Marvel Going Back To "Meat And Potatoes"

[Silver Nemesis]

The New Warriors announcement trailer on YouTube currently has 3.4k likes and 151k dislikes. Even the 2016 Ghostbusters trailer had a better like:dislike ratio than that. The video plays like a spoof and the comments underneath are hilarious. It's worth visiting the page just to read them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PCWUCv1rnU&feature=emb_logo

I'm seriously starting to wonder if this whole thing isn't some kind of elaborate April Fool's Day prank that leaked early. It's just too absurd to be real.

[Silver Nemesis]

I just looked up Daniel Kibblesmith and saw this on his Wikipedia page.

To whoever did this – well played.

[thecolorsblend]

At the rate things are going, I have no reason to assume that The New (Social Justice) Warriors by Neckbeard Kibblesmith will ever actually be published. But even if it does get published, cover prices being what they are, it's not even worth buying it for the lulz. Especially not in this economy.

The real lesson from all of this is that perhaps the comics industry deserves to go out of business.

[The Joker]

I just looked up Daniel Kibblesmith and saw this on his Wikipedia page.

To whoever did this – well played.

[thecolorsblend]

Jim Lee is probably the most popular comic book artist in America. That's a position he's held for, what, 25 years? More? And he's spent the time in lockdown drawing detailed comic book art for auction to benefit comic book stores.

We just passed Day 20. That means he's drawn twenty fully-illustrated pages for auction.

I don't know who. But SOMEBODY needs to get fired for that. It's simply inexcusable.

Twenty days, twenty pages. The average comic book consists of about twenty pages, give or take. Lee could've drawn an entire comic book during this time, perhaps a juicy little one-shot, and DC could've charged retailers like $1 per copy and allowed them to sell it to customers for whatever cover price they see fit. That would've benefited retailers far more than the one-time handout they're getting right now.

It would've kept readers and collectors engaged. It would've been a statement to the rest of the industry that we're all still in the game.

Back in the early Image days, it was clear that Jim Lee was the most natural and the most savvy businessman in that whole crew. Silvestri wasn't bad but Lee was obviously the best of them. He knew what to say, he knew when to make a promise, he knew when to shut his mouth, etc. McFarlane has grown in office considerably. He's not quite the firebrand that he used to be. I guess a $330 million net worth does that for you. But back when Image was first starting up, McFarlane was a bomb-thrower par excellence.

Jim Lee never was. He needed time to get his feet wet as a publisher but he possessed a nigh intuitive understanding of how to run a company. So I desperately want to believe that it wasn't his idea to do stupid @$$ retailer charity. Rumor has it that his position at DC is and has always been basically ceremonial in nature. He is to DC what Stan Lee was to Marvel in the 90's; a powerless figurehead.

I never believed that until now. And now, I kind of hope it's true. Because the alternative is that wasting his time with stupid fundraising rather than COMIC BOOK PUBLISHING was his idea and that just pains me.

I've said before that the comic book industry wants to die. And I was only half-joking when I said it. But the truth could be more prosaic. It may turn out that the people in charge of running the industry are too incompetent to save it.

And somehow, that seems like the worse possibility.

[The Dark Knight]

Spot on. I like his art but don't know Jim Lee from a bar of soap to a length of rope. His heart is probably in the right place, but this is a dumb move. The focus should be on creating sustained success. Fundraisers and all that jazz are PR stunts that amount to nothing much in the long run. The Great Man put it well here:

[thecolorsblend]

Spot on. I like his art but don't know Jim Lee from a bar of soap to a length of rope. His heart is probably in the right place, but this is a dumb move. The focus should be on creating sustained success. Fundraisers and all that jazz are PR stunts that amount to nothing much in the long run. The Great Man put it well here:

The older I get, the more I believe that charity should alleviate one's present circumstances because they're unbearable. Like, somebody's house burns down so charity would help them find a new home.

But the idea of charity as ongoing welfare (A) breeds dependency and (B) is ineffectual, as Lennon suggests. One bad day is one thing. But bad life conditions are a problem that no level of charity can ever undo. Good on Lennon for calling that out. I never knew he said that but I applaud him for doing so.

I also never knew he tithed. That admission, ahem, lends considerable credence to certain rumors about his attitudes and beliefs near the end of his life. Very interesting.

EDIT- One other thing. I'm also a critic of America's foreign aid. However, I recognize the purpose it's meant to survive. When America exports billions of dollars to other countries, it allows the American government to boss them around. They're on our dole and that means they have to play by our rules. It's good brinksmanship. If the purpose of the foreign aid was to actually alleviate poverty, it's obviously a failure. But if the purpose was to create an artificial dependency on American aid, it's an undeniable success.

I remain a critic of foreign aid because other countries should be free to make whatever policy decisions they believe to be in their best interests. I'm just saying that I understand foreign aid now better than I did back in the old days.

[The Dark Knight]

I also never knew he tithed. That admission, ahem, lends considerable credence to certain rumors about his attitudes and beliefs near the end of his life. Very interesting.

Lennon was a complex individual and he would be disgusted with being pigeonholed as the 'Imagine singer'. I'm sure he'd tell these Z list celeb singalongers to F off. His back catalogue with the Beatles alone is monumental, and is even sidelined by focusing on that one song. And then there's his solo career.

I'd like to see someone with the balls to record God these days, which is incredibly cathartic to hear. False idols and myths torn down because it's all down to us to get things done. Which leads me to say this: there are no real ARTISTS today with anything important to say. And on the rare occasion they do, it's not communicated satisfactorily.

Give this whole video a listen, it's not very long, where he lays out how his thought processes evolved from being a 'teeny bopper' to a 40 years old. His cynical honesty has always been an inspiration to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=387&v=8vGYNPDSjSc&feature=emb_title

The older I get, the more I believe that charity should alleviate one's present circumstances because they're unbearable. Like, somebody's house burns down so charity would help them find a new home.

But the idea of charity as ongoing welfare (A) breeds dependency and (B) is ineffectual, as Lennon suggests. One bad day is one thing. But bad life conditions are a problem that no level of charity can ever undo. Good on Lennon for calling that out. I never knew he said that but I applaud him for doing so.

Everyone wants a buck and a dime. Money for fires. Money for floods. Money for the Chinese Virus. Money for the aliens that arrive next year, and vagrants with a hat out on the sidewalk. Sorry, but I've got to have something left for myself, and I'll spend my money how I please. Giving money for a daily hot dog and Coke doesn't change a circumstance, it just keeps the problem there for another day.

[The Laughing Fish]

Diamond is the only distributor of comics. If they, uh, stop distributing comics then that's ball game for the industry, y'all. This is it. Extinction Level Event.

First, Diamond folds. Then the retailers fold. After that, choose your own adventure in terms which order the publishers go out of business. One model is just as valid as another.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/heat-vision/dc-cuts-ties-diamond-comic-distribution-1297309

What do you make of this? Is this a catastrophic decision?

[thecolorsblend]

Diamond is the only distributor of comics. If they, uh, stop distributing comics then that's ball game for the industry, y'all. This is it. Extinction Level Event.

First, Diamond folds. Then the retailers fold. After that, choose your own adventure in terms which order the publishers go out of business. One model is just as valid as another.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.hollywoodreporter.com/amp/heat-vision/dc-cuts-ties-diamond-comic-distribution-1297309

What do you make of this? Is this a catastrophic decision?

I applaud DC for having stronger survival instincts than I first surmised. I still don't think there's any saving the industry at this point. But DC's management have shown that they have some fight in them. Anything that destroys a monopoly is A-okay as far as I'm concerned.