didnothingwrong whines that we exclude the Fake Right from those who will not be left behind:
Except if they’re alt-retards! Their economic views exclude them from any such consideration!
The Alt-Retards are not on our side. They are not our allies. They are our self-appointed enemies, by their positions, by their admissions and by their long and documented history of attacks on us.
It isn’t merely their economic views that justify their exclusion and our lack of support for them when their fellow lefties burn them. They are of the political Left in literally every way. They support the EU. They oppose nationalism. They are small-g globalists. They are often anti-Christian.
They are not of the Right and they never have been. That’s why so many of them voted for Obama. Never trust ANYONE who voted for Obama no matter how much they profess to have changed their views; remember, he was twice rated the 10th most left-leaning Senator in the U.S. Senate. No one legitimately on or of the Right would ever have supported him under any circumstances.
The Alt-Retards don’t support us and we will happily leave them behind. Because they are Fake Right.
The Left wouldn’t bother trying to disemploy and de-platform hatefact purveyors on the Right if Conservatives didn’t indulge them.
It’s been said before, and it bears saying again: Conservatives’ main weakness is their critical lack of solidarity. It comes from the nasty individualist streak in their capitalist and Liberal influences. I’ve seen right-leaning business owners flatly refuse employment to like-minded friends because the job-seekers’ unemployment exceeded an arbitrary 18 month limit. Even an otherwise solid guy like Stefan Molyneux, who speaks passionately about the need to put winning first, says he won’t hire people who’ve “lost momentum”.
One big advantage of being on the Left is that, if you check the right boxes and recite the proper credal formulas, the cult looks out for you. Note the curious phenomenon of lefties in media and business “failing upward”. SJW editors from protected groups who bankrupt venerable sci-fi magazines don’t have to apply at Target. They’re given cushy writing assignments at Marvel Comics. When their unreadable books are inevitably cancelled, there’ll be junior college associate professorships waiting to break the fall.
Conservatives who publicly speak uncomfortable truths are in for a rougher ride. First, the bow tie-bedecked moderates can be counted on to show up and virtue signal at the victim’s expense. “Sure, he denounced the harassment,” they’ll say, “but if he meant it, he’d disavow his unruly followers who’re causing all the trouble.” Always conveniently forgotten is the fact that it’s the Left who are stirring up fake outrage to distract from their loss.
After that, the employer will decide it’s best to discontinue their working relationship with the victim because nothing says “sound, long-term business planning” like sacrificing a productive employee who reliably adds value to the company for the sake of dispersing an angry mob that would’ve lost interest and gone away on its own if management had just ignored them.
As the years have passed, I’ve gradually been forced to recognize the truth of this. No matter how good you are, no matter how smart, no matter how capable, you can only go so far on your own. I can write, but I can’t draw and I don’t even own a working color printer, so how could I possibly produce a comic without the assistance of a whole team of others? How can one be a Dark Lord of nothing and no one?
I’m as guilty of not looking to help out those who have come under SJW attack as anyone, so don’t think that I’m pointing fingers at anyone here. And I am fully aware that not everyone is going to take full advantage of any assistance that is provided. Some people are self-destructive, some people are just difficult, some are socially retarded, and some just seem to be born losers. The mere fact that someone is on the Right doesn’t make them inherently productive, likable or competent.
Even so, that doesn’t detract from the importance of not leaving people behind and looking to help those who have been successfully swarmed and disemployed.
Now that the year-end results are in, we can take a look at the current state of the conventional comics industry. The data is flawed and incomplete, but vastly better than the data we use to analyze GDP or trade statistics, so it’s a useful illustration of how the industry has changed over the last 20 years.
First and foremost, what this tells me is that ALL of the perceived growth in the market has been the result of price inflation. In 20 years, dollars are up 26.2 percent while unit sales are down 20.5 percent. Taken in combination, that is a very close match to the 56 percent inflation reported over the same time period for the Consumer Price Index. For all that fans understandably complain about 20-page books and the rise to $3.99 prices, the industry actually hasn’t kept pace with general consumer inflation.
Second, the initial decline was the result of Marvel’s failed attempt to enter the distribution business that was followed by Diamond establishing its monopoly over the comic book stores. My surmise is that the slow recovery in unit sales, from 67 million in 2001 and 69 million in 2010, is largely the consequence of Diamond using its monopoly position to force overstocking on the stores. (Remember, even though the dollars reported are retail, these units represent Diamond’s sales into the stores, not actual sales to the final consumer.) This forced overstocking puts increased financial pressure on the stores and leads to periodic store failures. Given that 50 stores, representing between 1.5 and 3 percent of the total number of stores, failed in 2017 alone, that means those previous unit sale bottoms will probably be tested in 2019.
