Don’t smoke your own supply

I regret to observe that Marvel decides to postpone its suicide.

Every year, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD recognizes and awards a selection of television shows, films, and books that feature powerful portrayals of queer people. This year, a number of Marvel’s comics were recognized for the contributions they’ve made to queer culture, but those nominations were bittersweet for one incredibly disappointing reason: They’ve all been cancelled.

America (from Gabby Rivera and Joe Quinones), Black Panther: World of Wakanda (Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yona Harvey, Alitha E. Martinez, and Afua Richardson), and Iceman (Sina Grace, Alessandro Vitti, and Robert Gill) have each been nominated for GLAAD’s 2018 Outstanding Comic Book category, and with good reason. Over the course of their respective arcs, each series explored various parts of the queer experience in ways that, frankly, are new for comics. Iceman’s dug into Bobby Drake’s coming out as a gay man later in life; America’s focused on what it’s like to be a queer immigrant going to college for the first time; and World of Wakanda delved into the complicated intimate lives of the Dora Milaje.

But all of these books recently met their ends, as so many new, progressive comic books do these days. Low sales led to their cancellation just as an entirely new audience was sure to hear about the books, specifically because of their being nominated for GLAAD awards and other honors.

Note to self: in the unlikely event GLAAD offers to recognize or award any Arkhaven comic, decline the honor.

The ridiculous thing about trying to appeal to the LGBLT-whatever crowd is that it simply isn’t very big. And since the world of comics isn’t all that big either, you’re putting yourself in the unenviable position of selling to a fraction of a fraction. That might work for a small indy publisher, but it’s not going to be viable for the market leaders.

Argue about inclusiveness all you like, celebrate diversity and tolerance and progress if you are so inclined, but at the end of the day, your core market is always going to determine the extent of your sales potential. And since an ever-increasing number of people are sick to death of SJWs, that’s why I’m quite confident that openly anti-SJW material is going to prove to be considerably more popular than anyone expects, be it a business book, a comic book, or a beer-holder.

Fortunately, I’m confident that DC is going to more than make up for Marvel’s halting baby steps away from the precipice.

Championship Sunday

Sacksonville vs Tom Brady’s Hand. Nick Foles, Backup QB vs The Team of Destiny. Discuss amongst yourselves. Also, SKOL!

Haven’t seen a defense hit like the Jags since the 2000 Ravens. Of course, the rules have changed since then, which could be a problem.

UPDATE: 24-7 at the half. About all I can say is that if you can’t stop the Foles-to-Ertz connection, you have no business trying to stop Brady-to-Gronkowski. So far, this game has all the flavor of a Denny Green playoff classic, where the coaching staff simply gets outprepared and outcoached by the opponent’s coaches. It would be nice to see some serious adjustments demonstrating otherwise.

UPDATE: 38-7. Game isn’t over, but it’s over. Outplayed, outcoached, there is simply nothing to complain about. I have the feeling that the defensive backs were told not to worry about double moves because Foles wouldn’t be throwing deep. Coach Zim is going to have to up his game if he is going to succeed at this point in the season; my earlier impression of a Denny Green playoff classic would appear to have been correct. I am very impressed with the Philadelphia coaches, as they clearly had their team very well-prepared for this game.

About the only silver linings to be found are that a) it will be cheaper to keep Case next year and b) the NFL ratings for the conference championships are promise to be abysmal.

SFWA rejects Jon Del Arroz

So much for SFWA’s increasingly ludicrous claim to represent the interests of professional science fiction writers. It’s now an objectively racist organization of people who mostly don’t write science fiction that doesn’t accept American Indians or Hispanics who professionally publish science fiction.

Statement from the SFWA Membership Credentials Committee
Recently, a science fiction writer made a very public announcement of his application to join SFWA. SFWA Bylaws section VI.1.c.i gives discretion to the membership credentials committee “regardless of qualifications.” Based on the behavior of and online statements by this writer over the preceding year or so, which the credentials committee believes is inconsistent with the obligations that SFWA members have to one another, the committee has determined that it has good and sufficient cause to deny this membership.

