Alt★Hero: The Gods of Peaceful Sleep

We’re continuing to make steady progress on Alt★Hero. We expect to have two 24-page comics out in digital and print in late February, plus two other Arkhaven 24-pagers, Quantum Mortis #1 and Right Ho #1, as I’ve been informed that inking is complete on both Avalon #1 and Alt★Hero #1. We also anticipate publishing print editions of one or two Dark Legion graphic novels in that time frame.

The digital editions will be delivered to all the relevant backers via download codes, the print editions will not, but the pages from them will be included in the 150-page printed graphic novels that will be delivered to all of the relevant backers later this year. We will make the 24-page print editions available via our Castalia Direct store; they will also be available on Amazon, in traditional bookstores, and the comic stores that sign up to carry Arkhaven comics.

I haven’t spoken much about the third line of the Alt★Hero universe, the military one, but we do have an interesting storyline there that involves KA-FOR engaging an elite team of Chinese superhero assassins known as The Gods of Peaceful Sleep. Being assassins, the Gods seldom go around wearing their uniforms, but they do wear body armor beneath their civilian clothing, as can be seen above.

What, you might ask, is KA-FOR? The clue is in the name.

Meanwhile, Marvel continues to pare its losses by cancelling more of its SJW-converged failures:

For those keeping score, here are the ongoing titles that were part of the Marvel Legacy publishing initiative that will be facing the chopping block:

Generation X
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hawkeye
Iceman
Jean Grey
Luke Cage
Royals
Secret Warriors
She-Hulk
The Unbelievable Gwenpool
U.S. Avengers
Uncanny Avengers

If I was a betting man, I think we’re going to be seeing a lot more Marvel books getting the axe before the summer. If I had to guess, I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the end of the following titles:

Ben Reilly: Scarlet Spider
Black Bolt
Falcon
Monsters Unleashed
She-Hulk

They haven’t learned anything, of course. This is just a temporary retreat intended to stop the bleeding. And I wonder how much praise we’ll receive from the media for actually featuring genuinely diverse characters such as the Gods? None at all, I expect. Which is fine, because they’re not there for the sake of diversity, they are there because the story requires deadly superhumans in the employ of the Red Army.

Comic stores are feeling the consequences. A well-respected Chicago store called Challengers Comics regularly releases its annual numbers:

We are down 6.8{1a9740d54aaadd1290ec59721f654a3d9aaf924aeae0d9d35ee2fe84bc4370ea} from 2016, and this is our lowest yearly total since 2013. October and December took the biggest hits. Overall it’s as if our 2017 only had 11 months of sales. We were down $21,000 in single-issue Marvel sales alone. And in comparison… DC was up $2000. 

The list grows

For those who wonder why “nothing is happening,” some perspective.

  • 1,077, normal number of annual sealed indictments
  • 4,188, sealed indictments as of 11/22
  • 9,274, sealed indictments as of 12/22
There are also an improbable number of elite individuals suddenly having fatal accidents, medical boots appearing on politicians – and switching from one foot to another – as well as various war drums beating. So, my best current guess is that the public announcements of the arrests is waiting for the start of the military conflict, which will somehow be connected to some of the individuals arrested.

And don’t forget, by the decree of the God-Emperor, January 2018 is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

If all of this seems impossible to you, remember, Donald Trump was not supposed to win the presidential election. And the insurance the Deep State took out on the possibility that he might unexpectedly do so against the odds has proven worse than worthless.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
~FBI Agent Peter Strzok to FBI Lawyer Lisa Page

Let us be clear on what the “insurance policy” was.  The insurance policy was, in totality, the entire fraudulent Russian Conspiracy Narrative; and all of the accompanying –and subsequent– FBI and DOJ collaborative actions that were taken, under the auspices of an FBI counterintelligence operation, in order to generate an entirely false premise. The goal of using the “insurance policy” was to destroy, and possibly impeach, President Trump.

