I truly hope she has realized how she helped cause the destruction of the industry. I love the Hearher Antos clip of “if you don’t like my politics, don’t buy my book” only to talk about years later how comic book shops are closing and the industry is hurting.
Gail Simone annoys me because she was the one to whine about “fridging” and acted as if no stories existed where a woman seeks to avenge the death of a husband, boyfriend, brother, father, etc. I think she also shares some blame for the agenda of crapping on male fans and pushing women into comics despite the data showing they don’t have the same interest level as males. They could’ve very easily made some comic book like Twilight to appeal to a female audience.
Anyway, I hope she has truly learned her lesson.
Sounds like she is just bitching about the "mysterious" drop in quality caused by her own ideology, yet is unable to put 2 & 2 together.
That’s what I’m thinking. Who would’ve thought that hiring a bunch of feminists and activists to run a hobby that generally appeals to males would be a bad idea?
Not a dig -- I genuinely envy your ability to maintain this level of optimism.
Yea I know I can be super optimistic but these people have to see the damage done to the hobbies.
Source? Because from my experience, when modern writers complain about "not respecting the past", 9/10 times is about how comic books have always been woke and right-wingers are disrespecting them or something
It was from bounding into comics in a recent article. I remember being surprised because I thought the same thing you do.
Hm, let's look that up.
https://readcomiconline.li/Writer/Gail-Simone
Losing the will to live at this point.
So basically she exclusively writes female centric comics, often riding on the coattails of bigger names, almost only ever writes supplementary characters that have spun off in some way from something far more recognisable, and going by the publication dates of her entire works hasn't published anything since The Variants that ran from March 2022 to December 2022.
I know I keep mentioning this but there was no data to support the obsession with girls in comics. Smarter move would’ve been to make comics with themes that appeal to women like Manga does
I count the 'girls in comics' argument as a 'wider audience' pitch, and that whole reasoning is bunk. You are guaranteed to lose your niche audience and your odds of being popular enough after that for normies to band-wagon onto your product are minimal. The result is chasing after nothing.
The irony is that comics is literally doing the opposite. It wasn't 'girls in comics.' it was specifically lesibians. The space got Queered, and comix folx tried trading one niche audience (male grognards) for another (rainbow/alphabet people.) The overlap of those audiences is tiny. Meaning they effectively traded a small audience for the tiny sliver that also fits into another category.
Of course, this kind of inversion is typical leftism: making a lie of what you've said with your actions.
Thanks! I actually downloaded their podcast recently. I remember Eric July (when he was still reading current comics) reading some new Marvel garbage and shouting in frustration “do any Marvel higher ups actually go to comic book stores and see who actually has weekly subscriptions”.
Would you say the same thing happened with gaming?
Gaming's takeover was more like the takeover of Academia on fast-forward. The usual suspects cried racismus and muh soggy knees, infiltrated as consultants, colonized HR, and politicized the space. Games Journalism was the first to fall, and was the vanguard for the color revolutions which followed.
Unlike comics, where there was an active Queering, gaming is more of a skinsuit operation. They're occupying existing institutions and turning them explicitly political by shifting them to the left. Gaming as an industry was also so much bigger than the American comics scene that making the whole thing pivot was impossible due to institutional inertia, so it was more of a 'long march' through the major games devs and publishers.
I remember when I started noticing game reviews being lectures about one topic or another and magazines dismissed letters complaining about them being political
+1 for Eric July.
I think if there is any answer to the current state of comics, it is to build a parallel publishing/distribution structure like he's done.
The answer to institutional capture has to be parallel institutions.
Yea, I’m enjoying what he has released so far and look forward to Chuck Dixon’s contribution with Alpha Core as well as Yaira. I’m most interested in that metal band that was singing about spiritual things
She wrote two of the best episodes of Justice League Unlimited... which admittedly were fairly female-centric ones. But that's all I know her for, really.
I agree with what you're saying about Whale Simone. Minor mistake, the "if you dont like my comics..." clip is from Kelly Sue Deconnick (if you mean the fake redhead) Simone most certainly Twitter dogpiled on every creator that she felt stood in her way to more gigs. Unpersoning and canceling along with the rest of the NPC mafia.
Heather Antos is the queen of whisper networks and bad editing. Her claim to fame is weaponing the 'milkshake girls' meme and riding that to editorial jobs, while pillorying anyone to the right of Mao in comics with #metoo adjacent shit. This year complaining how poorly comics treats writers and artists, obscuring the fact that she is the one who writes the checks to freelance/contracts, perpetuating the shit rates and fees.
Thanks! I got those two mixed up.
they did sit down, read and enjoy existing comics.
they didn't go create their own, female-driven, comic publications.
what they did was to infiltrate a male space, dominate, and force the existing industry in a feminist direction. this is what women do everywhere. anywhere men go and are doing things women follow, infiltrate, and co-opt the SIMPs and betas to make it all about them.
I remember when I was still on Reddit a lot getting downvoted when I saw this push across the board for females into male hobbies. All I said was to market to women with stuff women actually like. Like you said, make a comic book with themes that tend to appeal to women.
It was all a con, anyway.
Making 'Miss Marvel' the new poster boy for Marvel was a feminist power play. Just like it was a feminist power play to make Rey the Vampire Slayer the new poster boy for Star Wars.
They suck and were horribly written. Turns out feminists can't write for shit.
And yet still get jobs. Notice how manga understands the tastes of men and women much better.
However much you think you hate these people....
I don’t hate her but definitely hate what has been done to a lot of hobbies for committing the sin of having men enjoy them
She's too stupid to learn lessons like that.