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Yeah, it ain’t pretty. I was considering posting about it here but decided I didn’t want to give the arse more attention.
I will say the Bluesky access code invite was perfectly timed, as I booted it up to see a load of comic pros calling out his crap.
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Millar has been “trending” on “twitter” of late as he’s kind of sort of fallen in with the Comics Gate crowd. If you’ve seen anyone use the term “Cancel Pigs” that’s a Millar phrase.
That’s quite unfortunate. He’s said stupid shit before but it sounds like he’s believing his own crap.
Millar has had the reputation from the beginning for “shock and awe” and too over the top. I think some of his true self occasionally comes out in his work.
I will say for the longest time, he always seemed ahead of the curve with the industry, including selling MW to Netflix. But it seems to me that’s when the curve caught up with him. He still puts out material but the Netflix deal hasn’t been the game changer it looked like it would be. Very little has come from it and what has, has been mediocre at best. His comic books of the last few years either haven’t connected with me or interested me enough to even try.
I will give Millar this: He did bring us all together.
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Heidi Mcdonald did a good summary of this at The Beat but the site is down currently.
It’s the are comics dying topic, with a major infusion of anti-woke and populism / anti-elitist bollocks. Oh and Millar casting himself as the saviour of the industry.
The Beat article instead makes the point that comics are dying has been a recurring media point for decades. The point now is that comics are not dying but changing.
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I will give Millar this: He did bring us all together.
I was on the old blue on black Authority boards and he came in about his MW and his Avengers reboot. I joined in 2002.
MW at that time was waiting for the next Millar/Hitch Ultimates installment.Time flies.
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Over the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about Substack and comics, with a good few creators signing up to it.
Well, as a way to grow their business, Substack’s CEO did a recent interview where he practically saw no problem with it hosting Nazi and racist content.
One SF author I follow has jumped off it. I expect some comic creators to do similar but not sure who.
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Over the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about Substack and comics, with a good few creators signing up to it.
Well, as a way to grow their business, Substack’s CEO did a recent interview where he practically saw no problem with it hosting Nazi and racist content.
One SF author I follow has jumped off it. I expect some comic creators to do similar but not sure who.
It was pretty much common knowledge that Substack had a very unsavory side when the comics creators signed on. Tynion, who is gay, even tried to rationalize his decision in the beginning.
Hopefully, a lot of people leave the platform.
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Yeah, Substack has been pretty open about being fine with having nazis and transphobes etc.
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https://www.themarysue.com/best-comics-and-graphic-novels-of-2023/
nice broad set of recommendations
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Criminal gets an official series order at Amazon.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/ed-brubaker-criminal-tv-series-amazon-1235782238/
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It seems that issues with artist payments and order fulfilment are the main problems. That said that info comes from a redit thread and a Bleeding Cool story so could all be bullshit.
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That sucks. I saw one artist try and claim that any unfulfilled orders (and I think commissions) are nothing to do with him, just Cadence. It really seems the opposite of what you want from an art dealer.
Between artists that take years to fulfil commissions, dealers that seem to hold money from both ends, other dealers that price fix at auctions, dealers that hoard art at ridiculous prices and dealers that still run websites built in 1997 it really feels like the OA market needs a big shake up. I’ve thought for years that some kind of escrow service would work best for commissions at least. Third party platform securely holds the buyer’s money until they get the art from the artist but without a dealer there being a middleman.
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This could well be bull, but this is apparently why Cadence is imploding.1 user thanked author for this post.
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So it’s my nephew’s sixth birthday next month and all the stuff he’s asked for (or rather the things my brother has said he’s asked for) are out of stock. Which is fine because as much as I usually subscribe to the notion of just buying people what they actually want, I thought I’d encourage his reading a bit with a comic. He loves Spider-Man (he and his younger sister saw a New York magnet on my fridge last time they were over and went “New York! That’s where Spidey lives! And Spin and Ghost Spider! And the Ghostbusters and the Turtles!” I’m not sure if they thought it was fictional or not before seeing the magnet) so I was thinking of getting him the first of those Mighty Marvel Masterworks trades of the original 60s run, but figured that’s maybe a little too heavy for 6. Instead, I went for a hardback collecting about a year’s worth of Dennis And Gnasher stories from the Beano.
Normally, I wouldn’t read a book I’m buying for someone else but it turned up heavily water-damaged and a replacement’s coming, so I thought I’d satisfy my curiosity and give it a go. I’d skimmed some of the Beano a year or so back when I had a Readly trial, so I had a rough idea of what it’s like. And even so, I was really impressed. It’s pretty great.
