Ethan Van Sciver’s fourth video and counting about QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1: By the Book and me. Which, by the way, is still the #2 New Release in Kindle Comics & Graphics, just behind Marvel’s Darth Vader #10. I have no idea what he’s going on about now, as I didn’t bother watching it. But perhaps it will prove entertaining if this sort of thing amuses you.
The good news is that due to the unexpected success of our first release, I can announce that BOTH of Arkhaven’s first two digital comics will be released on a monthly schedule for the foreseeable future. RIGHT HO, JEEVES #1: A Binge at Brinkley will be out later this month and QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #2: Zero Zero Tango, will be out in February. The first print editions are still expected to appear in February.
We will also be making an announcement about a second comics imprint soon. And about the ability to preorder the following.
Do universities still educate their students or does political correctness hinder genuine intellectual development?
The political polarization that has divided the nation escalated last year on many campuses. Evergreen State in Washington witnessed a virtual campus takeover by left-wing student activists, leading to the departure of two prominent professors. NYU’s Jonathan Haidt argues that the leftist turn on campus, especially as expressed in the “social justice” orientation of the humanities and social sciences, poses as great a danger to society as the hyper-partisan politics of Fox News.
To Haidt’s point, a scandal erupted in the fall in Canada when Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate teaching assistant for an introductory communications course at Wilfrid Laurier University, played a video clip in which Jordan Peterson, a controversial professor, declared his refusal to address trans students by their preferred gender-neutral pronouns. Shepherd claims she was showing the video neutrally, just to start a debate about grammar usage, but she was reprimanded by her supervisors in a now-infamous meeting that she recorded and released to the media.
One prominent commentator, while decrying the seeming censorship evinced by Shepherd’s ordeal, likened Peterson’s challenge to current campus orthodoxies to the skepticism practiced by Socrates — just the kind of thing that should lead to increased knowledge. Indeed, many now insist that healthy skepticism and free inquiry, the supposed heart of the Socratic method and what Haidt labels the “disinterested pursuit of truth,” are in dire need of a revival in the academy.
I’m not so sure.
In fact, in important ways the social justice approach — which emphasizes the dynamics of power and oppression — that many fear has taken over the humanities and social sciences at its best is actually an improvement over the “disinterested pursuit of truth” and more in line with the Socratic method. In fact, rather than constituting an attack on knowledge, the social justice lens reflects new ideas generated by academic disciplines and experts within them, and generally encourages expanding our knowledge and opening up subjects to new perspectives, much like Socrates advocated.
Translation: we’ll write fiction, call it definitive, and you’ll like it, you outmoded relics with your outdated affection for “truth”, “history”, and “science”.
George Orwell would not have been even remotely surprised. SJW Konvergenzsprache is real-world Newspeak. And this namedropping appeal to “Socratic dialectic” is pure pseudodialectical rhetoric from the Aristotelian perspective.
As the old Italian admiral told me, in the end, it always comes down to Aristotle vs Plato.
The Internet is a big place. A very big place. So big, in fact, that you can go repeatedly through multiple rounds of “don’t they know… no, I guess they really don’t” no matter how much traffic you happen to build up the years. And the one thing that I would point out here is that all those people named have HUGE platforms. IDK if Vox has a different avenue besides his bog, but only roughly 1000 people seem to read it, based off the number on the side. That made me think that maybe he was alt right. I understand the point tho. – Capn Cummings
Yeah, that number on the side is just a little misleading. The actual pageviews today: 100,387. The actual pageviews yesterday: 105,373. That will work out to be about 2.8 million for the month, which is pretty much the new normal.
Moira Greyland is the daughter of famous authors Marion Bradley Zimmer and Walter Breen. She has written a memoir about growing up in a “queer” family and suffering hideous child abuse. In The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon, Greyland details the horror of being a helpless child trapped in a far left fantasy world. The world constructed by her mother, author of The Mists of Avalon, and her father, author of Greek Love (a book literally detailing why pedophilia is fine and even good) was a dark and frightening world. Unfortunately, though many saw how unhappy Greyland and her siblings were, no one stepped in to stop it and, in fact, turned a blind eye.
