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Yesterday, JasperHansen brought up a poignant point on Lady Jess’s (a_natural_beauty here on DW) recent journal entry on the bravery of creators in comics. He had mentioned the concept of connection as it pertains to humanity, and what connection has been looking like for a while for all of humankind. Responding to a comment I made on Jess’s entry about how connection in today’s age has been suffering an existential crisis of sorts, Jasper went further to really dig into some of the glaring reasons why it seems like these days the world seems to be even more closeted than ever before. In a way, it’s like the Covid-19 pandemic never completely left us. Aside from the persistent menace of the coronavirus in America and anti-vaxxing rhetoric is still as loud as ever, there is a new pandemic that’s taking the world by storm, and this is one that needs our complete undivided attention.
I had explained how the comics industry has taken one blow after another over the past half-decade, with mainstream comics now on their death throes, and their respective cinematic universes practically breathing their last. Retail in the comics world continues to die a slow death, with another deathblow dealt after the industry axed one of its biggest trailblazers; the founder of the pop culture phenom that is “Free Comic Book Day”, Joe Field, has essentially been evicted from his retail shop in Concord, California – Flying Colors Comics. I live pretty close to Concord; in fact, one of my parents worked for a Bank of America accounting firm in Concord for nearly four decades. And to hear that the industry that thrived from this simple idea of a day devoted to free comics and graphic novels told a successful businessman in virtually my own neighborhood, “Sorry Mr. Field, but… your lease is up, and you’re not up for an extension. We appreciate your monumental contributions, but we’re afraid we must let you go. And… well, we don’t really have any compensation or severance for you, either. We wish you luck on your future endeavors.”
Wow. Just like that, a part of a languishing entertainment media industry effectively fired one of its biggest players. Odds are Free Comic Book Day will probably die too, since the honchos in the business are cutting corners every chance they get. The direct market, which is responsible for so many lost opportunities, rejections of fresh ideas that could revive the industry and the integrity of the comic book medium, and more retail comic bookshops closing their doors because of “non-returnable” orders which eventually literally crumbled into dust, have done near-irreparable damage to the business side of comics and, in a way, the perception of the medium as it now is. It didn’t help that 2023 was the year of the “Comics Creators’ Lives Matter” movement when the news of Ian McGinty’s death at the age of 38 was made public; McGinty had died from the stress of a brutal working schedule by his publisher, with completely unrealistic deadlines that literally sapped him of all life. He was the comics industry’s George Floyd, and I don’t use that analogy lightly; the ComicsBrokeMe campaign on Twitter exposed all the criminal, abusive, and immoral ways that the publishers and corporate headmasters of the industry had squeezed the life out of their clients and tried to hide the truth for fear of backlash. But truth came out, the backlash followed, and the two biggest guns in the business – The Big Two: Marvel Comics and DC Comics – made the move to repair the damage and ended up nearly undermining the entire industry. After McGinty’s death, Marvel audaciously reversed their previous acknowledgement of crediting Stan Lee for all the painstaking and powerful ideas and iconic characters Jack Kirby created in a blatant disservice to Kirby’s family, who had fought tooth and nail to preserve his legacy and to get reparations duly owed to him. They don’t call Jack the “King of Comics” for no reason, and his statement from nearly a half-century ago to a young artist at a comic con – “Kid, don’t do comics. Comics will break your heart” – was a grim foresight that came to pass for all struggling creators. And with the industry giving the cold shoulder to the independent comics scene through closed-minded gatekeepers, and even iconic bookstore chains feeling the crunch (anybody remember Borders? Yeah, that name’s ancient now…), it stands to reason why one comic book retailer (I think it was Field) lamented that 2023 could be the end of the industry.
On the webcomics scene, things seem to be devolving too. Over the past decade or so I’ve seen a disconcerting spike in trolls all over the internet; trolling has almost become a trend or fad. Thanks to the birth of social media, the Web has become even more of a double-edged sword than ever before; I’ve seen so many forums and websites dedicated to crushing the hopes, dreams, and ambitions of aspiring comic creators itching to get their feet wet – The Bad Webcomics Wiki is one of the worst offenders. This congregation of abusive, vindictive, and sadistic hermits get off on tearing down creators of popular comics by creating nonsensical “guidelines” that the creators apparently flunked on and then denigrate the artist and their work to their (empty) hearts’ content. The “reviews” I’ve seen on that site made me sick to my stomach – in a world where the Big Two are shells of their former selves, there are people out there who instead of encouraging new and original ideas, get off on declaring themselves the new “gatekeepers” and basically take a Rush Limbaugh approach by completely eviscerating new creators based on their “merit”? It’s inconceivable how a site like that is still allowed exist. Okay, I don’t actually know if it still does; I haven’t bothered to check, and I have no intention of even giving that hate group any clicks.
