It’s nearly started!

George R.R. Martin is seriously thinking about starting on his next book:

SANTA FE, NM—Stoking readers’ anticipation about the long-awaited Game Of Thrones sequel, best-selling author George R.R. Martin promised fans Thursday that his upcoming novel The Winds Of Winter was nearly started. “I wanted to let everyone know that I’m sitting at my desk with a nice cup of tea, I’ve got a Word document open, and I’m just about ready to go,” Martin wrote in a blog post on his website, assuring readers that as soon as he cleared off his desk and threw a load of laundry into the dryer, he could pretty much begin. “I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but at this point, I’ve basically already brainstormed a couple of character names and written part of an outline for chapter one. After that, it shouldn’t take more than another three or four weeks until I’m ready to check a few emails, grab some groceries, and put the very earliest touches on the manuscript. Can’t wait!” At press time, the author had been forced to return to square one after realizing he needed a better title than The Winds Of Winter.

If you ever doubted success being a demotivator for a certain type of writer, you need look no further than Martin. Although Scalzi would appear to be giving him a pretty good run for his money. It must be incredibly frustrating to be a mainstream publisher having to deal with these guys.


Twitter Purgatory

Twitter has taken the Twitter Jail concept one step further:

Are you the sort of person who annoys, frustrates, and offends lots of people on Twitter—but manages to avoid technically violating any of its policies on abuse or hate speech? Then Twitter’s newest feature is for you. Or, rather, it’s for everyone else but you.

Twitter is announcing on Tuesday that it will begin hiding tweets from certain accounts in conversations and search results. To see them, you’ll have to scroll to the bottom of the conversation and click “Show more replies,” or go into your search settings and choose “See everything.” Think of them as Twitter’s equivalent of the Yelp reviews that are “not currently recommended” or the Reddit comments that have a “comment score below threshold.”

But there’s one difference: When Twitter’s software decides that a certain user is “detract[ing] from the conversation,” all of that user’s tweets will be hidden from search results and public conversations until their reputation improves. And they won’t know that they’re being muted in this way; Twitter says it’s still working on ways to notify people and help them get back into its good graces. In the meantime, their tweets will still be visible to their followers as usual and will still be able to be retweeted by others. They just won’t show up in conversational threads or search results by default.

I’d pretend that I care, but they suspended me for good back in November. Of course, it’s just a matter of time for most of the rest of you. In the meantime, give Idka a try; many of the Daily Meme Wars memes are posted there on a regular basis.


No one will sign up for that

When President George W. Bush announced the deal, he made a clear reference to North Korea and Iran when he said, “I hope other leaders will find an example” in Libya’s action.

What happened less than a decade later might be at the heart of what Kim Jong-un appears to fear.

The United States and its European allies began a military action against Libya in 2011 to prevent Colonel Qaddafi’s threatened massacre of civilians. President Obama acceded to arguments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to join the European-led action.

But no one in the Situation Room debated what message the decision to turn on Colonel Qaddafi might send to other countries that the United States was trying to persuade to relinquish their weapons, according to interviews conducted later with more than a half-dozen people engaged in the discussion.

The Libya intervention allowed anti-government rebels to put Colonel Qaddafi on the run, and months later they pulled him from a ditch and killed him. Since then, Libya has devolved into a dysfunctional state. And North Korea has taken notice.


And yet the population grows

As US birth rates continue to fall:

The number of babies being born in the United States continues to fall, with the birth rate reaching a new record low in 2017, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, about 3.8 million babies were born in the U.S., which is 2 percent lower than the number born in 2016, and the lowest recorded number of births in 30 years, according to the report.

What’s more, there were about 60 births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44, which is 3 percent lower than the rate in 2016, and the lowest recorded rate since the government started tracking birth rates in 1909.

This is the real reason for the sterile and secular Left’s staunch devotion to immigration. Without it, the fertile religious Right would outnumber it completely in two generations. So, they have recruited alien mercenaries to buy themselves time and keep themselves in the game.

Unfortunately, foolish cuckservatives have embraced the Left’s immigrationist rhetoric and are actively cooperating in their own marginalization.