Greyland’s description of her family’s philosophy is chilling. “All sex is always right no matter what.” This philosophy forced her to endure being raped by her father at the achingly innocent age of four and molested by her mother throughout her childhood. Both her parents insisted she was gay because they believed that every person is naturally homosexual and will be homosexual if not corrupted by heterosexual experiences. Through the exposure to two gay parents and relatives and their friends, Greyland developed a theory about homosexuality that is very unpopular.
“It is my belief that homosexuality is a matter of IMPRINTING, in the same way that BDSM fantasies are,” she explains in the book. “To the BDSM’er, continued practice of the fantasy is sexually exciting. To the gay person, naturally, the same. However, from what I have seen, neither one creates healing. My mother became a lesbian because she was raped by her father. My father was molested by a priest–and regarded it as being the only love he had ever experienced. There are a vanishingly few people who are exclusively gay, but far more who have relationships with people of BOTH genders, as my parents and other relatives did.”
This, of course, is not allowed to be discussed in the age of the Gaystappo, which must be praised at all times. But do we not owe it to the children raised in these environments to hear their experiences? Does the #MeToo craze include the children of gays who did not have idyllic experiences?
Read the whole thing. It’s a remarkably in-depth article about Moira Greyland’s The Last Closet.
Sargon of Akkad, a youtuber, recently made a video asking eight questions of the Alt-Right, and this caused me to wonder what you would consider the correct answers to be.
1: Are Jews Oppressing White people?
No. This is an exaggeration. Some elite Jews are suppressing non-Jews, for example, a very small number of Jews in elite university admissions offices are suppressing Asians and whites in the U.S. university system while aiding blacks, Hispanics, and other foreigners.
2. Should Interracial Couples be forced to separate?
No. People deserve to experience the consequences of their decisions and actions.
3. Should the government prevent citizens from leaving the country to preserve the race?
No. But it should not feel any responsibility to protect them, provide for them, or help them return when their hosts turn on them either.
4. Should the state control education?
No. It has done an abysmal job by every measure.
5. Should the state control the media?
No.
6. Should the State control the economy?
No. But it should control which parties are permitted, and are not permitted, to participate in the national economy. And it should always act to ensure that the nation benefits at the expense of foreign parties when those parties wish to participate.
7. Do the decisions of individual white people matter to the alt right’s goals?
No. Not even a little bit.
8. Should women have a role in public life? (or should they be home makers?)
The question is a false dichotomy. Being a homemaker is the most important role a woman can have in public life. They should be rewarded, encouraged and celebrated for doing so.
Of course, all these questions are loaded and amount to little more than a feeble attempt to discredit and disqualify the Alt Right. More importantly, they are irrelevant. The tactics and the strategies are not the objective; how you get there does not matter if the most important thing is to get there. We presently live in a lotus-eating society of freeloaders, which is why our society is going to collapse. And it should come as no surprise that the lotus-eating freeloaders are indignant at the observation that they are going to have to stop eating lotuses and freeloading if they wish to continue eating at all.
However, what Capn Cummings fails to realize is that I also believe in winning by being objectively superior to the competition, regardless of what they happen to be, and by thinking beyond the conventional assumptions. That’s why my band recorded four Billboard Top 40 Club Chart hits. That’s why my game development house went 6x platinum with our fourth game. That’s why Castalia House already publishes some of the best science fiction and fantasy in the genre, and why Arkhaven’s debut digital comic book was the #1 New Release on Kindle.
I don’t care about comic books. But I care deeply about Arkhaven becoming the very best publisher of the best-written, most popular comic books and graphic novels in the comics industry. I expect excellence from everyone involved in the project, including myself. Sure, we fall short. Sure, we have no clue what we’re doing yet. It took me 12 tries to get Kindle Comic Creator to simply kick out a working .mobi file without crashing first. I still don’t really understand what flatting is or why it is necessary.
