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.
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