Want to win the cultural war? Get married, have kids, and homeschool them.


Alt★Hero #1: the initial reactions

Some of the initial reactions to the first digital edition of Alt★Hero, Issue #1, from email and the forums. The general reaction is extremely positive.

  • I liked the artstyle and colouring. The story so far is gripping, and as someone who backed this project in order to start hitting back in the culture war in order to provide some sensible reading material for the next generation, I love the result.
  • Really loving the story so far! One satisfied backer!
  • I just wanted to congratulate you and your production team on Alt*Hero 1.  It’s spectacularly well-drawn, and the story line, while still abbreviated, holds promise for a lot of development further down the road.  I think it’s more than capable of giving Marvel, DC, etc. a run for their money.
  • Overall, well done.
  • First thought: nothing like clearing the fences on the first swing, with the grumble that you were just warming up. The coloring was great, story was succinct and spot-on; it’s amazing what you can do with the correct amount of dialogue. Excellent artwork that showed the story and reaction without needing to tell. That’s a lot of dynamic range in the action and wording. The climax and ending surprised me.
  • The coloring was wonderful, art was solid and the story was well-paced and not overly talk-y (a la Bendis, which I hate). Rainbow was handled perfectly, I thought, all body language and natural dialogue with none of the SJW preachiness we’re used to, either in one direction or another. Great start overall. Vox is definitely on to something here.
  • Just finished reading Alt*Hero #1. I really enjoyed it. Topical to world events, fun “bad” guys, with a sense of ominous foreboding on what’s coming up in the series.
  • This is why I donated. A big thank-you to the Alt-Hero and Arkhaven teams.
  • Congrats mate.  Huge professional accomplishment.
That being said, we are absolutely not resting on any initial laurels. Some professional criticism from various industry pros:
  • This was a very nice origin story for Dynamique and set up the global landscape for the series. I think starting in Europe is smart as everyone’s going to expect #MAGA American politics.
  • Fast-paced. Funny where it needs to be. God, could comics use some humor right now.
  • The lettering. The balloons are too cramped and the lettering doesn’t stack right. The font is bad as well. The worst aspect is the placement. Too often balloons are placed to cover actions or primary figures. It’s especially frustrating when plenty of available negative space is left uncovered that would been better real estate for the balloons.
  • Overall I’d call the story 4.5/5. It’s just minor elements, nothing major. Art I’d call at 2.5/5 could use major improvement.
  • Establishment panels. Reading this whole, I see that it needed establishment panels at the beginning of most transition scenes. We need to know where the characters are in relation to one another and their environment before proceeding. 
  • The characters are very distinct, and you can tell who is speaking mostly just based on the dialogue itself which is much better than most comics. Your use of humor is also very important — it sets the stage that this is not all that serious, which actually helps the reader forget about the art a little bit. If the tone was more serious, the art would matter and stick out more. Overall, it’s compelling.
And not everyone was equally enthusiastic.
  • I read the backer copy of Alt★Hero #1, and I have to be honest with you. It was total crap. The art was atrocious and amateurish. Scene transitions were awkward. Also, certain shots were composed in a confusing way. I got no sense of Dynamique’s motivations. There were way too many characters introduced from the beginning, drowning out Dynamique even further. The beginning itself had a very basic flaw — why should we care that this redheaded model is being kidnapped at all? 
I am not at all fazed by the criticism, and I think most of the professional criticism is both valid and worthy of figuring out how to address in the future. Let’s face it, it is a better first effort than my first solo novel. I am very pleased with the general nature of the professional criticism, because I have known from the start that the technical elements would inevitably take us time and experience to master. As I mentioned in my conversation with Ethan van Scriver, you can fix the art, you can fix the technical aspects, but you cannot fix the story or the characters. They are either interesting or they are not. And ultimately, it is the story and the characters that will determine the success of the endeavor.

UPDATE: As many people predicted, the naysayers who claimed Alt★Hero was a scam are simply moving the goalposts now that Issue #1 has been released. Which is why I never bothered to engage with any of them, but just ignored the petty little anklebiters from the start. And I will continue to do so. They never had any credibility in the first place, as I’m from the game industry, I subscribe to the id Software philosophy of “it’s done when it’s done,” and I never gave any hard release dates in the first place. People will continue to trash it – especially Jordan Peterson fans, it appears – and that will only help us become more successful over time.