We did not take this step lightly, and we are sensitive to suggestions that this action is due to the writer’s political opinions: it is not. SFWA does not, and will not, impose a political test or political standard for membership. We strive to be welcoming to all SFF writers of good will, whatever their personal beliefs or opinions. However, the membership credentials committee, comprised by the sitting Board of Directors, believes that admitting this writer would not be in keeping with our obligations to our membership.

SFWA is a heavily converged organization. As per the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence, they are increasingly unable to perform their core function, which originally concerned representing the interests of professional science fiction writers.

Instead, they defend sex criminals, celebrate pedophiles and child molesters, accept members with literally ZERO science fiction publications, are largely comprised of amateurs who publish the occasional short story in short-lived amateur publications, and reject genuine science fiction professionals because of “obligational inconsistency.” It is no wonder that the vast majority of bestselling science fiction authors don’t bother to join the organization, since it has nothing positive to offer them.

SFWA is functionally dead. It serves literally no professional purpose anymore. As the lead editor at a mid-sized science fiction publisher, I can attest that it has absolutely no influence with science fiction publishers, distributors, and retailers whatsoever.

The most amusing aspect of this is that SFWA isn’t even trying to hide that it is no longer a professional writers’ organization anymore. The small print they cited from the new bylaws means that they can literally accept anyone the committee likes as a member, whether the applicant has ever written anything or not, whether the applicant is even human or not. Thanks to the short-sighted fools who gave in to Ann McCaffrey’s threat to quit if they did not let fantasy writers join, SFWA is now an organization for racist cat ladies and their cats, not science fiction writers.

Important lesson: whenever someone threatens to quit unless you do x, the only correct response is to say: “We are not doing x. We accept your resignation. Goodbye.”

Now, as always, the SFWA statement hides its true justifications behind a nebulous fog. What are the actual justifications that supposedly provide “good and sufficient cause”?

Dear Mr. Del Arroz,

SFWA Bylaws section VI.1.c.i gives discretion to the membership credentials committee “regardless of qualifications.” Based on online statements and your behavior from the past year, the membership credentials committee believes it has good and sufficient cause to deny your membership in order to keep SFWA virtual and physical spaces harassment-free and has done so.

Examples of behavior from the past year:

  • Threatening to film people without their consent at private SFWA functions.
  • Soliciting people on social media, including Facebook, Gab, and Twitter, in order to “troll” and harass other professional authors, including SFWA members and board officers.
  • Accusing SFWA of “doxxing” your children, supporting pedophiles, racism, among other attacks.

Sincerely,

The Membership Credentials Committee

SFWA, Inc.

Of course, if they were to hold the existing membership to the standard they are claiming, they’d have to expel half the leadership, past and present.

Release the memo!

More sound and fury signifying nothing? Or is the government shutdown, combined with what appears to be the imminent release of the FISA court abuse memo, the first thunderclap of the much-anticipated Storm?

All hell is breaking loose in Washington D.C. after a four-page memo detailing extensive FISA court abuse was made available to the entire House of Representatives Thursday. The contents of the memo are so explosive, says Journalist Sara Carter, that it could lead to the removal of senior officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice and the end of Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation.

These sources say the report is “explosive,” stating they would not be surprised if it leads to the end of Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation into President Trump and his associates.

A source close to the matter tells Fox News that “the memo details the Intelligence Committee’s oversight work for the FBI and Justice, including the controversy over unmasking and FISA surveillance.” An educated guess by anyone who’s been paying attention for the last year leads to the obvious conclusion that the report reveals extensive abuse of power and highly illegal collusion between the Obama administration, the FBI, the DOJ and the Clinton Campaign against Donald Trump and his team during and after the 2016 presidential election.

Lawmakers who have seen the memo are calling for its immediate release, while the phrases “explosive,” “shocking,” “troubling,” and “alarming” have all been used in all sincerity. One congressman even likened the report’s details to KGB activity in Russia.

