.

 

[Alazmat]

My point is whether or not it even qualifies as “making a living in indie comics” when the comics themselves are just glorified YouTuber merch for the real product that people come for, which is @FROG’s web show.
EVS’s success (and in extension the success of the CG brand) isn’t a win for indie comics, any more than boosted first-issue sales of gay Superman is a win for DC comics. At the end of the day they’re not buying the book because they care about the story, but for some extrinsic reason unrelated to the story.

IMO, for it to be a win for indie comics, CG comics would need success outside of the small CG bubble. The stories need to be good enough that someone can say to their faggot friend, “I know the author is PrObLeMaTiC but the story is actually REALLY good, you’re missing out if you don’t read it”. If the main selling point of your book is “it’s written by X, he is BASED and OWNS THE LIBS”, is that REALLY any better than the drek Marvel and DC try to sell on the basis of muh queer POC wxmyn writers? At least someone like Tim Lim who sells books by virtue of anime tiddy and lol Trump is attracting customers on the basis of the content contained within the book rather than his identity as the book’s author.

I've always said CG books have made it when Youtubers not linked to any of the circles within CG make videos about these books, good or bad. To me it's always been a problem when videos are made about creators and the latest blood sport retardation rather than the contents of the books being sold, the motivation of the characters, the story elements, and even back and forth arguments between fans regarding the characters and IPs. There is a HUGE lacking in the department regarding comicsgate books. Well Read's show is the only on that consistently tackles CG books in some type of manner, but even then it's still somewhat hindered by the host and panelists being linked to CG's inner circles, and even inviting the creators themselves to come on the show.

It also doesn't help that creators have followed YBZ's bad business model (countless unrelated stand alone stories like Pandemic and Rock n Roll Ninja) rather than follow his only SUCCESSFUL model (franchise IPs with world-building like Jawbreakers and Iron Sights.) I think that is part of why Kamen America, Cyberfrog, and Graveyard Shift are money makers. They're all franchise books with world building. In Lim's case, the extra degeneracy virtue of anime tiddys is a strong selling point, but it also adds to the problem that no one is even talking about these characters. They look cute, but who are they and what is their reason?

@Tyne has this one thing right (even though he's a failing comic book producer with diminishing returns and has resorted to scouring SJW discords to look for a replacement in preparation for the inevitable departure of Mangachan.) Gray knows Xenotype is his bread and butter, and is pathetically trying a world building of sorts with Wonder Island (complete with boy nudity.) How much damage done to any profits for future Xenotype books due to Gray's actions (and subpar writing) remains to be seen.

But as an anti-woke movement it's a joke. It's the Black Rifle Coffee of comic books.

It would be interesting to see if CG would have kept gathering steam had they stuck to their principles instead of becoming a cult of personality in 2019.

Permit me to pull a @TheCosmicWarrior and shill for a quick second. My book, Clockpeople, promises not only to be funny and offensive, but offensiveenough to make some CGers steer clear of it. I, too, hated some of the pandering to the rainbow mob and, yes, CG "babes" and what have you.

 

[Gar For Archer]

"Ethan Van Sciver might be a good artist, but he's a shitty perthon so I'm not interested in CYBERFROG."

Your art looks great! But good art is icing on the cake of a good story. The culture war shit IS a massive turn-off for me - not because I necessarily disagree with you, but because that’s the only pitch I ever seem to hear, rather than stuff about the actual story like “the characters are great”, “the power system is really interesting”, “the villain is really cool”, or any number of things that might draw someone to want to read a story. Hell, for all I know Cyberfrog could have all these things - but if it does, then you’re selling the book short by focusing only on the art and the culture war bullshit. You’re leaving behind a potentially massive audience of people like myself who care about good stories first and foremost, who could be convinced to give your book a shot, but are not going to buy a book solely because the author is on their side of the culture war and can draw good.

Like, I get it, comics is a visual medium and it’s easy to show off cool art as a flashy attention-grabber on a livestream. But I like reading stories for.. ya know, the story, and there is nothing in your pitch of “I’m a great artist and also based and own the libs” that interests me enough to even want to pirate your book, much less pay $50 for your frog omnibus.

