#pencilsdown

Independent comics creators and their supporters are less than entirely mournful over the implosion of the establishment comics industry in response to the #pencilsdown announcement at Marvel, Valiant, and other publishers.

A group calling its fans Nazis, misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, pedophiles, neck beards, virgins, incels, terrorists, racists, and more now think the fans should have

*checks notes*

Been more “kind to pros”

This is why I don’t care that you had to put your #pencilsdown

Given the way that we were treated by BleedingCool and the rest of the mainstream comics media, I can’t say that I am any more sympathetic. Meanwhile, at Arkhaven, Chuck Dixon’s Avalon has just seen issues 5 and 6 released, and the illustrations through issue 10 are already done. Quantum Mortis: A Man Disrupted #5 will be out next week and we just need a cover in order to get Alt-Hero:Q #3 done.

And the colors for A Throne of Bones #1 are almost ready for lettering.

Desperate Deep State

But what is it about the hospital ships that has them freaking out?

An engineer in Los Angeles was charged after attempting to ram a train at full speed into a Navy hospital ship sent to assist with the Covid-19 pandemic, in a bizarre effort to “wake up” Americans to a vague government conspiracy.

San Pedro resident Eduardo Moreno was charged with one count of train wrecking on Wednesday after admitting to authorities that he deliberately derailed a locomotive in an attempt to crash it into the USNS Mercy, a Navy medical vessel docked near LA to take pressure off the city’s crowded hospitals amid the coronavirus outbreak.

A train engineer at the Port of Los Angeles was arrested this morning on federal charges for allegedly running a locomotive at full speed off the end of rail tracks near the USNS Mercy. The train smashed through several steel and concrete barriers but failed to collide with the ship, being stopped by a chain link fence, according to a highway patrol officer who witnessed the attempted ramming.

That’s not weird at all…. Meanwhile, in Michigan, the governor abruptly, and inexplicably, reverses course:

On Friday March 27th Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer threatened to revoke the medical licenses of doctors and pharmacists who prescribe hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus in Michigan.  Four days later, March 31st, the same governor asks the federal government to send her hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus patients. 

An Arkhaven subscription

Given the chaos in the comics industry, Team Arkhaven has been brainstorming about the best way to build up the comics offensive in the culture war and we’ve returned to the oft-suggested idea of the monthly Arkhaven subscription.

While I have been very negative about this from the start, the combination of a) the success of The Replatforming, both in terms of support and our ability to meet the production demands, and, b) the ongoing collapse of the establishment comics industry, has caused me to rethink my previous position.

Which leads us to the question: what should that monthly subscription look like? At the most basic level, we know there will be a $1 subscription for some form of monthly digital comic. But what else? Note that the basic subscription would be entirely NEW comics, although there might be tiers that allow people to get caught up on Alt-Hero or whatever.

Share your thoughts, please.

UPDATE: Here are my first thoughts in response to the suggestions.

  1. The comics need to be standard length. 20-page stories instead of the 24-pages we’ve been doing.
  2. The $1 subscription will get you the digital comic of the month. This could be anything except material produced specifically for the AH or AHQ campaigns. The Caligan campaign material would be included because it has far fewer backers. Could be Big Bear, Shade, A Throne of Bones, Chicago Typewriter, etc. Essentially, it’s a robust monthly sampler.
  3. A $3 subscription will get you the digital comic of the month + whatever series to which you want to receive whenever a new one comes out. This could be anything from AH to QM:AMD. Add $2 for each additional series subscription.
Question: how to handle getting new subscribers caught up on existing series. Starting each series subscription from first issue is a logistical nightmare. Still working on the numbers for the various print options. Anyhow, please continue to share your thoughts. At the moment, it looks complicated and not necessarily worthwhile, but probably not impossible.

The two most important lessons

A 40-year Wall Street veteran imparts the most important lessons he has learned from swimming in the swamp of fake capitalist corruption:

The same players who were bailed out then went back to what they do best. Too big to fail is now bigger, but with one crucial difference – the concentration of toxic risk remains in fewer hands and is enabled by Washington’s pay-to-play swamp. As corporate debt hits new all-time highs, balance sheets remain riddled with accounting fraud and enforcement hits all-time lows; we will soon see who is naked and it won’t be pretty.