Now we know why the Democrats have been so stupidly intransigent in shutting down the government over a few illegal aliens. They’re just trying to shift the media narrative away from the expected fallout from the release of the memo.

It’s important to keep in mind that all of these things – all of them – are interconnected. It’s sometimes hard to remember that since the media covers every story as if it appeared ex nihilo even when the same people are involved from one story to the next, but there is absolutely no chance that the Democrats just happened to dig in their heels over nothing at this particular point in time.

After all, no one expected the Swamp not to resist its draining. And right now, the illegal collusion between the Obama administration, the Clinton campaign, the FBI, and the DOJ is its weakest and most vulnerable point.

Dreamers are not Americans

As the God-Emperor reminds everyone:

When I became your president one year ago today, I took an oath to protect, serve, and lead ALL Americans.

Democrats have since shown our country that they could never do the same.

They chose to use our U.S. military as a bargaining chip to fight for amnesty for non-citizen illegal immigrants. But a good many patriots and I REFUSED to accept their ransom.

Now American voters need to remind Democrats that we will NEVER forget their reckless decision.

Tell Senate Democrats that YOU — the American voter — will ALWAYS remember the day that Democrats put illegal immigrants before American citizens.

One hopes Trump has the wisdom to ignore the example of his predecessors and simply ignore the government shutdown until the Democrats cave completely. No party that supports smaller government should EVER back down over a government shutdown. That’s the problem for the big government party… wait a minute!

Convergence: swimsuit edition

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition is not totally converged. They still manage to perform their core function of taking pictures of pretty women in swimsuits, after all. However, the fact that some of the pretty women are beginning to resemble overinflated beach balls shows that they are in the process of converging, however slowly.

Appendix N in audio

Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons is a detailed and comprehensive investigation of the various works of science fiction and fantasy that game designer Gary Gygax declared to be the primary influences on his seminal role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. It is a deep intellectual dive into the literature of SF/F’s past that will fascinate any serious role-playing gamer or fan of classic science fiction and fantasy.


Author Jeffro Johnson, an expert role-playing gamer, accomplished dungeon master, and three-time Hugo Award finalist, critically reviews all 43 works and authors listed by Gygax in the famous appendix. In doing so, he draws a series of intelligent conclusions about the literary gap between past and present that is surprisingly relevant to current events, not only in the fantastic world of role-playing, but the real world in which the players live.

Appendix N: The Literary History of Dungeons & Dragons is narrated by Brandon Porter and is 10 hours and 22 minutes long. This is a deep and fascinating dive into the fantasy and science fiction literature behind the landmark role-playing game.

The heroes of Avalon: FAZER

Now that we’ve got several scripts done, it is clear that CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON is really going to be very different than the Alt★Hero comics proper. Whereas I like to focus on worldbuilding and city-level events of international significance, Chuck prefers to go street. He’s focused on citybuilding, crime-fighting, and street-level events, and while the city of Avalon is an integral part of the universe of Alt★Hero, it is a small, detailed, and distinct part of it.

FAZER is one of the first new characters created by Chuck and he will be appearing in both the first and second issues. The description: FAZER is King Ace’s crime fighting partner. He’s the brains of the pair and resents being referred to as a sidekick. The guy has a very short fuse. He’s much slighter and shorter than King Ace. His power is the ability to phase through solid objects. He can maintain the phasing stage only through tremendous concentration. Fazer wears an all-over suit that hides his face entirely. The suit is made of leather as Fazer can only phase organic materials. Fazer is Hapa, with a white father and a Filipino mother. 

The amazing thing to me is how, in just two issues, Chuck has already managed to create intriguing characters with distinct individuality and complex personal relationships. It is no wonder he is considered a comics legend. And yes, if you think you recognize the artist’s signature, it is indeed the gentleman you have in mind. He is illustrating CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON #1.

I would have tweeted this link out, but Twitter suspended the ArkhavenComics account as soon as it was created, before we’d even had the chance to upload a logo for the profile. So, we’ll be posting our regular social media announcements on the AltHeroComic Facebook page and leaving any Twitter repostings up to the fans.