 

[FROG]

Bullshit. How many subs and views did your channel get when you were doing the low-key softvoice drawing stuff? It only took off when you began the culture war grift.

That’s YouTube, not comic sales.

Your art looks great! But good art is icing on the cake of a good story. The culture war shit IS a massive turn-off for me - not because I necessarily disagree with you, but because that’s the only pitch I ever seem to hear, rather than stuff about the actual story like “the characters are great”, “the power system is really interesting”, “the villain is really cool”, or any number of things that might draw someone to want to read a story. Hell, for all I know Cyberfrog could have all these things - but if it does, then you’re selling the book short by focusing only on the art and the culture war bullshit. You’re leaving behind a potentially massive audience of people like myself who care about good stories first and foremost, who could be convinced to give your book a shot, but are not going to buy a book solely because the author is on their side of the culture war and can draw good.

Like, I get it, comics is a visual medium and it’s easy to show off cool art as a flashy attention-grabber on a livestream. But I like reading stories for.. ya know, the story, and there is nothing in your pitch of “I’m a great artist and also based and own the libs” that interests me enough to even want to pirate your book, much less pay $50 for your frog omnibus.

Brother, I’ve been doing livestreams where all I talk about is story and character. doing culture war stuff is a pill…

i draw and show my work and it sells itself, unless I encounter political prejudice, which is why culture war talk becomes necessary at all.

 

[Mister Dongs]

My point is whether or not it even qualifies as “making a living in indie comics” when the comics themselves are just glorified YouTuber merch for the real product that people come for, which is @FROG’s web show.
EVS’s success (and in extension the success of the CG brand) isn’t a win for indie comics, any more than boosted first-issue sales of gay Superman is a win for DC comics. IMO, for it to be a win for indie comics, CG comics would need success outside of the small CG bubble. The stories need to be good enough that someone can say to their faggot friend, “I know the author is PrObLeMaTiC but the story is actually REALLY good, you’re missing out if you don’t read it”. If the main selling point of your book is “it’s written by X, he is BASED and OWNS THE LIBS”, is that REALLY any better than the drek Marvel and DC try to sell on the basis of muh queer POC wxmyn writers? At least someone like Tim Lim who sells books by virtue of anime tiddy and lol Trump is attracting customers on the basis of the content contained within the book rather than his identity as the book’s author.

I agree. If Comicsgate has any worth ("a win for indie comics" as you put it), I would define it as allowing customers access to quality work, and creators to make create quality work as a profession, that would otherwise not exist due to blacklisting, gatekeeping or general dysfunction within the traditional system. Outside of that, it has zero worth.

By that metric most of Comicsgate and nearly all of the one-time "leading figures" have failed miserably. It would be too convenient and unfair to place the blame solely upon the creators; the customer, liberated of the mainstream publisher performing the role of quality control, showed themselves to reliably squander their hard earned money on worthless e-celeb merch time and time again, whether it be the Littlest Umbrella, Cash Grab, Hail Salad or Daym Drops, to say nothing of Anna TSWG calendars. Or product where the "creator" who holds all the money has little to do with "their" comic's actual creation. Comicsgaters never think to ask themselves how enriching an uninvolved lazy e-celeb middleman 'publisher' who's 'job' it is to hold the purse strings while outsourcing the actual comic to some third world writer/artist team for a pittance, to make some mediocre, generic overpriced ephemera destined for the quarter bin instead of Marvel or DC (or Boom or IDW or Dark Horse or manga) "pushes back against cancel culture" in any meaningful way. Assuming they produce anything at all. That's not even getting into the "own the SJWs" rhetoric, but that ceased being an effective sales pitch somewhere around 2019 anyway.

Were that the end of it, I'd be tempted to say hey, Heather Antos and Andy Khouri might have their problems but it beats the alternative. Sure Antos might not spell too good but the customers have shown they don't know what's good for them and the comic artists have shown that they only turn in work when an authority figure is keeping them hungry and firmly beneath their boot.

