Category: Uncategorized

The Capn is absolutely right

I definitely care more about SJWs than comic books.

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.

Storm pressure?

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.

Bannon out at Breitbart

Steve Bannon has resigned from Breitbart News:

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.

RIP 158

‪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.

Shakedown or superfreak?

Things go from bad to worse for Marvel:

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.

Mountain View quakes with fear

Google’s Colin McMillen FEARS FOR HIS LIFE because my ideas are so terrible, my mien is so frightful, and my gaze is so lethal that my mere existence on the same planet puts specific Googler’s lives in clear and present danger!

Indeed, the mere act of emailing the Supreme Dark Lord clearly amounts to recklessly endangering human lives. Or rather, it would if SJWs did a better job of passing for human. You know they’re going to blame the next earthquake in the Bay Area on me. But then, who is to say that they would be wrong to do so?

It must be quite the little witch hunt they have going there. Of course, if they ever do discover the various sources of the leaks, I’m pretty sure that at least one identity will absolutely shock them to their core.

Panic in the NFL front office

I wonder what their excuse will be this time?

The NFL had a disastrous weekend when it came to ratings. Numbers have been down all season and it was more of the same for the wild-card games. The biggest surprise was that the best game (Panthers-Saints) had the biggest decrease year over year. Yes, markets were a big factor, but that was a competitive and entertaining game. Here’s the breakdown:

Titans-Chiefs (14.7) was down 11 percent versus last year’s Raiders-Texans game.

Falcons-Rams (14.9) was down 10 percent versus last year’s Lions-Seahawks game.

Bills-Jaguars (17.2) was down 10 percent versus last year’s Dolphins-Steelers game.

Panthers-Saints (20.4) was down 21 percent versus last year’s Giants-Packers game.

Hmm… so, what could possibly explain that surprise? What is different about the people down in Louisiana and North Carolina than the people in New York City? Aren’t they a little more likely to be patriotic and to serve in the military?

This is a classic case of the consequences of corporate convergence.

A virtuous irrelevance

This is what it sounds like, when a moderate moderates:

Ethan Van Sciver@EthanVanSciver
TFW Vox Day condemns me and @DiversityAndCmx and as “moderates.”

?

Ethan Van Sciver@EthanVanSciver
Extremists: Our hobby isn’t your cultural battleground.  You’re ruining comics.  Go away.

SJWs ruined comics. A single very specific type of extremist ruined comics. There are literally scores of varieties of extremists who had absolutely nothing to do with what has happened in the comics industry over the last three decades. As for me, how can I possibly have contributed to their ruination when I have been a professional comic book writer and publisher for all of one single day? Of course, the one comic I have written is an Amazon bestseller and hit the top 10 of all comics and graphic novels yesterday….

Nevertheless Van Sciver is wrong, because his hobby has become a cultural battleground and it has been one for longer than my own hobby of computer gaming has. And he is bound to fail, as per Sun Tzu, because he knows neither himself nor his enemy.

In less than one year, I expect that I will be a considerably more significant figure in the comics industry than Van Sciver. Not because I’m more talented, because I’m not. Not because I’m smarter, although I am. Simply because I understand the dire situation his heavily converged hobby is presently in and I am doing something about it, as the following review demonstrates.

UPDATE: Van Sciver allows that maybe, perhaps, Alt★Hero might not necessarily suck because politics. It’s not as if Animal Farm and 1984 were artistic failures, after all.

Secular Blasphemy @SecBlasphemy
Why can’t a right-wing comic also be a good comic? And Alt-Hero raised nearly a quarter mill, making it very clear what political direction it had. ‘It’s going to be right-wing!’ is a shock to absolutely no one involved.

Ethan Van Sciver‏@EthanVanSciver
Yes, I know. Look, I’m buying it. I’ll read it. If it’s good I’ll say so.  It’ll be interesting to see if this publishing venture survives this market past the money raised to start it up.