All of it.

What part of “shut up” does he not understand?

In what can perhaps be best described as a metappropriate response, Wil Wheaton cries about being portrayed as a crybaby.

I love that this set exists. I love that enough people want to do TNG LEGO to create a market demand for these figures. I can’t speak for the rest of the cast, but things like this, based on us, are always awesome. Earlier this year, a guy gave me a little minifig that he made of Wesley, and even though it’s unofficial, it is a delightful thing to own. He’s in his little red spacesuit, and he looks like he’s got a course you can plot. I love it.

In this particular custom set, though, Wesley is depicted as a crying child, and that’s not just disappointing to me, it’s kind of insulting and demeaning to everyone who loved that character when they were kids. The creator of this set is saying that Wesley Crusher is a crybaby, and he doesn’t deserve to stand shoulder to minifig shoulder with the rest of the crew. People who loved Wesley, who were inspired by him to pursue careers in science and engineering, who were thrilled when they were kids to see another kid driving a spaceship? Well, the character they loved was a crybaby so just suck it up I guess.

“Oh, Wil Wheaton, you sweet summer child,” you are saying right now. “You think people actually loved Wesley Crusher. You’re adorable.”

So this is, as you can imagine, something I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with for thirty years. It’s been talked about to death (on this very blog, more than once), but I’ll sum up as briefly as I can: I reject the idea that nobody liked or cared about the character…. it’s “Shut up, Wesley,” made into what would otherwise be an awesome minifig, in a collection of truly amazing and beautiful minifigs.

It’s a huge disappointment to me, because I’d love to have a Wesley in his little rainbow acting-ensign uniform, but I believe that it’s insulting to all the kids who are now adults who loved the character and were inspired by him to go into science and engineering, or who had a character on TV they could relate to, because they were too smart for their own good, a little awkward and weird, and out of place everywhere they went (oh hey I just described myself. I never claimed to be objective here).

Now THAT is funny! You can put the Gamma on camera, but you just can’t reason, talk, or beat the Gamma out of him. Seriously, Wil, just shut up already. The general public would like you a lot better if you’d simply take your well-merited beatings with a graceful smile.

Anyhow, there are probably more pedophiles who were inspired by Wesley than scientists and engineers. No one – NO ONE – loves Star Trek more than pedophiles. I wasn’t even a little bit surprised to see pictures of Moira Greyland and her brother in Star Trek uniforms as children.

“We always say there are two types of pedophiles: Star Trek and Star Wars,” says Det. Ian Lamond, the unit’s second-in-command. “But it’s mostly Star Trek.”

The year in review

Dave Barry puts it all in perspective. Some highlights:

  • Nobody seems to know how, specifically, the Russians affected the election, but everybody is pretty sure they did something, especially CNN, which has not been so excited about a story since those heady months in 2014 when it provided 24/7 video coverage of random objects floating in the Pacific while panels of experts speculated on whether those objects might or might not have anything to do with that missing Malaysian airliner. You can tune in to CNN any time, day or night, and you are virtually guaranteed to hear the word “Russians” within 10 seconds, even if it’s during a Depends commercial.
  •  NASA, in a major scientific discovery, announces that a star system less than 40 light-years away contains seven Earth-size planets, at least three of which appear to have a Starbucks.
  • On the legislative front, the big story is Obamacare, which the Republicans have been running against for seven straight years. Their message has been: “Vote for us, and we WILL get rid of Obamacare!” So now that they control the White House and both houses of Congress, there can be no stopping them. It’s time to deliver! GET READY FOR A REPUBLICAN-LEADERSHIP-STYLE BUTT-WHUPPIN’, OBAMACARE! When the smoke clears, Obamacare is sitting at the bar, unscathed, sipping a whiskey and flirting with the barmaid. Republican congressional leaders are strewn all over the barroom floor, noses bleeding, underpants pulled over their foreheads. But this setback does not deter them for long. They pick themselves up, dust themselves off, tuck themselves back in and start making plans for their next bold legislative masterstroke.
  • In aviation news, United Airlines breaks new customer-service ground when it decides that a 69-year-old passenger who has already boarded his flight must be “re-accommodated” via a technique similar to the one the Mexican army used to re-accommodate the Texans at the Alamo, leaving him with a concussion, broken teeth and a broken nose. At first United’s CEO defends the airline’s actions on the grounds that, quote, “We have the collective IQ of a starfish.” But after a firestorm of public outrage he apologizes and promises that in the future United will employ a “more humane” re-accommodation policy based on “respect for our customers and, when needed, tranquilizer darts.”
  • In other political developments, Greg Gianforte, a Republican running for Montana’s vacant congressional seat, gets national headlines when he body-slams a reporter for the Guardian newspaper. He is immediately hired as director of customer relations by United Airlines. No, seriously, despite being charged with assault, Gianforte wins easily, yet another indication that in much of the nation journalists enjoy the same level of popularity as head lice.
  • Republican congressional leaders determined to avenge their humiliating defeat at the hands of Obamacare emerge after months of closed-door meetings with a new, smarter repeal strategy. The GOP, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch “Mojo” McConnell, is cagey about the details, but sources say the plan involves a “high cliff” and a “really heavy safe,” which the Republicans plan to purchase from the Acme Corp.
  • Meanwhile a major scandal engulfs the entertainment world when the New York Times reveals that powerful movie producer Harvey Weinstein, despite being a prominent supporter of all the correct causes, basically spent the past several decades lumbering around in an open bathrobe forcing himself on unreceptive women. This news comes as a big shock to members of the Hollywood community, especially coming on the heels of their recent discovery that the pope is Catholic.

There is considerably more in this vein. It is amusing.

Defensive telecommuting

Sarah Hoyt predicts an increase in defensive telecommuting due to the expected rise in the number of false accusations of sexual harassment:

One of the predictions I’m seeing everywhere, for instance, is how now Human Resources will need a lot more power over companies to prevent more #metoo incidents of sexual importuning of women.

The funny thing about this is that anyone with two eyes and a modicum of understanding of the world knows that this is not where the crazy is headed. As the attempt to drown out the legitimate cases of harassment – mostly by leftists, in leftist-dominated institutions – by claiming #metoo and that all men were essentially harassers became more frantic, it has become obvious that any man can be accused of harassment at any time by anyone.

So, here is a genuine prediction: I predict that instead of giving HR more power, this will give companies pause before hiring women, which will lead to a lot of decent and qualified women being left unemployed.

The second-order effect of that, for companies that can’t avoid hiring women, is two-fold: they’ll either hire women to “make-believe” positions, in which they interact only or primarily with other women, creating a drain on the bottom line, or they will allow a lot more work-at-home by both men and women.  I predict we’ll see a great move towards that in the next year.

It’s true that at this point, any man would have to either be insane or incredibly short-sighted to hire or voluntarily work with a woman in any role that involved direct physical contact. The Left is trying to set up its usual “heads I win, tails you lose” situation here, but as we all know, a no-win situation is just another way to spell “carte blanche”.

And giving more power to HR to cure corporate ills is akin to prescribing two packs a day to someone already suffering from lung cancer.

Traffic report 2017

2016 was an absolutely extraordinary year. 2017 was considerably less explosive in terms of traffic growth, and was even a step backwards in several regards, but was nevertheless important due to a number of structural revisions being made behind the scenes that will provide a stronger foundation for future growth in the coming year.

