That article bases its "comic book stores are so back" on this source. (Archive)
I do have some issues with Spencer Baculi's conclusion because:
The figures are nearly all in percentages, not absolute numbers, which is one of the classic ways for people to make things appear better than they may be. For example, if my sales jump from 1 to 24 over a year, I can report a 2,300% jump in sales, but in truth, it's still just 24 items sold.
The only concrete number mentioned is $1.935 billion sales of comic books and graphic novels, but do they count manga to pad the numbers?
I wonder, because much of the "evidence" in the source comes from Comichub... and they carry manga.
Also, the source also adopted the same tone in previous years, such as in 2022, when the number is much higher - 2.16 billion (archive). In 2023, the number dipped to 1.87 billion (archive).
So, assuming the trend continues, the number fluctuation isn't high. I'd argue that if we take away the rah-rah tone, the figures suggest that sales are stabilizing around the 2 billion mark after the lockdowns were lifted, not dying or growing. Wake me up, Baculi, when sales actually make an actual significant leap so that we can actually call it a proper renaissance.
I wonder sometimes, what it would be like, if idiot asshole wastes of DNA woke up one day and realized: "I'm not a target demographic, I'm a fucking adult."
Bro, that horse left the stable decades ago. The reality is that people like Zack are the only target audience left for American comics to cater towards. Sure the medium might have started as children's entertainment, but that was back when comics were cheap, disposable magazines that you could pick up at any newstand or corner store. That hasn't been the case since, what, the 80's-90's? Maybe even earlier? Objecting to the content of the books on the grounds that it's not appropriate for children is silly because they're not children's entertainment, and they haven't been for a long time. If you surveyed a middle school classroom, how many boys do you think have ever even seen a comic book in real life, much less actually opened and read it? Meanwhile probably half of them have read Demon Slayer or Jujutsu Kaisen or whatever flavor of the month shonen manga is popular amongst the kids nowadays.
If they actually want to appeal to kids, they need to get rid of floppies. However, they can't do that because the only people who actually still buy their product have a nostalgic attachment to that format. They'll take dogshit art and dogshit stories as long as it's in a floppy, and won't touch a great story in a B&W tankouban because they see adapting to the market as surrendering to the Japs.
That article bases its "comic book stores are so back" on this source. (Archive)
I do have some issues with Spencer Baculi's conclusion because:
The figures are nearly all in percentages, not absolute numbers, which is one of the classic ways for people to make things appear better than they may be. For example, if my sales jump from 1 to 24 over a year, I can report a 2,300% jump in sales, but in truth, it's still just 24 items sold.
The only concrete number mentioned is $1.935 billion sales of comic books and graphic novels, but do they count manga to pad the numbers?
I wonder, because much of the "evidence" in the source comes from Comichub... and they carry manga.
Also, the source also adopted the same tone in previous years, such as in 2022, when the number is much higher - 2.16 billion (archive). In 2023, the number dipped to 1.87 billion (archive).
So, assuming the trend continues, the number fluctuation isn't high. I'd argue that if we take away the rah-rah tone, the figures suggest that sales are stabilizing around the 2 billion mark after the lockdowns were lifted, not dying or growing. Wake me up, Baculi, when sales actually make an actual significant leap so that we can actually call it a proper renaissance.
In the old days, before Richard decided that being a cheerleader for the mainstream comics industry was the way to go, you could expect a video from him looking at the sources and calling bullshit on articles like this. It was a good use for his autism and OCD. Well, I say that, but he might have been lying. Who can say? Maybe the comics industry has been booming for all these years, comics shops are goldmines, and I have simply missed the proverbial boat. I doubt it though.
The figures are nearly all in percentages, not absolute numbers, which is one of the classic ways for people to make things appear better than they may be. For example, if my sales jump from 1 to 24 over a year, I can report a 2,300% jump in sales, but in truth, it's still just 24 items sold.
In the old days, before Richard decided that being a cheerleader for the mainstream comics industry was the way to go, you could expect a video from him looking at the sources and calling bullshit on articles like this
This is an example of journalistic sleight of hand. The information is factual, but not entirely honest. You'd see this often during Covid where some rural area would have a single case and the next month there would be 3 cases and the news reports would be "Bumfuck County has seen a 300% increase in Covid cases".