Fair enough. All I ask of the doubters and skeptics is to look at what we’re doing and judge it by the same standards they judge everything else. Look, we know, we absolutely know, that the SJWs are going to trash it to the greatest extent they believe they can do so without looking absurdly stupid. The best we can hope for from them is silence, which you will note is exactly how they greeted the literally unprecedented success of the crowdfunding campaign. And how they greeted the very successful launch of QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1: By the Book.

If you don’t like the art, that’s fine. If you genuinely think the story is boring or the characters are vanilla, so be it. If you think the politics overwhelm the story, hey, your mileage may vary. If you dislike me, get in line behind Google, Tor Books, Worldcon, and the SFWA. But, for your own sake, be honest about what it is that you don’t like, even if the only thing you don’t like is the fact that I’m the creator.

And as anyone who has read my fiction – as opposed to my non-fiction – knows, I’m not at all afraid to present different and opposing viewpoints in a realistic and sympathetic manner. I don’t do so to curry favor with the other side, but because I think it makes for more interesting and more compelling storytelling.

UPDATE: Actually, looking at his art, he’s pretty damn good. I wonder if he might like to work with Chuck Dixon? We can certainly provide him with better writing than DC is presently inflicting on him.

UPDATE: Ethan, I’m not pretending not to be mad at you. I’m not mad at all. I’ve even got a considerable quantity of work for you at a healthy page rate if you want it. And I’m not talking about Alt★Hero either.

You can’t even hope to contain him

James Damore files his much-anticipated lawsuit against Google, and reveals a number of surprising facts about Google policy:

Google Provides Internal Tools to Facilitate Blacklisting

Google’s internal company systems allowed employees and managers to maintain a “block list” of other employees with whom they did not wish to interact. For example, if A adds B to her block list, B is not able to look A up in the company directory, communicate with A through the internal instant messaging system, view A’s contact information or management chain, or see A’s  posts on internal social media. A and B would not be able to work together constructively on an engineering project if either person blocked the other.

It is common knowledge within Google that employees were habitually added to block lists for expressing conservative political views. In these comments, employees and managers discussed using block lists to sabotage other Googlers’ job transfers onto their teams.

When an employee was blocked by a manager in another department in retaliation for reporting misconduct, Google HR defended the practice of blacklisting co-workers, stating: “Thanks for sharing this. Co-workers are allowed to control who can access their social media accounts (like G+ and hangouts). Unless your inability to access John’s social media accounts is negatively impacting your ability to do your job, we don’t find any information to suggest that John is retaliating against you in violation of policy.”

 On a separate occasion, another Googler posted: “Another day, another entry on a  blacklist I wish wasn’t necessary to keep.” This was reported to Google HR. Google HR responded that the employee “was just expressing his own personal opinion on who he likes working with, [therefore] we did not find his comments to violate Google policy.”

At a “TGIF” all-hands meeting on October 26, 2017, an employee directly asked executives about the appropriateness of employees keeping political blacklists. Kent Walker, the Senior Vice President of Legal, dodged the question rather than repudiating the practice of  blacklisting.

On September 8, 2017, a group of conservative employees met with Paul Manwell, Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Chief of Staff, to raise concerns about the ongoing problem of politically motivated blacklisting, bullying, and discrimination at Google. This meeting was a direct response to the company’s handling of the Damore situation.

The conservative employees shared their own experiences with discrimination and asked the management for three major reforms. First, they asked for clarity around communication  policies, recommending that Google publish a clearer statement on what is acceptable and unacceptable employee communication, and that any and all complaints about communication be adjudicated through “a documented, fair, transparent, and appealable process.” In the meeting, the employees pointed out that company leadership was sending mixed messages on whether it was even  permissible to criticize diversity policies. Second, the employees requested protection from retaliation, asking the leadership to make a public statement that conservatives and supporters of Damore would not be punished in any way for their political stances. Third, the conservative employees asked the company to make it clear that the hostile language and veiled threats directed at Damore and his supporters were unacceptable, and in the interest of making Google a healthier environment for employees of all political stripes, the managers and VPs who made such statements should retract them. On information and belief, none of these reforms ever took place.