So what? I don’t need to know. I certainly don’t need to care. I just need to stay out of the way of the experts with whom I’m surrounding myself, and to whom I’m handing over the responsibility to do it right. I’m not afraid to bring on better writers than me, to hire the very best artists and colorists we can find, and more importantly, to listen to the substantive criticism and seek to continuously improve.
If you compare the first print editions that Castalia published to the most recent ones, the differences are striking. Even though all the same people are involved, we have improved with almost every single book of the 60 we’ve produced so far. It’s an iterative process. And that means the comics we are now producing are almost certainly the very worst we will ever produce.
Let me give you an example. I watched a video review of QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1: By the Book yesterday. The reviewer made a good point about how we had no text-indicators of sound effects; in other words, no BIFF BANG BOOM! So, I talked to the artist right after I finished watching the video and now issue #2 will have them. On the other hand, the reviewer also made a point about the lack of action in the first issue, which made me laugh for reasons that anyone who has read the novel will understand. That’s a “problem” that doesn’t need to be addressed and will take care of itself as the story continues.
But as for those who wring their hands over politics, well, I couldn’t care less what they think. They obviously haven’t even bothered to look at anything we’ve done in the comic space so far, let alone read any of my novels. Yes, there will be politics in some of our comics, but because we are not SJWs, we are not afraid to present opposing perspectives fairly and use the conflict to generate interesting plots and storylines and characters. Can anyone honestly say that Captain Europa is an unfair representation of a certain perspective that I most certainly do not share?
It’s more disappointing than anything to see criticism this uninformed and insubstantial, not because it hurts anyone’s feelings, but because it is literally useless. However, it is a good sign, because it is an indicator that interest in what we are doing is beginning to grow. Of course, the insecure professionals will do their usual OMG LOL THIS IS SO TERRIBLE THING while we proceed to demonstrate the total irrelevance of their esoteric expertise.
This review is precisely why I pay no attention to the professionals in the comics industry. Their sales are plummeting. Their channels are dying. Their industry is hopelessly converged. Their stories are lightweight, superficial, and boring, and they can’t successfully develop any interesting new characters. They are clearly doing something wrong, and yet, their first reaction to a first effort that is not only doing something different, but is literally the #1 New Release on Amazon is to smugly denounce it as awful. The SF professionals reacted exactly the same way when they smugly denounced the awfulness of my “vanity publishing house” three years ago. It’s going to be amusing to watch Ethan’s videos on the subject one year from now… or rather, to observe when he abruptly falls silent just like File 770 and the SF-SJWs have.
I’m not at all upset by Ethan’s honest, fair, and very negative review of QMAMD #1. Quite to the contrary, I am extremely pleased by it. Here is why: it confirms is that what we are doing is taking a fundamentally different approach to comic book storytelling than the standard presently being utilized by the industry as a whole. That suggests that we will either fail completely or we will succeed well beyond anyone’s expectations. And the initial response to QMAMD #1 is a very early sign of the latter.
So, stick to drawing, Ethan, and leave the storytelling to the real writers instead of the cheap wannabes in your industry. I can tell that you know nothing about how to tell an absorbing story that will hold a reader’s interest over time. The fact that you genuinely think nothing happened in Issue #1 and can’t understand the significance of the history page simply demonstrates the extreme superficiality of your perspective. I note that you are confusing the utilization of action to grab the short-lived attention of the attention-deficit-disordered reader with genuine storytelling. The two are not synonymous; only the inferior storyteller needs to rely on cheap pyrotechnics to hold his reader’s attention. In my opinion, that stupid “show don’t tell” philosophy is part of why comics are dying.
I was particularly amused by the idea expressed by some of his commenters that Quantum Mortis is some sort of Bladerunner ripoff. It’s not. It can’t be. I’ve never seen any of the Bladerunner movies and the books have literally nothing in common with the PKD novel on which the movies were based. FFS, anyone who knows anything about me knows that Quantum Mortis is Traveller.