I also note that we are providing considerably more than we promised. Yes, the digital version of the first issue is out to backers. But we will also release a print edition of that first issue very soon, which we neither planned nor promised to do, and we will release it in four languages. I’m selecting the font for the French, Italian, and German versions this week, because Backissues BB, the Blambot font we used for the digital edition, does not have the necessary accents.

Also, our comics will never appear in the previews. We don’t work with Diamond and we don’t talk to the comics media. If you want to know what we’re doing, you’ll have to subscribe to our email newsletter, which right now is only available to backers.

LateNightComics
I’ve been calling Vox Day’s #althero a scam since day one. Even argued with him about it. Still no comic hahaha…. what a JOKE!

LateNightComics
So far every deadline has been missed, it’s not in previews and I haven’t seen a single person review it. Vox Day is a liar and #althero is a scam that hurt our side. Vox can either deliver the issue or refund the money he took under false pretenses.

LateNightComics
Sorry Jon I know you and Vox are boys you should encourage him to be a man and follow through on his word instead of getting himself banned on purpose and pocketing the money.

LateNightComics
If @DiversityAndCmx pulled the same bullshit as Vox Day I would never stop calling him out. @JonMalin and @BrettRSmith76 have reputations worth protecting I guess Vox doesn’t care what people think about him.

LateNightComics
He paid the people he needed to pay so there’s that at least. It just hurts all indie fundraisers when crooks and liars get involved in our hobby and trash it with bull crap like #althero

Flannel Avenger
So, when Alt-Hero ships I take it that you will publicly recant your accusations of scam?

LateNightComics
No I won’t it’s still a garbage comic and he still pocketed most of that money to prop up other projects.

Jawbreakers Fan Jon Del Arroz
How do you know it’s a garbage comic when you just said it doesn’t exist? This is backward logic and haterade nonsense.

LateNightComics
Maybe you’re right and Vox is simply horrible at marketing his product. He was high energy when he was fundraising now it’s sleepy time once the checks cleared.

LateNightComics
If Vox wanted people like me to shut up he could announce a hard release date or eat his shorts.

Jawbreakers Fan Jon Del Arroz
Yeah, we’re talking 2 months late from the goal which was made clear was not a promise timing wise from day one and this guy’s flipping out.

LateNightComics
I’m not flipping out, I’m calling out. It’s got to be done sometimes and horrible customer service is Dan Slott/ Mark Waid behavior. I just had hoped Vox would be different than those guys.


It doesn’t take two to tango

In which I address Larry Correia’s disinvitation to Origins in light of my own banning from ConSimWorld over an argument with a proto-SJW demanding the elimination of black SS counters from wargames about 15 years ago in a Darkstream.

The thing is that nothing has changed, it’s only gotten worse, things are only getting worse because nobody is fighting back. I mean even someone like Larry Correia, whom I admire, whom I respect, and who in creating Sad Puppies launched what until recently was the only effective response to the SJWs, now even he just wants to be left alone. And that is the fundamental flaw of the Right; you cannot win a war that you refuse to fight, you cannot win a war by being left alone, and the SJWs have made it very very clear that they will never ever leave us alone.

The woman who complained about Correia to Origins and managed to get him disinvited was bitter at him over a takedown that he had done of her boyfriend back in 2014, four years ago! So these people do not forget and they are going to continue to come after you. They would continue to come after me if they could, you know, if they didn’t know that I am always ready for it, I’m always anticipating it, and they also know damn well that I’m going to go after them harder than they come at me every single time, and so they tend to go, “you know what, maybe we’ll go after easier targets.” I mean it’s not like there aren’t a plethora of them out there.

