Author: VD

The Arkhaven Substack

The Castalia Library substack has been so popular, and so useful in providing Library and History subscribers with updated information about the production process and necessary shipping news that it is obvious that we need the same thing for Arkhaven Comics, especially in light of the delays in shipping Ghost of the Badlands to the recent retail purchasers.

More about that soon, hopefully later today, but the TL;DR version is that the first printing of the retail editions had a problem, so we fixed it, sent out copies to Razorfist for approval, and we’re waiting for him to receive them and approve the revised editions for shipping out to everyone.

One can theorize as to the whys and wherefores all one likes, but the simple fact of the matter is that provably Substack works to keep a community informed in a timely manner much better than a blog, a mass-mailing service, a social media site, the post, or carrier pigeons.

So, if you are a) an Arkhaven buyer, b) an Arkhaven backer, c) an Arktoons reader, or d) an Arktoons creator, I would very strongly encourage you to subscribe to the Arkhaven substack in order to keep up on all the latest news related to our print and digital comics.

REBEL DEAD REVENGE Episode 112: I’ll Deal With You Later

CROSS+WORD Episode 8: Party Time

A MIND PROGRAMMED Episode 49: Expendable Tools

上嫁小鼠 Episode 37: 是好是坏

STONETOSS Episode 289: Lost Civilization

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The Decline of the Literary West

Reader’s Digest is shutting down in the UK:

Reader’s Digest’s UK edition has closed down after 86 years due to ‘financial pressures, as the iconic magazine’s editor-in-chief shares a touching tribute. In an honest and heartfelt tribute, the iconic magazine’s editor-in-chief Eva Mackevic said ‘the company just couldn’t withstand the financial pressures of today’s unforgiving magazine publishing landscape’.

The closure comes 14 years after it fell into administration because of a £125m pension fund deficit.

Founded in the the US in 1922, Reader’s Digest – whose motto was ‘Articles of enduring interest’ – was first published in the UK in 1938. Back in 2000 Reader’s Digest UK was selling more than one million copies a month.

I loved Reader’s Digest. My grandparents were subscribers, and whenever I visited them I would read several of those thick little magazines a day. Laughter the Best Medicine was all right, but I preferred the more subtle humor to be found in Life in These United States. And the abridged novels it contained often provided exposure to interesting authors to be explored more fully in the the future.

But diversity doesn’t read. And increasingly, neither does the three-second attention span crowd. Books are in the process of returning to the elite status they once held prior to the release of the dime novel and the mass market paperback, which is not a bad thing for deluxe leather book binders, but isn’t a healthy sign for society.

With more than 3 million subscribers in the USA, the original magazine should be around for a while. But the failure of the once-powerful UK edition is a good reminder of the vagaries of time. Yesterday’s success not only doesn’t guarantee success today, it often plants the seeds for tomorrow’s failure.

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Monday Arktoons

STONETOSS Episode 288: Malgorithm

THE SIDEWINDERS Episode 53: The Riders Strike

BEN GARRISON Episode 143: Let Them Eat Cake

三更战 Episode 30: 三更之统治者

INVASION ’55 Episode 2: TOne Hundred and Eighty Million Years Later

AESOPS FABLES Episode 40: The Horse and Groom

TREASURY OF TALES Episode 47: The Three Little Pigs

PAPER DOLL VERONIKA Episode 101: Downhill Tales

CHATEAU GRIEF Episode 325: Hush Puppy

GIVE MY REGARDS TO BLACK JACK Episode 55: Reality

Non-Competes are No More

The FTC eliminates a corporation’s ability to limit the employment prospects of its former employees:

Pursuant to sections 5 and 6(g) of the Federal Trade Commission Act (“FTC Act”), the Federal Trade Commission (“Commission”) is issuing the Non-Compete Clause Rule (“the final rule”). The final rule provides that it is an unfair method of competition—and therefore a violation of section 5—for persons to, among other things, enter into non-compete clauses (“non-competes”) with workers on or after the final rule’s effective date. With respect to existing non-competes—i.e., non-competes entered into before the effective date—the final rule adopts a different approach for senior executives than for other workers. For senior executives, existing non-competes can remain in force, while existing non-competes with other workers are not enforceable after the effective date.

