Random Comic Related Things

Topic

[DavidM]

BBC Radio 6, 19:00 tonight (Friday 4th):

The legendary comic book writer shares two hours of his favourite music and chats to producer and writer Richard Norris about the important part it’s played in his life and work.

Expect tracks from Captain Beefheart, Joni Mitchell, X-Ray Spex, The Residents, Patti Smith and Sleaford Mods. Plus some of the music he’s made himself over the years.

See if you can guess who it is before you click the link:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008yp0

Then Sunday at 13:00, is this one easier to guess?

The author of **** amongst much else, picks some of the music that’s shaped him. With tracks from Bowie, Dusty Springfield and Tori Amos.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00093q6

• This topic was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by DavidM.

Replies

[garjones]

Just picked up the Chrononauts sequel as the $16 lump they came in was a bit much at the time.

Millar does weird stuff with digital. At first he refused to release them for a log time, then with a massive delay. Now every Image book follows the same pattern, they go up day and date at full RRP and then one month later the price drops by half. Except Millar titles, some of the time, sometimes they do follow the usual pattern.

These 99c/p books are not on any sale, there’s no strikethrough on an original price. The price has dropped lower than any other normal Image book but left the trade containing the same material at $10.99.

On Twitter he was saying he found 75 cans of Guinness in his shed that were close to expiry so he was going to neck them all by the end of the week, maybe that’s when he draws up his digital pricing strategy.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by garjones.

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Andrew, Dave, Vikram, Todd

Ha! Yes, I have noticed this odd pricing strategy myself. It stands out as his books often don’t follow the standard Image behaviour on Comixology.

I’m not enough of a fan of everything he does to buy his stuff at full price these days, so I tend to wait for the price drop on his books. But it’s so erratic that the only way to keep track is to pop stuff on my wishlist and check occasionally for price drops.

Maybe the 99c thing is an Image idea, just saw it pointed out that Skyward has all the issues at that price.

I’d recommend this book, it’s one of the ones I enjoyed most reading month to month last year. The writer is the showrunner of the Lucifer TV show but he doesn’t have the usual problem of writers from another medium moving across to comics. It hits the ground running as a nicely formed and paced comic book, no reams of text or confusing bits.

It’s a pretty neat and self contained and in style rather reminds me of Y The Last Man. The story’s not particularly similar but just in the storytelling style and tone.

https://www.comixology.co.uk/Skyward-1/digital-comic/636019?ref=c2VhcmNoL2RldGFpbC9kZXNrdG9wL2dyaWRMaXN0L2l0ZW1zU2VhcmNoRGV0YWlsTGlzdA

I picked up the first couple of issues of Skyward some time ago and quite enjoyed it. I should jump on again sometime.

New Humble Bundle is pretty great – every single issue of The Walking Dead, pay what you want £14.50 minimum.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/walking-dead-image-comicsskybound-entertainment-books?

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garjones, lorcan_nagle

Fair play, I’ve read it all but that would certainly keep you occupied during lockdown.

Just bought Skyward yesterday – trying to support the local shop now that it’s reopened, so I grabbed Skyward and All My Heroes Are Junkies. Haven’t read either of them yet though.

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Dave, garjones

Christian wrote:

All My Heroes Are Junkies.

 

With the elimination of the UK VAT on ebook sales, ComiXology UK prices have reduced 20%. Which is nice.

$1 = 80p now, pretty much across the board.

In comparison to the good old days that we’re still penalised for buying more expensive items (e.g. a $3.99 book is now £3.19 vs £2.49 as it was previously).

But cheaper sale items or price dropped books (Image) have only had a modest 10p increase from the older pricing model.

[garjones]

That’s better. I honestly couldn’t really complain with an increase because their previous pricing was very very generous to UK readers but the 1-1 with USD was taking the piss. 79p for a 99c comic compared to 69p before is fair enough. It’s pretty much bang on the exchange rate when I run it through XE.com (79.21p to be precise).

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by garjones.

Bollocks, I should have waited a few more days to buy all that reduced Millar stuff.

Dave wrote:

Bollocks, I should have waited a few more days to buy all that reduced Millar stuff.

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njerry

Jim Lee had been auctioning off a sketch a day to help comic shops during closure. I read about it before seeing what the ‘sketches’ looked like, I was imagining those 10 minute con sketches but these things are ready to publish as covers.

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DavidM, lorcan_nagle, Andrew, Todd, njerry, Martin Smith

I’ve got a question for the, ahem, more mature members of the forum: what were solicitations like around 1987? I’m assuming Previews magazine didn’t exist then, but the direct market did, so did publishers (specifically Marvel) put out the same list of books available to order in three months time that they do now, in some manner or other?