This store failure cycle will likely be exacerbated by the steep dollar decline from 2015, which is almost certainly reflective of the SJWs at the Big Two getting out of hand and reducing demand for the highest-priced comics that have been affected by their antics. Diamond’s distribution policies are currently mitigating the effects of that reduced demand, but it is likely to start showing up in 2018. I would expect Top 300 unit sales to fall to 72 million next year; if they go below 70 million, things are going to get worse faster than anyone in the industry probably anticipates.
Past declines in unit sales exceeded the percentage decline in dollars. But since 2015, that relationship has been reversed, with dollars down 12.7 percent from 2015 to 10.6 for units. That means that it is the elite products that normally drive industry demand that are suffering the biggest decline.
This is an industry that is more than just ripe for disruption, it is practically screaming out for it. It’s not dying, it is merely changing. And with your help, that’s exactly what we’re going to do: disrupt and change the industry. Note that with 494 copies sold, that would be enough to put Will Caligan’s first graphic novel at #198 on the December 2017 chart. Three not-entirely-unrelated notes:
We’re only $1,600$800 $300 away from coloring Will Caligan’s second graphic novel and three backers short of 500 have hit the 500 backers mark. We have a great colorist signed up for it, so let’s nail that down today!
Yesterday, I received the first test print for QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted #1: By the Book. It looks great. It’s not a true comic book, but a 24-page full-color trade paperback. So, it’s a little smaller – the same royal octavo size as the ATOB paperback, only a LOT thinner – but is considerably more durable than the conventional comic book. And it will retail at a very competitive price of $2.99. By the way, that will not be the final cover, as we’ve revised it considerably and will do it glossy instead of matte as shown below.
As the backers know, we are making great progress on both Alt★Hero #1 and Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #1. Both will be out in digital editions and possibly print editions in February.
A small businessman asks if hiring a known SJW is an acceptable risk in certain specific circumstances:
I have a situation that I’d appreciate your perspective on, and which may be of interest to you as material for a blog post.
I have a business which operates full time. It’s small—just us and a handful of independent contractors—but it has provided well for us the past few years, and we are looking to hire someone on a full time or close-to-full-time basis, which would be a major investment of resources.
We have found what seems to be the perfect person for the job: a woman with the time to devote to our projects, and who has the right experience and skill set for the wide range of tasks she would be performing. She understands our industry and market, has also done some limited work with us, and we have been pleased with what she has produced. She appears to be a very self-motivated, hard-working person, one we could count on for the high level of productive output we need. Hiring her would be a tremendous help, and would enable us to branch out into new markets that we don’t have time to work on ourselves. But…
In the process of considering this person, I researched social media and found out that she was, to say the least, not in agreement with our theological, political, and social views. A summary:
Marion Zimmer Bradley fan
Belongs to a “Social Justice Committee.”
Aggressively pro-abortion
Aggressively pro-LGBTQ
Supports the SPLC.
Anti-alt-right, anti-white-nationalism
Defends Antifa while condemning white nationalists.
Basically, this woman couldn’t be more of a social-justice-minded leftist if John Stuart Mill spawned her from the dust of the ground.
Here’s the thing: I think it’s likely, in our context, that political discussions would never even come up. But I have all kinds of red flags popping up and alarm bells going off. In our small business situation, what kinds of dangers could we encounter from a person like this?
Is there a difference between a social justice activist and a social justice warrior? Our personal interactions with this woman have been good, and she seems very decent and kind—though I realize there’s a reason you chose a smiley face for the cover of your SJWs books, which I have read. I know it’s possible that she is a decent, honest, though deceived person, who would never dream of trying to destroy us if she found out that we stand against everything she stands for. On the other hand…
No, there is no difference. My advice is straightforward. Do NOT hire this individual. Do not even THINK about hiring this individual. Once she finds out that you are opposed to the sacred Narrative, she will devote her life to sabotaging your business in ways you can’t possibly imagine or anticipate, even if that is directly opposed to her rational self-interest. Since he has read SJWAL, the Chapter One cartoon should have been sufficient to answer his question.
No wonder the FBI is so desperate to bury the text messages sent between their agents and executives:
A high-ranking FBI official confirms a number of the missing 50,000 FBI text messages — as well as other text and email messages among FBI brass — reportedly discussed initiating physical harm to President Donald Trump.
The FBI official urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — which oversees the U.S. Secret Service — to launch an investigation of the Justice Department, the FBI and all text messages missing and otherwise that threatened the President.