The wiki once attacked a comic I’m a big fan of, and when the creator responded with a page update clearly explaining why she writes and draws her comic – because it’s a fun hobby to her, and she loves the learning process which helps her to improve with every new episode. She doesn’t have any intention of making a living from it, which is a sentiment I had to accept back in 2010 after numerous failed attempts at creating a publishing business for myself and others – my friend and collaborator on Lil’ Hero Artists, Nick Vollmer, as well as our former publisher, Peter Simeti of Alterna Comics, had to break the hard truth to me that comics is not a viable business venture. A lot of start-up capital is paramount for marketing and creating comics, but the return on investment is never guaranteed and oftentimes, as I learned from those failures, never comes at all.
So, when I saw my friend’s page responding civilly to the Wiki about why she was in this career, I naturally felt inclined to defend her on those grounds, as did so many other fans of hers. We collectively ripped into the arrogant prick from the wiki, dismissing his points as trivial and frivolous. I took a step further and told the jerk that if he hasn’t ever created a comic of his own, then he has no business telling others what makes a good comic or not. If he hasn’t been there, then his “opinion” means jack-shit – if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when people act like they know how to do something without having any experience or results to show for it. Hypocrisy is not a badge of honor, it’s a giant “DUNCE” gnome hat.
The Wiki Troll’s response to my sharp disapproval of his “professionalism” was basically telling me to know my place and learn how to spell. It’s funny that he said that; my response held well by grammatical standards, as opposed to his bare-boned simplistic rebuke, which had a typo or two and looked like something a stubborn and disobedient four-year old would’ve written. Unprofessional AND immature. Eventually the Wiki Troll left a parting comment after being soundly owned by all of us (I know; nobody says “owned” or “pawned” anymore, bear with me), saying he would say no more on the subject, but insisted that his hateful and arrogant criticism was legitimate.
And that was it.
Which brings me back to Jasper’s point, and Jess’s statement on bravery in comics. You’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes the world is a happy place today. There are so many unspeakable atrocities happening today – we have two baseless genocides raging, waged by leaders that can be called anything BUT leaders, there’s the accompanying escalating political unrest between them and other nations, there’s threats of nuclear warfare, civil wars and the like, and a climate crisis that’s about to skin the Earth alive as weather experts expect an inferno of a summer steadily approaching. At a time like this, much like during the pandemic, humankind needs escapism. People worldwide are exhausted and sick of the constant “The End Times are coming!” blared out by a mainstream global news media inexplicably fixated more on sensationalizing Hell on Earth and raking in dollars from traumatized communities spanning the globe than actually being “news”.
But much like America had during the Covid lockdown, people are confined to their homes. Only this time, it’s by their own choice – social media use spiked during the pandemic as did the mounting tragedies and casualties. But social media changed over the lockdown, and in many ways, it’s become a tool for terrorizing people’s lives rather than to bring people together. And as I told Jasper, this isn’t just limited to world politics. The isolation over the lockdown and the more attached people have become to social media and the internet in general have negatively impacted humanity as a whole and now, combined with all the strife happening worldwide, we’ve generally become more and more closeted and apathetic to each other. Flame wars are incinerating forums in all areas, be it politics, climate change denial, the problem with proliferation of deadly weapons becoming more available and easier to traffic, and yes, even entertainment. And in entertainment, sadly comics are not an exception.
I’m gonna end with this. For people ranting on how artificial intelligence is the instrument of humankind’s extinction, my question to them is: first off, who created artificial intelligence? Wasn’t it humankind? And therefore, since we humans are flawed by default, it stands to reason that A.I. is also imperfect and has its weaknesses as well. It ain’t A.I. that spells “extinction” for all of humankind – it’s us. We’re at a time where we’re using A.I. to destroy each other in every way, machines have nothing to do with it. Machines do what is commanded by a human; a human has to press the power button to turn a laptop, TV, or video game console on, a human has to plug an adapter into a power outlet to start up a blender, a human has to issue the “save” command in Microsoft Word for the app to preserve a file. We can’t blame A.I. for our problems, we CREATED A.I. Thus, this collective failure to communicate is on us. And with a climate crisis threatening more devastating mood swings in weather, it behooves us to remember how crucial communication and connection are, and to return the concept of entertainment – of escapism – to what it once was. Otherwise, we run the very risk of continuing to hate each other just because we disagree on something, and that’s a horrible way to live.
“An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.” -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, (1869- 1948)
Peace and love to you all -- seriously.
Nana
--J.D.