But judging the group's collective success solely by the glacial Cyberfrog output of its loudest, most shitstirring member is, I'd argue, overly reductive. Graham Nolan is working on his third graphic novel within two years. Kenneth Rocafort rarely goes on livestreams but is on course to doubling his previous campaign simply turning out some of the best work of his career, when it was promised to be delivered. Gabe Eltaeb, well okay you described him to a tee there, he's straight up making a "fuck liberals" comic. Billy Tucci probably would have been just as successful outside of CG. Dale Keown might get around to making a comic book some day if Mandy Summers gives him a hand-joe or something. Look, these can't all be success stories. But the biggest win I'd say was Thin Blue Line.

Mike Baron, a legendary creator with 50 years experience in mainstream comics, was blacklisted from every comic journalism website and even fan boards because he wanted to make a pro-police comic set during the BLM riots of 2020. The comics establishment forcing a 72 year old man to starve for the crime of being "pro cop" says it all really. As I recall Thin Blue Line had around $8000 when it caught Frog's eye and it's at around $120,000 now. It's work that, while not flawless or for everyone, I'd say is worthwhile and would not exist without Comicsgate. So by my metric I'd consider that a win. Does it really matter if Frog's show pandered with clickbait to get the audience to do it?

If you want quality work that gets your faggot friends sperging, a good first step is to have quality creators, and as much as one would like for people to work at a loss for "muh culture war" the most effective proven means of drawing quality creators is for it to be in their best interest (read: money) to do so. More credible creators from very unlikely places, ranging from Irene Strychalski to Bill Willingham to Kelly Jones to David Williams, appear to be joining rather than leaving, so on the whole I'd consider Comicsgate to be succeeding. At least for the moment anyway.

I give Frog a lot of shit for his many, many public and often entertaining fuckups, but I do give him credit for these hard-earned signs of success. No one else capable even tried.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Brother, I’ve been doing livestreams where all I talk about is story and character.

And that’s precisely the problem. Your web show caters primarily to existing fans of EVS and newcomers who care about you first and foremost as an on-air culture war personality. Talking to them about how great your book is is basically preaching to the choir because chances are a lot of them were gonna buy it anyways even if the story was garbage. “People willing to sit through an EVS livestream” likely has only a fairly small intersection with “comic readers who would potentially enjoy Cyberfrog”.

At the end of the day though, if you only care about peddling frog books to existing fans and CG supporters then that’s your prerogative.

@Mister Dongs that’s really my biggest question, actually. Is Comicsgate even INTERESTED in gaining wider recognition for their work and actually becoming a true alternative to the mainstream whose main selling point is a better product for the same/cheaper cost? Or do they want to stay as a successful, (so-far) self-sufficient, but inherently limited comics ghetto (in the historical sense of the word) where authors can make a living from a small but dedicated audience paying higher prices? I don’t think either approach is inherently more or less valid than the other, it’s more of a philosophical question of what different creators want or expect out of CG.

 

[Ike Aim]

As an update to this post:

FNT/G+G guys having a bit of a setback in their struggle with reality re: last year's Snyder incident. When we were last updated, it seemed like perhaps the Chucklefucks were edging closer to taking some responsibility for the controversial happening and it's fallout, perhaps even acknowledging that a gross failure at what was their raison d'être up to that point - broadcast live and in living color to their audience - might justifiably rub some people the wrong way and provoke a few questions like maybe "what is even the point of all of this if you blowhards are just going to become star struck and puss out?" This latest clarification of the narrative surrounding that pivotal event comes in the wake of another meet-up engagement with their fans which, mind you, are a new entity distinct from the fans prior (or, the people they used to claim to advocate for, the 'fan' in the now-defunct 'Fandom Menace').

In this latest episode, Gary suggests that we - "the internet" - suffered a mis-perception on that fateful day, one that warped our sense of reality, and why are you internet people believing your lying eyes and not his ex post facto cope?