It's very hard to know exact sales figures for floppies as they count only sales to shops and not sales to readers. This is by design, Retailers are incentivized to over order floppies to get exclusive variants they can sell for a profit. Most of the regular comics they order will be in dollar bins in a few months. But the sales figures are used as a tool to obfuscate how badly most shops are actually doing. Selling a million copies to shops sounds good and makes it seem like the industry is healthy but if you think any American comic series is pulling in a million readers, I have a bridge made entirely of pussy to sell you.
I went back to Zack's IGG just to get a feel for what's actually happening with his books and I've never been more convinced that his whole "good art takes time" thing is a giant load of horseshit that has nothing to do with why his books are so late. He's using it as a way to justify his criticism of Eric July's product. That's literally all it is.
FIRST KILL (funded 2022, 2892 backers) - The Rambo book has still not completed fulfillment. People are asking for refunds as recently as yesterday. This book has been written, drawn, and printed so there's no good reason for his backers to not have it after 3 years and certainly no reason that involves "art". Zack is telling the pissed off backers that they'll be getting their books in the "final wave" of fulfillment and this has been his response for at least a year.
THE JAWBREAKERS CONTINGENCY (funded 2023, 967 backers) - Zack's fagship series is still in a holding pattern. When the project launched, Zack estimated that the line art was "78% complete" as of September 11th, 2023 and the color art was "6% complete" as of September 23rd, 2023. Last update was in May, when he received a batch of pages from the artist of the back up story.
A couple of interesting exchanges in the comments:
Zack seems to acknowledge that it's his incompetence at fulfillment that's really at issue here and not the quality of art.
IRON SIGHTS 3/IMPOSSIBLE STARS 2 COMBO (funded 2022, 1150 backers) - 3 and a half years on and this shit is still vaporware. According to the updates page, Iron Sights 3 was "approved for print" in January of 2025, years after the campaign launched. I'm assuming this step in the process was Zack going over the print file in the most autistic way possible, which must have been a fucking nightmare for the wagie at the printing company who had to answer his emails and phone calls. After approving the print file, it took Zack another 6 months to send the book to the printers. That's the last official update on the campaign page. He responded to an angry backer in the comments section a couple of weeks ago that the books have been printed and sent to the fulfillment center and he'd sent them the backer list as of October 9th. Whether they'll get to the backers before the end of the year (or next year) remains to be seen, assuming Zack is even telling the truth and not saying whatever he has to in order to get a brief reprieve from his backers annoying him over the status of the books they paid for.
The other book in this campaign is where things get kind of interesting. On July 23rd of 2024, Zack posted an update saying the printer informed him that printing for Impossible Stars 2 was complete and the book was being packaged and shipped to the fulfillment center. On April 3rd of 2025, a backer asked about an estimated shipping date for the project. Zack responded:
So Zack has been sitting on a completed book for almost a year and a half while his backers have nothing. Sure, he thought about sending it out just to get something in their hands, but nah. Then he'd have to pay for more shipping and his 9 to 5 gig doesn't pay him enough for that. He also says Iron Sights went to the printer at least a week before he told his backers about it, but that "both books should fulfill in July".
They did not fulfill in July.
CAPTURE OR KILL (funded August 2024, 370 backers) - The "Bin Laden Goes to Vegas" book is (surprise) also nowhere to be seen. There was exactly one update for the project, 13 months ago:
Guess it was an issue. The last word about this came on June 18, 2025 when Zack claimed the book "has been approved and is going to the printers". God knows what the fuck that even means.
SUPERHERO FATIGUE (funded July 2024, 651 backers) - Last updated in March of 2025 when Zack announced the coloring had been completed "and now the lettering will begin". A response to a backer requesting an update in June revealed it was at that point still being lettered. He is, to this day, getting asked for updates by dents who didn't get the memo that he won't be giving updates anymore.