Reason I ask is because I was rereading the Star/Marvel Comics Visionaries title recently and it ends with issue 6. But it’s a very abrupt cancellation – it’s clearly not been known until late in the production of the comic because the issue is part two of a four part story and ends on something of a dangling plot hook that an editorial caption has to respond to with “well, actually, you’re never gonna find out, kids!”.  So given that, it seems logical to me that issue 7 was at least part way into production when the axe fell and would have appeared in solicitations for Direct Market orders. If there were solicitations back then.

Anyone know any way to check that? Is that the kind of thing Marvel Age would have covered?

I looked back at the issue covers of the first ones I remember getting for ACE comics mail order, they were dated late 1986 (and I would have been 13). Back then we ordered 3 months in advance, the shop provided their own checklist which moved to Previews several years later. They had pretty heavy discounts because you were paying upfront (with the downside that if a new book was crap or a title went off the boil you were committed for the next couple of issues).

So I’d say yes but I’d have no idea where you’d find those solicitations nowadays and the checklist I got was very bare bones. No cover previews or story summaries. The retailers may have got more. Again working off memory but I don’t think Marvel Age went that far ahead.

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Dave, Martin Smith

Back in the mid-80s we really only had to be concerned about Marvel and DC; Dark Horse had started in 1986 but they were still a niche market publisher. Marvel and DC editorial tried to direct fans toward upcoming books via “house ads” in their comics announcing new or upcoming books, lettercols that dropped information about related titles, and editorial pages that included a checklist of what else was being released that week or the next one. For diehard fans, there was Comics Buyers Guide, a weekly newspaper (mostly available through subscription) that listed upcoming books along with publisher-released promos for new books or major changes to existing books. Sometimes you could find out through the letters column that your favorite book had been cancelled, but just as often the people behind CBG were as much in the dark as the average collector.

By the time the 90s rolled around we had Wizard Magazine and the World Wide Web (thanks, Tim Berners-Lee) to help us sort things out.

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Dave, DavidM, Todd

[Jason]

Martin Smith wrote:

I’ve got a question for the, ahem, more mature members of the forum: what were solicitations like around 1987? I’m assuming Previews magazine didn’t exist then, but the direct market did, so did publishers (specifically Marvel) put out the same list of books available to order in three months time that they do now, in some manner or other?

I’m not exactly sure what the catalogs looked like back then, but information had to be made available to retailers in some form. I remember the mail order companies back in the day (Mile High Comics, New England Comics, Westfield, etc.) would print up their own monthly catalogs and mail them to their regular customers. These were generally small catalogs, printed in black and white on newsprint and stapled, that had brief descriptions — and occasionally sample artwork, either a cover or interior art — of each upcoming comic book they offered.

I would assume that the distributors (or maybe even publishers) sent the retailers out some kind of catalog so they knew what to order. The companies like Mile High, New England, and Westfield probably copied this copy directly into their own catalogs.

It wasn’t until later, probably around the early-mid 90s, that the trade catalogs from the distributors (Previews for Diamond, and Advance Comics for Capital City) were marketed to and sold to end consumers.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Jason.

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Dave, Martin Smith, garjones, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

I’ve got a question for the, ahem, more mature members of the forum: what were solicitations like around 1987? I’m assuming Previews magazine didn’t exist then, but the direct market did, so did publishers (specifically Marvel) put out the same list of books available to order in three months time that they do now, in some manner or other?

In the UK, solicitations consisted of walking round to every newsagents in a 5-mile radius and looking at the shelves to see what was new that month. You would know what was coming in future months from house ads in the comics themselves.

I am completely serious. There may have been other methods that more clued-up people knew about, but I had no clue until years later than that.

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Will_C, lorcan_nagle, Todd, Dave, Martin Smith, Vikram

DavidM wrote:

In the UK, solicitations consisted of walking round to every newsagents in a 5-mile radius and looking at the shelves to see what was new that month.

That was me in the ’70s; there were three stores in my neighborhood (known as “stationery stores”) that had a soda fountain, candy racks, and newspaper/magazine/comics racks along one wall. Comics distribution was spotty, so I had to visit all three locations to make sure I didn’t miss anything; even so, my runs of comics from that era are full of holes where I missed Spidey or Avengers that month. One summer I discovered a corner newsstand at Dyckman Street and Broadway in upper Manhattan, about two miles south of my home, that had a bigger selection of comics and seemed to have new ones on display before everyone else. I put a lot of miles on my bicycle that summer riding back and forth to see what was available.

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Todd, Dave, Martin Smith

From Warren Ellis’ last Orbital Operations:

Well, I’m having to re-plan pretty much the next two years of my life. I was building my very own imprint at a comics publisher, but the lockdown and the general fuckery of trusting your exclusive distribution in comics shops and bookstores to a single entity who immediately upon lockdown announced that they weren’t paying anybody pretty much put paid to that and the serial print comics business.

Fucking fuck. If it wasn’t for Corona, we’d be getting a Warren Ellis comics imprint. Shit.