Not sure where the 'lie' is supposed to be here since the entire thing occurred in front of God and everyone and has been well documented and discussed, but there you have it. Gary and co. won because they ignored it and doubled-down. It's implied that their success in the year since at accepting massive superchats, vapidly ass-kissing a string of moderate-profile guests (who don't really know who the fuck they even are but are told they're 'up-and-coming'), launching next-level branded merch including coffee, and a handful of meetups with internet sycophants desperate for belonging and for these guys to be the Cultural Commandos Fighting in the Funnest Way Possible™ that they know they can be is all proof that they were right the whole time. Maybe that means they did win. I dunno. Fuck.

However, the fact that they're this out-of-touch and thin-skinned and are clearly still seething tells me that there is some there there. The way out of this was always apparent: admit you fucked up and move-on (or specifically, encourage Jeremy to do it and then back him up). We all fuck up from time to time and it's not like they did anything heinous or particularly exploitable. What sinks your credibility is when you don't or won't or can't admit you fucked up. Playing cover-your-ass games with your own people is a bad look. Perhaps it was Gary's oppositional defiant disorder or Jeremy's need for negative attention, but as people who only carried hammers for so long, everything became a nail. Every criticism became an "SJW attack" or gayop conspiracy and as everyone now knows, you don't apologize to faggots and online mobs. But this wouldn't have been that. This would have been them shooting straight with their audience, which they failed to do then and steadfastly fail to do now seemingly due to some misguided notion that they are locked in mortal combat with shadowy internet character-assassins. As far as I could ascertain, they were only ever in a slap fight with ham planet Mecharandom. The rest of it was hecklers from the balcony. How bad could it really be?

Note: if anyone intends to rehab the Fandom Menace thread or if there is a suitable venue for this saga, let me know and i'll throw these there. Even though much of this content is CG-adjacent and will continue to be as Rippaverse joins the fray, I realize many of these posts in the meantime are not of themselves CG so it becomes a question of wot do and I'm reluctant to not update topics of interests well-established itt and likewise reluctant to post to a FM thread that I've been advised is essentially doomed or a similarly dead thread in Off-Topic.

 

[Newman's Own]

"Mike Baron, a legendary creator with 50 years experience in mainstream comics, was blacklisted from every comic journalism website and even fan boards because he wanted to make a pro-police comic set during the BLM riots of 2020. The comics establishment forcing a 72 year old man to starve for the crime of being "pro cop" says it all really. As I recall Thin Blue Line had around $8000 when it caught Frog's eye and it's at around $120,000 now. It's work that, while not flawless or for everyone, I'd say is worthwhile and would not exist without Comicsgate. So by my metric I'd consider that a win. Does it really matter if Frog's show pandered with clickbait to get the audience to do it?"

Did this book "catch his eye" before or after it got mainstream media coverage on Fox?

 

[SaidNoOneEver]

That’s YouTube, not comic sales.

You would only have a tiny fraction of your current comic sales (if any) without the YouTube culture war grift though.

 

[FROG]

You would only have a tiny fraction of your current comic sales (if any) without the YouTube culture war grift though.

And the evidence for that is where?

 

[Mister Dongs]

@Mister Dongs that’s really my biggest question, actually. Is Comicsgate even INTERESTED in gaining wider recognition for their work and actually becoming a true alternative to the mainstream whose main selling point is a better product for the same/cheaper cost? Or do they want to stay as a successful, (so-far) self-sufficient, but inherently limited comics ghetto (in the historical sense of the word) where authors can make a living from a small but dedicated audience paying higher prices? I don’t think either approach is inherently more or less valid than the other, it’s more of a philosophical question of what different creators want or expect out of CG.

Well, there's two things going on here. The first is that historically every time Comicsgate tried to branch out outside of crowdfunding, and they have several times, it's generally ended very badly.

There was the publishing Jawbreakers through Antarctic Press attempt, which led to Mark Waid
sending the owner of Antarctic Press a night letter, which led to the Meyer/Waid lolsuit.

There was the time Mitch Breitweiser took 200K of Comicsgate backer money to make a superhero chicken book, used that money to set up an imprint with a Walmart distribution deal, sold it as a cancel-proof way for Comicgaters to get published if only they'd sell their IPs to Mitch so he can publish them, made sure Walmart customers got the chicken book first at a lower price than the original crowdfund backers who paid in advance, disavowed Comicsgate and then eventually fulfilled the chicken book 3 years later as an afterthought.