Inevitably there have been a lot of changes to Dennis in the 30(!) years since I read the Beano regularly and they’re all solid ones. Even in the 90s, the character never felt particularly current, like he was still largely rooted in tropes and cliches of the 50s; getting slippered by a dad who looked like Hitler by way of Python’s grouchy old men, sausages and mash as a big treat of a meal, pea-shooters and catapults etc. Dennis now feels incredibly contemporary, with easy references to video games and apps, homework, more time in school (Bash Street School, nicely). It feels less like a calcified relic, especially in the dialogue, with not a “chortle” in sight.
Related to that is that he’s no longer a “menace”. Thinking back, 90s Dennis (and earlier) was pretty much just a bully who picked on Walter, a kid essentially coded as gay just because he was different, and we were meant to celebrate that. Which isn’t great, to be honest. Now, Walter is recast as a techy, spoilt, dickhead while Dennis is just a layabout with a low attention span that mainly just wants to play video games but keeps getting into scrapes. It’s a much better dynamic, I think. I also love that Gnasher now basically exists to poke fun at the plots and make fourth wall breaking meta-commentary to the readers.
Crucially though, it’s really funny. There are jokes in there that had me laughing out loud. I especially like one strip that had Dennis banished outside while his parents (oh sidenote: his mum is secretly a jewel thief, I guess?) cleaned the house. Dennis comes to the front window and just looks pathetic and holds up a sign saying “cold”, which results in him getting in a passive-aggressive argument with his dad through the medium of signs.
Honestly, if my nephew doesn’t like this, I think I might have to disown him.
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If you would like to read a long, barely coherent rant from Howard Chaykin, here you go: CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?
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Man, the Comics Kayfabe thing has really devastated me.
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what happened?
EDIT: oh shiiiiiiiit
https://www.comicsbeat.com/multiple-women-accuse-cartoonist-ed-piskor-of-grooming-and-misconduct/
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Yup, been seeing the chatter about this for the last few days online.
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At the risk of being “that guy” I’ve never really seen the appeal of Piskor as a “personality” (I’ve not read any of his comics). Going around calling other comics industry pros “jobbers” for doing corporate gigs he thinks he’s above is real dickhead energy.
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I got the Hip Hop Family Tree omnibus for Christmas but haven’t got around to reading it yet, although I heard good things. I read an issue or two of Red Room but it wasn’t really my thing, it was kind of a torture porn extreme horror vibe.
Everything I’ve seen about this latest scandal suggests a lot of gossipy industry bitching about some fairly sleazy behaviour, but throwing around paedo claims seems like a mischaracterisation of the situation to me.
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I don’t really care for his art that much, though I’ve only read some of X-men Grand Design and Red Room Crypto Killaz – Grand Design was pretty dull, but Red Room was really quite well drawn, even if the story is not my usual thing.
And yeah, the dismissing of creators as jobbers and whatnot, I never liked (they were both consistently so hard on Nicieza and Lobdell as X-writers) – but the Wizard coverage, things like Stephen Platt, the Frank Teran issues of Punisher, Heroes Reborn – poring over those issues with a technical eye, I love that stuff. I sometimes wish I had the drive and knowhow to do my own videos.
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Some grim developments today have seen Piskor post an apparent suicide note online. Let’s hope he is found before anything drastic happens.
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There are now unverified reports that Piskor has passed away. What a truly sad situation.
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Sadly, it looks to be heading towards confirmation.
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In a particularly macabre turn of events, a bunch of the culture war fuckers like Ethan Van Sciver were all in on “cancelling” Piskor because they thought he was “Woke”, but as as soon as confirmations of his death came in they started lionising him as a victim of the online mob…
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Jesus Christ, what a mess. And in his suicide note he accuses the girl of making it all up just wanting to destroy him.
But even taken out of context like he claims… talking this way to a 17-year-old is just wrong.
And now that he has ended his life, maybe none of this should matter and we should just feel pity for the guy. But of course it does matter, because now her life’s going to be destroyed because he killed himself and encouraged everybody to go after her.
And maybe she did exaggerate all this, and something is wrong with her like he claimed in his suicide note – who knows? But he is the one, as a late-thirties man, who made the decision to DM and establish flirtatious contact with, a seventeen-year-old. And he is the one who couldn’t deal with the consequences of that and ended his own life, and did his best to also end hers.
Just a terrible thing all around.
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Jesus Christ, what a mess. And in his suicide note he accuses the girl of making it all up just wanting to destroy him.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that. My understanding is that he exchanged some flirtatious messages with the 17-year old girl during covid lockdowns, which he acknowledged was misjudged (albeit with some of the publicly shared messages lacking a certain amount of mitigating context) – but then he said that other people who subsequently came out to back up claims of his inappropriate behaviour deliberately misrepresented their relationships/exchanges with him (again editing out important context) to bolster the narrative of him exhibiting sleazy behavior.
Regardless of the specifics, ultimately you’ve got a situation where sentiment has been whipped up against him online, with the vast majority of people involved having only partial knowledge of the facts but still rushing to damn him publicly. Ultimately leading to him feeling he has no way to push back against the accusations, no future in the industry, and no life worth living.
