ARKTOONS: four more Monday titles

Bounding Into Comics has the story:

YouTube personality RazörFist endorsed the newly launched digital comics platform Arktoons as the site added four new series on Monday, May 3rd.

Arktoons is a free-to-view digital comics platform that allows readers to view comics in a top down format similar to Webtoons. It can be found at Arkhaven.com.

The site, while free-to-view, does have a subscription offering with plans ranging from $5 to $50. It does not feature ads and according to the site’s Lead Editor Vox Day it has no plans to ever feature ads.

As for RazörFist’s endorsement, the YouTuber tweeted, “I just clicked on one of the Arkstoons comics, and it opened with a Rand quote about socialism, followed by a complete worldwide death toll of every Communist dictator.”

He added, “I do believe I found the right publisher. Arkhaven.com.”

The comic in question is from Brazilian publisher Super Prumo’s The Hammer of Freedom.

While The Hammer of Freedom might be Arktoons’ most read series, the platform rolled out four new challengers today including Cosmic Warrior, Big Bear’s Big Comic, Gun Ghoul, and Chuck Dixon Presents: War.

It’s very encouraging to see people beginning to sit up and take notice of the fact that Arktoons not only exists, but features content that is manifestly different that what the rest of the comics industry has on offer. And there is now the equivalent of an entire omnibus – about six issues – worth of content on the site already, with new episodes coming literally every day.

On a technical note, the dev team has fixed the “missing panel” problem that affected four of the 26 series.

Free Trade is literally evil

Matt’s Musings explores the Biblical perspective on free trade:

Communism is one of the dumbest forms of society conceivable. Nazism is just as bad, and feminism has a higher death toll than both of those two systems combined. But communism is so obviously dumb. It impoverishes a nation, it empowers the particularly wicked to get into positions where they can do maximum damage, it centralizes mediocrity into the halls of power, and it is inevitably self-defeating. The fact that communism is so popular still in the modern world after all the damage it has done, is all the proof we need that influential elements in film, media and academia, which are all responsible for shaping minds, are in the hands of its perpetrators and their descendants. That is the only way that its teachings can continually be whitewashed in the minds of young westerners.

I say this, so there is no confusion, nothing I say in criticism today of our modern economic system comes from a place of sympathy to communism. I despise communism as much as anyone despises Nazism. I think it is horrible and disgusting we didn’t outlaw communism decades ago when we had the chance. To me Nazism and Communism are different sides of the same evil coin.

But, what is interesting is that right now many former communist countries are on the rise, and virtually every western nation is on the decline. We have nicer things, that is for sure, but there is one thing in history that is more effective at destroying a people than any political ideology: that is unrestrained wealth and greed. That is what our system has become.

In real terms the government views us all as economic beings, and we spend most of our time acting as such, and this is not good. Prosperity can be both a blessing and a curse, and the Bible warns us, desperately, about this, and one of the most famous passages about the Devil in scripture is in this very context. Because being enamoured with your prosperity is exactly the mistake the devil made.

So, today I want to speak to the evils of our free trade system, and how the Devil uses it to corrupt us. I think this is so important for us all here, especially because of our wealth, because the Bible puts a lot of focus on warning those of us at ease, how dangerous that ease can be for our souls.

There is a LOT more to the article, including copious citations from the Bible, so read the whole thing there. It’s fascinating to see that, once more, the Bible is well ahead of both the history and the science. I’ve mathematically proven that free trade is absolutely impossible for any nation that wishes to survive, and history has demonstrated that free trade is actually worse for a nation than communism, so it’s fascinating to see that the truth of the matter was right there in front of our eyes all along in the Word of God. 

Past as prelude

Americans and Brits living in their respective surveillance societies would do well to learn from the East Germans, whose Stasi were a precursor to today’s social media thought police:

1) They Were Gaslighting before It Was a Thing

The Stasi were prolific gaslighters. In the 1950s, repression was brutal, physical torture. Early in the 1970s, eager to be accepted on the international stage, the East German Secret Police had to get more subtle. The aim of Zersetzung (a repurposed military term meaning disintegration or corrosion) was to “switch off” any activist individuals and groups who might threaten the Party. Police collected medical, school, and police records, interviews with neighbors and relatives, and any other evidence they could get and would then customize a direct hit on an individual’s mental health.

