Before we get to the insanity, everybody at A Moment of Cerebus, so...me, would like to take a moment (heh.) to wish contributor and CerebusFanGirl, Margaret Liss a Happy Birthday! So, everybody sing the first two bars of "Happy Birthday To You" and then stop, or else we'll have to pay the licensing fees. I dunno how old she is, because it's not polite to ask a lady her age, and I've also seen photos of her holding assault weapons, so I ain't risking it...
Friend to the Blog and Usual Suspect, Steve Peters is doing a Kickstarter to restore his Rabbit Hell Digest books, (which celebrated it's 27th anniversary on August 17th.) The first one was issues 1 and 2. Now he's doing 3 and 4. The Kickstatrter ends in 9 days, and he's only looking for another hundred and seventy-five bucks, so maybe skip your choca-mocha b*llsh*t at Starbucks for a week and help a brudda out.
Anyway,
Heeeeeere's Dave:
Alright, Comics Link. I got all the Auctions in one link, you're welcome.
Next Time: Boobies. Or,ya know, not...
Next Time: Boobies. Or,ya know, not...
7 comments:
Matt,
More than a week has gone by since a bunch of us told each other, you, and Dave what we thought about comicsgate, Ethan Van Sciver, and the latter's announcement that Dave would be working on CyberFrog.
Dave's two communications (barely) on the subject, one on AMOC, and one that Carson Grubaugh shared with us, failed to confirm or deny the veracity of Van Sciver's announcement (something that I think would be simple for Dave to do) or to demonstrate that he had any knowledge of comicsgate or an opinion thereon.
Dave's message via Carson strikes me as being very Hamlet-like. Taking a lesson from the play, I hope that Dave's decision manifests sooner rather than later.
Michael Hunt
So first we had the ... posting event with Jeff's price point on the Gerhard sketches (quickly expurgated , but not quite quickly enough), and now his very public outing on the ComicLink auction.
If nothing else, I'm glad for Dave's sake that at least that set of pages will bring in a decent auction result.
Steve
I spent over two hours on the phone with Ethan about a week ago. Very kind of him, a well known creator raking in cash, to speak with me, a total nobody who disageees with him. I got the impression he is legitimately frustrated by the way he has been treated behind the scenes in the industry after it became clear he voted for Trump. He is definitely NOT a Nazi. His call for the firing of SJW creators is limited to the abstract, not aimed at specific creators, and only made from a "lead to declinging sales" business standpoint. In his mind this is not a mask for his political motivations because he also thinks overly political comics by conservative creators would drive away business.
The conversation confirmed that he does indeed prioritize comics as a business over comics as an art form. When I explained YDKJ to him he said he was not interested in projects that are explicitly political, on any side of the spectrum. Comicsgate, in his mind, seems to be mostly about creating a venue for making 1990's-esque junk-food superhero books because he believes this is what fans want. He constantly said that Marvel and DC are like Burger King, and since they only sell carb-free soy-patties now he is going to set up a nice greasey hamburger stand on the other corner.
He repeatedly said that he is against creators telling fans "If you don't like it don't buy it." I suspect Ethan and Dave are 180ยบ on that position. In Ethan's mind you should listen to what fans want and cater to that. It is their money, so they have a say.
Ethan was also adamant that by not listening to fans demands the Big Two are taking money out of the pockets of the retailers. How he is solvimg this by crowdsourcing his work is unclear to me. He was totally unaware of the situation Dave got into by releasing the first Cerebus trade on his own, the Creators Bill of Rights, etc.
Etham did express that there should be venues for comics as art, his brother Noah does well with exactly that over at Fantagraphics. Comicsgate, in his mind, is only about creating a venue the fills the void of junk-food comics since apparently Marvel and DC do not any more.
The offer was put forth many times that if Dave would just write a 48 page superhero book Ethan could net Dave a big payday. Apparently Dave was not interested in that.
When I talked to Dave about that offer he shared my opinion that we probably just don't have the ability to produce junk-food superhero comics, but he will see if he can find a way to make it work, largely from the point of a formal challenge. I haven't heard anything back about that yet, and doubt, kind of hope, I don't. SDOAR is the priority.
As far as Cyberfrog. I can't speak.
David, under $20 is very good if it's an 8.0 or better. Congrats.
Carson, thank you for taking the time to talk to EVS and for reporting about it thoroughly.
Steve, I'm not sure how I was "outed" on what I assume you meant was Dave's weekly update. He always refers to me by my full name. I think that's the first time he's ever referred to me as Jeff S.
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