All desperately sad really.
No matter what the underlying behaviour, this clearly isn’t the way that these matters should be handled. My hope is that the seriousness of the outcome here will make people reflect more carefully in future when the next gossipy scandal comes along, and maybe be a bit more sober in their reactions and the accusations they throw around.
As I mentioned earlier, when the initial claims were made, people almost immediately began throwing around paedophile claims, which seems way off the mark no matter what you understand the facts in this case to be.
The trouble is that most people involved in these online discussions don’t actually want to wait for a sober investigation of the facts or even a right to reply for the accused, they just want to add another perceived industry sleazeball to a shitlist and move on, with some people treating this stuff as entertainment or sport.
But as this case demonstrates, things are more complicated than that and the online mob mentality has real-life effects that can be very serious.
Like I say, my hope is that this example will live on in people’s minds and make people a little more careful to speak more appropriately the next time accusations like this are discussed. But that might be overly optimistic.
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I don’t think that’s the end of it though. Like I said, the other side of the online mob is now going to come for the girl. And the thing that bugs me is this:
What if the woman actually presented his actions accurately? And what if the other women who made statements also did, and his claims are untrue?
If the woman accusing him decided to make this public to protect other girls from this kind of behaviour, didn’t she do the right thing? Or should she have kept quiet because of the danger of him losing his livelihood for something that never became a reality (as he didn’t assault her personally or anything – he never even met her).Because the other consequence of this case is going to be, it’s going to become harder for women to report inappropriate behaviour by men. Piskor will probably become a martyr to the online mysoginy movement and an example of why you should never believe victims.
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Yes, listening to victims is important, and there shouldn’t be a chilling effect on people speaking out in legitimate cases of wrongdoing and harm.
But I feel as though these things should probably go through more formal channels. If there was evidence of underage grooming, there are ways to report that and deal with it that don’t include selective leaks of correspondence on social media.
As soon as it gets into the online gossip sphere it all gets distorted and misrepresented quickly, and a mob can gather based on a partial, incomplete and inaccurate understanding of what has happened. And when something like that snowballs, I can see why Piskor thought he had no opportunity to fight back and make his case, and save his career and opportunities to continue working in the industry.
There are better ways of handling this all round. People should always feel free to come forward if they are abuse victims, but gossipy innuendo and online pile-ons are not how you deal with genuine cases of wrongdoing.
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But I feel as though these things should probably go through more formal channels. If there was evidence of underage grooming, there are ways to report that and deal with it that don’t include selective leaks of correspondence on social media.
The problem is that formal channels don’t work. There’s something like a 6% conviction rate on rapes in the US, for example.
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But I feel as though these things should probably go through more formal channels. If there was evidence of underage grooming, there are ways to report that and deal with it that don’t include selective leaks of correspondence on social media.
The problem is that formal channels don’t work. There’s something like a 6% conviction rate on rapes in the US, for example.
That is poor and a disappointing situation.
But is it preferable for untested allegations to be thrown around (often leading to wilder accusations that may be far less rooted in reality) without any way of anybody knowing how true any of it is?
Official channels not being effective is an argument in favour of those channels being improved and/or alternative better channels being opened up, not switching to a model where an online mob takes on a life of its own and can drive someone to suicide.
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There’s going to be fingerpointing in every direction in the aftermath of Ed Piskor’s suicide and note. I don’t know him, and I don’t know the girl involved, so all I have is the shitload of on-line messages and screenshots and accusations and opinions, all of which have been or could be taken out of context. Which means that any opinion or thoughts I have on the matter have no bearing on the actual truths behind all the chatter, and anything I say on the Ed vs Molly situation is pointless.
What sticks out in my mind is how cruelly (and possibly criminally) this whole situation has been treated in news media, not just in the insular on-line comics community but also the general media. If what Piskor wrote in his suicide note is true, Pittsburgh local news outlets put his and his parents’ addresses on the internet, and harassed his parents for comments.
Most people are outraged when we hear about a teenager killing herself after being subjected to on-line and in-person bullying by classmates. But some of us apparently have no problem doing that same thing to a 42-year-old man whom most of us have never met or spoken to and do not know personally.
As I said above, I don’t know the persons involved, and I don’t know what actually happened or what either party intended or assumed. In the aftermath of Ed’s death, with many of his accusers/attackers trying to backpedal, I can’t help but assume that he was ultimately a victim of a group of people who enjoy mis-using the Woke Movement as an excuse to bully someone just for the hell of it.
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But I feel as though these things should probably go through more formal channels. If there was evidence of underage grooming, there are ways to report that and deal with it that don’t include selective leaks of correspondence on social media.
The problem is that formal channels don’t work. There’s something like a 6% conviction rate on rapes in the US, for example.
That is poor and a disappointing situation.
