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Shawn Kane
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 12:43pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

To be fair, Meyer throws gas on the fire because his valid points are often overruled by his obsession with calling out pros who he disagrees with. He and others couldn't let Heather Antos post a dumb picture on Instagram without him first mind reading and trying explain that's why Marvel comics are big sellers. Granted there's a difference between today's editors and the more professional editors of the past but that's more of a sign of the times. Remember how Marvel treated JB under the Joe Q Regime?

Bloggers and the Twitter-verse call out Marvel for not employing female or black writers and all of the sudden, a tidal wave of new books come out with press releases touting the hiring of female and black writers. Marvel is called out for not having female-led comics and we get swamped with every B-level and C-level female character in their own book.* The thing I always appreciated about Christopher Priest/Jim Owsley, Louise Simonson, Keith Pollard, Ann Nocenti, Dwayne McDuffie, Mark Bright, June Brigman, Darryl Banks and Mary Jo Duffy is that they were professionals working on comics. I never thought "It's great that a woman is writing Power Man and Iron Fist" or "It's great that an African American is writing Spider-Man". I don't begrudge Marvel hiring people but I do feel it's insincere when they have to follow it with a press release to show how diverse their talent roster is. You were denying people the opportunity to begin with (since they do the hiring), possibly discouraging people from trying to enter the field and now we're supposed to gush at how wonderful Marvel is now?

*I remember blogs making fun of Squirrel-Girl for the longest time when she was just linked to Steve Ditko but now she's the greatest find of the decade because someone with a Tumblr thinks she's cool?


Edited by Shawn Kane on 15 May 2018 at 8:31pm
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Teapot + tempest? The pendulum swings one way, then the other; is it wrong to want to see the swings kept to a minimum and to maybe not encourage them by giving them too much attention?
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

When the books they produce sell under
19,000 copies, you hope there will be an
industry for the pendulum to swing back
on.

Champions #17 released in February sold
18,600 copies. It was written by Mark Waid
and drawn by Humberto Ramos.
The books features the new Ms. Marvel, the
new Hulk, the newish Spider-Man and the
newish Nova, Ironheart (female Iron M an)
and the n ew female Vision. These are the
characters they've been promoting.

The Heather Antos milkshake photo wasn't
just Antos. It wasn't really about having
a milkshake. It was all of the Asst.
Editor hires that were brought in to quiet
the masses. All females who unfortunately
didn't seem to be doing a very credible
job. Most of them have moved on or have
been let go. But, while there, the Asst.
Editor's were running the day to day
issues with the books and the talent.
When the photo dropped on Antos' Twitter
account, it got blasted by angry fans as
they saw a collective of what they felt
was the problem with Marvel. Meyer was one
of them. I only post this because most of
the reporting at the time never gave it
context.

I agree that Meyer has been over the line,
but not as often as his detractors would
have you think. Meyer isn't the only voice
on YouTube either. There are at least a
half a dozen channels devoted to the issue
and the number is growing.

I never knew this existed until the report
came out that Waid want to square off with
Meyer at Baltimore-Con last year. So, i
started to research the subject from both
angles. Now it seems that a communication
Waid (and rumored others) had with
Antartic Press could possibly be beyond
the petty gripe-fest, and actually
breached into criminal activities.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

"you hope there will be an industry for the pendulum to swing back on."

H*ll yeah. Just as records are being set by the movies, comic books are teetering on no longer being a mass-medium, more a glorified collectable fanzine community. When you hear of twenty 'alternate' covers of an issue #1 you might get a hint why... never mind inclusivity or diversity at all costs. Seeing character X as a female or supposed 'minority' really isn't grabbing me in the least. You know what would though? I mean aside from good writing and decent non-exteme muscles and boobs art? New creations!!! And as for the old ones, you can follow up the movies with accessible (non-multiple tie-in crossover milking of fans) and recognizable comic books. Comic books are not future-historically-important burning-issues-addressing graphic-sequential-narratives. They are affordable light melodrama usually, but I really liked them and am prepared to like them again like all those people paying to see the recycled movie versions of them. Melodrama not good enough? Go write your fourteen part, three title masterpiece with super powers elsewhere. Who looks to comic books for all this extraneous social jazz and where has that actually paid off?