In or around October 2017, a number of diversity activists at Google indicated that they had met with VPs Danielle Brown and Eileen Naughton in order to ensure that they would be able to continue blacklisting and targeting employees with whom they had political disagreements. On October 22, 2017, a conservative employee asked HR to help put him in contact with company leadership to discuss the issue of targeted political harassment. This request was acknowledged by Employee Relations on October 31, 2017. On December 22, 2017, Employee Relations indicated to the employee that they would not be following up on his concerns about the systemic problems he raised, and they considered the matter closed.

Google Maintains Secret Blacklists of Conservative Authors

On August 26, 2016, Curtis Yarvin, a well-known conservative blogger who has reportedly advised Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel, and other members of the Trump administration, visited the Google office to have lunch with an employee. This triggered a silent alarm, alerting security personnel to escort him off the premises.

It was later discovered that other influential conservative personalities, including Alex Jones and Theodore Beale, are also on the same blacklist.

On or about September 15, 2016, a Google employee asked HR if the writers could be removed from the blacklist. HR refused to help with the request, and instead, reconfigured the internal system so that it was no longer possible to see who was on the blacklist.

Google Allowed Employees to Intimidate Conservatives with Threats of Termination

In the midst of any heated political discussion at Google, it has become commonplace to see calls for conservatives to be fired or “encouraged to work elsewhere” for “cultural fit” reasons. Googlers are extremely proud of the fact that the company has created a “shared culture of shared  beliefs” and openly discriminates against job applicants who do not share the same political ideology.

I’m flattered, of course. Is it not better to be feared than respected? But it’s not as if it has done them any good, as Google leaks worse than the average White House.

The Gay Wizards and the Magic Bear

Ian Miles Cheong busts Wizards of the Coast for trying to silence a whistleblower on Dangerous.

Magic: The Gathering is mired in a controversy surrounding allegations that some of its high-level tournament “judges” are pedophiles who were not given background checks by Wizards of the Coast, allowing them to mingle with children who play the game.

Jeremy Hambly, better known as the host of The Quartering and Unsleeved Media on YouTube outed several high-profile judges for their pasts, who are serving time for convictions on child pornography charges. Hambly is currently embroiled in what some refer to as the “next GamerGate” for taking the Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast and its surrounding entities to task for failing the gaming community…. Instead of refusing to publicly acknowledge Hambly’s investigations, the company chose instead to address it through one of its vice presidents on Twitter instead of releasing an official statement.

Elaine Chase, the VP of Global Brand Strategy & Marketing for Magic: The Gathering for the Hasbro-owned company, described the investigation as “misinformation circulated on social media regarding Wizards’ policies, event staffing, and Magic Judges.”

“Safety at Magic events is our top priority. We have a zero-tolerance policy for sex offenders. Our standard and long-standing practice is to suspend offenders from the DCI and/or remove stores from the WPN,” she wrote.

“Magic Judges, a fan-run community and separate from WotC, regularly posts anniversary blogs which sometimes include erroneous anniversaries for former judges not currently certified, either because of lapsing certification or active de-certification due to conduct,” she added. “Retailers and TOs are responsible for staffing events they run and are required to comply with all laws. We will continue to work with retailers and TOs to ensure safe and inclusive communities.”

Chase directed users who wished to report judge and retailer or player misconduct to official emails.

The company is now accused of being lax in its failure to conduct background checks on volunteer judges—even those in the United States—who participate in Wizards-sanctioned events.

Hambly, who outed the judges, tells DANGEROUS that he had his The Quartering channel flagged and removed by YouTube within 45 minutes of uploading a video condemning Chase’s statement and defending his investigation.