In 2017, Vox Popoli had 31,216,357 pageviews and Alpha Game 3,952,482 for a total of 35,168,839 Google pageviews. The two blogs are now running at a average rate of 96,366 daily pageviews, up from an average 85,341 last year. The running annual pageview totals are as follows:

2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969
2016: 31,149,628
2017: 35,168,839

In August, I stepped away from blogging at Alpha Game, due to a lack of time and a growing lack of interest in the subject. I’ve learned what I wanted to learn and said what I wanted to say about intersexual relations; if I happen to write more on the subject, it will probably be in the form of a book. Lee Jackson has picked up the slack at AG and has already turned it around, so I’m glad to see that the community there will remain active.

The biggest blog news in 2017 was the unexpected magnitude of the success of the Alt★Hero crowdfunding campaign. As a result, we’ll be introducing two comics imprints in 2018, Arkhaven and Dark Legion. Arkhaven will be the comics and graphic novels that we produce ourselves, while Dark Legion will be our vehicle for publishing comics and graphic novels produced by others.

Castalia House expanded from 65 titles to 96, with 38 titles available in print and 24 in audiobook. Book sales increased 40 percent, with print accounting for 16 percent of the total. Infogalactic had some ups and downs as far as stability was concerned, but it is still going strong as we work towards the release of the DONT PANIC engine, while Infogalactic News and Infogalactic Tech were launched and have grown steadily in popularity. On the downside, Brainstorm was essentially shut down midway through the year due to GoToWebinar shenanigans following the sale of the company, which is why we’re going to move it to a different voice-only service this month. And we didn’t quite manage to launch Voxiversity in 2017, but we will do so soon.

I’ve also begun blogging more often at DevGame, since we’ll be launching four games there this year and probably doing one game-related kickstarter this summer that should be of considerable appeal to strategy gamers. For more information about that, be sure to visit DevGame from time to time in the new year. We will also be launching a complete site redesign of Castalia House in 2018, including dedicated forums and wikis.

Thanks to everyone who continues to read VP and to those who support one or more of the various endeavors that have emanated from it. Thanks especially to the Infogalactic Burn Unit, the Alt★Hero backers, the Castalia volunteers, and the Brainstorm crew, all of whom have come together in a spirit of cooperation to make these various projects viable.

2017 was a year for building foundations that should lead to constructive consequences in 2018. Of course, it would not be an annual report without a resort to our old comparable with “the most popular blog in science fiction.” Since I’m no longer the primary blogger at Alpha Game, I have removed it entirely from the equation. Gammas are certainly free to posture as they will, but the facts are the facts, however uncomfortable they might be. As for other metrics such as movies and whatnot, well, we haven’t even begun exploring those arenas. But I expect we will, in time.

And I anticipate that what we will do there will be very similar to what we have done here. The ride never ends.

Batman, converged

DC is determined to go the way of Marvel:

The DC Rebirth made it clear that Batman is a transgender ally, and his main comic books are keeping that support alive. Even now, it’s possible that devoted fans of Batman comics missed Bruce Wayne’s stance on the issue – which was the entire point. The company-wide relaunch brought a Rebirth to Batman’s title series, while he united the rest of the Batman Family in the pages of Detective Comics. That team ended up being led by Batwoman, one of the most visible LGBTQ comic heroes. But it also introduced a new, openly transgender scientist to the DC Universe: Dr. Victoria October.

At the time, we couldn’t help but appreciate that Batman supported Victoria’s transition, mentioned and alluded to in vocabulary that non-LGBTQ readers could completely miss. But those in the community would see the exact message being sent by writers James Tynion IV and Marguerite Bennett. In the months since that issue, Detective has kept the conversation going. But as other comic titles and publishers battle the opposing forces of readers calling for diversity and those who claim it’s more marketing spin than progress, Detective is deserving of praise.

I’m not even going to pretend I’m not very pleased to see this. But not, you understand, for the same reasons as DC’s media cheerleaders. Let’s face it, there are few things comics readers enjoy more than witty banter about preferred pronouns.

An American Nuremburg?

I wouldn’t exactly call them “fears”, myself. More like “hopes”.

