The secret of the ComicArtistPro

We’ve played nice with Two-Face van Soyver and his merry band of Comicsgatekeepers to date despite their incessant sniping. But I don’t know if it’s going to be possible to continue doing so for much longer, in light of the little Kabuki theater he is presently putting on for the crowd.

Everybody’s cursing him out in the chat what a tool they’re saying what a shit move, ComicsGate, it is, what a shit move, let Ethan have it, please don’t be petty!  He won’t show his face, he’s behind a screen right now. Vox is a piece of shit can you go any lower from here? People are saying this might be the best stream we’ve ever done nice, a great time, there he is. I see you Vox! You did not start this gangster shit, Vox. The problem, Vox, is that it did belong to everyone and then you stole it for yourself, that’s the problem. He’s laughing, cuz Vox watches the chat very closely. Oh man, we got our people over there trolling and big-time beautiful. He’s smirking, look at him! Vox I do own it, I do own it!  Swallow hard, swallow, Vox. He thought, he was, he’s like in one year I’m gonna be more relevant than Ethan Van Sciver. How’s that going?

The dark stream? Dude, I mean go get that checked out that’s not that a joke. Another scam artist, somebody said, why is that anus talking he said. Way to turn ComicsGate against you. I mean what Vox doesn’t understand is that I think a few of our people were actually supporting Alt-Hero and that’s gonna go bye-bye. Vox yeah yeah the ratio did I mean dude not even close like if if we say so if ComicsGate says so that’s it for Alt-Hero. that’s it for Alt-Hero. 34 likes and 304 dislikes right now on the dark stream, 324 dark stream, yeah he’s peeing blood right now look you can’t, you don’t we’re not here to be taken, we’re not here to be taken Vox, you can’t co-opt us, you can’t, you can’t do it. I know you’re trying, it’s not working, give up, let it go. Oh, feel it slipping through your fingers that’s ComicsGate, bitch! Dude’s not going to work out. He’s got to stop.

Now, that’s a very convincing performance, until you learn that I ran the idea of creating a comics imprint called ComicsGate past a well-known professional comic artist last week and he actually approved of the idea, albeit with a few concerns about how it would play out. But he certainly had no objections, especially after I pointed out that any SJW-converged publisher with access could do exactly the same thing in a manner of seconds. It wasn’t until the Bounding Into Comics piece ran and he realized how badly his fans were reacting badly to the idea that “the brand” was being “stolen” that he turned around, pretended not to know anything about it, and feigned being surprised and outraged.

Still, don’t take my word about the identity of this professional comic artist. Just ask ol’ Uncle Ethan when he first learned about my intention to create a ComicsGate imprint.

In case you don’t believe good ‘ol Uncle Ethan would lie so shamelessly to his fellow ComicsGatekeepers, consider his revisionist description of last night’s Darkstream this morning.

By the way, Vox calls himself the Dark Lord. I took the mantle of Dark Lord from him last night and his live stream just said EVS is the Dark Lord, EVS is the Dark Lord up there, he looked very upset, he looked like he was gonna cry, and he cancelled it early. He left in mid-sentence, he just he bombed his chat out. March, march tower armies on Vox Day, and I believe we conquered him.

Translation: Ethan may be far more upset about this than any of us would have imagined. SJWs aren’t the only people who project. It was informative to see how he described our emails in detail last night, but said absolutely nothing about our 30-minute 55-second conversation on August 29th.

And since Two-Face Van Soyver is talking about emails, here are a pair of not-entirely-irrelevant emails I sent out to someone last week.

8/29/2018 7:59 AM

From [REDACTED]:

The imprint [REDACTED] has been added to your account as requested. 


9/2/2018 2:30 PM

Hey [REDACTED],

Congrats on the variant cover killing it. Below is a link to AH#4: The War in Paris in case you’re interested. Also, we’ll make the [REDACTED] announcement on Tuesday when we publish Gun Ghoul in print.