There was the secret where Frog and his inner circle were getting their comics covertly fulfilled by mainstream imprint Dynamite Comics, which was a foolproof scheme except the minor flaw that Dynamite Comics were incredibly incompetent and fucked up most of the early CG crowdfunds, which led to them fucking up the collectible 'ribbitcoins' by making them out of regular coinage but selling them as made out of silver, which led to @VIkkiVerse starting a youtube channel to accuse Frog of criminal fraud, (summary here), which led to Frog going onto Vikki's stream to prove he didn't know the coins weren't made out of silver and threaten to sue Vikki for defamation if she kept accusing him of fraud, which led to Vikki unexpectedly cornering him that his secret fulfillment company was Dynamite, which led to the mainstream comics industry finding out that Dynamite was a secret Comicsgate collaborator, which led to industry-wide condemnations of Dynamite, which led to Dynamite's own employees giving the owner an ultimatum, which led to Dynamite being forced to publicly disavow Comicsgate and terminate all their contracts, which led to the uprising of Frog's personal tard army Warcampaign, who rose up against him saying that giving money to an SJW company like Dynamite is against Comicsgate (but were really just mad at an ethot that Dynamite was publishing a cover for), which all led to an unending cataclysm of autism that rages to this day. Frog probably thought this was as bad as it gets with Vikki. Little did he know this was only the beginning.

Then there was the IndieVolt scandal, which was when several Comicsgaters were roped into a confidence racket masquerading as a distribution offer from Spencer's Books and were relieved of money to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

So for these and other reasons, Comicsgate as a whole is very averse towards venturing outside the established indiegogo crowdfunding model. Frog especially so, because things are going the best for him out of anyone and therefore has the most to lose and least to gain by any sort of radical changes. The old adage "if it isn't broke don't fix it".

That said, there are clear and obvious limitations to the crowdfunding model - one is that due to unavoidable costs like the cost of $8 minimum for shipping a comic in a gemini mailer, the system is geared towards premium comics where a price of $20-25 is feasibly justifiable, which doesn't leave an avenue for entry to intermediate-level creators (the majority) still honing their craft and unable to create a $20 value comic book, other than adopting the selling based on one's personality and the "youtube merch" route.

Did this book "catch his eye" before or after it got mainstream media coverage on Fox?

Before. You can see the multiple spikes to the IGG campaign prior to Jan 10th (the date of the interview) on Backertracker. The Fox News interview by Baron though is the perfect example of someone taking the initiative to break out of the youtube bubble like what @Gar For Archer is talking about though, so thank you for posting it.

 

[Gar For Archer]

Well, there's two things going on here. The first is that historically every time Comicsgate tried to branch out outside of crowdfunding, and they have several times, it's generally ended very badly.

There was the publishing Jawbreakers through Antarctic Press attempt, which led to Mark Waid
sending the owner of Antarctic Press a night letter, which led to the Meyer/Waid lolsuit.

There was the time Mitch Breitweiser took 200K of Comicsgate backer money to make a superhero chicken book, used that money to set up an imprint with a Walmart distribution deal, sold it as a cancel-proof way for Comicgaters to get published if only they'd sell their IPs to Mitch so he can publish them, made sure Walmart customers got the chicken book first at a lower price than the original crowdfund backers who paid in advance, disavowed Comicsgate and then eventually fulfilled the chicken book 3 years later as an afterthought.

There was the secret where Frog and his inner circle were getting their comics covertly fulfilled by mainstream imprint Dynamite Comics, which was a foolproof scheme except that Dynamite Comics were incompetent as fuck, which led to them fucking up the collectible 'ribbitcoins' by making them out of regular coinage but selling them as made out of silver, which led to @VIkkiVerse starting a youtube channel to accuse Frog of criminal fraud, (summary here), which led to Frog going onto Vikki's stream to prove he didn't know the coins were made out of silver and threaten to sue Vikki for defamation if she kept accusing him of fraud, which led to Vikki unexpectedly cornering him that his secret fulfillment company was Dynamite, which led to the mainstream comics industry finding out that Dynamite was a secret Comicsgate collaborator, which led to industry-wide condemnations of Dynamite, which led to Dynamite's own employees giving the owner an ultimatum, which led to Dynamite being forced to publicly disavow Comicsgate and terminate all their contracts, which led to the uprising of Frog's personal tard army Warcampaign, who rose up against him saying that giving money to an SJW company like Dynamite is against Comicsgate (but were really just mad at an ethot that Dynamite was publishing a cover for), which all led to an unending cataclysm of autism that rages to this day. Frog probably thought this was as bad as it gets with Vikki. Little did he know this was only the beginning.

