My great pal David V. Stewart put together a nice collection of stories for FREE for folk to read on quarantine. It’s got a lot of great stuff which I have read personally and enjoyed, as well as a short story by me: “A Song of I.C.E. and Fire” which has notbeen released anywhere but to Patreon subscribers. So go check it out.

And I’d also like to mention a good promotion from my merch guys at Crypto Fashion. They are struggling right now because conventions are a LOT of their business so they need some love on the retail end. You might want to stock up on things like T-shirts and the like for the summer in case supply lines break down anyway. I have some great ones in my store here.  

Stay safe out there all!

I was so refreshed to see a tweet by writer Rick Remender last night which showed a sea change in the way things are being run at these big corporate entertainment companies.

Remender is a popular writer of the series Deadly Class, and of course, had quite a long stint at Marvel which were celebrated just as much if not more than his own work. He made this tweet last night which has me elated:

None. They get offered to me all the time. Much happier creating my own stories and co-owning them with the artists. Life is short, rather spend it writing personal songs, not cover songs https://t.co/ciI3U4UsAb

— Rick Remender (@Remender) March 17, 2020

It may not sound like much, but most of the comic industry’s aspirations are to work for the Big 2, to do fan fiction of someone else’s property to continue that corporate brand. That’s where the fame is, that’s where the short-term glory is, but what invariably happens in our industry is these companies churn through people to get to cheaper talent — making it about their brand first and not the writers and artists who do anything for them.

Remender has it right — creating your own is so much more fulfilling. It leaves your own mark. You don’t have to play within the established guidelines of someone else as a work for hire to be forgotten.  The industry forgot this when it became a Stan Lee IP machine trying to flood stands and squeeze others out.

More writers and artists need to get this attitude. We can usher in a great generation of new stories and not be copying someone else’s property in an endless cycle of “Illusion of change” where characters can never truly develop or stay dead. They’re just movie IP holders now, after all.

That’s why I beat the drums for indie comics and I’m so glad Remender is on this train too.

If you like indies, and want something to read right now, check out my Clockwork Dancer #1 on Amazon right now!