A new Ministry of Defense (MoD) report circulating in the Kremlin today states that based upon signals intelligence (SIGINT/ELINT) accumulated over the past year by Signal Communications Troops (SCT) conducting training missions in the Republic of Cuba—and who’ve been “aided/augmented” by the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) in their findings—General Staff Deputy Defense Minister Tatiana Shevtsova is able to confirm that a level of “high confidence” currently exists that President Donald Trump is preparing to transfer to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (located in Cuba) an unknown number of “high level” American citizen detainees in preparation for their trials before a US Military Tribunal—and whose nearest historical counterpart incident of were the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials held to prosecute German Nazi war criminals—and that likewise, as seen in 1945, is now seeing hundreds of highly trained and specialized US Army Military Police being rushed to Cuba to oversee this process. 

Why does all of this sound vaguely… familiar somehow. Also, if the chans are to be believed, more than a few of these so-called citizen detainees have already been transferred to Guantanamo.

If these reports are to be believed – and it is true that the 850th Military Police Battalion has been deployed to Guantanamo Bay to support Operation Enduring Freedom – then it appears The Storm will be upon us shortly.

Happy New Year indeed!

Credit where credit is due

It’s always embarrassing when writers who have never worked a single day in their lives at any business that actually makes anything try to opine on matters related to management:

Conservative writer Roger Simon argues that all “remaining Never Trumpers” must apologize for being wrong about the president. He chalks up Trump’s “astoundingly successful” first year to the fact the president is a “quick study.”

But what evidence is there that Trump has actually learned the art of presidential management?

Aside from the mandatory flattery required of Republican elected officials, there’s remarkably little testimony that Trump has involved himself in the process of governing. Tax reform was carried across the finish line by the GOP congressional leadership. Net neutrality was repealed by independent Republicans at the Federal Communications Commission. Foreign policy is a more mixed bag. If the president deserves credit for the defeat of Islamic State, it’s because he let “the generals” do their thing. On the other hand, credit (or blame) for recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel or pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris accord on climate change certainly goes to him.

In general, it seems to me that Trump’s success (such as it is) is less attributable to sudden mastery of the issues than to staying out of the way of rank-and-file Republican policymakers, activists, and bureaucrats.

What Goldberg fails to recognize is that staying out of the way of competent subordinates is the key to the art of all successful executive management. Donald Trump is the exact opposite of Richard Nixon Lyndon Johnson, who didn’t hesitate to get on the phone with a lieutenant in the field in Vietnam in setting a ridiculous new standard for micromanagement in foreign policy.

Micromanagers like LBJ reliably fail for the obvious reason that no one can know everything, master everything, prioritize everything, and be everywhere at once. Only Reagan had similarly developed delegation skills, but he did not choose his subordinates as well as Trump has, and more importantly, Reagan did not hold his subordinates accountable the way Trump does.

None of this should be a surprise. Back in November 2016, I observed, “The God-Emperor is absolutely ruthless when it comes to taking action on underperforming team members. He doesn’t care how it looks, he just shuffles the deck and draws.”

That’s why I expected, and continue to expect, the Trump presidency to be vastly more successful than anyone anticipated. It’s why I expect him to easily win re-election in 2020. The great CEOs have always been able to master the delicate balance between staying out of their subordinates’ way and stepping in to deal with matters themselves when personal intervention becomes necessary. And lacking business experience as he does, Jonah completely fails to understand Trump’s demonstrated mastery of this balance, as he absurdly credits the Republican establishment for Trump’s success.

To listen to Trump’s cheerleaders, the biggest obstacle to conservative victories is the party establishment, when in reality it looks more like it’s running the show.

Not only is the GOPe not running the show anymore, it has been largely broken to heel by Trump, as evidenced by the Republican Congress’s sudden ability to pass tax reform after repeatedly failing to do anything. The large number of pre-2018 retirements and resignations will further demonstrate that the GOPe is no longer in control, as will the success of Trump-endorsed candidates in the Congressional and Senatorial elections.