Arkhaven and Dark Legion are not alone:
Jawbreakers made history with one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever. The industry professionals who worked so hard to create a left-wing echo chamber, however, would not let this stand.
A Harassment Campaign Against Meyer
Once the project funded, Mark Waid opened fire on Meyer again, posting several rambling Facebook messages. “I have a call in to Antarctic Press,” Waid said. “Curious as to how they feel about publishing creators whose marketing strategy is to allegedly (*koff*) encourage their fans to threaten the employees of stores, and/or harass and one-star-review-bomb stores, that don’t offer their product.” There is nothing written on Meyer’s public social media profiles that come anywhere near the accusations Waid made. Waid did, however, encourage the industry to attack Meyer.
“Gee, I can’t imagine why publishers wouldn’t want to affiliate with this audience,” tweeted Gail Simone, a feminist icon in the industry.
“Is that the thing where those twits started bullying female Marvel editors after Flo’s memorial? Yup, that was creepy,” said Neil Gaiman, speaking of #ComicsGate and citing left wing op-eds as his source for his alleged facts.
“The game plan of targeting, attacking, labeling, threatening, and harassing people followed by ‘if you don’t buy MY book I’m going to attack, label, threaten and harass YOU!’ Seems a problematic one,” commented Erik Larsen, founder of Image Comics, who published a book by Michelle Perez, earlier in 2018, mocked Richard Meyer’s prior military service and publicly wished he had been killed in combat.
These creators inspired retailers to make tweets about refusing to carry Jawbreakers. Left-wing activists then became involved, sending a flurry of hatred against Meyer and his team. “Hate speech is not free speech & fascists like [Meyer] have no place in this diverse, inclusive industry,” posted one woman, who claims in her Facebook profile that she works for Planned Parenthood.
Conservative Creators Speak Out
The industry stood firm against conservative creators because they are outspoken against the extreme politics in comics, and as the left is wont to do, mischaracterized them in an effort to delegitimize their product. It worked to some extent, as Antarctic Press was pressured into backing out of publishing their book for comic store distribution.
I’m very pleased that Jawbreakers II got such strong support; it sends a clear message to the industry that the success of Alt★Hero was not a unique one-off and that there is a real market for non-SJW comics. However, I do wish they had decided to bring it to Dark Legion rather than trying to set up yet another new independent publishing company, because after spending the last three years building up a team and distribution channel, I am well aware of how much work is in store for them. For the record, I’m not simply saying this out of self-interest; I told Team Milo the exact same thing when they elected to try setting up their own publishing company on the basis of Simon & Schuster’s success with Dangerous. Even starting with a #1 bestselling hit is no guarantee of short-term survival, let alone lasting success.
But this is one of the ongoing challenges that will be faced by the Right as our options for working with SJW-converged institutions continue to disappear. Everyone who is successful tends to want to do their own thing and maximize their short-term interests, which is why we tend to have so much trouble successfully building strong, stable, alternative institutions. I don’t blame creators who prefer to go their own way, indeed, I freely admit that it is often to their short-term interest to do so right now. But I won’t shed any tears when they eventually discover why institutions are important either.
It is, however, a little frustrating to see one creator after another soar, Icarus-like, sunward on a solo flight, only to crash into the sea before long. Especially when I think about where Castalia might be right now if I had been able to convince some of them that they would have been better off in the long-term by working with us rather than going it alone.