“This is dangerous territory and all FBI text messages and personal phones should be examined,” the official said. “It would reveal some frightening conversations.”
Did FBI brass discuss the assassination of President Donald Trump? If not, what was the nature of the threats against the president from inside the alleged premiere law enforcement agency in the United States?
“(Director) Wray wants a lid on this,” the FBI official said. “Many know there was talk of harming Trump politically but there is a group here (in D.C. HQ) that understands it goes deeper. We need a special counsel or Homeland Security. Somebody has to clean this up outside of DOJ. It is unacceptable.
“This is much larger than just texts between two FBI agents.”
The FBI official called on President Trump to do what is necessary to weed out corruption in the FBI.
“Text messages just don’t disappear,” the FBI official said. “Not here. Someone outside DOJ has to look at all emails and texts. These (FBI bosses) are bad people. You’ve only scratched the surface.”
The high-ranking FBI official called on lawmakers and the Inspector General to focus on the text and email messages of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The official referred to McCabe’s official and personal correspondences “an anti-Trump treasure trove.”
Q was right, apparently. These people are not only evil, they are stupid as well. I mean, they know better than anyone else that all electronic communications are monitored somewhere, by someone.
During the financial crisis, the federal government bailed out banks it declared “too big to fail.” Fearing their bankruptcy might trigger economic Armageddon, the feds propped them up with taxpayer cash.
Something similar is happening now at the FBI, with the Washington wagons circling the agency to protect it from charges of corruption. This time, the appropriate tag line is “too big to believe.”
Yet each day brings credible reports suggesting there is a massive scandal involving the top ranks of America’s premier law enforcement agency. The reports, which feature talk among agents of a “secret society” and suddenly missing text messages, point to the existence both of a cabal dedicated to defeating Donald Trump in 2016 and of a plan to let Hillary Clinton skate free in the classified email probe.
If either one is true — and I believe both probably are — it would mean FBI leaders betrayed the nation by abusing their powers in a bid to pick the president.
More support for this view involves the FBI’s use of the Russian dossier on Trump that was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. It is almost certain that the FBI used the dossier to get FISA court warrants to spy on Trump associates, meaning it used the opposition research of the party in power to convince a court to let it spy on the candidate of the other party — likely without telling the court of the dossier’s political link.
Even worse, there is growing reason to believe someone in President Barack Obama’s administration turned over classified information about Trump to the Clinton campaign.
Notice that the headline is that “evidence suggests” rather than a reliance upon rumors, whispers, reports, or insiders. Which means that unlike the special investigator’s search for collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, there is almost certainly a substantive there there.
An FBI informant has apparently informed Congress that a secret society at the FBI was holding secret meetings off-site after the election of Donald Trump. On Special Report with Bret Baier Tuesday evening, Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) called it “corruption of the highest levels of the FBI.”
So much for the FBI’s once-pristine reputation. The FBI is now circling the wagons, as is the NSA, despite what they once said about the Nixon White House and how the problem isn’t so much the original crime as the coverup. The problem in this case appears to be that the crimes are so bad, and so serious, that they are even worse than those that were subsequently committed in the coverup.
America’s leading veterans service group claims the NFL censored their Super Bowl commercial because it criticized the league’s kneeling protests.
The NFL originally approached AMVETS to run an ad during the most watched game of the year.
However, the league rejected the commercial because it used #PleaseStand and showed American service members saluting the flag….
NFL Vice President of Communications Brian McCarthy released a statement saying the Super Bowl has “never been a place for advertising that could be considered by some as a political statement.”
In spite of this claim, last year’s Super Bowl game featured two controversial commercials, both attacking President Trump’s immigration policies.
Has anyone considered the possibility that Roger Goodell is a Major League Baseball plant, not unlike the way NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was an NBA plant sent by David Stern?
Rather like fascism always descending on America and landing on Europe, doxxing is always blamed on the Right, but somehow, it’s always the Left that is doing it.
Jack Murphy has been placed on administrative leave from his DC public schools financial job after Lacy MacAuley, an Antifa organizer, doxxed him and called him a “white supremacist Nazi” for appearing in a photo with Chelsea Manning at Mike’s “Night for Freedom” party.
Smells like a lawsuit. I didn’t think it was even possible for anyone, student, teacher, administrator, or janitor, to be disciplined for anything in the DC public school system. This should be an interesting test of how converged the public school unions have become.
The ironic thing here is that Jack is an Obama-voting liberal Democrat. I should know, you may recall that I debated him. If he’s not safe from SJW-swarming, literally no one outside of Antifa, be they Democrat or Republican, is.