And so what what you need to understand is that there is no telling them “that’s enough”, there is no warning them, the point is that you keep reading these articles, you keep seeing these comments, you know, now they’ve gone too far, now it’s too much, and that’s not going to achieve anything. There is a standard boilerplate conservative column that I could probably write in my sleep, I’ve been reading that same column for 30 years now and I call it the conservative dire warning column. If the Left doesn’t watch out, they’re not gonna like what happens! Well, guess what? Nothing’s gonna happen. You’re not going to do anything! You know, and they already know, that you’re not going to do anything. They already know that John Ringo is not going to do anything, they already know that Larry’s not going to do anything.

I mean, these guys are successful. These guys are successful and it’s not worth it to them. I understand that. I’m not unsympathetic. You know the problem is, that is the response of everybody: well, you know, it’s not that big a deal. Well, it’s not that big a deal to you, but it is a big deal collectively to everyone else that is now affected by it. Now I’m not condemning or criticizing anyone who just wants to wash their hands and walk away from that. I don’t go to conventions, it’s not my thing. I don’t want to be around a bunch of people, so if someone says “hey, you know what, I’m just not gonna go” hey, that makes perfect sense to me.

But here’s the problem. Every time you do that, you’re conceding space, you’re providing moral comfort to the enemy, and you are encouraging them to continue doing it. And eventually they’re going to push into spaces where it actually affects you. For example, you know someone like John Ringo doesn’t really care about getting disinvited from a convention, right? But he’s going to care a whole lot if he ends up getting dumped by Baen for his political views. Now you might say, oh, that’s ridiculous, he’s very successful, why would they ever do that? Well, because SJWs are not rational people. They don’t look at the situation and say “gee this guy is one of our best-selling authors, we shouldn’t get rid of him”, they’re just going to look and say this is a bad person and we’re going to go after them now.

If Disney was willing to throw away a billion dollars in order to turn Star Wars into an SJW fest, do you really think that a publisher is going to be unwilling to give up some book sales? They are not primarily motivated by money so you cannot anticipate their behavior on the basis of whether it’s in their economic self-interest or not.

UPDATE: Neither Bridget Correia nor John C. Wright appear inclined to take this lying down.

The SJWs have already ruined STAR WARS, STAR TREK, DR WHO, Marvel Comics, the Hugo Awards, the News media, the Anglican Church, and the Boy Scouts.

They ruin the fun for everyone.

They nag, they lie, they play holier-than-thou, and at the same time promote moral depravity that makes your stomach turn. These are the same people, allegedly so afraid of Larry Correia, who defended and continue to defend Marion Zimmer Bradley and her homosexual husband running a pedophile ring at conventions.


The anti-SJW front in comics

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.


The critical narrative

It’s a good thing Man has moved beyond thinking in narrative, unlike the human race before the Sixteenth Century, or one might suspect that the collection of Jordanologists at Steve Sailer’s place are guilty of doing so. Of course, this little collection doesn’t even begin to address the many comments at YouTube insisting that I am only criticizing Jordanetics because I am, and one really has to quote one particular gentleman in order to fully appreciate the sentiment, “jelly”.

I’m fascinated by the fact that Jordan Peterson has caused Vox Day to to go completely off the rails. I don’t get it, honestly. Can’t a man have many things to say that you find interesting and worthwhile, and others you disagree with without it causing you to condemn him unreservedly?

Vox Day is sort of a professional egotist. I suspect that Vox really hates Peterson because he thinks that he deserves Peterson’s large fanbase, salary and media attention.

It doesn’t surprise me in the least that Vox Day is loosing his cheese-wizz over this. As I said in other words in another post still awaiting moderation: Peterson may be the single greatest existential threat to the alt-right – and the Alt-right understands that. I think the Maoist left understands him as a enemy they are programmed to try to destroy at all costs, but they probably don’t understand that if he succeeds, he’s their death too, as much so as that of the Alt-right.

People like Vox Day are coming down with PDS (Peterson Derangement Syndrome). It’s most likely because they narcissistically think of themselves as more deserving of delivering the masses from evil.

Vox Day is an amateur troll who’s obviously chaffing at the reality of Jordan Peterson’s popularity and impact, while he toils away in obscurity, egged on only by his amen chorus of commenters who can’t tolerate even the mildest criticism. His latest Dorkstream is a rambling, incoherent assemblage of ad-homenims, such as saying Peterson is an “intellectual fraud”, whatever that means. Peterson is also claimed to have some five-degrees-of-separation link to John Podesta and George Soros. Yeah, whatever.