This is definitely a positive development. The idea that a corporation should be able to coerce an employee into agreeing not to work for a competitor without compensation is one of the pernicious consequences of Clown World’s contract morality, in which everything is permissible so long as the victim can be coerced, forced, scammed, or otherwise convinced to agree to it.

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The Indictments are Blowing in the Wind

The Gazacaust has clearly changed the Boomers’ position about the intrinsic legitimacy and sanctity of student protests on college campuses. Yet there was a time when Boomers used to shut down campuses on a regular basis, a time that is still cited by them as evidence of their moral superiority to other generations.

The major movements of the 1960s were the Civil Rights Movement and the Student Movement. Both advocated for those who were discriminated against in various ways. The Student Movement also led the Free Speech Movement, starting on the University of California, Berkeley’s campus in 1964. Initially, college students protested against social injustices like poverty, the unfair treatment of African American citizens, and freedom of speech on college campuses. They later shifted their focus to opposing the Vietnam War.

Neither blacks in the USA nor the Vietnamese in Vietnam were being treated anywhere nearly as badly as the Palestinians are being treated by the Israelis, at least on a per capita basis in the case of the latter. And yet, at the behest of their “greatest ally”, the Boomers and their fellow travellers are determined to prevent Generation Z from speaking out about the Gazacaust.

Protests are roiling college campuses nationwide as administrators with graduation ceremonies next month face demands that schools cut financial ties to Israel against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war.

Many campuses were largely quiet by early afternoon Sunday but about 275 people were arrested on Saturday at campuses including Indiana University at Bloomington, Arizona State University and Washington University in St. Louis. Those have pushed the number of arrests nationwide to nearly 900 since New York police removed a pro-Palestinian protest encampment at Columbia University and arrested more than 100 demonstrators on April 18.

Since then, students have dug in at dozens of pro-Palestinian encampments around the country, prompting a range of responses from administrators — arrests and criminal charges, student suspensions or simply continued pleas to leave. The plight of students has become a central part of protests, with both the students and a growing number of faculty demanding amnesty. At issue is whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students through their adult lives.

Faculty members at universities in California, Georgia and Texas have initiated or passed largely symbolic votes of no confidence in their leadership.

It might be interesting to compare the number of people arrested for protesting the actions of a foreign government as opposed to those who were protesting the actions of their own government. Because, as we know, a foreign elite generally rules more harshly that a people’s own elite.

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Nothing Will Stop the Fall

Of Clown World. Its collapse is absolutely inevitable:

The arrival of the US M1A1 Abrams tanks in Ukraine was hailed as a turning point in the war. Coming in at roughly $10 million a unit, the Nato stalwart was supposed to provide the armoured fist that would punch through the Russian lines. But tactics evolve quickly in warfare, and Russia’s use of surveillance and hunter-killer drones has led to heavy casualties for Ukraine’s tank fleets. This is alarming for NATO. If Russia has found critical vulnerabilities in our armour, our borders are beginning to look very vulnerable.

Washington pledged 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine in January last year. The first batch arrived in September. They finally appeared to make their combat debut in February this year, with the first video footage released on the 25th of Februray. On the 26th, the Russians scored their first Abrams kill.

Two months after entering service, the Abrams tanks are now being withdrawn from the frontline. Five of the 31 tanks delivered last year have already been destroyed.

Everything Clown World does is based on the concept of “fake it ’til you make it”. But no amount of rhetoric, chutzpah, and word spells trumps physical reality, because influence is not power. Everything the clowns say is a lie. Literally everything.

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How the Media Sausage is Made

The media consists of a shrinking collection of genuine lowlives. Seriously, they collectively have the ethics of criminals and the morals of pimps, as a recent revelation in the Trump trial in New York City demonstrates:

The head of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, took the stand during the Trump hush money trial in New York and, according to the New York Post, admitted that he helped cover up a story on Woods back in 2007.

Woods apparently had been caught in an affair with his then-mistress Mindy Lawton, with photos being taken of the two in Woods’ Cadillac Escalade. Pecker admitted under cross-examination that he had bought the photos, then approached Tiger about making a deal to avoid publishing them.