SJWs in Canada are attempting to play the “Code of Conduct” game in the medical field:
I am a physician in a Canadian province, and unbeknownst to most of the lay public, there is currently some infighting amongst the physician community here, centred on a physician’s organization. In short: some autocrats within the organization have taken it upon themselves to try and impose a “Code of Conduct” on all members. This “Code” includes provisions placing limits on what members may speak or write in public, subject to the whims of unelected, unaccountable busybodies.
There is no reason or need for this Code. No provincial physician’s group in the country has a similar Code. But, being familiar with your work, the phrase “Code of Conduct” sets alarm bells crashing in my head, and I recognize it for what it can only be: an SJW-style attempt to impose absurd and capricious rules on successful people.
I belong to an organization which is fighting all of this. Periodically they send out mass emails, and in the most recent one, they say this about the proposed Code: Most of the words used within the policy have no legal definitions and are so vague that they could be arbitrarily and subjectively applied to ANY words or actions of members; serving to silence voices through fear and suppression of free speech.
All of this may only be semi-interesting to someone outside the province and outside the profession, but I felt it to be yet another example of the “Code of Conduct” strategy currently being deployed by SJWs across the English-speaking nations. And Jordan Peterson recently predicted this, in a video in December – he’s been involved with a fight over similar issues with the Law Society of Ontario, and he predicted that it would be coming to all professions, soon.
Well, he was right; it’s here. Luckily some of us have read your books.
Personally, I think adopting a Code of Conduct is brilliant. Just suggest the following:
No telling lies.
No committing adultery.
No stealing or engaging in financial fraud.
No performing acts of euthanasia.
No performing abortions
No blaspheming the names of God or Jesus Christ.
Anyone guilty of violating the code will lose their medical license. Any questions?
Agreeing and amplifying may actually be a better defense against SJW-imposed codes of conduct than trying to argue that one is unnecessary. Once they realize it will be turned against them, they’ll stop pushing for it.
We’ve added three new rewards and one new stretch goal at the Will Caligan campaign. If you’ve already backed, you can now add on an additional paperback, hardcover, or the works for Book #2.
UPDATE: Megan Fox has posted a story about the campaign at PJ Media. Apparently the SJWs have launched a counter-campaign of sorts.
And the following exchange should suffice to demonstrate why the campaign really matters. Ethan van Sciver interviews Marvel artist Jon Malin about increased convergence in the comics industry:
JM: I’ve got editors going behind my back and changing stuff because they’re bowing down to other freaking ideologues that are out there. And then my books are coming out changed? This is not good. This is not cool. We’re castrating a book like Cable because some social justice warrior can’t handle a boob on a cover? Is that person the audience for Cable? Are they the one whose going to be going out there and grabbing the muscle-bound white male patriarchy? No! But we’re bowing down to them, we’re letting them affect our sales, we’re letting everything tumble away and nobody wants to say anything anymore. Everyone is afraid because people on the far left, they’re lying silent, they’re vipers in the grass. They don’t have to fire me, they just don’t have to hire me back again.
I’m glad you’re in. I’m glad that you got in at a time when you were able to build that career. But the next guy like me, it’s just going to be even harder. Because these people are getting further and further into control of these companies.
When they find out you’re a Trump supporter, you’re gone. Because they said it. They said they’re going to do it. If you vote for Trump, whether he wins or loses, we will remember who you are. This is straight from an editor at one of the Big Two.
How do we fight against that?
EVS: Well, look, this is your fight, Jon.
I don’t want it to be my fight. I want it to be the comics journalists fight. Where are these assholes at? It’s so disgusting that this industry has gotten so low in sales. Everyone is ignoring it. And fans are being ignored, they’re being told off, not only by editorial but by creators.
This isn’t Jon’s fight. It certainly isn’t the comics journalists’ fight; they are on the other side. This is a fight for everyone, of the Left and of the Right, who doesn’t want to be totally controlled by the social justice warriors. This is for everyone who wants to be able to write what he wants to write, to draw what he wants to draw, and to tell the stories that he wants to tell without facing immediate disemployment and permanent blackballing from the industry.
This is the GamerGate situation on steroids. It is as if all the game developers teamed up with the game journos against the gamers rather than quietly siding with the gamers.
Everyone to the left of me desperately wants to believe that a line will somehow be drawn between them and the evil crimethinkers of the extreme right. But Chuck Dixon, Will Caligan, and Jon Malin all demonstrate that the line will always and continuously move leftward until every individual and organization in the comics industry are forced to converge to the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice in the utmost degree.
That is the goal. Since 1861, that has always been the goal.