But is it preferable for untested allegations to be thrown around (often leading to wilder accusations that may be far less rooted in reality) without any way of anybody knowing how true any of it is?
Official channels not being effective is an argument in favour of those channels being improved and/or alternative better channels being opened up, not switching to a model where an online mob takes on a life of its own and can drive someone to suicide.
Obviously the system is failing in multiple areas. The calling out of abusers online is a new manifestation of older whisper networks where women and allies would tell each other behind the scenes who it wasn’t safe to be around. There’s an infamous story, for example of Coleen Doran attending a convention when she was very early in her career, still in her teens. Harlan Ellison took it on himself to ensure that she was never alone with Isaac Asimov, who had already gained a reputation as a groper.
I’m not saying that whisper networks, or public callouts are a suitable response to the failure of authorities and communities to police this behaviour. But it is what happens when people are desperate and reasonable access to justice is denied.
I’m a firm believer in the principles of restorative justice, so Piskor being totally alienated, opened up to abuse and the sudden loss of everything isn’t a solution in my mind either, even if it hadn’t lead to tragedy. This entire situation is a shitshow.
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I’ve not read many suicide notes but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with such “I am not the one who is owned” vibes. Suicide is a messy and complicated thing but however and whyever it happens it’s clear it does damage to those around the person who does it and it seems Piskor has weaponised that against the people he (allegedly) wronged and… it’s hard to feel sympathetic to that. His note reads very similarly to posts on forums or social media from people flouncing off after being called out on their own bullshit.
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I’ve not read many suicide notes but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with such “I am not the one who is owned” vibes. Suicide is a messy and complicated thing but however and whyever it happens it’s clear it does damage to those around the person who does it and it seems Piskor has weaponised that against the people he (allegedly) wronged and… it’s hard to feel sympathetic to that. His note reads very similarly to posts on forums or social media from people flouncing off after being called out on their own bullshit.
I can agree with this. I went and looked at the few comic creators mentioned (in the note) on twitter that I hold is some regard. (Imperfect, maybe have fucked up), to see if i was going to be disappointed.
At least on twitter, their posts seemed to be reasonable and unsurprising, whilst shenanigans maybe went on elsewhere, the public parts seemed to be more “please male comic creators stop doing this”, not “unlife yrself”.
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But I feel as though these things should probably go through more formal channels. If there was evidence of underage grooming, there are ways to report that and deal with it that don’t include selective leaks of correspondence on social media.
I don’t know, I mean… what Piskor did probably wasn’t something that warranted legal actions, but it’s something that raises red flags all over the place, and hints at potential for future abuse. If you have been targeted by this behaviour, don’t you have a responsibility to tell people about it even if it isn’t a legal case? That was certainly how quite a few women found out that they had been manipulated and lied to by Warren Ellis, to take another comics example. Was it wrong to go public with this because it wasn’t a legal case?
To mention a different case relevant to the discussion – Till Lindemann did have a trial and was found innocent in court of drugging and raping women – that part couldn’t be proven. At the same time, it seems pretty certain that he exploited situations in which much younger women were star-struck and were in a situation they didn’t like but felt like they had no option but go through with it (plus, extremely drunk). There is no official legal court for this, but given that he is using his very public persona as a rock star to lure young women into these situations, isn’t this something that must also be discussed in public so that people know? Obviously a much bigger case as far as it all being public is concerned, but I’d say it’s the same principle – should women who feel abused shut up because the form of abuse they suffered is not one relevant to the legal justice system?
I obviously agree where the mob dynamics are concerned, and the behaviour of the media. But rather than keeping cases like these under wraps, I think that side of it is another one to focus on – how can we create an environment in which these questions are discussed more responsibly, and with less of an immediate bullying dynamic?
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I don’t know, I mean… what Piskor did probably wasn’t something that warranted legal actions, but it’s something that raises red flags all over the place, and hints at potential for future abuse. If you have been targeted by this behaviour, don’t you have a responsibility to tell people about it even if it isn’t a legal case?
I do understand that argument, but I guess the counter-argument is that if these allegations are never going to be investigated or tested in any way then it’s also possible for misinformation to be spread and never countered. In cases like Piskor’s it seems like there’s a mixture of legitimate inappropriate behaviour on his part, combined with half-truths and edited-for-context “evidence” of other supposed abuses, mixed with outright fabrications. How do you sort through that in an environment where everything is going to be based on one-word-against-another rumour and hearsay?
I obviously agree where the mob dynamics are concerned, and the behaviour of the media. But rather than keeping cases like these under wraps, I think that side of it is another one to focus on – how can we create an environment in which these questions are discussed more responsibly, and with less of an immediate bullying dynamic?
This is the key question I think. Really the problem is not with the people reporting the abuse but with the audience who are enjoying this stuff like a spectator sport and actively relishing the entertainment value of taking down a supposed dirtbag – usually with these people having very little appreciation of the facts of the case.