Sure enough, soon afterwards, Woods appeared on the cover of Men’s Health, another magazine title under the American Media Inc. parent company umbrella. Woods also consented to a 12-page long story inside, a lengthy, in-depth article for the usually private Woods.

The Post spoke to a source described as part of his “inner circle,” who said that Woods was essentially forced into agreeing to the interview. “It was a total shakedown,” the source told The Post. “He was totally blackmailed, but what could he do? He had to play ball. He didn’t have any other choice.”

This isn’t at all unusual either. Every time they are working on a hit piece, they contact the target, explain a few of the accusations against you, then offer you “the chance to tell your side of the story”. But they don’t print anything you say that will offer a reasonable justification or a convincing defense, they just quote-mine the interview in order to support their narrative.

At best, they don’t run anything at all and you might as well have turned down the interview. At worst, you say something they can take out of context that looks even worse than anything they had already, something that will permit you to be deplatformed, debanked, de-employed, and further discredited.

Which underlines why you never, ever, talk to the media about yourself, your opinions, your accomplishments, or your friends and family. And just to address the spergs and pedants, I will add that if you’re not particularly controversial, sending out corporate press releases to industry-specific publications are probably fine.

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A Ticket, Offered

This is what it looks like. This is how they find out who is for sale and who is not:

“I just got a very interesting email. So for those of you who don’t know, I am a critic of the current economy. And recently, I’ve been posting my thoughts on the economy, and, and, you know, obviously, it’s not good. I’m not saying it’s Trump’s fault. I’m not saying it’s Biden’s fault.

I’m not saying it’s anyone’s fault. But obviously, Biden is president and the economy sucks. So, you know, naturally the blame lies on him. And some of these videos of me being extremely critical of the government have gone so viral that I was literally featured at 7 PM on prime time on Fox News the other night. And this morning, I got an email from someone claiming to be from the Democratic party.

And they said, what would your rate be to post positive videos about Joe Biden? And I replied back, honestly, I know nothing about the economy. I don’t pretend to know about the economy, and I know nothing about politics and I’d rather stay out of it. After all, I’m just a normal guy. I’m not a politician. I’m not a conservative or a liberal talking point. I’m just a normal person.

So they responded back, we understand you’re not a fan of the Democrat party right now. How much would it cost? I was like, you know what?

I wonder how bad they want me to post this. It’s $50 Grand. And they said yes. For those of you that don’t know anything about social media, I have another account that’s massive. And, like, For brand deals on my 3,000,000 follower account, I get like $5 Grand.

They offer me $50 Grand for a video on this account with only like 400,000 followers? I’m not gonna lie. I was very, very tempted, but I didn’t do it.”

This is why you should neither envy nor pursue what looks like mainstream success. Because it’s all fake and manufactured, and if you take the ticket to accept success on their terms, you will find yourself under their control.

They always make that first step very easy, and almost a no-brainer. Why not? What’s the harm? And yet, if you look into the hollow eyes and the weird, modified faces of the most successful, most famous people, they all look as if they are already in Hell.

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Their Journey is Just Beginning

The Big Bear obliterates the Boomer hatred for their descendants:

Boomers love to brag about how they’ll be dead before the check comes for their filthy indulgent lifestyles. The fact their children and grandchildren will live with their horrible decisions actually makes them smirk. “I won’t be around to see it! It’s your problem now, suckers!” they snicker to their exhausted children.

“All you do is complain! Get a better job then! I’m going on a cruise!” the Boomer says to their children, now in 120k of unpayable college debt because they made the terrible mistake of trusting the guidance of their deranged and narcissistic parents.

Well, Boomer, you may be happy now that you die before the check comes and you really pulled one over on everyone! But Boomer, you’re wrong about everything. Your mind is full of nonsense. Wanna know what else you might be wrong about? The eternal soul.

The Boomer is no fool, he knows the Big Bang happened, and then bacteria banged and here he is! And he played golf on the moon! And when he dies that’s it! The dirt nap!

Well, Boomer, there is also a possibility that you’re heading straight to hell and your journey is just beginning.

In retrospect, Generation X should have paid much closer attention to Animal House. Because as children, we fucked up, we trusted them.

“Is that Jimmy Buffet I’m hearing?”

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