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Sean Robinson, Will_C, lorcan_nagle, Todd, Dave

DavidM wrote:

There may have been other methods that more clued-up people knew about

Like me. After several years of walking around every newsagent in a 5 mile radius I saw an ad in the back of a Marvel UK comic in 1986 for the Ace Comics mail order service. Which in truth isn’t exactly an act of great genius, it was just there on the page.

I did like the old newsagent trawl though. I had better luck when visiting my grandmother’s, she lived in the centre of Carmarthen and I could do a loop of about 3 miles that took in 6 shops that would get the super-random allocations of US comics. Then at home there were another 4 that sometimes had them so my buying habits meant at least 10 different shops to visit. There was that extra thrill of seeing an X-Men on the shelf that disappears when you have a catalogue of every title available.

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lorcan_nagle, Dave, DavidM, Martin Smith

Christian wrote:

Fucking fuck. If it wasn’t for Corona, we’d be getting a Warren Ellis comics imprint. Shit.

It’s robbed us of the chance to see exactly how it would all fall apart and fizzle out this time around.

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RonnieM, Christian, Bruce, lorcan_nagle, Todd

Thanks for the all the replies, guys. It has been genuinely interesting. How you guys managed, I don’t know. Thankfully, the internet existed by the time I got into reading comics properly.

I’ve no idea how I might go about trying to find contemporary mail order catalogues and store listings. I had a quick google for scans of the Comics Buyer’s Guide but that seems a dead end. I ended up checking contemporary issues of Marvel Age, with limited success. #1 wasn’t even mentioned in there – which is a little odd, I think, you’d assume they’d be aware of a title launching. #2-6 are included in the general listings of what’s coming out (which is like a modern solicitations list, with creative teams and story info) but that section drops the briefer lists of titles due the next two months just as it gets to when #7 would appear on it and as Visionaries was a bimonthly title, its abrupt cancellation still had enough time to stop any potential #7 making it onto the “out this month” list. I’ve at least determined that I’d need an advance order list/catalogue from April or May 1988.

Martin Smith wrote:

How you guys managed, I don’t know. Thankfully, the internet existed by the time I got into reading comics properly.

The hardships we had to put up with are remarkable really. In my day, we couldn’t even complain about a new movie a year before it was released, we’d have to wait until it was already in the cinemas

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Dave, Martin Smith

DavidM wrote:

Martin Smith wrote:

How you guys managed, I don’t know. Thankfully, the internet existed by the time I got into reading comics properly.

The hardships we had to put up with are remarkable really. In my day, we couldn’t even complain about a new movie a year before it was released, we’d have to wait until it was already in the cinemas

Or even longer if you wanted to double check something after it had gone out of the cinemas. I was astounded recently when I found out that the UK TV premiere of the first Star Wars film was in 1982, over two years after Empire came out at the cinema.

Martin Smith wrote:

I was astounded recently when I found out that the UK TV premiere of the first Star Wars film was in 1982, over two years after Empire came out at the cinema.

That rings true for me. I remember TV showings being a big deal at that time and watched Empire and Jedi for the first time that way.

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Vikram

Martin Smith wrote:

I ended up checking contemporary issues of Marvel Age, with limited success. #1 wasn’t even mentioned in there – which is a little odd, I think, you’d assume they’d be aware of a title launching.

One thing I do remember at the time was Star Comics was really considered a separate line for a different audience. Although a few titles like Peter Porker, Visionaries or Droids crossed over a bit with the typical Marvel audience the bulk of it was stuff like the Get Along Gang, Heathcliff  and Strawberry Shortcake. They even had their own Marvel Age style magazine.

So in that respect I don’t find it that weird in the context of what they were doing at the time (although by 1988 they were winding up the Star imprint and the couple of titles that survived went under Marvel branding).

Going by references to it in Marvel Age, that was an anthology title, rather than something like Marvel Age. The shipping lists in Marvel Age covered everything though – Marvel, Star, Epic and New Universe and even a bit of Marvel UK (Dragon’s Claws at least, or rather “Dragon’s Teeth” as it has it).

And there are regularly features about Star titles in Marvel Age, including one about Visionaries’ launch (by Scott Lobdell, who spends more time talking about himself than the book), about four months after it happened though.

Oh yeah everything was in the checklists.  I can’t remember much from the time other than the odd house ad but I am working off memories of 33 years ago rather than recent research so I’ll bow to yours.

Dragon’s Claws by the way would have been included as it was their first attempt at a US size comic with distribution there. The solicitation as Dragon’s Teeth is because they were going to call it that but the name got changed at the last minute over a trademark dispute, an indie comic had already used it.

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Martin Smith

DavidM wrote:

In the UK, solicitations consisted of walking round to every newsagents in a 5-mile radius and looking at the shelves to see what was new that month. You would know what was coming in future months from house ads in the comics themselves.