If someone looked like he might challenge the Communist Party’s legitimacy or control, the Stasi systematically destroyed his life. They used blackmail, social shame, threats, and torture. Careers, reputations, relationships, and lives were exploded to destabilize and delegitimize a critic. Some forms of harassment were almost comical: agents spread rumors about their targets, flooded their mailboxes with pornography, moved things around in their apartments, or deflated their bicycle tires day after day. Others were life-altering: Individuals labeled as subversives were banned from higher education, forced into unemployment, and forcibly committed to asylums. Many suffered long-term psychological trauma, loss of earnings, and intense social shame as a result of Stasi lies.

2) They Were (Almost) Everywhere

The Stasi had 91,000 employees at its peak—roughly one in every 30 residents was a Stasi agent. More than one in three East Germans (5.6 million) was under suspicion or surveillance, with an open Stasi file. Another half million were feeding the Stasi information. This level of surveillance and infiltration caused East Germans to live in terror—you really never knew if you could trust anyone—though most had no idea of the scope of these activities until after the Berlin Wall fell.

3) They Kept a Crazy Amount of (Meticulous) Records

Stasi files laid out together would cover about 69 sq. miles. Recording detailed personal information on a third of the populace required a tremendous amount of paper. More pages of printed text were generated by the Stasi than by all German authors from the Middle Ages to WWII. Thousands of citizens were targeted as anti-government “trouble makers,” their homes were searched, phones and cars—if they were lucky enough to have either—were bugged, their letters opened and copied, and their movements secretly filmed or photographed. Every document went into a personal Stasi file. So far, hundreds of millions of files, 39 million index cards, 1.75 million photographs, 2,800 reels of film and 28,400 audio recordings have been recovered from Stasi archives. Millions more were shredded before they could be made public.

The deplatformings and ritual denouncings of today are the modern equivalent of the Zersetzung. Remember, everything you do is now recorded and will be used against you, so don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.

Big 6 now Big 4

The publishing world is under ever-tightening control. An agent explains why this is going to make things worse for authors and readers alike.

By 2022, we will be down to The Big 4 – Penguin Simon & Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Harper Collins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  – plus a smattering of some mid-size but growing independents. And that’s it.This contraction significantly impacts writers an authors, and here’s why:

  • Merging companies always declare that the houses will be run separately. This was certainly the case when Random House bought Penguin more than five years ago. Now these “separate publishers” exist under the same roof, use the same publishing contract, and operate under merged accounting and royalty systems. It is, in essence, almost like one house even though agents can still submit separately.
  • When publishers merge, there are often new mandates regarding how those houses will participate in auctions and submit bids. Some houses stipulate that imprints can no longer bid against each other. So if several imprints are interested in acquiring a project, they communicate and form a “house bid” (which is where all imprints propose one bid to submit in the auction, and if it is the winning bid, then the author can choose which editor/imprint to work with). This removes competition from the auction and lowers advances, which translates to less money for the author.
  • The merging of publishers results in the must-acquire-blockbusters-only mentality. Tighter budgets means fewer books will be acquired, which makes editors less likely to take chances on unique, creative voices—authors with talent who might not break out until their fourth or fifth novel. In other words, there is less focus on building an author and more focus on acquiring the obvious “big” book—which limits the diversity of unique stories in the world.
  • Contraction squeezes out the mid-list author—the author who’s not a blockbuster but whose sales might be humming along nicely. How? Because it makes the publisher less likely to pick up their option material. This precludes the possibility that a mid-list author’s third or fourth book might have been the one to break out. Not to mention, if the agent must shop the author anew, the current house (and all those imprints) are off the submit list. That equals fewer outlets where an agent can place that author and relaunch that author’s career.
  • Contraction eliminates editorial positions. Smaller staff equals fewer editors equals less diversity and narrower taste in what gets acquired. Also, smaller staff equals fewer editors equals those editors getting way more submissions from agents. Editors are already strapped for reading time and inundated with submitted manuscripts. The sheer volume makes it hard for any debut project to stand out in the crush—reducing a new writer’s chances of getting a foot in the door.
  • Contraction equals less-author-friendly publishing contracts. Fewer houses at which to place a client means publishers have the upper hand when it comes to dictating the terms, and agents have less negotiation leverage. 

Fortunately, I left that world once and for all back in 2014. So as long as there are people interested in buying books from Castalia and Arkhaven, there will be options to the increasingly converged mainstream offerings.

And speaking of Castalia, we’ll be announcing a few things tomorrow. Nothing terribly crazy, just getting caught up on the regular business now that Arktoons has successfully launched and we can start keeping reasonably normal hours again.

Arktoons: 4 Sunday titles

Bounding Into Comics has the exclusive story:

Arkhaven Comics publisher and Lead Editor Vox Day announced four more series for the newly released digital comic platform, Arktoons.