Obviously, we didn’t make the announcement on Tuesday, but moved it up one day when the print edition of Gun Ghoul got through the system and onto our direct store faster than we’d anticipated, because Bounding Into Comics had the story ready to go and was eager to run it.

Financial colonialism

The difference is that China is playing the usury card in the national interest, whereas in the West, it is customarily played against the national interest:

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday pledged $60 billion in financing for projects in Africa in the form of assistance, investment and loans, as China furthers efforts to link the continent’s economic prospects to its own.

Speaking to a gathering of African leaders in Beijing, Mr Xi said the figure includes $15 billion in grants, interest-free loans and concessional loans, $20 billion in credit lines, $10 billion for “development financing” and $5 billion to buy imports from Africa. In addition, he said China will encourage companies to invest at least $10 billion in Africa over the next three years.

China’s outreach to Africa aims to build trade, investment and political ties with a continent often seen as overlooked by the US and other Western nations. That has provided lucrative opportunities for Chinese businesses, while African nations are often happy to accept China’s offers that come without demands for safeguards against corruption, waste and environmental damage.

President Xi told African leaders that China’s investments on the continent have “no political strings attached”.

They don’t. What’s going to happen is that when the loans first default, they’ll be extended. When the African nations default the second time, China will take the collateral. It’s a subtle and inexpensive way to acquire material resources while posing as a benefactor instead of a predator.

James Burnham’s 1965 concerns about the retreat of the West are proving to be prophetic.

Gun Ghoul now in print!

ComicsGate Comics is pleased to announce that Will Caligan’s Gun Ghoul: Raising the Dead is now in print.

Someone – or something – is taking out the crime lords of Chicago.

Agent Justice of the FBI is on the case. She is a Meta Prime, with the ability to see into the past. But not even her superhuman abilities allows her to explain the impossible. And the FBI is not the only agency that is interested in learning more about the new player in town. In their search for the mysterious killer who is wreaking havoc on the crime lords of Chicago, Agent Justice and Detective Callahan of the Chicago Police Department team up to recreate a gun battle that took place at a restaurant in Chinatown. What they learn leads them to the killer’s next target, where they find themselves face-to-face with the ruthless, relentless, inhuman being.

Gun Ghoul: Raising the Dead is a furiously action-packed graphic novel by military veteran Will Caligan. 116 pages, $14.99. The graphic novel is published in 10×7 format on high-quality 70-pound paper. The four digital editions that are collected here have all been bestsellers in the Horror category on Amazon.

Let the ComicsGatekeepers gnash their teeth all they like. While they have been talking, talking, and talking some more, we have published 22 digital editions and 11 print editions in the last eight months. And based on an author who signed with us last night, it is safe to anticipate that some of the loudest voices raised against us will be publishing with us in less than a year.

“I own the word ComicsGate. It belongs to me and I will fight him in court for it. Nobody will make a line of ComicsGate comics except for me.”

Yeah, so, about that… it’s a pretty poor prophet who has to eat his words less than 8 hours later. Ethan isn’t going to fight anyone in court over ownership of the word ComicsGate. I very much doubt that he is dumb enough to throw all his crowdfunded money away on a hopeless legal case in a foreign jurisdiction when he hasn’t even bothered to spend $6k on the URL, which was registered in 2013. It sounds as if someone is going to have to explain the concepts of “dilution”, “prior usage”, and “jurisdiction” to him.

In not-unrelated news, Alt★Hero #4: The War in Paris continues to meet with great reviews and is now the #1 Best Seller in 45-Minute Comic & Graphic Novel Short Reads and the #1 New Release in the Superheroes category.

You wouldn’t want to be… unpopular?

The mainstream media tries a new approach to discrediting and disqualifying QAnon:

The QAnon conspiracy theory has surged into mainstream news these past weeks. Several “Q” supporters wore T-shirts and held signs at a recent Trump rally in Florida. Last week, a prominent promoter of the QAnon theory had his photo taken with President Trump in the White House.