Last autumn, I warned investors that Germany’s economy was falling off a cliff and was either in a recession or would be very soon. I cautioned that Italy’s debt is a huge problem and other member states and the rest of the world are not far behind Germany. Now in March, you can expect and will need to prepare for a full-blown economic depression.

Banks, politicians and governments will scapegoat Covid-19 to shift the blame for over 30 years of fiscal profligacy, loose monetary policies, fraud, and the lack of any proper regulatory enforcement away from themselves and onto anything or anyone else. Eventually, taxes will skyrocket to pay for these opaque bailouts, reckless spending policies, and record low interest rates during the past three decades.

Covid-19 presents an easy way to assign blame while forcing through “emergency legislation” allowing big government to implement 1984-style draconian social controls that will impinge and dismantle personal freedoms, liberties and democratic principles as they fleece taxpayers – again. If you think the 2008 recession and bailouts were bad, wait until you see how the greatest economic depression in history plays out.

This bubble has only begun to pop, and there are many more shoes to drop from this centipede before prices hit bottom. The downside will be significantly worse than the upside. Until leverage, valuations and corporate debt return to reasonable levels, stay clear. When these events do happen, we will see once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to create wealth. 

The two most important lessons I learned from my 40 years in international financial markets, lessons that can also be applied to politics and to life in general, are to never make any decision based on emotion or ideology and to never, ever trust the news. Today’s media are exponentially worse than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. They no longer provide news. What they provide are stories that are around 80 percent ideology and opinion,10 percent lies and spin, and 10 percent fact.

Keep your powder dry. Exploit the opportunities as they present themselves. And always, Always, ALWAYS critically examine every piece of so-called “news” with a highly skeptical eye.

Never trust the banks

As in 2008, the banks are taking the money the government has given them to help small businesses and are refusing to loan it out:

Nearly a fifth of small British businesses could be forced to close in the next four weeks after running out of cash amid complaints banks are refusing to give them government-backed coronavirus loans.

Many bosses said banks had declined them emergency payments over claims they had not met the required criteria while others could not get through on the phone or were told the money would take weeks to arrive.

Mark Fuller, who owns popular celebrity haunt Karma Sanctum in Soho, said he was unable to apply for funds because he could not guarantee his businesses would be able to start paying it back after six months in the event of a lengthy shutdown.

‘The loan is under normal business conditions, which is fine but then don’t suggest otherwise,’ he told MailOnline. ‘I have already been told by the government and Barclays that the only way to receive a loan is by cutting my staff.’

Other bosses were declined payments for having significant cash reserves, despite fears these would not be enough to last out a lengthy lockdown, or because they owned properties that could be used as collateral for a regular commercial loan.

Scott Littlefield, from SPL Management, a property company based in Poole, told MailOnline: “This scheme is not really fit for purpose. Our bank, Nat West, is virtually non-contactable at the best of times and the staff in branch can only deal with personal banking issues, not business. They always say to approach your relationship manager although all relationship managers were done away with in 2010.”

If you think the US banks are bad, you should try dealing with a UK bank. They make it almost impossible for a UK-based company to even get a bank account. And, as in the US, they refuse to play what is supposed to be their part in crisis-amelioration efforts.

The governments need to stop looking to the banks to help solve the problem. They ARE the root of the problem, and therefore cannot be part of the solution.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon – two new issues!

Normally we’d spread these out a bit, but since it’s been a while and because publishing the sixth issue means we can start putting the omnibus together, we decided to release issues #5 and #6 at the same time. And besides, if you’re on lockdown, what better way to spend the day than in Avalon City with The Legend Chuck Dixon? If you’re an Alt-Hero backer, please check your email, as links to the .CBZ and .mobi versions have been sent to you!

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #5: Forced Entry

The hunter has become the hunted. As the mysterious vigilante continues to stalk her prey, the crack international superhero team is on her trail and is determined to bring her down before she can accomplish her deadly mission.