That’s really the element that’s the most difficult to control in these situations, that snowballing spiralling mob mentality that (as we saw in the case of Piskor) can take allegations and immediately exaggerate or distort them into something that’s completely misrepresentative of the situation.
A more sober and mature environment is what’s needed for this stuff to be discussed in an appropriate way – but unfortunately, that requires everyone in the conversation to act in a calm and adult manner, and give these kinds of subjects the respect they deserve rather than treating it as sport.
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A more sober and mature environment is what’s needed for this stuff to be discussed in an appropriate way – but unfortunately, that requires everyone in the conversation to act in a calm and adult manner, and give these kinds of subjects the respect they deserve rather than treating it as sport.
Yeah. And given how people are and more importantly in this context how social media algorithms work, I think online behaviour needs to be regulated. Uh, completely new and innovative thought obviously, but I don’t see anything actually happening when it comes to changing the fundamentals of this.
This is hard enough when it comes to traditional media, where it is theoretically easier to hold people accountable. In Germany there is theoretically a self-regulation institution for ethical press behaviour, and I think this does play an important role in the still somewhat moderate traditional German press, but it’s pretty toothless. (And funnily enough, I just found out for the first time that it was originally formed after the model of the British Press Council that in turn was dissolved in the 90s and replaced by a Press Complaint Commission that has also been defunct for a decade now and there is no British institution for this right now apparently. Huh.)
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I’m devastated by this whole thing.
I feel selfish about it, because it really is about what feels like has been taken away.
I can’t recall exactly when I found the CK channel, but I do think it was a post by RonnieM on this board’s previous iteration, linking to their video on the bizarre Brian Murray X-Force colouring job. I wasn’t a YouTube user, but soon after set up an account so I could subscribe and comment and whatnot. There were stretches over the past few years where the daily video (I’d usually check in late at night, before bed) was one of only a few things I looked forward to.
It’s all a very delicate area where it’s so easy to find yourself accidentally aligning with really horrendous people (who are crying about the woke mob etc.), or being subject to accusations of impropriety yourself for feeling sad or looking for explanations. Before retweeting anyone’s reactions I’m searching their profiles to make sure there aren’t any comicsgate or maga or trans mentions. People’s tearful tributes are responded to with accusations of paedophilia or rape; it’s all quite sick, and any kind of nuance or hesitation might see you accused of victim blaming.
I’ve never read a suicide note before. It’s what I woke up to yesterday – I couldn’t really think clearly all day, and couldn’t tell my wife that I was upset or why because I didn’t want her to think I was siding with a predator. I’ve read the facebook messages frantically typed in response to his note, before his death was confirmed, pleading for him to pause, scrambling to call him, call someone who knows him, call the authorities.
People telling him not to make his mama cry.
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The whole thing is a shit show.
I’ve worked with younger people before at my last job and I’ll occasional think oh I wonder what so and so is up to now. But as a 39 year old guy, I’d never actually reach out to make contact because I’d feel super weird and I know the optics of me messaging a 17-20 year old girl are not good.
So while I think he made a huge lapse in judgment by even making contact with her, I don’t see anything illegal from the “evidence” that was shared. Yeah his back and fourth with her looks a bit problematic, it’s also cut to ribbons with zero context. And the fact she calls herself a “slut for lineart” in the same texts shes using against him, makes me think that’s just how they spoke with each other.
She can say she wasn’t out to “cancel” him but thats bullshit. We all know how the internet works by now. Innocent until proven guilty is a myth at this point. Even people that have been proven innocent in court are still pariahs. He could’ve pleaded his case all day long but the damage was clearly already done.
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For me, it was not that he messaged a 17 year old, this is not the problem. It was the totes creepy things things he wrote to her. What I read screamed of coercive and grooming language. From someone from a background of helping a teenager out from abuse and control, it was disturbingly immediately bad – teeth grindingly so. Its exactly the language that you would use to probe your chances of coercive control.
This is from a man who used language and storytelling for a living.
And his defence was, quite frankly, shite. This is from a man who used language and storytelling for a living.
I’m sad he killed himself.
He had a lot of hard work to do and I’m disappointed he chose not to take that path.I don’t blame the folk who read those messages, who no doubt have seen many similar and went: FFS, male comic creators, can you just not?
I don’t know who to blame, but I think those who are absolving this creep of responsibility are wrong, no matter how good his podcast was.4 users thanked author for this post.
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Well, he also completely rejected the claims of the other woman who said he tried to very crudely get her to have sex with him as a trade-off to getting access to his agent or something
He stated that they had a sexual relationship, so it seems a weird accusation for someone to make. From what I can gather even before he died the 21 year old walked back some of her points. I’m biased, yes, so feel free to ignore the context I think is important.
The 21 year old was at the time in a relationship with someone who was keen for her to have a connection with Ed.
She was an artist herself and he liked her work.
