Posts tagged thank you
And that brings us back to the original point of all this, which is the idea that it’s your job, as a reader, to save comics from cancellation. That if you don’t buy a Previews catalog, research all of the comics coming out two months from now, and then tell your retailer you want to buy one so that your retailer can purchase an extra copy from Marvel that month and Marvel can brag about it in a press release, it’s your fault when the comic is canceled.
I propose a different hypothesis: it’s Marvel’s fucking fault when Marvel doesn’t sell enough comics. It’s Marvel’s fault they didn’t promote Nighthawk well enough to get retailers to buy enough copies of it. It’s Marvel’s fucking fault specialty shops are the only stores that buy Nighthawk comics in the first place. It’s Marvel’s fucking fault that instead of millions of people reading comics, there are less than 100,000. All of this is Marvel’s fault, not yours or mine, and the propensity of comic book creators to guilt trip fans about preordering has to be classified as some kind of weird version of Stockholm syndrome.
The same thing applies sometimes to fans, who are constantly pressured by the industry to feel responsible for sales numbers and pass along that attitude to their peers. Don’t want to see your favorite character’s book canceled? Well, you better preorder and tell all your friends to preorder too. Want to see more diversity in comics? You’d better buy whatever half-hearted attempt at cashing in on diversity Marvel is promoting this month whether you enjoy reading it or not, or else they might get the idea that comic book readers don’t like diversity, and that would be your fault, you see. Don’t want to see your favorite artist die alone in poverty after creating some of the most successful intellectual properties in the history of American pop culture? Well, you’d better keep shelling out $4.99 for those comics Marvel is giving them a 1% cut of, or that’s your fault too.
please read this article, it’s excellent
Die, Industry, Die! (Or Why Letting Comics Fail is the “Real” Only Way to Save the Industry)
say it with me
- liking a character ≠ condoning their actions
- understanding a character ≠ condoning their actions
- relating to a character ≠ condoning their actions
never assume that only because someone likes/understands/relates to a character that they see this character as “perfect” and don’t recognise their flaws
ATTENTION TUMBLR ARTISTS
SICK AND TIRED OF PEOPLE STEALING YOUR GODAMN ART?
Can’t find the godamn ask to tell the blogger to kindly take your art down?
NO MOAR!
Email support@tumblr.com with links to your originals and the repost, and they’ll take it down.
NOW REBLOG THE SHIT OUTA THIS AND SPREAD THE WORD!
Japanese translation ・日本語訳
Tumblrの絵師さんにお知らせ
絵の無断転載されまくりでうんざりしている貴方！
絵を外してもらいたいのに犯人のAskが見つからない？
もう大丈夫です！
貴方の元々の投稿のURLと転載されたURLをメールに入れてsupport@tumblr.comに送れば、Tumblrのスタッフが削除してくれます。（※訳注：できれば英語を使った方は多分対応が早くなる）
さあ、これをリブログしてみんなに知らせよう！
Korean translation
계속되는 Tumblr 그림불펌에 지치신 존잘님들!
내려달라고 하고 싶지만 불펌한 당사자에게 직접적인 연락이되지않아서 골치아프신가요?
»> support@tumblr.com «< 이쪽으로 원본 소스 링크와 허락없이 올려진 링크를 이멜로 보내시면 Tumblr가 알아서 내려줍니다.
그리고 영어가 불편하신분들을 위해서 간단하게 작성을 했습니다:
“My art was uploaded without permission on Tumblr, and I would like the post removed.
This is the original link to my art (소스링크) .
This is the post I would like deleted (불펌링크) .”Oh my God yes
For all my frustrated artist friends out there.
The only thing that makes me happier than comics, is watching the old guard of nerd culture lose their shit. Captain Marvel can’t be a woman. Captain America can’t be black. Human Torch can’t be black. Spider-Man can’t be mixed race. Thor can’t be a woman. Iceman can’t be gay. Too bad. It’s happening. It’s going to be awesome. Hell, I hope there’s a new title that takes place in Earth 6969 where all sexual orientations, races, and genders are reversed, where a black, gay, female Cyclops leads the X-Men. Seriously, superheroes are supposed to be about inspiring you to be better and accepting people. We’re supposed to be amazed that the mild-mannered newspaper writer is in fact our greatest savior. That nerdy kid you picked on is actually the bravest and kindest soul who feels that even though you were an ass to him, it’s his responsibility to help you. Society can believe that a dude can turn into ice, ride around on a slide, fight a living island, live in skyscraper sized spaceship, and teach alien children, but the second you have him question his sexuality you call bullshit.
Superheroes are for everyone. God forbid they actually try to reflect the world we live in and let one of the most underrepresented demographics have an interesting character to relate to.
When we read this post from Mikey Neilson of Chronicles of the Nerds, we actually cheered aloud. Signed, sealed, and seconded. (OP on Facebook; quoted with permission.)
On Complaints Against Cosplay
[I scribbled some angry invective earlier today in a more specific corner of the internet, and yesterday all over twitter, in response to the latest bubbling-up of industry pros suggesting “cosplayers are ruining comics”. (I’m not dignifying the original complaints with a link – go find it.) It struck me that today’s rant is a pretty decent rejoinder to hang somewhere more public too, plus worth recording as my starting position on all this stuff. So.]
Basically: it bothers me that whenever someone decides to complain about cosplay on grounds of [insert bullshit here], their examples are almost always anecdotes about women.
To paraphrase Wil Wheaton, cosplay is the purest healthy expression it’s possible to make of your love for a fiction. IMO to argue that it even can – let alone does – harm that fiction is the bubbling arsehole of stupid.
If it’s true (which I don’t entirely believe) that cosplayers are less inclined to buy books at a show, it’s almost certainly because they’ve already fucking bought them. On account of being, y’know, proactive fans.
Comics creators being anti-cosplay is like a football player moaning about people wearing team shirts.
Pretty much the only moaners’ position I even begin to buy is people who make their living selling collectibles at shows – back issues, toys, t-shirts, all that – who believe cosplayers aren’t into that stuff and are hence restricting their marketplace.
…which, a) is probably also bollocks, honestly, but b) even if it’s true that’s fucking natural selection, baby. We finally live in a world where the story is becoming more important than the masturbatory nostalgia and rarity of the brand surrounding it. Evolve or die, fuckheads. Stop griping about cosplayers not buying your vintage superman lunchboxes and start selling fabric, leather stitching and cosplay tutorials.
(And at some point canny artists are going to realise they could make a mint selling sketches of fans in their costumes. And so on and so forth.)
You give it even the slightest thought and you realise the complaints are symptomatic of either an abject lack of imagination and flexibility on the part of retailers, or a really lazy excuse to call women narcissistic sluts.
A Beautiful Monster 