Vox has developed a strange obsession with Peterson, and at this point it’s rather pathetic. Vox is obviously a bright guy, but he has torn into Peterson with the fury of a scorned lover. He has convinced himself that Peterson is a minion of the Anti Christ, and Vox’s fanboys have gone all in with this supposed takedown. Not that Peterson cares, or even knows, who Vox is. Vox is sperging on Peterson and I think there is some serious projection going on.

Vox Day was never on the rails. Regardless of his ideology it’s pretty clear from his writing style that he’s a psycho.

I agree with your take on Auster and Vox Day, but Vox is in no way as intelligent as Auster was. Not even in the same league. Vox Day is an angry crank who babbles on and on about his 150+ IQ. If his IQ was above 110 I would be shocked.

You are right that Poz Day has lost his mind about this. Jealousy? Did JP bag Space Cunny?

The Vox Day vs. Jordan Peterson/Lawrence Auster vs. Mark Steyn thing is a sufficiently common phenomenon that it’s got a name: “the narcissism of small differences.” Back in the day, I was thoroughly dismayed by Auster’s constant attacks on Steyn, which seemed to surpass in vitriol anything he ever said about genuinely bad actors like, say, David Frum. And Day’s scorched earth tactics against Peterson are, if anything, still more “off the rails” – as you aptly put it. The word “narcissism” is particularly apropos in Day’s case – is there anybody on the internet so quick to toot his own horn – and to toot is so loudly?

it really is weird. i think VD is a very good ideas man and enjoy reading his thoughts on just about every topic (save sci-fi), but it seems like 15+ posts on JP in the last 3 days means jp is in his head like a blood clot.

I like Vox, but his reaction to Peterson is a bit cringey, he seems to be disagreeing with him on a different plane than Peterson intends to operate. He’s a shrink, not an Aristotelian philosopher – and he never claims to be. Vox’s reaction to Peterson’s sympathizers is also striking in that it feels unhinged.

VD is a joke. I stumbled on his blog one time. I saw he was making a big deal of his so-called American Indian heritage for some reason, so I mocked him by calling him Big Chief Blogging Eagle. Then he responded by saying “look how racist these leftist SJWs are” even though I had said nothing that could be construed as leftist. All I had done was mock him, which in his mind automatically makes me an “SJW.”

I find it mildly ironic that Peterson’s defenders are defending an emotionally unstable, mentally ill individual who proclaims his dependence on mood-altering drugs using the narrative that I have lost my mind. The thing is, they are constantly attempting to set up a “I win, you lose” scenario, which is quite funny when you compare the critics of one Darkstream to the critics of a later one.

  1. How can you criticize him when you haven’t even watched his videos?
  2. Well, maybe you’ve watched a video or two, but how can you criticize him when you haven’t even read his book?
  3. He’s just a psychologist helping people, he’s not a philosopher! Wait, he said what?
  4. Well, just because he is trying to create a new philosophy doesn’t mean it’s a bad one!
  5. Just because you write a UN report doesn’t mean you agree with it!
  6. Just because you worked with John Podesta was on doesn’t mean you’re associated with him.
  7. Just because the media asks you to appear on all the shows and leaps to your defense whenever someone calls you names doesn’t mean you’re not the legitimate opposition to the media.
  8. Why is Vox so obsessed with this? Something must be wrong with him! He must be jealous. Or crazy!

They can’t seem to grasp that all I have been doing is systematically responding to their various defenses of the man, which keep popping up anew every time I knock one down. I don’t care about Peterson himself, his life is a living hell of insecurity and fear. How stupid would you have to be to envy a man who sincerely believes that life is suffering; apparently the man can’t even eat chocolate. It’s his philosophy and his defenders with which I have the problem.

Of course as one wiser commenter noted, I agree in your description of VD’s personality, yet you do not address any of the arguments he has made. Weak sauce, that. And the differences between VD and JP are not small. They are at the foundations of their respective philosophies. Understanding this would require, again, reading what they have written. 