Same in the US, in the 70s/80s, too.

When I first got into comic books, I bought them from a spinner rack in the local grocery store. They would occasionally miss an issue, and I’d have to search other stores. They really only carried Marvel and DC books, though I remember an occasional independent like The Terminator from Now Comics, or the odd Walt Disney comic. And I think they had Archies, as well. And now I’m wondering how they managed to squeeze a month’s worth of comics into that little rack.

I eventually moved on to mail order; New England Comics was my first choice (they even shipped their comics bagged and boarded), but I abandoned them after a couple of years for a places with better discounts. It was around that time that I was finally able to buy books like the mature readers DC books (Sandman, Hellblazer, Doom Patrol) and titles from indie publishers like Dark Horse (Holy shit! Aliens vs Predator! I’m ordering that!)

 

 

 

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Martin Smith, Todd

Dave wrote:

It’s robbed us of the chance to see exactly how it would all fall apart and fizzle out this time around.

Fair. But hey, even when they fell apart, we always got some pretty cool books out of his projects.

Remember Apparat? It’s a cool collection of one-shots, at least. And I love the issues of Fell and Desolation Jones that I got, even if I wanted to much more.

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Todd, Dave

I wonder if Ellis just can’t deal with it when there’s the slightest hurdle to overwhelm. We know that big tranche of stuff like Fell and Desolation Jones was him losing a hard drive and not backing it up. He could have rewritten those scripts but seemed to not want to go back. He’s not Bendis, he doesn’t have this stuff scripted 8 months in advance (which is why his work kept coming out when he was severely ill in hospital)

He did 24 issues, pretty much all on time, of The Wildstorm, then an artist got flakey  on the follow-up and he’s immediately off on Twitter saying the whole thing is unrecoverable. Which to be honest seemed a big over-reaction to me.

He’s not lazy, there’s usually a stream of work coming from him and some of it is relatively lengthy but it does seem his point of saying ‘oh fuck it’ if anything goes wrong is incredibly low.

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RonnieM, Todd, Dave

Christian wrote:

Fair. But hey, even when they fell apart, we always got some pretty cool books out of his projects. Remember Apparat? It’s a cool collection of one-shots, at least. And I love the issues of Fell and Desolation Jones that I got, even if I wanted to much more.

Oh absolutely. It’s just the thing Gar says about it all seeming so fragile. Although in fairness he wouldn’t be the first ‘delicate’ creative type.

Ellis does seem to have a trail of abandoned and aborted projects.

Stuff that he never finished: Doktor Sleepless, Desolation Jones, Fell, the last Anna Mercury series.

Stuff that never saw the light of day: Panic Nation, Morning Dragons, Black Horses, The Operation, Stealth Tribes, Faster, Space Force, and that anthology (Night Radio, I think, wasn’t it?)

And then he famously walked off of Hellblazer because they didn’t want to publish “Shoot,” less than a month after the Columbine massacre. (Which I can’t blame DC for pulling it. The timing was really bad, and publishing that story in the wake of Columbine — even though it was written and completed before it happened — would be horrible optics and could bring a ton of bad press coverage for the company. If it was my story, I would actually request it not be published for a year or more until the story cooled off.)

It could be that Ellis gets skittish when stars don’t align, or maybe that he’s more open about what upcoming titles he’s working on, so when they don’t come out, we tend to remember them. Other creators might not announce these things until all of the ink is dried on the contracts.

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Todd

Jason wrote:

Ellis does seem to have a trail of abandoned and aborted projects.

Stuff that he never finished: Doktor Sleepless, Desolation Jones, Fell, the last Anna Mercury series.

Stuff that never saw the light of day: Panic Nation, Morning Dragons, Black Horses, The Operation, Stealth Tribes, Faster, Space Force, and that anthology (Night Radio, I think, wasn’t it?)

And then he famously walked off of Hellblazer because they didn’t want to publish “Shoot,” less than a month after the Columbine massacre. (Which I can’t blame DC for pulling it. The timing was really bad, and publishing that story in the wake of Columbine — even though it was written and completed before it happened — would be horrible optics and could bring a ton of bad press coverage for the company. If it was my story, I would actually request it not be published for a year or more until the story cooled off.)

It could be that Ellis gets skittish when stars don’t align, or maybe that he’s more open about what upcoming titles he’s working on, so when they don’t come out, we tend to remember them. Other creators might not announce these things until all of the ink is dried on the contracts.

Reading his weekly email Orbital Operations gives a bit of insight into him and his processes.

He seems to have a huge workload across various media that seem to dominate his life. He will talk about his whiteboards filled with projects at various stages and scheduling apps. He will also mention ideas that come to him that could become a potential project or be incorporated into another or they just simply get jotted down in a notebook where they remain unused. He also talks about the books he reads and people he communicates with. He basically runs himself ragged. If it were announced that he suddenly dropped dead, it honestly wouldn’t surprise me. I think he has so many ideas and opportunities that he can only get a relative handful turned into reality due to time and physical constraints. I think some projects get abandoned because the interest, numbers, and/or sales from the audience just aren’t there.