If you haven’t heard of the QAnon theory, you’re not alone. We just conducted a new poll of Floridians and found that a large fraction didn’t have any opinion of the QAnon movement. And among those who did, it was strikingly unpopular.

What is QAnon?

“Q” is supposedly a high-ranking official in the Energy Department with a high-level security clearance. “Q,” the theory goes, is working for Trump and against the supposed “deep state.”

“Q” provides clues to online followers who then attempt to piece together those clues to figure out when Hillary Clinton and her ilk will be arrested for sex trafficking and a host of other unspeakable crimes. There are now many versions of the theory, almost as if it were fan fiction, as it has been passed around and expanded upon in social media.

Many people don’t have an opinion of QAnon

Because Florida is where Q supporters made their presence known at the Trump rally, we surveyed 2,085 Floridians from Aug. 8 to 21 after the news coverage of this rally but before news coverage of the QAnon promoter’s White House visit. Over 40 percent did not rate the QAnon movement at all. Twice as many as skipped rating Fidel Castro or Sen. Bill Nelson, and more than three times as many as skipped rating Trump or Clinton. This shows that despite media coverage of QAnon, a large fraction of people likely have not heard enough about it to have an opinion.

Views of QAnon are very unfavorable

Among those who did have an opinion, most were unfavorable toward the QAnon movement. The average score on the feeling thermometer was just above 20. This is a very negative rating, and about half of what the other political figures in the figure below enjoy. In fact, the only person in our comparison to do worse than the QAnon movement, although not by much, is Fidel Castro.

The Energy Department? Anyhow, I don’t think there is even a name for this collection of logical fallacies, but I think the idea is that QAnon doesn’t exist, no one has heard of it, and the few who have heard of this thing that doesn’t exist wouldn’t like it if it did, so if you do happen to hear anything about it, please don’t pay any attention. Also, there is no Deep State and Donald Trump is a Russian spy.

Where even SJWs fear to tread

It’s truly informative to see that this is the reaction from those charming ComicsGaters to the news that a publishing company supports their publicly expressed goals. The fake news image, which stated that a certain “suicide unites fandom”, was posted at Bounding Into Comics by one Brett S aka @seventhbeacon, who we are told is a “lover of sci-fi, comics, books, learning & Enlightenment values. Atheist. Liberalist.” VFM, it would certainly be interesting to learn considerably more about him. There is the distinct scent of a ComicsGator trying to play let’s you and him fight.

In any event, whatever happened to “I am the leader of ComicsGate and so can you?” Now, if I understand correctly, we’re being informed that someone actually owns it? When did that happen?

If it is a genuine CGer, then these guys aren’t anywhere near ready for prime time. No discipline whatsoever. Imagine if that was directed at an SJW in the industry. The media SJWs would eat them alive.

The more things change

John Trent interviewed me for Bounding Into Comics concerning our support for ComicsGate.

Bounding Into Comics (BIC): What kind of stories do you plan on featuring under this imprint?

Vox Day (Vox):  We plan on featuring any comics and graphic novels brought to us by ComicsGate-affiliated creators who wish to make public their support for ComicsGate.

BIC: Will this be a shared universe imprint like what you are doing with Arkhaven Comics and Alt-Hero?

Vox: No, this is not a shared universe. We set it up as a means of giving ComicsGaters a means of broad and reliable distribution that cannot be shut down by SJWs in the comics industry.

BIC: Do you have any creators already lined up? Who are they?

Vox: Will Caligan is the first. We do have others lined up, but I prefer not to identify them until their comics or graphic novels are ready for publication. As you know, we don’t talk much about our future products, we prefer to wait until things are ready to go before we announce them, as we have done here.

BIC: What will the first title from Will Caligan be? Can you give us any details on the story?

Vox: The print edition of Gun Ghoul. It has done very well in digital, and we expect the graphic novel will also be successful.

Read the whole thing there. The comments promise to prove amusing. Remember this sort of thing from Kotaku In Action?