As far as the idea that I am jealous of Peterson, to the contrary, what profit a man to top the bestseller lists at the price of his intellectual soul? If I was prone to envy, I’d envy NN Taleb, or perhaps the guy who wrote Who Moved My Cheese. Anyhow, at this point, I’ve said pretty much all I needed to say until the book comes out. If you still take the man seriously at this point, that’s on you now. The information is there.


In defense of Jordan Peterson

You know, Jordan Peterson must be a real threat to the mainstream, a true dark intellectual renegade, when The Weekly Standard rushes to his defense because someone suggested that he just might possibly be less than entirely philosemitic. After all, we know that the mainstream media always makes it an absolute top priority to see that false accusations are exposed whenever someone is inaccurately accused of being insufficiently enthusiastic about minorities who are no different than anyone else except for being smarter and harder working and more successful or are falsely accused of membership in the defunct German National Socialist Workers Party, right?

I know I have always appreciated the forthright way with which The Weekly Standard staunchly defended President Trump, and all his loyal supporters, and GamerGate, and the Sad Puppies, and indeed, myself, from all manner of false and scurrilious charges.

Unscrupulously, Feldman also hid from readers all the notable Jewish individuals from across the political spectrum who’ve written or spoken positively about Jordan Peterson and his work. To name a few: Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Harvard’s Steven Pinker, psychiatrist Norman Doidge, professor Jonathan Haidt, author Howard Bloom, novelist Melanie Phillips, journalist Barbara Kay, professor Gad Saad, editor Jonathan Kay, comedian Dave Rubin, writer Cathy Young, biologist Bret Weinstein, author Ben Shapiro, comedian Bill Maher, New York Times columnists David Brooks and Bari Weiss.

It’s frankly astonishing that not one editor at the Forward had the professionalism to insist on gathering some testimony on behalf of the accused from any of these reputable people. Evidently, at the Forward, it’s perfectly acceptable journalism to ask a loaded question about a man and then stack the deck against him by quoting only his accusers. One of those anti-Peterson complainants—Heidi Beirich from the controversial Southern Poverty Law Center—even suggested (without any evidence) that Peterson could be seen as “a possible ally in Holocaust denial.”

In sum, what Feldman did was to 1) lie about a neo-Nazi’s opinion of Peterson; 2) use that lie to suggest he has a vast neo-Nazi following at the Daily Stormer; 3) conceal all the Jews who like him; and 4) seek out political partisans to smear him as a possible Holocaust denier.

It’s as unethical as it’s unconvincing. Even the most superficial reading of Peterson’s oeuvre suffices to show he’s an uncompromising enemy of anti-Semitism–and a real friend to the Jewish people. As he demonstrates in his detailed response to Feldman, he has spent the last 30 years “lecturing and teaching about the horrors of the Holocaust.”

It’s interesting, is it not, that it is so important for the media – supposedly Peterson’s enemy, who, we are told are just waiting to pounce on any mistake it can use to ruin him – to defend him from discrediting and disqualification? After this and The New York Times puff piece, how much more confirmation do you require to accept that he is Fake Opposition?


For backers only

I’m very pleased to be able to finally announce that the digital edition of Alt★Hero #1: CRACKDOWN has been released to the backers of the Alt★Hero project. If you are a backer who unsubscribed to the Castalia House bookclub or if you did not receive the email, please email me with BACKER in the subject and I will send out second mailing tonight with the link that will allow you to download the 11 meg file.

The digital edition is in the MOBI format, which will work on your Kindle. You can also use download the free Kindle Previewer for Windows  or Macintosh to read the digital edition on your computer. This is the same file that will be released for Kindle and Kindle Unlimited next week, we’re just getting it out early to the backers.

We anticipate having the first print edition out in about two weeks. It will retail for $3 and will be in the same royal octavo size as the QM and Jeeves comic books. French, German, and Italian editions will soon follow.

Please feel free to discuss the first issue of Alt★Hero in the Forums. I look forward to hearing your reactions. Thanks to all the backers who have made this possible, and thanks to the Arkhaven team, especially Cliff Cosmic and Matteo Mystic, for all their hard work in bringing this from concept to comic book.