If you aren’t signed up for Orbital Operations, I recommend it. It’s quite interesting.

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lorcan_nagle

Superheroes are scrapping their secret identities, and it’s for the best

From Warren Ellis’ latest Orbital Operations:

It’s all gone quiet.

I said to someone on Friday afternoon, in some shock as it dawned on me: “I’m actually bored.” I mean, I’ve got stuff to do. But almost none of it is pressingly Right Now Do It Do It Now Now Now. With my intended upcoming comics projects wiped out, a lot of the daily pressure went out of the room too.

10 out of the 15 things on my PENDING board have been erased, and I just erased the STATUS board entirely, as that was just tracking artist availability windows and I don’t need that any more. I have 11 things on my main board, and 5 of them will be gone in a month.

I’m hoping my ability to focus comes back soon, but The Thing We’re All Doing is clearly fucking with me at this point. I’m writing this bit on Friday, and the day was frankly a wash. I suspect I’m still in the grey zone of having lost so many projects and dealing with the sudden inrush of air into the space they filled.

But I have work, that I should really, you know, do, and we soldier on regardless.

I’ve started listening to Sonic The Comic The Podcast, which, as you might expect, is a podcast about Sonic The Comic. It’s going through every issue in great detail, covering all of the early 90s games review/peripheral stuff as well as the comics. It’s probably too detailed (~90 mins on each issue), but I’m enjoying it a lot.

https://stctp.wigglehe.com/

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Bruce, Dave

The Cartoonist Kayfabe channel will be chatting with Mark Millar later today.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU0v4IGzj2wK-PmjASkK2Rg

Their interviews have all been very good (well, I haven’t heard/seen all of them, but the McFarlane, Gibbons, and Chaykin ones were great).

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Todd, lorcan_nagle, Bruce

paul f wrote:

I’ve started listening to Sonic The Comic The Podcast, which, as you might expect, is a podcast about Sonic The Comic. It’s going through every issue in great detail, covering all of the early 90s games review/peripheral stuff as well as the comics. It’s probably too detailed (~90 mins on each issue), but I’m enjoying it a lot.

https://stctp.wigglehe.com/

I might have to give that a listen. I loved STC at the time.

And here it is:

 

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

paul f wrote:

I’ve started listening to Sonic The Comic The Podcast, which, as you might expect, is a podcast about Sonic The Comic. It’s going through every issue in great detail, covering all of the early 90s games review/peripheral stuff as well as the comics. It’s probably too detailed (~90 mins on each issue), but I’m enjoying it a lot.

https://stctp.wigglehe.com/

One of the hosts of that podcast is Chris McFeely, who does the excellent Transformers The Basics videos on YouTube

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paul f

Neil Gaiman apologises to people of Skye for breaking lockdown rules

Without wanting to go all Chris Rock, one aspect that isn’t mentioned there is that his decision to travel is related to his recent breakup with Amanda Palmer. Which I think is a mitigating factor even if it isn’t an exoneration.

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Christian

The government guidelines specifically say that you can travel to another home if you’re having difficulty being locked up with your partner.

But that’s in England. They’re making up their own rules in Scotland so who knows

[Todd]

Dave wrote:

Without wanting to go all Chris Rock

What do you mean? Has something happened?

Whatever it is, his marriage will give him the strength to get through any difficulties he may encounter.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 6 months ago by Todd.

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njerry, Dave, DavidM

I ordered the FF book by John Byrne. (I know, I know…) He also did the Superman reboot, but I will always identify him as a Marvel artist given what he did on the FF and Xmen. Seeing him on DC is a little weird.

Any artists you identify with just one company?

Al-x wrote:

Any artists you identify with just one company?

Yes, for a long while Bagley and JR jr were associated closely with Marvel for me, before they both went to do work for DC.

Similarly I found it weird seeing George Perez draw Marvel characters because I so associated him with his famous DC work, even though he obviously did some fairly high-profile stuff for Marvel too.

Al-x wrote:

Any artists you identify with just one company?

Andy Warhol and Campbell’s soup

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DavidM, Bruce, Todd, njerry, Al-x

Cute… which reminds about IF you do get a Warhol painting to put in your living room. It would be nice but do you really want a big picture of a soup can hanging there? After a while it can get to be an eyesore. Just saying.

Similarly about buying comic artwork. Do you really want a big pic of Superman, Batman, or whoever hanging in your living room or even a small one in your office work space. It may get in the way of you being taken seriously. Just saying….

DavidM wrote:

Expect tracks from Captain Beefheart, Joni Mitchell, X-Ray Spex, The Residents, Patti Smith and Sleaford Mods. Plus some of the music he’s made himself over the years.