COMIC BOOK: THE COMIC BOOK (funded September 2024, 628 backers) - This will very likely never see the light of day and may indeed be the first book Zack just bails on. He updated back in March with a link to a poll asking backers what the future of the project should be. The poll has about half the number of respondents as the book has backers and the vast majority of them seem to think Zack should keep going with the concept. This probably did not sit well with Zack, owing to his supposed "crisis of faith" regarding crowdfunding his comics. Zack doesn't seem to give a single shit about what his backers think, so asking them to vote on the future of one of his campaigns seems very odd to me. My theory is that somewhere deep in his retarded jarhead brain, Zack knows this idea is total shit. He's way behind schedule on multiple campaigns and is getting shit for it left and right. He's already tired of giving updates to his dents and he's probably a cunt hair from deciding he doesn't give refunds anymore. Asking the dents to make the choice for him seems like a way to absolve himself of having to make the decision to axe the whole thing and save himself the headache. He knows if he just abandons it, he's probably done and he really wanted to be able to hang this on his audience.
It seems evident that Zack's bullshit "good art" shtick is more an excuse for his own laziness and incompetence than it is about the actual quality of his books. The only book among his unfulfilled campaigns that might be able to use the "art" excuse is Jawbreakers. All the others have been written and drawn. The backers aren't really waiting for "good art", they're waiting for Zack to get off his ass and fulfill the fucking campaigns.
All this shucking and jiving about art serves as a distraction to his dents so he can point at Eric July and say "See, guys? The books his backers pay for and receive in a timely manner are low quality, bad books. The books you've been waiting for me to send you for 3 years are ART and you'll see that whenever you get them!"
He likely can't afford to fulfill. Those campaigns were funded years ago, and prices for printing, shipping/courier, etc have jacked up a lot since then. He likely has to eat a considerable loss if he fulfill.
This is why smart people have the products almost or already ready to go when they crowdfund. That way, they can fulfill and make a profit without worrying about fluctuating costs and overheads.
Factor in the retards' inability to set aside the funds received to actually fulfill orders instead of buying toys and these people are terrible, terrible businesspeople.
He likely can't afford to fulfill. Those campaigns were funded years ago, and prices for printing, shipping/courier, etc have jacked up a lot since then. He likely has to eat a considerable loss if he fulfill.
This is why smart people have the products almost or already ready to go when they crowdfund. That way, they can fulfill and make a profit without worrying about fluctuating costs and overheads.
Factor in the retards' inability to set aside the funds received to actually fulfill orders instead of buying toys and these people are terrible, terrible businesspeople.
"Well, it doesn't matter. It isn't true anyway. My father was quite wealthy, actually. He was a thief." -- Kivas Fajo, Star Trek: The Next Generation, s03ep22, "The Most Toys"
Crowdfunding has been a license to steal for decades, just ask Zoey Quinn about her unfulfilled project. It does make it hard for Richard to claim any kind of moral high ground though.
FIRST KILL (funded 2022, 2892 backers) - The Rambo book has still not completed fulfillment. People are asking for refunds as recently as yesterday. This book has been written, drawn, and printed so there's no good reason for his backers to not have it after 3 years and certainly no reason that involves "art". Zack is telling the pissed off backers that they'll be getting their books in the "final wave" of fulfillment and this has been his response for at least a year.
THE JAWBREAKERS CONTINGENCY (funded 2023, 967 backers) - Zack's fagship series is still in a holding pattern. When the project launched, Zack estimated that the line art was "78% complete" as of September 11th, 2023 and the color art was "6% complete" as of September 23rd, 2023. Last update was in May, when he received a batch of pages from the artist of the back up story.
A couple of interesting exchanges in the comments:
Zack seems to acknowledge that it's his incompetence at fulfillment that's really at issue here and not the quality of art.
IRON SIGHTS 3/IMPOSSIBLE STARS 2 COMBO (funded 2022, 1150 backers) - 3 and a half years on and this shit is still vaporware. According to the updates page, Iron Sights 3 was "approved for print" in January of 2025, years after the campaign launched. I'm assuming this step in the process was Zack going over the print file in the most autistic way possible, which must have been a fucking nightmare for the wagie at the printing company who had to answer his emails and phone calls. After approving the print file, it took Zack another 6 months to send the book to the printers. That's the last official update on the campaign page. He responded to an angry backer in the comments section a couple of weeks ago that the books have been printed and sent to the fulfillment center and he'd sent them the backer list as of October 9th. Whether they'll get to the backers before the end of the year (or next year) remains to be seen, assuming Zack is even telling the truth and not saying whatever he has to in order to get a brief reprieve from his backers annoying him over the status of the books they paid for.
