It’s been a proxy war for the last 2 months. Ethan Van Sciver — aka Two Face — said platitudes to me for awhile, while he had private chats where he sent people both after me, and he was even so paranoid to think that people were “spying” on my behalf.
This is what happens when someone who’s ill-equipped to lead gets tapped as a leader. Ethan is an artist, used to solitary work, he’s not a person to redefine and change an industry. It’s a personality type, and it was pretty obvious to most of us that comicsgate was going to implode when he grew his audience — not because of comics — but because of bashing Star Wars. A crowd that didn’t care about the products came on, threw money at him and others, and because of the dollar amounts coming in, people thought this was going to be a great ride and hitched their horses.
I’m one of the very fortunate few who was able to run 2 successful crowdfunds with very little help from EVS. My first book, Flying Sparks, I can trace $3-5K of the $31,000+ total to the youtubers promoting it. about 15-20%. A chunk, but not a deal killer. On The Ember War, we’re at $24,000 without a single one of the YouTubers supporting it, mentioning it, or saying anything about me except for negative comments. So I have my own fanbase, which is the good news.
Many of these guys do not, however. They’re stuck. This youtube money was never going to last forever. The whole premise was based on outrage, not actual products, and so these guys have to perpetually stoke outrage — at Vox Day, at me, at Miss Sashi, at smaller creators (Ethan dedicated several shows to attacking a guy who had an indiegogo with less than 20 backers because he spoke ill of EVS), at fans even — who I won’t name to protect them. They’re using the same tactics as the pros at Marvel/DC that they were originally mocking to get big.
Ethan finally came out and said he didn’t like me over the weekend, told me to “go away”, as if I didn’t have any part of this movement before he even showed up. The hubris in that statement and resentment shows that he blames me for his crumbling empire, even though I have little to do with him (I’ve not been around his youtube crew at all for 2 months now!). Last night, he escalated attacks by coming after someone for following me on Twitter, accusing him of being a “Jon del Arroz acolyte” and promptly blocking him.
He knows he’s messed up, but instead of patching up the situation and working together to build something, he’s going to keep escalating and doubling down, because he can’t admit that this was too big of an animal to wield. Imagine a world where he would have focused on Cyberfrog getting done on time instead of on youtube… we’d probably be having a different conversation right now.
I’d only been kind to Ethan. I wrote him up in the Federalist, promoted him, backed his going-to-be-late comic book, helped prop him up along the way because he claimed he was a Trump supporter and trying to build something new out of the ashes of the industry. But I always got the sense he didn’t like me from day one, and I couldn’t understand why. I think there’s a couple of reasons for it: 1. I can’t be controlled, I have my own thoughts and he didn’t want folk around him who wouldn’t just toe the line and make him feel good and 2. because I’m a writer, and there’s a rivalry between artists like him and writers that date back to the Image Comics early days. Those guys and the people who followed them have an “art is everything” mentality with comics, and when they see a good writer it actually plays to their insecurities cuz they know they can’t put together as good a story as someone like me.
Regardless of the reasons, it’s out in the open now. He can’t be Two Face about me any longer and put on the smiles on one side of the face, while trying to have his sycophants destroy me from the other. It’s good. I’m going to keep writing, keep making comics and keep winning. I hope the guys who followed him through this thinking there’s a money train don’t dig themselves into too deep of a hole.
My writing wins awards and is a #1 Amazon Bestseller. It all starts in For Steam And Country, my steampunk novel which launched my career and got me the readers that will follow me to whatever I write (and I love you for it!). Check it out here.
“This cracks me up every time I see it.” And I thought I was the easily amused one around here.
Using the “paid in Kindle store” rank as a “sales rank” is ridiculous. No one with even half a brain would use that unless that number got super high, because you’re competing with every last book in the Kindle store. He’s beating Gail Carriger, Philip Pullman, and Scott Westerfield in his category right now, so there’s that. Those particular giants of the genre don’t seem to think the category is a waste of time.
Real authors produce product their readers enjoy. That’s it. Hitting #1 in any category is an accomplishment, but it’s super cute how you’re trying to diminish it in an effort to diminish Jon thereby.
The entire ‘Steam and Country’ trilogy is an excellent series that does quite well. I’ve turned quite a few people onto it myself and have yet to have had a single person tell me that they didn’t like it. in fact, quite the opposite.
And it was number one for more than ‘five seconds’.
But you know what?
I think I’m gonna go promote this to my over forty thousand fans today (all of my books make it into the top 100 over -all- on Amazon and usually rack up #1’s in four or five different categories, major categories) and see if maybe we can’t get Jon back up to #1 again.
And I’m doing this just cause I wanna good laugh. Because that’s one of the things I like about Jon, he never does anything out of cruelty or a desire to hurt, and he’s always smiling. So what better way to react than to help build someone up, instead of trying to cut someone down.
“Imagine a world where he would have focused on Cyberfrog getting done on time instead of on youtube…”
And now (and correct me if I’m wrong), without even that ONE overpriced comic being published as yet (even though his IGG account AFAIK said it would be by November… and now he says he has no hard deadline, what?), 2VS hypes up his “ALL CAPS comics” brand. What comics? How many? Published? Where? It looks like a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. Truth >>> entertainment for me. I agree with those who say he’ll probably go back to DC or Marvel sooner or later in spite of all his posturing.
This whole EVS Comics Gate dust up is such a waist. I’m a consumer and I rely exclusively on reading recommendations from friends and authors I like and trust. I found Jon, Diversity & Comics and probably EVS through Vox Day. If Jon recommends someone, I’ll pay attention. I was looking at EVS and the other comics creators for future comics purchases. After this stupidity, I won’t purchase any of their work. That’s their loss not mine as I have plenty to read from Jon, Castalia House and others associated with them. I may even have to check out John Van Stry as well.
Jon von stry is good. So is jan stryvant. I own a lot of the books in kindle and PBS and a few in audio. I’ll even admit to reading a few by jon del arroz but refuse to admit I know him.
Ethan Van Sciver always lies.
Ethan Van Sciver always doubles down.
Didn’t someone write a book about this type of behavior once upon a time?
This ridiculous civil war in Comicsgate saddens me. I still think EVS is a good guy but he worries about being tainted by any association with the Vox and the “Alt-Right,” a label that doesn’t even mean anything anymore. This is a mistake. There is no way to placate the Left. Like Islamic fundamentalists, they’ll accept nothing less than total submission. The moral of the story: be yourself and to heck with what everybody else thinks.
Second moral: don’t spend all your time live-streaming. Jon, your work ethic definitely sets the right example