Then there was the IndieVolt scandal, which was when several Comicsgaters were roped into a confidence racket masquerading as a distribution offer from Spencer's Books and were relieved of money to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

So for these and other reasons, Comicsgate as a whole is very averse towards venturing outside the established indiegogo crowdfunding model. Frog especially so, because things are going the best for him out of anyone and therefore has the most to lose and least to gain by any sort of radical changes. The old adage "if it isn't broke don't fix it".



Before. You can see the multiple spikes to the IGG campaign prior to Jan 10th (the date of the interview) on Backertracker. The Fox News interview by Baron though is the perfect example of someone taking the initiative to break out of the youtube bubble like what @Gar For Archer is talking about though, so thank you for posting it.

I’m not even talking wider distribution here, just toning down the rhetoric a bit and putting a bigger focus on what makes your product good rather than why muh evil SJW’s are so evil. Don’t even have to disavow any of your old views, just focus more on pitching what’s great about your product (aside from the fact that it’s not woke) and maybe it might even have a chance of making the fanbase marginally less retarded by attracting more people who are here for the comics first and foremost, and less who are here for the politics and drama.

Of course I doubt that will be very good for business, since I wouldn’t be surprised that going all-in on YouTube drama will be far more lucrative than going all-in on comic books - at the very least in the short term, but probably in the long term too, when you consider that Marvel and DC drones get paid peanuts and the entire manga industry is practically run on slave labor. But that just circles back to the original point: what’s the purpose of Comicsgate? Is it making good comics for readers sick and tired of what Marvel and DC are doing, or is it the “activism” (AKA drama and politics)? Because doubling down on the latter is going to alienate a lot of people who probably agree with you on many things and would be interested in your books, but see the “movement” as really fucking cringe and gay and thus want nothing to do with it.

 

[Mister Dongs]

I’m not even talking wider distribution here, just toning down the rhetoric a bit and putting a bigger focus on what makes your product good rather than why muh evil SJW’s are so evil. Don’t even have to disavow any of your old views, just focus more on pitching what’s great about your product (aside from the fact that it’s not woke) and maybe it might even have a chance of making the fanbase marginally less retarded by attracting more people who are here for the comics first and foremost, and less who are here for the politics and drama.

Of course I doubt that will be very good for business, since I wouldn’t be surprised that going all-in on YouTube drama will be far more lucrative than going all-in on comic books - at the very least in the short term, but probably in the long term too, when you consider that Marvel and DC drones get paid peanuts and the entire manga industry is practically run on slave labor.

Those channels you describe do exist, whether it's ensemble shows talking about comics like the Brofessionals or programs primarily dedicated to platforming, discussing and extolling the merits of people's crowdfund projects like Michael Bancroft's channel. I don't talk about them here because they're really boring but they are there. But they don't do as well as the larger clickbait-fueled shows to the point that they get overshadowed by the larger "muh culture war" channels and that's just how it is.

But that just circles back to the original point: what’s the purpose of Comicsgate? Is it making good comics for readers sick and tired of what Marvel and DC are doing, or is it the “activism” (AKA drama and politics)? Because doubling down on the latter is going to alienate a lot of people who probably agree with you on many things and would be interested in your books, but see the “movement” as really fucking cringe and gay and thus want nothing to do with it.