But is there another way to find her? What is the connection between the vigilante and the unknown coma patient she was once observed visiting in the hospital? The Avalon police, too, are patiently trying to track her down before she adds to her body count.

If you weren’t an original Alt-Hero backer, Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #5: Forced Entry is available for $2.99 in two digital formats at Arkhaven Comics and in Kindle format on Amazon. It is also available in a gold-logo print edition for #3.99 at Castalia Direct.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #6: Unforced Error

Vengeance is the order of the day in Avalon. But when King Ace and his new team finally manage to track down the murderous vigilante and interrupt her latest hit, he learns that it is a lot easier to take on an unwilling villain than to take her in to face justice. And he also learns a much more difficult lesson about betrayal.

In the meantime, King Ace’s old friend and former not-sidekick has also fallen in with some new friends who do not hesitate to use their superpowers in some very illegal ways and towards some very questionable ends.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #6: Unforced Error is available for $2.99 in two digital formats at Arkhaven Comics and in Kindle format on Amazon.

MComix and ComicRack are both reliable free CBZ readers for Windows. I prefer MComix. SimpleComic is recommended for Mac. There are many free CBZ readers for Android and iOS available on the Play and Apple stores.

UPDATE: It’s interesting to note that, by contrast, that the industry’s primary distributor Diamond will stop shipping new comics on April 1, and that with the exception of DC, many of the establishment comics publishers are no longer releasing digital comics.

UPDATE: Batman is now Chinese. And in high school. With the Joker. He lives with an older gay gentleman named Alfred.

After admitting she has no clue about Batman, De La Cruz then details her lack of knowledge doesn’t matter because she’s radically altering the character anyways. She explains, “Bruce Wayne is the billionaire. He’s the richest man alive. So I thought, wouldn’t it be fun if his family was Chinese and from Hong Kong? That made it feel real.”

De La Cruz then details she’s basically telling an autobiography of her own life using a DC Comics character, “There’s been a big influx of wealthy Chinese people who moved from Hong Kong to Arcadia in Los Angeles, and that’s where my mom lives, I’m part-Chinese, my brother lives in Hong Kong, so I thought it would be great to put what I know into Bruce Wayne. I just wanted him to be a little bit more representative of my background and giving him an authentic family.”

Meanwhile, our upcoming Shade comic, written by The Legend Chuck Dixon, is going to crush.

UPDATE: Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #5: Forced Entry  is the #1 New Release in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Graphic Novels

Snicker-snack!

The already-teetering comics industry is about to come crashing down… hard.

Dear Diamond Vendor:

As the world responds to the outbreak of COVID-19, our focus is on protecting employees, understanding the risks to our business, evaluating the risks to our industry and examining the Federal Government resources available. While the full impact of this epidemic is still unknown, one thing is certain: supply chain disruptions have cash flow implications across the extended industry that can’t be underestimated.

While we work to understand the current industry landscape, the unfortunate truth is that we are no longer receiving consistent payments from our customers. This requires that at this time, we hold payments to vendors previously scheduled to release this week. This is a difficult decision and not one we make lightly. As this situation continues to evolve, we are committed to building out a plan for payment and will have more information to share later this week.

Thank you for your patience and understanding during these difficult times.

Translation: Marvel, DC, and all the various other publishers who sell through Diamond are not getting paid.

But never fear, both the Arkhaven Comics digital store and the Castalia Direct print edition store are running at full steam. In fact, we even expect to have the gold-logo limited edition of Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #6 available in the latter tomorrow.

Last day for Ascendant

Ascendant is a superhero RPG system that provides the mechanical basis for the upcoming Alt-Hero RPG. I backed its Kickstarter campaign, and if you’re into RPGs, you will probably want to do so as well.

Comic book RPGs tend to be sub-divided into “descriptor-based” and “effect-based” games. “Bolt of Fire” is a descriptor, while “Ranged Attack that deals 50 points of damage to one target” is an effect. A descriptor-based game prioritizes the descriptor over the effects. An effect-based game prioritizes the effects over the descriptor.