I was one hundred percent sure it’d be Grant Morrisson. Don’t tell them I said that, I like being alive.

 

Nailed the other one though.

 

Edit: My computer is dead my and my phone doesn’t bring me to the latest post.

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DavidM

Dave wrote:

Amanda Palmer

The person who started Suicide Squad? Damn, I thought she was fictional.

Al-x wrote:

Do you really want a big pic of Superman, Batman, or whoever hanging in your living room or even a small one in your office work space. It may get in the way of you being taken seriously.

I don’t need to be taken seriously by anyone who has issues with the World’s Finest! In all seriousness, I do have a massive Jim Lee print of Batman & Superman in my WFH office space, and for a long time I had a bunch of action figures prominently displayed in my living room. Be proud of your hobbies. They make you who you are.

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njerry

Waller, Anders. Amanda Waller. “the Wall”. 🤣

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Bruce

Al-x wrote:

It may get in the way of you being taken seriously.

Nobody should take me, or indeed anyone else seriously.

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Bruce

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

It may get in the way of you being taken seriously.

Nobody should take me, or indeed anyone else seriously.

Seriously?

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lorcan_nagle

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

It may get in the way of you being taken seriously.

Nobody should take me, or indeed anyone else seriously.

Seriously?

Yeah, no.

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Todd wrote:

lorcan_nagle wrote:

Al-x wrote:

It may get in the way of you being taken seriously.

Nobody should take me, or indeed anyone else seriously.

Seriously?

Yeah, no.

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Todd

Dave wrote:

Neil Gaiman apologises to people of Skye for breaking lockdown rules

Without wanting to go all Chris Rock, one aspect that isn’t mentioned there is that his decision to travel is related to his recent breakup with Amanda Palmer. Which I think is a mitigating factor even if it isn’t an exoneration.

I mean, most people tend not to feel the need to flee the country when they separate from their spouse.

But on the other hand, if him coming into the country is such a problem, maybe we a) shouldn’t be letting flights in and b) should be testing and/or quarantining people when they arrive.

Swings and roundabouts, really.

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Todd, DavidM

Martin Smith wrote:

I mean, most people tend not to feel the need to flee the country when they separate from their spouse.

I think the personal circumstances around where they were living and where his home is located make the move a little more understandable. And his logic is actually reasonably sound in that the government advice at the time was for citizens abroad to return home to the UK. But yes, I think the general reaction seems to have been that it’s a long way to go to find alternative accommodation under the circumstances.

I thought part of the issue was that Gaiman’s home is on the small, secluded island of Skye that had mostly quarantined.

Dave wrote:

Without wanting to go all Chris Rock, one aspect that isn’t mentioned there is that his decision to travel is related to his recent breakup with Amanda Palmer. Which I think is a mitigating factor even if it isn’t an exoneration.

Well, actually they haven’t split up; they’ve written a joint letter that yes, there’s been trouble but they’re still together and they’re working things out and thanks everybody and now get out of our private lives.

Man, Al-X is going to hate it so much that we’re talking about this but not in the relationship thread!

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Al-x, Todd

Christian wrote:

Well, actually they haven’t split up; they’ve written a joint letter that yes, there’s been trouble but they’re still together and they’re working things out and thanks everybody and now get out of our private lives.

Ah, ok. Thanks. I haven’t followed that aspect closely, I just saw Palmer’s initial announcement that he had left her.

Yeah, and I mean, who knows if it’ll yet turn out to be an actual breakup. None of our business anyway, I just couldn’t resist going a bit Al-X about it :)

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lorcan_nagle, Al-x, Todd

How do you stop the far-right using the Punisher skull? Make it a Black Lives Matter symbol

Worth a read if only for the bizarre final sentence.

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JRCarter, Todd

Dave wrote:

How do you stop the far-right using the Punisher skull? Make it a Black Lives Matter symbol

Worth a read if only for the bizarre final sentence.

Let’s not forget this bit of Punisher history:

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JRCarter

Todd wrote:

Let’s not forget this bit of Punisher history:

Is that… Robert Downey Jr?

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Todd

Anonymous wrote:

Todd wrote:

Let’s not forget this bit of Punisher history:

Is that… Robert Downey Jr?

Yes. Yes, it is.

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njerry

Todd wrote:

Let’s not forget this bit of Punisher history:

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Todd

FARSHLNGRBSTFRKN.

Couldn’t agree more.

So, er, Cameron Stewart and Warren Ellis eh? ::sigh::

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Todd

Yeah I’ve seen the reports too. As ever with these things it all sounds very grubby.

Ellis has always had a fairly seedy image (to me at least) so I’m actually a bit surprised about it, I figured if he was doing this kind of thing it would have been known about (beyond being yet another of comics’ “open secrets”) long before now.