Arktoons is a free-to-view digital comics platform that releases new episodes of comics every single day of the week. The platform is stylistically similar to Webtoons, where comics are read in a top down format.

It was launched this past Wednesday, and is already seeing success. Vox Day tells Bounding Into Comics, “We’re seeing some incredible engagement statistics on the site.”

He added, “Average session durations have climbed steadily from an average 5 minutes 48 seconds on launch day to 6 minutes 32 seconds. This shows that people are not only reading the new comics at Arktoons, but enjoying them.”

The four new series released on Sunday include Chicago Typewriter, AI Wars, Bovodar & The Bears, and Swan Knight Saga. They bring the total number of series on the platform up to 22.

In other comics-related news, Marvel continues to celebrate its converged death spiral, as the Devil Mouse’s main movie guy explains that it is a priority for Marvel to racewash and genderswap familiar characters.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently addressed why the upcoming Eternals movie decided to race and gender swap most of the characters from their origins in the comics.
A majority of The Eternals characters have been race and gender swapped. The only characters that look similar to their comic book iterations are Ikaris, Thena, and Phastos.
They changed Makkari to a black, female, deaf character. Kingo now appears Indian instead of appearing to be Japanese. Ajak is Hispanic, Lebanese, and female. Gilgamesh is now Asian, and Sprite is now female and a young girl….
If it wasn’t clear that this film might be the wokest of all of Marvel’s films so far, Feige pretty much confirmed it. He made it very clear they set out to race and gender swap the majority of the cast before they had even began searching for a director!
Not only that, but it shows where Marvel Studios and Feige’s priorities are. He clearly states the reason for the film being moved to the top of their list of films to make is purely because they could swap the characters’ races, genders, and sexualities.

No wonder they’re unhappy with the Arktoons initiative. Because they know what is likely to happen if they are wrong… and a growing mountain of evidence suggests they’re wrong. 

The US joins the graveyard of empires

 Afghanistan wins again:

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan attacked and overran a key army base in southeastern Ghazni province Saturday, capturing dozens of soldiers and killing several others.

The latest attack came on a day when the United States and NATO partners formally began withdrawing their militaries from the country after almost 20 years of war.

Two senior provincial council members told VOA the Afghan army had stationed dozens of its forces at the base outside the provincial capital, also named Ghazni, before the pre-dawn insurgent attack.  Local media reports said the ensuing clashes had lasted several hours and killed at least 17 soldiers.

 Afghan army chief, Gen. Mohammad Yasin Zia, who is also the acting defense minister, confirmed to reporters in Kabul the fall of the security installation to insurgents, but he shared no further details.

20 years of totally pointless war ending in defeat. It’s yet another reminder that the US empire is in its early death throes, not unlike those of its predecessors in the graveyard.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. 

Black privilege

Now that black men such as Deshaun Watson and Noel Clarke have been credibly accused of being sexual predators by literally dozens of women, suddenly SJWs are worried about due process, innocence until proven guilty, and the unfairness of trial by media:

Noel Clarke is facing the prospect of a police investigation after seven more women came forward to accuse the Bafta star of a campaign of sexual harassment and bullying.

With 27 women now saying they were sexually harassed or groped by the celebrated actor and director, Scotland Yard has said it is ‘assessing’ a specific allegation. The Met Police confirmed that a ‘third-party report’ was made on April 21 ‘relating to allegations of sexual offences committed by a male over a period of time’….

Meanwhile, it was reported that Bafta spent two weeks deciding how best to respond to allegations against Clarke prior to presenting him with one of its highest honours, the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award.

In a statement, Bafta claimed it had acted ‘as quickly and supportively as we could, even though we had only received the most generic of claims and no actual first-hand information to investigate allegations which were potentially of a criminal nature’. 

The Guardian said senior figures within the film academy were worried about the potential reputational damage to the organisation over its handling of the claims against Clarke. 

Bafta chair Krishnendu Majumdar was reportedly aware there could be as many as 12 women making allegations against Clarke on the eve of the awards ceremony.

He sought to speak to anyone with first-hand experience of Clarke’s alleged misconduct and told an industry figure he was ‘trying to do something about’ the situation as it could ‘destroy’ Bafta ‘in the court of public opinion’, the newspaper said.

Majumdar is said to have described the allegations as a ‘desperately difficult situation for us’ as Bafta ‘cannot act as judge and jury’.