The other book in this campaign is where things get kind of interesting. On July 23rd of 2024, Zack posted an update saying the printer informed him that printing for Impossible Stars 2 was complete and the book was being packaged and shipped to the fulfillment center. On April 3rd of 2025, a backer asked about an estimated shipping date for the project. Zack responded:
So Zack has been sitting on a completed book for almost a year and a half while his backers have nothing. Sure, he thought about sending it out just to get something in their hands, but nah. Then he'd have to pay for more shipping and his 9 to 5 gig doesn't pay him enough for that. He also says Iron Sights went to the printer at least a week before he told his backers about it, but that "both books should fulfill in July".
The problem with quality is that it can be such a subjective and unquantifiable asset that Ethan and Zack can hide behind it whenever their projects lateness comes to the fore. But so far, the only ones enthusiastically vouching for the super quality of Ethan and Zack's books are, of course, Ethan and Zack.
It's been said that it's taking Ethan longer to release ReignBro the Brute than it took Michalangelo to finish the Sisitine Chapel, but let's go with Zack now, he has launched over a couple dozen projects since 2017 including almost 20 different comic titles. This is eight years. Time enough to study a Bachelors, a Masters and a Doctorate in Business, in IT or in English... what have you or in other words, enough to become reasonably proficient at what you do. Whether his writing has improved only he seems to believe so. But at known quantities such as delivery time he definitely has not.
It seems difficult at any rate. Much more responsible crowdfunders who went out of their way to deliver such as Clint Stoker, @NasserRabadi13 and Doug Tennapel seem to have given up either because the creating, printing+S&H process is too much of a drag or because they don't need whatever rewards they get from fulfilling anymore. And that's the thing, when it wasn't worth it anymore they stopped launching crap for their followers to fund, i.e. at least they didn't set up a charade to string along the backers indefinitely. Ethan and Zack are different though. Ethan is an attwhore who basks in his dwindling status as a comic books e-celebrity. Zack... well as much contempt as Zack has for his fanbase, he needs them for the parasocial relationships, and it seems that up till now AI has failed to completely replace them.
Zack's been lately trying to paint himself as some sort of pop culture Cassandra, warning us all about the evil of the Birthday Party Clowns and the terrible black man who is putting mediocre books out on time but nobody would listen. Now he's telling his dwindling audience he's been absolutely right about everything and the proof of this is that he no longer gets any pushback for his retarded opinions. According to Zack, his hot takes and flawed reasoning have become "common knowledge" and therefore nobody bothers to refute these now self-evident truths.
It has absolutely nothing to do with Zack blocking and banning anyone who challenges his opinions until his audience is pared down to a sycophantic cadre of fart huffers, nope. It's because he was right all along and his critics have had to stay silent rather than admit he was correct.
decided to go check on Richard's most recent campaign "Capture or Kill" to see what's happening and with an estimated date of December 2024 is unsurprisingly late.
back in march though he said it was at the printer.
a few months later however there was still no update and no books so people asked again and received top notch customer service.
this isn't 100% something a comics pro would say in 2017 that he would be incensed by or anything. frankly how dare the plebs who bought a product from him be irritated that some closeted faggot stole their money.
but don't worry guys, the book was once again sent to the printers in June. what happened to the one he sent in march? fuck you for asking birthday party clown.
and for the first time since the campaign ended nearly a year ago we even got an update! Truly we are blessed kekarinos!
4 months later though and still no books. Perhaps he's physically walking the pages over to the printer in China from the shitty couch he's bumming at in bumfuck Texas or some shit like a religious pilgrimage? Will we see the book be sent to the printer a third time? who knows, all i know is this is totally that stupid nigger Eric July's fault somehow!
3/10/25 - It's at the printers
6/18/25 - It's approved and going to the printers
7/1/25 - It's being sent to the printers
Hey, wait a minute... I thought you said... But then it... This saga is poorly written; it must be a Richard Meyer project.