Green Lantern/Green Arrow by Denny O'Neil & Neal Adams did not actually sell well, it was shifted to the back of The Flash and then brought back as more basic adventure by Mike Grell. I know they meant well and were trying to 'deal' with issues and the times and all, but it was continually preachy cutting into the entertainment aspect. I might even be 100% in agreement with the poilitics and sentiments of such things, but too much of it and it kills the motor of these concepts which after all were mostly dreamed up with 8-12 year old readers in mind, sorry.

I think it's great that there are diverse characters , there have been for quite awhile, but if it is white males mostly buying super hero comics... well, do the math. No problem here. I still have read about them, and read about female characters written by men, black characters written by white people, and vice-versa.

Missing: solid involving stories, new characters, and art that is not more suited to fringe interest undergrounds.

Missing: general audience accessible distribution.

Missing: actual business people as opposed to dream fulfilling fans turned pros.

Missing: f u n.

Comic books were affordable, fun to read and collect, they were colorful, unpretentious, friendly, and they sparked creativity beyond tracing or wanting the ego boost of seeing your name on something already famous. How could all that be an anachronism or so out of fashion? The only one stopping anyone from making such comics is ultimately themself.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 4:47pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Financially, the industry to a nosedive
last year. Meltdown Comics closed. I
repeat Meltdown Comics Closed! As big as
it was, it diversified it's income with a
stage space for comedy and open Mic
nights, the sale of original artwork and
podcasting. They were one of, if not the
largest comic shops on the west coast.
They are gone.

I don't condone many of Meyer's tactics,
but his notion that comic companies,
especially Marvel tend to look at
themselves as social clubs that produce
comics where everyone needs representation
And the books need to discuss it as
opposed to a business selling fun
adventure stories seems pretty on the
nose.

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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Wow, that Meyer guy has raised $273,309 indiegogo
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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

No the title didn't change.
Simply pointing to the behind the scenes
mess about Meyer's video commentaries
about Marvel comics being used as a social
and political manifesto. Waid seems to
have taken exception to it.

---

Oh, I wasn't trying to be snotty, when I got an email
on the thread it looked alien to me, even though I
posted on it, so it made me think the tile may have
been something else before.
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Stephen Churay
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

No worries, Thomas. Yeah, the number of
copies he has sold would've made him the
third highest selling graphic novel for
the month of April.

Right now, I'm interested if there will be
any action taken against Waid for, what at
least on the surface, appears to be,
interfering with the Antartic Press
contract.
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Mike Norris
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Meyer sounds like a horrible person. Nothing I've read convinces me otherwise.  
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Shawn Kane
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I got into a debate with a guy in the comments section at the Beat who proclaimed that no one had a problem with how "Reaganized" Marvel Comics were in the 80's. He basically said that JB, Stern, and Simonson were writing comics from a right wing point of view! I personally don't feel they came down on one side or the other in their stories but they allowed you to think.
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Thomas Woods
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Posted: 15 May 2018 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I got into a debate with a guy in the comments section
at the Beat who proclaimed that no one had a problem
with how "Reaganized" Marvel Comics were in the 80's.
He basically said that JB, Stern, and Simonson were
writing comics from a right wing point of view! I
personally don't feel they came down on one side or
the other in their stories but they allowed you to
think.

---

Comics seemed pretty neutral to me back then, but I
was a young punk. I think as the years have gone by,
media has fanned the flames of division to the
extreme.

I guess the biggest thing, that is being frowned at
now, is women were drawn super hot. I don't think that
was a right wing thing back then, but it seems to be
now.

Edited by Thomas Woods on 15 May 2018 at 9:06pm
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Eric Sofer
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Posted: 16 May 2018 at 4:38am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

Comics work best when the stories are neutral (and the writer's "voice" as well.)

CHARACTERS should be left wing, right wing, liberal, conservative, etc. Stories should be situational, but not consistently one aspect or another.

Mr. Byrne is amazing in achieving this. As are others, of course...
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