UPDATE: I thought this comment was particularly amusing: “Part of the problem is that he seems to have approached it like a print writer doing the prologue for a book rather than a superhero comic book writer doing a first issue.”
What planet do you have to be orbiting to conclude that the graphic novelization of a military science fiction mystery should be more like a superhero comic book? I am genuinely curious to discover on what lunatic grounds these critics are going to attack our first Wodehouse issue.
Interesting to observe how more and more of politicians are offing themselves of late.
An Idaho Republican state lawmaker who was under investigation for possible sexual abuse, died in an apparent suicide, according to authorities on Tuesday. Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said Brandon Hixon was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in his Caldwell home early Tuesday morning. A family member discovered his remains.
Hixon, 36, was elected to the Idaho Legislature in 2012. At the time, Hixon was one of the youngest lawmakers elected to the Idaho House of Representatives.
He flew relatively under the radar during his time in the Statehouse until October, when he abruptly resigned from office after reports broke he was the subject of a criminal investigation for possible sexual abuse.
And there are still a lot of major figures who seem to have considerably lowered their media profile since the leadup into Christmas. I doubt this is a coincidence.
Stephen K. Bannon stepped down on Tuesday from his post as executive chairman of Breitbart News, ostracized for now from conservative circles and the Republican Party he brazenly predicted he would remake.
Mr. Bannon’s departure, which was initiated by an estranged financial patron and Breitbart investor, Rebekah Mercer, came as Mr. Bannon remained unable to quell the furor over remarks attributed to him in a new book in which he questions President Trump’s mental fitness and disparages his son Donald Trump Jr.
Mr. Bannon and Breitbart will work together on a smooth transition, said a statement from the company’s chief executive, Larry Solov. Separately, SiriusXM, which broadcasts a radio show on which Mr. Bannon was a host, said it was also cutting ties with him.
If this is all a charade, Team Trump are going to unprecedented lengths to make it look legitimate. But I’m more than a little dubious about all the sudden charges that both Bannon and Trump are mentally unstable and so forth. The vultures really have it in for him.
The “Little” Guitar Kami of #BABYMETAL ‘s #Kamiband has passed away in the METAL GALAXIES. We hope that he is now with his GUITAR MASTER A.Holdsworth and enjoying an epic guitar session with him. We are the one Together We’re the only one You are the one Forever #RIP #THEONE
Mikio Fujioka, guitarist for the Japanese metal-pop fusion group Babymetal, has died at the age of 36, according to an official post from the band. Numerous sources including Metro.co.uk and NME report Fujioka died on Jan. 5 from injuries sustained after falling from an observation deck on Dec. 30, though this has not been confirmed by the band.
Sayonara, Smiley Guy. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone who appeared to enjoy playing the guitar more.
Comic book legend Stan Lee has been hit with several allegations of sexual assault and harassment by nurses caring for him at his Hollywood Hills home. The Marvel creator, 95, is alleged to have repeatedly groped and harassed a string of young female nurses employed to care for him….
A source with knowledge of the situation, said: ‘Stan is an old man who has seemingly lost his way. He doesn’t seem to care what people think of him, he’s lost his filter. There has been a stream of young nurses coming to his house in West Hollywood and he has been sexually harassing them. He finds it funny. He walks around naked and is vulgar towards the women, he asks them for oral sex in the shower and wants to be pleasured in his bedroom. He uses the word p***y and f**k in their presence.
‘He’s also very handsy and has groped some of the women, it’s unacceptable behavior, especially from an icon like Stan.’
The source added: ‘The owner at the nursing company has openly said to people that Stan has sexually harassed every single nurse that has been to the house. That got back to Lee and sparked this whole thing.
‘It appears the owner, who has nursed Stan herself, eventually decided enough was enough.’
A rep for the nursing company confirmed that the female owner had received several complaints from nurses who had worked at Lee’s house and she had complained directly to Lee.
Speaking as the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil, I would like to formally deny any responsibility for these reports. And certainly none of these attractive young nurses are VFM strategically placed in position to take down the last remaining icon of the comics industry.