Let’s face it, a white quarterback might survive a single accusation, but the media storm would be relentless, as evidenced by the coverage of the Peyton Manning and Ben Rothlisberger situations. He’d be suspended proactively by the NFL by the time the third accusation was made. And can anyone imagine a white actor who was accused of sexual harassment by twelve women being presented a major cinematic award?

For all their incessant crying about racism, the simple fact is that blacks simply aren’t held to the same behavioral standards as others.

I have no doubt the film academy was worried about reputational damage if they didn’t give the 12x-accused (now 27x) sexual predator the award. The only thing they fear more than being called “racist” is being called “anti-semitic”. But it’s hard to see what the problem is. After all, if the Hellmouth didn’t give awards to sexual predators, they couldn’t give out awards.

UPDATE: This bit is classic. Notice how Clarke’s lawyers don’t even hesitate to completely lie about an easily-confirmed fact, then just keep producing excuses when they are caught red-handed.

Clarke’s lawyers said they did not dispute that such a scene had been shot, but said it was in the script and agreed in advance. Informed by the Guardian that there was no reference to a female performer straddling a male performer, or anything that could be interpreted as requiring that, Clarke’s lawyers queried which version of the script was being referred to and said there was “a degree of improvisation” that performers and crew were all comfortable with.

Social Justice Nazis impose flight ban

Thanks to the post-WWII mass deportation of the neoclowns from the USSR, Russia is now free and the USA is rapidly being transformed into the USSA. Pessimistic as I am about the prospects for the survival of the USA as a political entity, I didn’t expect this level of social control to be imposed on citizens so soon by the evil imperial elite:

“America First” host Nick Fuentes has been banned by all the usual Big Tech suspects, along with livestream service DLive, Coinbase, “and every payment processor” for his forceful advocacy of populism, an end to mass migration and protection of the nuclear family. He was scheduled to join Loomer, former Delaware GOP Senate candidate Lauren Witzke (banned from Twitter for calling a pedophilia-flirting transgender activist “demonic”), and me in Palm Beach Tuesday at a rally to push for loophole-free legislation holding Silicon Valley accountable for discriminatory deplatforming.

But Fuentes never got off the ground, because two airlines and Joe Biden’s TSA informed him that he didn’t have “clearance” to fly. He has been charged with no crimes and was blocked from exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.

“The United States is now a country that persecutes its own citizens for political dissent. My placement on the no-fly list constitutes a grave escalation by the federal government against American conservatives,” Fuentes told me. It’s “all the more reason why our Republican representatives in state and federal government must get serious and pass strong legislation that protects the civil liberties of the 75 million people that voted for Donald Trump.”

Note that a US citizen who has not even been accused of a crime is being denied the right to travel within the country due to nothing more than the fact that a small number of evil and influential Jews are afraid of the popularity of his opinions. The idea that “it’s a free country” is no longer even remotely applicable to the USA, because the United States is no longer a republic and it is no longer ruled by American Christians. It is now ruled by foreigners and women, which you may recall is defined as a curse by the Bible.

If you fear to even identify the wicked, then you have submitted to them and their father the Devil. And your silence will not protect you. To the contrary, they are absolutely counting on it. They don’t deplatform people like Nick Fuentes out of strength, but rather, out of sheer terror, and for the very same reason they are trying to disarm you.

Asking for trouble

Very, very serious trouble:

United States will work with Ukraine to ensure that it meets the criteria for NATO membership, says the US Department of State just days before US Secretary of State’s visit to the country.

President Trump’s greatest accomplishment was keeping the USA out of the war with Russia that was in the cards if Hillary Clinton had been elected. Clinton had made it clear that she was going to invite Ukraine to join NATO, which was why there were Russian troops on the border prepared to render that a moot point before the invitation could be issued.

The Biden Not-Administration backed down two weeks ago when Putin ordered a similar mobilization, but now the neoclowns who run it are still attempting to push the issue. It’s a very, very bad idea, because Russia will not permit Ukraine to join NATO, and will make sure that there is no Ukraine to join it if necessary.

Four more titles at Arktoons

 Bounding Into Comics reports on the latest additions at Arktoons:

Arktoons continues to roll out new titles at Arkhaven.com with four new titles coming out every Saturday beginning today.

These four new titles join 14 other titles that were rolled out beginning on Wednesday, bringing the total series on the digital comics platform up to 18.

If you haven’t been following our Arktoons coverage, it is a free-to-view digital comics platform that releases new episodes of comics every single week day…. Saturday will feature Chuck Dixon Presents: Comedy, Clockwork Dancer, Quantum Dancer, and Seasons.

Read the whole thing there. Then visit Arktoons.