Martin Smith wrote:

So, er, Cameron Stewart and Warren Ellis eh? ::sigh::

At first I thought your post meant they were fucking each other.

Nah, they’ve just fucked themselves by the looks of it.

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Todd

I’ve seen the stuff about Stewart but I’m in the dark on Warren Ellis

[garjones]

I’ve read two accounts today and it seems nothing illegal (by their accounts, not my interpretation) but a fair amount of using power dynamics to take advantage of women much younger than him. 19-21 year olds while he’s 52.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by garjones.

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Todd

So what does that mean? Suggestive messages?

I did a google search, but maybe partly because he shares a name with an arguably more-famous musician, I don’t appear to be finding anything on google news.

I read about it this morning.

No worries, it’s not the Warren Ellis. It’s the other one.

Anonymous wrote:

So what does that mean? Suggestive messages?

Pretty standard grooming tactics really. As Gar said, nothing that seems specifically illegal (pending the age of all the women affected) but sleazy, predatory stuff.

[garjones]

garjones wrote:

I’ve read two accounts today and it seems nothing illegal (by their accounts, not my interpretation) but a fair amount of using power dynamics to take advantage of women much younger than him. 19-21 year olds while he’s 52.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by garjones.

I have to admit it’s one of these ones where I’m not about to throw out my copies of Authority or anything, based on what we “know” so far. It’s a bit sleazy, sure.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Andrew.

Anonymous wrote:

No worries, it’s not the Warren Ellis. It’s the other one.

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Dave, Andrew

[Todd]

Link to tweet regarding Cameron Stewart:

https://twitter.com/AvivaMaiArtzy/status/1272708780065796096

It appears some of the other tweets regarding Stewart and Ellis have been deleted.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Todd.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Todd.

I’m not directing this at the names mentioned, but I thought this kind of thing was commonplace behaviour.

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lorcan_nagle

Anonymous wrote:

I’m not directing this at the names mentioned, but I thought this kind of thing was commonplace behaviour.

I’m not sure; let’s ask Jai Nitz. Or Mike Carlin; or Eddie Berganza, or Brian Wood, or Scott Allie. But not Julie Schwartz, because he’s dead.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

I don’t even mean the comics industry.

I thought it was one of those things pretty much everyone is bound to have encountered at one point or another despite decency being commonplace too. I can’t be the only one here who has.

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Sabrina, lorcan_nagle

Anonymous wrote:

I don’t even mean the comics industry.

I thought it was one of those things pretty much everyone is bound to have encountered at one point or another despite decency being commonplace too. I can’t be the only one here who has.

I have met a lot of predatory people and groomers.

Heck, my once-best friend stopped talking to me when I said I was uncomfortable with the idea of him sleeping with my girlfriend.

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lorcan_nagle

Busiek’s got an interesting thread on this –https://twitter.com/kurtbusiek/status/1273325198578573312?s=21

I must admit that whilst I do find the whole thing a little bit weird and icky, I’m struggling to understand why it’s a big deal. We’ve all done stupid things when viewed from a particular angle – especially where sex is concerned.

I do recognise that I’m talking from a place of ignorance and stupidity though, so happy for someone to educate me if they feel strongly enough to do so. I’m not meaning to be provocative.

 

Vikram wrote:

We’ve all done stupid things when viewed from a particular angle – especially where sex is concerned.

That’s part of the problem. Having done questionable things ourselves once or twice makes it easy for us to view “real” predatory behaviour through a skewed lens. It makes it easier to waive real horrifying shit and claim it to be ‘normal’ and paves the way for apologists and deniers.

I feel absolute shit about things I’ve done and I think that’s the correct feelings to assign to those experiences. I haven’t raped anyone, but ive been a scummy bastard and it makes me feel like just that. I tend not to think about it but I will not forgive myself. It informs my current and future decisions and keeps me in line.

Granted, a years long feminist and socialist education (or schooling) have made being the way I was before absolutely unthinkable on its own but having some personal pathos sure doesn’t hurt.

I’d also like to point out that forgiving people who have a change of heart, who see the error of their ways, is important af. But people that don’t need to be persecuted until they repent and make amends. Especially people in power.

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DavidM, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Thanks, Anders. That makes sense. I guess the point is learning from the stupid shit, and trying not to do it again. That’s the human response. It’s what a normal person tries to do, with varying levels of success. Which is what appears to be missing here.

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So Cameron Stewart is cancelled, but the ratings haven’t come in about Warren Ellis.  Warren Ellis is on the bubble.

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Andrew

[Robbo]

I’m increasingly troubled by Trial By Twitter. Cameron Stewart’s actions are morally dubious but not illegal. Warren Ellis appears to have been stringing several women along at the same time. Not particularly nice behaviour but I’ve yet to see anything that resembles “grooming”  on his part. Yet Stewart’s career is now over and Ellis’s is under threat (though I suspect he’ll survive). Brian Wood had similar accusations levelled at him but addressed his behaviour and seems to be making a minor comeback.