Ascendant strives to be neither a descriptor-based nor effect-based game. It is, rather, a physics-based game. The game mechanics are intended to be the physics engine of the game world. Powers have both descriptors and effects. Some effects are precluded by the logic of the descriptor, and some descriptors inevitably entail certain effects. The mechanics are elaborate and detailed (as in an effect-based game) but they are also broad and universalized (as in a descriptor-based game). Players are expected and encouraged to use their powers in whatever manner makes sense within the physics of a comic-book world, but not in ways that don’t make sense.

If a descriptor-based system aims to let players experience a comic-book story, and an effect-based system aims to let players play a superhero game, our physics-based system aims to let players simulate a comic book world. To do so, we have created logarithmic chart-based universal mechanics, a style of design that has not been widely used in the last two decades.

The designer is not only a personal friend, he is one of the best in the role-playing business. Which, of course, is why I asked him to design the Alt-Hero RPG.

Mailvox: the king of all secret kings

BB believes he has discovered the King of all Secret Kings of fiction:

I believe I’ve found the most Gamma book in existence. It’s called Ready Player One. It’s about a guy who has to play retro games and recite lines of dialogue from movies to win a fortune. In one scene it describes him perfectly reciting every line from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail, and how the people listening to him were cracking up and bursting into uncontrollable laughter as he did so.

The conversations between the protagonist and their friends are some of the worst examples of gamma behaviour I’ve ever seen unwittingly put on paper. Every scene displays the worst aspects of a Gamma.

I find it very hard to believe this character could top Kvoth from The Name of the Wind, but he definitely sounds like a serious candidate. And note that both of these books were successful and very warmly received by the tattered remnants of SF fandom.

Of course, the characters tell us so much more about the authors than we ever wanted to know….

The humility of genius

Martin van Creveld writes about the limits of human knowledge:

At the heart of relativity lies the belief that, in the entire physical universe, the only absolute is the speed of light apart. Taken separately, both quantum mechanics and relativity are marvels of human wisdom and ingenuity. The problem is that, since they directly contradict one another, in some ways they leave us less certain of the way the world works than we were before they were first put on paper. The uncertainty principle means that, even as we do our best to observe nature as closely as we can, we inevitably cause some of the observed things to change. And even that time and space are themselves illusions, mental constructs we have created in an effort to impose order on our surroundings but having no reality outside our own minds. The incompleteness theorem put an end to the age-old dream—it goes back at least as far as Pythagoras in the sixth century BCE—of one day building an unassailable mathematical foundation on which to base our understanding of reality. Finally, chaos theory explains why, even if we assume the universe to be deterministic, predicting its future development may not be possible in a great many cases. Including, to cite but one well-known example, whether a butterfly flapping wings in Beijing will or will not cause a hurricane in Texas.

So far, the tendency of post-1900 science to become, not more deterministic but less so. As a result, no longer do we ask the responsible person(s) to tell us what the future will bring and whether to go ahead and follow this or that course. Instead, all they can do is calculate the probability of X taking place and, by turning the equation around, the risk we take in doing (or not doing) so. However, knowledge also presents additional problems of its own. Like a robe that is too long for us, the more of it we have the greater the likelihood that it will trip us up….

Furthermore, surely no one in his right mind, looking around, would suggest that the number of glitches we all experience in everyday life has been declining. Nor is this simply a minor matter, e.g. a punctured tire that causes us to arrive late at a meeting. Some glitches, known as black swans, are so huge that they can have a catastrophic effect not just on individuals but on entire societies: as, for example, happened in 2008, when the world was struck by the worst economic crisis in eighty years, and as coronavirus is causing right now. All this reminds me of the time when, as a university professor, my young students repeatedly asked me how they could ever hope to match my knowledge of the fields we were studying. In response, I used to point to the blackboard, quite a large one, and say: “imagine this is the sum of all available knowledge. In that case, your knowledge could be represented by this tiny little square I’ve drawn here in the corner. And mine, by this slightly—but only slightly—larger one right next to it.” “My job,” I would add, “is to help you first to assimilate my square and then to transcend it.” They got the message.

Read the whole thing. It is a master class on the importance of understanding that what you know, and what you think you know, are merely a momentary glimpse of a fragment of the whole.