Also, completely petty, but seeing some denthead ratio'ing the Youtube channel owning, big time comic book peddler in his project's comments is just making this the best time of the year.
I found this delusional comment on this video (hearted of course):
These guys (and their community) regularly talk about Rippaverse fans as delusional retards but then they post shit like this.
First, the cope was that Eric July was never going to fulfill his comic book campaign.
Then, when it was fulfilled, it was never going to be anything more than a single successful book campaign.
Now, we're at like 20-something books released, and it's now it's just slop while True and Honest comic book fans will appreciate the delicacy that is YBZ if you simply just wait a bit.
but let's go with Zack now, he has launched over a couple dozen projects since 2017 including almost 20 different comic titles. This is eight years. Time enough to study a Bachelors, a Masters and a Doctorate in Business, in IT or in English... what have you or in other words, enough to become reasonably proficient at what you do. Whether his writing has improved only he seems to believe so. But at known quantities such as delivery time he definitely has not.
Is this simply waiting for a bit? Sounds to me like a lot of fucking about and being focused on other things beside what you committed to delivering to your fans, or improving this process to become better at meeting commitments in the future (ex. initial commitments delayed 3 years, later ones delayed 1 year, etc...).
If a comic book campaign originally suggested that it would take say 8 years to deliver on a promised comic, people would (rightfully) dismiss it as a retarded project to invest in. So instead, they promise it within a year (or two), and then ghost the campaign, providing a string of bullshit to avoid signs of total abandonment and fraud. Somehow this is okay specifically with comic book development. If you went to a sit-down restaurant that if you just wait 6 hours, you will have an incredible meal, it would be consider absurd and rightfully mocked. If Toyota were selling pre-orders for a new Civic model they didn't plan to deliver for 6 years, it would be laughed at as being ridiculous.
The only other community I have seen such astronomical level of cope was the one for Cube World. These guys would constantly fight to defend the retarded developer on Twitter/X, Reddit, etc, for endless delays and missed commitments, even after years of radio silence on the project before dumping some shitter release as the final version and then disappearing in the wind.
I think what it comes down to, is that people seem to be more objective when they have no skin in the game. They can be on the outside looking in, and not feel obligated to defend a specific position. However, once someone throws down money on a specific position/scenario, well now they don't want to feel like a fucking schmuck for wasting money on something. Most people will shrug it off as a wasted opportunity, and move on, get refund, etc. There is some segment of this group though that cannot accept that they made a poor/bad decision, and will utilize any level of cope to defend their investment. If the general consensus is that their investment is retarded, then they would then be retarded for making that choice, so they must do what they can to defend it to avoid Total Ego Death.
Zack releases the most average comic books, and it takes him a pathetic amount of time. But watching Zack getting pissy with Eric about who is releasing the better schlock is fucking embarrassing.
I'm just going to recycle one of my old posts about how seriously I think of the quality or quantity nonsense with this group. Because it doesn't really matter if your comic is the greatest thing since Watchmen if you can't be fucked to release the thing. Though of course, since I posses basic pattern recognition, I will let you all know that Zack's next comics are just going to be more generic military men in a knock off of someone else's IP.
to justify one of them taking roughly 10 times longer to produce.
Like both, hate both, I've read the initial issues of both Cyberfrog and Isom, and I can say with absolute certainty, that neither needs the massive time frame that EVS and YaTardRich seem to believe is necessary to make a master piece of true comic genius. If you make a 6/10 comic that I can read monthly. or a 6/10 I can read every leap year, than the one that I can read consistently is probably gonna edge out the one that I can only read when Mercury is in retrograde and I have sacrificed the requisite goat.
Also, I know they're both focused on standard superhero art, but let's be real, if you told good stories, had consistent releases, you can definitely get away with not going nearly as in depth with the art, and probably save yourself quite a bit of time. I love Mike Mignola's work, and his stuff is not super detailed, he uses a lot of flat colors, but it kicks ass because he writes good stories, and his style is consistent and the use of heavy blacks and dark colors lends itself to some of the moodier stories.