Personally I'd say some mixture of both: activism in the form of making good comics for readers sick and tired of what Marvel and DC are doing. But you get two people in the same room on this topic and you'll get three opinions regarding as to which degrees of activism vs comics. You have guys who's whole image is that they don't care about anything beyond making high quality books like, uh, Douglas Ernst and any number of "i just want to make good books and stay away from drama" guys moving about CG, then on the other extreme you have guys like Richard C Meyer who's entire youtube channel is just yelling at twitter screenshots of comic SJWs, and then there's people like Quartering and Just Some Guy who argue that diverting in any way from making youtube videos shitting on Marvel and DC at all was a huge mistake. Who's right? Who's wrong? After many years of inconclusive and extremely destructive infighting, Comicsgate is in what I would describe as in a state of pluralism, where people are free to support whatever flavor reflects their personal definition best. For now at least.

CG was unsuccessful at attracting the more centrist audience it had compromised for but did manage to alienate or simply turn off a significant portion of it's more principled base. Worse though is that the anti-wokeness, still paid lip service too, began to ring hollow and growth began to sputter. Even the woke mobs interest in CG as a threat began to wane. (Note: When your enemies are losing their shit trying to destroy you it usually means your bombers are on target. When you're missing the target they focus most of their resources on other battles.)

Not necessarily. As cancelled and blacklisted creators reach parity in income potential with the mainstream and Comicsgate/Frog offering potentially huge paydays for anyone who can prove they were monetizeably cancelled, the woke mobs are becoming noticeably hesitant in targeting the biggest name talents they can in the industry to burnish their own profile. The prospect of gaining clout cancelling Frank Miller over pronouns or some shit was much more appealing when there wasn't the possibility of Frank Miller crossing the aisle into Comicsgate.

Irene Strychalski going from being the artist for Gwenpool (a character modeled after Marvel office waifudumpster Heather Antos) to declaring full Comicsgate and becoming a breakout star on Frog's streams was apparently deeply humiliating for the so-called whisper network. Amusingly this all happened completely outside of Frog's knowledge, who doesn't do a very good job with either following what's going on in Marvel or performing any due diligence in vetting his guests, and only platformed Renie in the first place because "Renie"'s enthusiastic fans demanded this cute girl come on his show. The woke mobs, as you put it, have been tailoring their increasingly impotent attempts to cow her around her crowdfund campaigns without much success, aware at this point that Irene will monetize each and every night letter on their part. Now that Frog does know, he's vowed to make sure her sequel to Fiendish hits six figures within 24 hours of launch.

Another recent development is Wesley Snipes' creative team for his upcoming comic The Exiled being comprised of near exclusively Comicsgate creators. In previous years this would have made Wesley Snipes indisputably associated with Comicsgate, yet for some reason the establishment is being really quiet about hanging that label on this specific entrepreneur. I for one eagerly await to see which noname comics jouno piece of shit wants to be the first to risk it all declaring Wesley Snipes a white supremacist chud Comicsgate Nazi.

Point being, neither of these examples really give off the sense that the opposition is backing off because of unconditional victory on their part.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

Irene Strychalski going from being the artist for Gwenpool (a character modeled after Marvel office waifudumpster Heather Antos) to declaring full Comicsgate

Where can I find the full story?

 

[Analog Devolved]

I don't know about all this recent cop comic drama but Mike Baron is a legend and Ethan would be a retard not to work with him instead of that stupid faggot cecil.

 

[jspit2.0]

You realize that I'm an established comics professional with a fanbase, right? The culture war stuff works against me more than it works for me.

You've sold comics based on nerdbloodsports. Cyberfrog is okay. Not worth twenty five dollars an issue, but its okay.

you've got it backwards. It's the "faggot friend" who is saying, "Ethan Van Sciver might be a good artist, but he's a shitty perthon so I'm not interested in CYBERFROG."

That's funny. Wasn't one of your and comicsgates primary arguments that creatives being assholes to fans IRL was sufficient reason for people to walk away and not buy there work? Should people buy a good Mark Waid or Dan Slott comic even if there a 'shitty person'? It's odd to see you make that argument.

Still, 12,000 people are buying CYBERFROG because it's rad. And it is!

They're buying it at ridiculous prices in limited numbers to please their internet daddy and fight the SJWs.