The allegations (particularly against Ellis) seem very one sided. One of the accusers says they were in an online relationship which he closed down when he discovered she was developing projects with other creators. It was then she realised she was being used, groomed, etc. Maybe Ellis though he was being used and strung along. There are two sides (at least) to every story.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Robbo.

The argument for twitter is it’s a large component of the modern vox populi and should therefore be celebrated rather than disregarded within a democratic society.

The truth is it’s about optics and commercials.  Someone at DC has crunched the numbers and decided that fighting a PR battle over retaining Stewart is not worth any net he may bring in if they keep him on the payroll.

EDIT: It’s for that reason I can’t see that happening to Ellis (although I’m still unclear what the allegations are).  If it gets particularly bad for him then Netflix may drop production of Castlevania and you could have a feedback from that to Image (who are think are his current main publisher) but he has a lot more currency within the industry then Stewart.  It would be the industries equivalent of cancelling Kevin Spacey.

[Robbo]

I rather suspect you’re right. Twitter does seem the go to forum for unsubstantiated allegations though. I’m not saying there’s no truth but the burden of proof has shifted to prove innocence rather than prove guilt. Ellis has had relationships with several women in the 20s and a couple have alluded to him promising to help them with their careers , though none have produced any evidence. What Ellis has been accused of is not terribly different to what Leonardo DiCaprio does. The difference being Ellis is fat and beardy.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 5 months ago by Robbo.

Well, with that said, Dicaprios time may yet come.

You aren’t alone.

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garjones

Having read Katie West’s (now deleted) tweets I’m really conflicted about what to think. She accuses Ellis of manipulation but this is an intelligent person who was in their 20s at the time. She may have been foolish in complying but what were her motivations for going along with it?

I don’t know enough about the specifics of the latest names. I bet they can be kind and generous and charming too.

There’s a difference between what’s illegal and unethical.

Once you’re past 16, you’re fair game. Before that age, after that age, if anyone even believes women, it’s her fault or she’s looking for attention or she wouldn’t want to destroy the lives of men.

I can’t abide abuse of power.

 

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I would agree with that but I’m very doubtful that’s the entirety of the story in Ellis’s case. To be fair Katie West does state she doesn’t want to see Ellis suffer any sort of punitive action more that the system should change which I wholeheartedly agree with. Stewart’s case appears much more dubious and exploitative.

Robbo wrote:

Having read Katie West’s (now deleted) tweets I’m really conflicted about what to think. She accuses Ellis of manipulation but this is an intelligent person who was in their 20s at the time. She may have been foolish in complying but what were her motivations for going along with it?

That’s a hell of an attitude to take and I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re not intentionally accusing her of using this relationship to get a leg up in her career.

Emotional abuse and grooming are complicated issues. It’s easy to throw stones at the victim from the outside for going along with what appears to you to be an obviously bad situation, but you are on the outside. Being in your 20s doesn’t automatically make you self-assured and impervious to manipulation. Vulnerability doesn’t come with an age cap.

Part of the issue is that Ellis was in a position of power to these people. I don’t just mean the ones looking to make their way into the industry themselves – finding a seemingly benevolent mentor figure – but those who were just fans that admired his work and looked up to him. That “celebrity”-fan dynamic is not a balanced one, the celebrity is very much the one in the position of power, able to dole out approval, validation or not to someone who is highly predisposed to value their opinion. It’s something that is inherently open to abuse in any industry, but I suspect helped somewhat in the comics industry by the sheer accessibility of its “celebrities”. A fragile, vulnerable person who has invested a lot of themselves into being a fan of, say, Mick Jagger, isn’t going to get much chance to ever meet him, but swap Jagger for a comics pro and it’s entirely possible, given the huge amount of conventions and the fact that seemingly half the industry has no qualms about using the hotel bar as a continuation of the event (if not the main event). It’s easy to see how someone can get swept up by that.

Look at the way Ellis’ interactions with people coming forward are breaking down into a pattern:

More stories are coming in. The pattern is dreadfully clear.

1. He found me when I was young/vulnerable/uncertain.
2. He acted like a mentor, gave me so much appreciated attention..
3. but pushed boundaries.
(cont..)

— Jhayne Holmes (@Foxtongue) June 17, 2020

4. He said I was his world/we were best friends/he was my thrilling secret/he supported my career so I didn't feel like I could say no.
5. He dropped me. I blamed myself.

— Jhayne Holmes (@Foxtongue) June 17, 2020

It’s a familiar story recognisable from every college professor that manages to find a new student to sleep with every year. As Kurt Busiek said, it may not strictly be illegal, but that doesn’t mean it’s not wrong.

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Todd, Will_C, garjones, lorcan_nagle