Nope. Nope. Fuck Vox Day. He has been trying to worm his way into ComicsGate branding for a long time. VOX DAY IS NOT COMICSGATE.

ComicsGate wants politics OUT of comics. We do NOT want to trade SJW bullshit for his alt-right bullshit. Vox is a snake oil salesman, a demagogue, a cult of personality.

Disavow.

See, that’s NOT how you beat the SJWs, kiddies.

Madness is heritable

Jordan Peterson isn’t even the craziest one in his family:

Cider and not sleeping for a month is so yesteryear. Peterson’s daughter had a meal of soybeans and saw her brother turn into a demon.

Jordan’s daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast yesterday. Among other things, she revealed that she ate some soy and saw her brother turn into a demon (literally).

I don’t mean that as an insult, it’s a serious topic, but if they’re not lying, it’s becoming obvious that some sort of mental illness is running in the family.

Mikhaila also explained how she felt like she was having problems with acne and other skin issues in addition to 4 different serious health problems. A dermatologist then told her that she’s suffering from some sort of anxiety disorder and the skin problems are caused by excessive scratching related to that. Of course, Mrs Peterson concluded that dermatologists don’t know what they’re talking about because in her mind that diagnosis was obviously wrong.

Becoming obvious? Maps of Meaning has been out there for years! All I can say is that anyone foolish enough to listen to these obvious lunatics eminently merits whatever suboptimal outcome that ensues.

Is 666 a google?

Julian Assange stumbled onto the evil nature of Google earlier than most:

Julian Assange would later reference this article when writing his own: Google is not what it seems: This whole thing is a surprisingly good read – and Assange shows off his skills as a writer. It’s worth your time, so despite its length, don’t skip it.

There was one point I definitely had to laugh at, however – given what we now know about Schmidt:

As the interviewee I was expected to do most of the talking. I sought to guide them into my worldview. To their credit, I consider the interview perhaps the best I have given. I was out of my comfort zone and I liked it. We ate and then took a walk in the grounds, all the while on the record. I asked Eric Schmidt to leak US government information requests to WikiLeaks, and he refused, suddenly nervous, citing the illegality of disclosing Patriot Act requests. And then as the evening came on it was done and they were gone, back to the unreal, remote halls of information empire, and I was left to get back to my work. That was the end of it, or so I thought.

Julian will then go through and document a list to ties between Google Execs and the Deep State – including, what should be for us, an uncomfortable level of familiarity with the NSA. In the end, Julian Assange would conclude by calling Google a “burgeoning digital superstate.”

This was written several years ago, and I think it’s clear now that Assange’s suspicions, while correct, still fall short of the scale of the treason seen manifested in reality. Google – at the bleeding edge of tech – metastasized during this time, courting and assisting #TheCabal in their insidious endeavors.

It wasn’t some spontaneous thing, either. It was an asset funded, supported, and groomed by the Deep State, for Deep State purposes.

And remember, it’s not the only one, and it still hasn’t achieved all its goals. Things would have gotten much worse, but for the election of Trump. They almost succeeded in the creation of their systems of human surveillance and control.

Speaking of which, Google is trying to track all offline purchasing as well.

For the past year, select Google advertisers have had access to a potent new tool to track whether the ads they ran online led to a sale at a physical store in the U.S. That insight came thanks in part to a stockpile of Mastercard transactions that Google paid for. But most of the two billion Mastercard holders aren’t aware of this behind-the-scenes tracking. That’s because the companies never told the public about the arrangement.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Mastercard Inc. brokered a business partnership during about four years of negotiations, according to four people with knowledge of the deal, three of whom worked on it directly. The alliance gave Google an unprecedented asset for measuring retail spending, part of the search giant’s strategy to fortify its primary business against onslaughts from Amazon.com Inc. and others.

But the deal, which has not been previously reported, could raise broader privacy concerns about how much consumer data technology companies like Google quietly absorb.