While 17 at the time, part of what Ed appreciated about her apart from her art was her interest in “edgy” mature stuff like GG Allin.
It was Covid, early Covid when we didn’t know what was happening or how long anything would take to get back to normal – he was a hermit by nature and Covid turned that up to a new extreme.
He was a sickly kid, and I always got the impression he was ostracized if not bullied. Maybe autistic. Skin condition. Skinny. Prematurely bald. Kinda funny looking. The hat, the glasses, the “gangsta” affectation. An insecure, awkward guy who’d made comics his life more than anyone I’ve ever heard of.
The “gangsta” mask was never all that convincing but people who knew him personally and met him admitted it fell away when he felt comfortable, and you see it fall away in some of the CK videos where he goes full geek mode.I don’t know. I’m rambling and still very shaken by all of this. In a few weeks this will be old news.
I hope at least some folks check out the channel’s videos if they haven’t – Jim Rugg is honouring Ed’s written wishes and uploading their pre-recorded backlog daily (which is a bit haunting) but there are almost 2,000 videos covering so much crucial, seminal comics content, and not just 90s, not just Image. Miller. Moore. Breyfogle. Kirby. Bolland. Darrow. Moebius. Crumb. BWS. Clowes. Shirow. Otomo. Sienkiewicz. Read-through reviews, how-tos, interviews. Such a phenomenally valuable resource for comics readers and creators.
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‘Action Comics’ #1 Sells for $6 Million, Setting a New All-Time Record for Comics – Mental Floss
Superman’s first appearance is the most valuable comic in the world. Again.
The modern superhero was born in 1938, when Cleveland friends and collaborators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster debuted Superman in Action Comics #1. So few copies of the comic are known to exist in good condition that it’s become one of the most sought-after collectibles of all time. Last week, it broke new ground: At $6 million, it’s now the most valuable comic ever sold.
The copy, which was offered by Heritage Auctions, was graded 8.5 out of 10 by the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), a third-party grading service that assesses the condition of books and maintains a database of known and graded copies. According to CGC, only two copies of Action Comics #1 have received a higher numerical score. Both are graded 9.0 and are believed to be in the possession of billionaire collector Ayman Hariri.
While higher grades are always coveted, the comic is scarce enough that even lesser versions can fetch big money. A copy graded 6.0 sold for $3.56 million in 2023; one poor relic graded .05 sold for $408,000 that same year. In 2020, someone paid $410 for a few stray flecks of paper (and one staple) from the book.
While you might expect Action Comics #1 to be consistently in first place when it comes to comic book values, that hasn’t always been the case. In 2022, a nearly perfect copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 (CGC 9.6), the first appearance of Spider-Man, sold for $3.6 million, becoming the most valuable comic at that time. In 2023, a copy of Superman #1 (CGC 8.0) sold for $5.3 million, establishing a new record.
Bolstering the sale price was the fact that the copy was part of a “pedigreed” collection, or one that is known to collectors for having a provenance. This is the “Kansas City” copy, so named for being part of a collection traced to a collector in that city who compiled hundreds of first issues from the earliest days of comics publishing.
Another pedigreed copy, this one from the collection of Edgar Church, is rumored to be the best-preserved of them all: Church was a collector in Denver, Colorado, whose dry basement kept his books in exceptional condition. But what that might mean at auction is unknown: The copy is in private hands and there’s no way of knowing when or if it will come up for sale.
CGC estimates there are fewer than 100 copies of Action Comics #1 still in existence out of the 200,000 or so that were printed back in 1938. The chances you have one in your basement are low, but you might want to check your walls. In 2013, a contractor in Minnesota was working on renovating an older house when he found a copy being used as insulation. Graded 1.5, it sold for $175,000.
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And I thought $4.99 cover prices were a pisstake.
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The medium that broke the story, Tortoise, published their research as a podcast. It’s very in-depth and overall paints a disturbing picture. I think some aspects of it are tendencious, but… even the most benevolent interpretation of events (in which you would assume that Gaiman had reason to assume consent in everything going on) is kind of icky.
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Yes, I agree. There’s a definite ick-factor to the whole thing regardless.
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ick-factor
Who else thinks this should be the name of Simon Cowell’s next talent-competition show?
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The medium that broke the story, Tortoise, published their research as a podcast. It’s very in-depth and overall paints a disturbing picture. I think some aspects of it are tendencious, but… even the most benevolent interpretation of events (in which you would assume that Gaiman had reason to assume consent in everything going on) is kind of icky.
Yeah, at best it’s a massive power dynamic unbalance that Gaiman should have known better than to get involved in.
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A more valid aspect throwing at least some doubt at the motivations behind this is that one of the two journalists reporting on this is Rachel Johnson, the sister of Boris Johnson. She is also a conservative politician aside from being a journalist and apparently also a TV personality. So at the least it seems like one of the reporters behind this would be the kind of person who would love to see a lefty idol fall.