How to be in charge

Without actually being in charge. Google’s Sundar Pichai demonstrates what it means for a CEO to serve at the will and pleasure of the SJWs nominally under his authority:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai responded today to the firing of employee James Damore over his controversial memo on workplace diversity, stating that while he does not regret the decision, he regrets that people misunderstood it as a politically motivated event. Speaking in a live conversation with journalist and Recode co-founder Kara Swisher, MSNBC host Ari Melber, and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki in San Francisco, Pichai said that the decision to fire Damore was about ensuring women at Google felt like the company was committed to creating a welcoming environment.

“I regret that people misunderstand that we may have made this for a political belief one way or another,” Pichai said. “It’s important for the women at Google, and all the people at Google, that we want to make an inclusive environment.” When pressed by Swisher on the issue of regret, Pichai stated more definitively, “I don’t regret it.” Wojcicki, who has spoken publicly about how Damore’s memo affected her personally, followed up with, “I think it was the right decision.”

It’s not political, it’s just about women’s feelings. Apparently this walking, talking corporate debacle has never heard of either a) feminism or b) the feminist mantra “the personal is the political”.

I had an interesting conversation with Nitasha Tiku, a senior writer at Wired, last night. She’s working on a story about how the poor, powerless executives and managers at Google feel frightened, intimidated, and harassed because James Damore, Charles Johnson, and others have exposed how they harass, intimidate, and blacklist their coworkers, how they hate everyone who voted for Donald Trump, and how they can get away with openly threatening their colleagues with violence and unemployment without suffering any consequences for their behavior.

Poor, poor Googlers. Why can’t they harass their victims with impunity in secret?

As I pointed out to Ms Tiku, I and a number of other outsiders have known about what has been taking place behind the scenes at Google for years. I even wrote about it after the election, nine months before the Damore memo was leaked to the public by SJWs.

Internal pressure is pushing for the expansion of hate speech to include everything and everyone that fails to submit to the SJW narrative, for more intense action against so-called “fake news”, and even broader definitions of “fake news”. So far, they are only cracking down on genuinely fake news, but there is some belief that this is the proverbial dipping the toe in the water, to see what they can do without provoking a backlash.

The victory of the God-Emperor Ascendant was a massive blow to the SJWs inside Google, and like most SJWs, they have completely lost the plot post-election. They were openly calling other Googlers racists, sexists, and homophobes just for voting for Trump. Those are firing offenses at Google. Google has insane civility requirements imposed on anyone talking to a member of a protected group, but apparently calling for all Republicans to be fired is perfectly acceptable.

Everyone ignored this. Then James Damore and I provided incontrovertible proof that Googlers were, in fact, behaving every bit as badly as I had said they were. So now, having been accused, exposed, and caught red-handed, they’re trying to spin documented proof of their own misbehavior as some sort of harassment, and they are attempting to enlist the media as their ad hoc defense attorneys in order to change the subject.

Yeah, because THAT’S the problem

Someone who may or may not be Robert Downey Jr. speculates on a coming action by a company that may or may not be Warner/DC:

This studio has admitted internally that it has failed in its efforts at emulating the success of the one that now owns the world.  Their new secret plan? To “split” the properties into two divisions.  One for “kids”, basically carrying on with the universe-multiverse they’ve already created under the disastrous helm of _____________.  And the other division for “adults”, to create more realistic-themed movies of the same properties, like their most successful versions.  How do they plan to make this happen? They proposed to hire this family, give them first-dollar gross revenues on EVERY PROJECT; and give them carte blanche and full control over that second division.  At this point, the studio has nothing to lose in that contest.

Warner Bros. would do better to split their DC film properties into two divisions, one for SJWs and one for everyone else. But because they are literally run by SJWs, complete with major Hillary fundraisers and Bill Clinton’s former press secretary, there is zero chance that the convergence will not continue to get worse.

And at this point, I really don’t have a problem with that.