 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

A failure to learn

Wil Wheaton demonstrates that he has no ability to recognize irony, justice, or karma:

M. A. Murray 31 AUGUST, 2018 AT 12:08 PM
I do not hate you. But what’s missing from this post of yours, as is true of so many of your tweets, is any sense of self-awareness. Everything is always something someone else has done to you. You refuse to accept any responsibility yourself for anything. You have, over the years, said terrible things about people you disagreed with politically and about people who supported GamerGate, as but two examples. You have not only participated in the climate of hate you now decry, you have helped foster it yourself. You have helped make the world bad for others, and you have expressed not the tiniest bit of self-reflection or remorse about it.

Charlie Kilo 31 AUGUST, 2018 AT 12:17 PM
You left Twitter because they wouldn’t deplatform someone you think is a hater, and are complaining that you got deplatformed from Mastodon by people who think you’re a hater. Did this experience teach you anything?

Wil 31 AUGUST, 2018 AT 12:23 PM
Yes. It taught me that people will seek out and create false equivalence to feed their narrative.

You see, to the insufficiently enlightened, one deplatforming for being deemed hateful by others is exactly the same as another. But what these social justice-challenged troglodytes fail to take into account is that while one deplatforming happened to Wil Wheaton, the others did not, therefore the equivalence is obviously and necessarily false.

Meanwhile, John Scalzi continues to blithely pretend that he has never heard of this hateful Wil Wheaton unperson….

I’ve made a choice not to say anything publicly, because, quite frankly (and I know you don’t want to hear this) I don’t owe anyone anything, no matter how loudly and persistently they demand it. If someone has decided that they are owed my public comment on this, or anything else, and will hate on me because I’m not giving it to them, that’s entirely their choice and their right. It is also my choice and my right to not engage with or respond to random people on the Internet.

Oh, I’m sorry. That was Wil Wheaton explaining why he wasn’t going to say anything about Chris Hardwick, not John Scalzi explaining why he wasn’t going to say anything about Wil Wheaton. It’s just so hard to keep these chinless gamma males straight.

Alt★Hero #4: The War in Paris

Arkhaven Comics is pleased to announce the publication of the digital edition of Alt★Hero #4: The War in Paris. This marks the fifth of the 24 issues promised in the original Alt★Hero campaign, and we will release the sixth, Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #2, next week. The first paperback and hardcover omnibuses are expected to be sent to backers after the first six editions of Alt★Hero are completed in October.

Inspired by the German government’s crackdown on nationalists in Berlin, Antifa is now on the march in Paris. And despite being hunted by the police and the Global Justice Initiative, Jean-Michel Durand is determined to stand with his generation against the enemies of France. But how can even the most steadfast nationalists hope to stop Antifa when the riot police, a United Nations Incident Team, and Captain Europa himself stand in their way?

Alt★Hero is the first in an exciting new line of superhero comics from Arkhaven Comics.

From the early reviews:

  • The best one yet. I thought this was going to be good, I didn’t expect it to be great.
  • This story is shaping up to be epic. With the simultaneous events going on in the US and in Europe with its contemporary setting. I am liking everything I see and have been surprised by the story development. The story is developing, the artwork is improving, the coloring looks great and the visualization of the action, especially in Number 4, is striking.
  • This has one of the best brouhahas I’ve seen in comics in quite awhile. Most of the fistfights I’ve seen lately end with one or two punches, and there isn’t any sense of risk or danger to the hero. But this one really gave you a sense like it could go either way. And I like the way Europa is presented as a man willing to take morally questionable actions, rather than a straight-up mustache-twirling villain.
  • If this is the standard that Vox Day and his merry band of writers and artists intend to set and exceed with their next release, the future is looking very bright indeed for those of us who love good comics.
  • The best yet. With this issue Alt*Hero fully hits its stride. 
Two more issues to go before we send out the first paperback and hardcover omnibuses. It has taken a while, but we’re getting there.

UPDATE: #1 New Release in Superhero Comics & Graphic Novels