Rachel Johnson isn’t quite as objectionable as her brother. She’s not the naked politically ambitious monster he is and actually joined the Lib Dems a few years back (which is not to say she’s not a small c conservative, of course). I mean, she’s a TERF and pro-Israel, so I’m not saying she’s great by any means, but I don’t think she’d be particularly motivated to fabricate or “enhance” a story to bring down a “lefty idol”.
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Random House Publishing Group To Acquire Boom! Studios – Deadline
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of the world’s largest trade publisher, Penguin Random House, has entered into an agreement to acquire comic book, graphic novel and licensed storytelling publisher and studio, Boom! Studios.
The Boom! Studios publishing program will now join the Random House Worlds portfolio of imprints alongside Del Rey, Inklore and the RH Worlds licensing program. The company will retain its editorial and publishing independence, reporting to Random House Worlds President, Scott Shannon. Keith Clayton, VP Publisher, Random House Worlds, and Bill Takes, EVP of Business Strategy, Random House Publishing Group, will work alongside Shannon and the BOOM! Studios team to help manage and integrate the new imprint.
There are no plans to relocate BOOM! Studios from its L.A. office, and the company will continue to distribute through both Diamond Comic Distributors and Simon & Schuster. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close this summer.
More in link…
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J.M.DeMatteis has just posted that Michael Zulli has died. Zulli was a brilliant artist.
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Yeah, I loved his art on The Sandman: The Wake. Rest in peace.
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It’s not looking good. There’s been a somewhat surprising lack of pick up from more mainstream media though (unless I’ve completely missed it). That’s weird given Gaiman’s profile.
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Ah, fuck.
The second one – the one from 1986 – is something you where you can go with the misreading the situation thing. But the other one… once again, even the most beneficial interpretation makes him look like a massive asshole. And the more likely one, well, a rapist.
This is massively depressing. Fucking men.
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There’s been a somewhat surprising lack of pick up from more mainstream media though (unless I’ve completely missed it). That’s weird given Gaiman’s profile.
Cynically, I can’t help but feel that a lot of people have a lot of money invested in projects with Gaiman’s name on them (not only his books but also current TV adaptations of Sandman, Good Omens etc.) and they would be quite happy for this to all remain very downplayed.
Also, Gaiman has historically been fairly strongly aligned with progressive voices so they may feel more reluctant to call out one of their own.
Given the gravity of these latest allegations though it feels like it is becoming harder to gloss over.
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Say you’re guilty without saying you’re guilty: hire the same lawyers that worked for Prince Andrew, Russell Brand and Danny Masterson.
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Found this recent account:
Among other things Gaiman tried to claim that he misread cues due to autism. Oh, that’ll go down well.
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More unpleasant allegations around Gaiman have emerged.
Aaaand a fifth woman has come forward; Tortoise has published another podcast episode this week.
It’s particularly striking that this woman has tried to get her allegations published for years and has contacted a lot of newspapers and investigative reporters to no avail. Once again, she’s a younger fan; once again, she was paid off (just without an NDA in her case). In her case, she didn’t have a sexual relationship with Gaiman; she had what she believed was a friendship with a little flirting with an older man she wasn’t really attracted to and there was just a moment when he tried rather forcefully to have sex with her, but broke off when she made it clear she didn’t want to. And if this was a singular case, you could defend it as Gaiman reading the signals wrong, as this was a very ambivalent situation and he could easily have read her behaviour as a prelude to an actual affair even if she talked about not wanting to get sexual. But knowing what we know about his behaviour towards other women during this time, the way Gaiman led her into the situation feels more like predatory behaviour. Especially given how he projects this worried, embarrassed, hapless British persona with an “Oh I’ve never done anything like this before I wish I’d known it made you uncomfortable” bla bla.She did record an after-the-fact phone conversation with him (the one in which he offers her money to cover he therapy costs) and they play that on the episode, which all feels like the kind of invasion of privacy you shouldn’t be able to do as a journalist and I wish they hadn’t included the conversation.
Anyway: I’m guessing at this point he’s pretty much done. Maybe he can survive by withdrawing from the public completely and only producing TV stuff behind the scenes. But I don’t think he’ll do any reading tours ever again.
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Disney and Amazon have suspended production on The Graveyard Shift and Good Omens Season 3 respectively. Maybe indefinitely. It all appears related. I don’t see a route back for Gaiman now, tbh. This seems career ending.
I do wonder what this will all mean for DC and Marvel. I guess we’ll never see Miracleman: The Dark Age now, but DC in particular have benefitted hugely from his work over the years, and still have ongoing titles that bear his name. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Sandman going forwards.
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I do wonder what this will all mean for DC and Marvel. I guess we’ll never see Miracleman: The Dark Age now, but DC in particular have benefitted hugely from his work over the years, and still have ongoing titles that bear his name. It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Sandman going forwards.
Yeah, there are the Sandman Universe titles and all that… fuck, it’d sad to see all of that go, and while I assume they’re not necessarily selling truckloads of trades of the recent Dreaming, Corinthian or Books of Magic titles, it’d be horrible for the creators of those books if they were simply struck from existence.
I’m kinda hoping for a separation of artist and work on this one.
Man, you really have to wonder. Gaiman, Whedon and Ellis were some of the most important influences to me in the nineties, and they all turned out to be (to different degrees) horrible people when it comes to women and sex.
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I think there’s one more volume of Nightmare Country but who knows if it’ll come out now.
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Man, you really have to wonder. Gaiman, Whedon and Ellis were some of the most important influences to me in the nineties,
Ok Christian, you need to list your other important influences from the 90s so we can prepare ourselves for their scandals.
Wait, was Dave Grohl one? Damnit, Christian!
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Neil Gaiman Offers To Step Back From ‘Good Omens’ Season 3 – Deadline
Deadline revealed on Monday that pre-production had paused on the BBC Studios-produced show in the wake of allegations made by four women against Gaiman, which he denies. This came after Disney’s planned feature adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 YA title The Graveyard Book also was put on pause.
Now, we understand that Gaiman has made an offer to Amazon and producers to take a back seat on the latest season so that it can continue amid crisis talks over the Terry Pratchett adaptation’s future. Deadline understands Gaiman’s offer is not an admission of wrongdoing following a podcast from Tortoise Media that chronicled accounts of two women, with whom he was in consensual relationships, who accused him of sexual assault. Another two have since come forward. Gaiman’s position is that he denies the allegations and is said to be disturbed by them. His rep did not respond to a request for comment.
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Sad news. Whilst not a prolific artist, I’ll always fondly remember his Buffy related work on Fray.
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Yeah, it’s unlikely there’ll be a third season. But if the second comes out, I’ll definitely be watching. At the pace they were going, that season should give us Seasons of Mist, A Game of You and some some more standalone stories from Dream Country or Fables and Reflections.
It’s pretty crazy that they would’ve wrapped the main story up with Brief Lives and The Kindly Ones by season 3 already.
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I care only in that it might prompt DC to (finally) reprint the back end of Sandman Mystery Theatre in the second compendium edition. But given Gaiman’s fall from grace, they might not want to bother tying anything in with it.
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Marvel and DC Just Lost the Super Hero Trademark: Here’s What That Means
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has shaken things up in the world of comics today, as a long-held trademark by Marvel Comics and DC Comics has now been canceled. The announcement comes courtesy of law firm Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg (RJLF), who have declared victory over DC and Marvel in a trademark case over the word Super Hero (via Bleeding Cool). The request was granted after DC and Marvel failed to respond to court requests over the challenge to the joint trademark, and now that it’s been canceled, RJLF’s clients S.J. Richold and Superbabies Limited can now use that term without issue.
A Joint Trademark
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(Photo: Marvel, DC)
DC Comics and Marvel Comics registered a joint trademark of the word “superhero” in 1977, and it was eventually approved in 1979. Since then they have successfully defended the trademark multiple times, both stateside and internationally, but a new challenge to the trademark was made in May of this year.That challenge was issued by Scott Richold of Superbabies Ltd, stating that “Super Hero”, as well as terms like “superhero” or “super-hero”, are generic terms that aren’t entitled to trademark protection. The petition states “DC and Marvel are wrong. Trademark law does not permit companies to claim ownership over an entire genre.” If you go through the complaint, you will find a host of examples from DC, Marvel, Image, and more utilized as proof of the core point.
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(Photo: Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg)
Superbabies Ltd then asked the court for a default judgment in their favor and stated that while DC Comics and Marvel Characters filed a motion to extend their time to answer the charges by the 24th of July, they had not done so or requested more time to respond. That led to today’s decision to cancel the trademark.What This Means From Here
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(Photo: Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feldberg)
This won’t affect Marvel or DC as far as what they can print or use, but it does mean that they no longer have ownership of that trademark, meaning that other companies can now freely use it. In a statement, lead counsel for Superbabies Adam Adler said this is a win for everyone, and makes sure the term Super Heroes has a home in the public domain.“Securing this result is not just a win for our client but a victory for creativity and innovation. By establishing SUPER HEROES’ place in the public domain, we safeguard it as a symbol of heroism available to all storytellers.”
“Superhero stories teach us to stick up for the little guy, so it’s only fitting that the liberation of SUPER HEROES would come at the hands of The Super Babies-the littlest of them all. My hope is that this victory will encourage smaller companies to share their stories with the world,” Richold said.
Superbabies released a new image that celebrated the win and also parodied the House of M No More Mutants moment, though instead of mutants it was “No More Superheroes…trademark!” You can check out that image above.
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