It’s shocking to me the amount of grifters who got in on my comic book movement which was supposed to provide a BETTER alternative to Devil Mouse and its evil twin giant at Warlock Brothers.
We saw a problem in the industry, that the companies were screwing the consumer by making propaganda pamphlets, cheaping out their production with lousy paper, putting sub-par art on stories, and generally just treating the fanbase like a cash cow where they could say “I don’t even care about you” and the gamma males would come back thirsty to buy more.
Unfortunately, people from these very companies saw exactly this trend. They saw they could do exactly the same thing as the big-2, brand themselves as an “alternative” and produce the same lousy content. Their friends in the YouTuber game all got in on it, which is why we have atrocious books like Jawbreakers, Lonestar, and Graveyard Shift. They are some of the most unreadable content out there.
Until today.
Backers are starting to receive Stealing Solo, another youtuber-pretend-to-be-comic-creator project by a Star Wars gamma male complainer who latched onto the nonsense drama movement to bilk a few bucks off of the gamma comic readers. He came dangerously close to branding something which Disney might hit for copyright infringement, and that only made the crowd thirstier for the knock-off.
The Comic Book Hut, one of the few honest youtubers out there, hit upon a goldmine when this book came out, because the quality of this book is so shockingly bad it even makes Jon Malin’s work look professional.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA-TRgnT2ag
He found out that these guys who took over a year to create what was going to be a sub-par book just trying to hit people in the Star War memberberries cheaped out every element of production. They printed backers’ addresses on the back of each book and mailed them out — WITHOUT ENVELOPES! How insane is that?
But that’s not even delving into the book quality itself. Look at this preview page:
The stiff, amateur line art might be acceptable from a random book, with a little poorly done gradient photoshop coloring, if this book had been something that was someone with 50 backers, someone struggling to create a comic. But these guys clocked FIFTY THOUSAND on this book and then produced this level of art. Look at the poor lettering up top that looks like someone just added in a box in MS Paint.
It’s insane.
It makes me so sad to watch books like this get cash raked in because of cult personality, with the content being some of the worst out there. I would be embarrassed to produce this quality of book even with my stuff barely breaking even at less than a third of what this raised.
If readers came through and actually went for real alternatives making real quality books, what could we do with this movement? I can only imagine having $50K to play with for art on a 48-page book. I’d be working with THE TOP ARTISTS IN THE BUSINESS with that kind of funding.
But the movement was never made of readers. Just thirsty idiots who wanted to complain harder about Star Wars and circle jerk about how oppressed they are because some mega corporation won’t listen to them, while holding up the people who have the most idiotic takes, complain the loudest, and put zero work into their craft.
This is the end result of ComicsGate. It’s a shame. I really hope next time around people pay attention to the real quality product and not the world class bullshit. Maybe 2020 will change things? It’s going to be up to you.
For now, if you really want to see good writing in a Star Wars-like universe, read Justified. This series is absolutely pro. It’s got incredible reviews. I paid top notch for the cover art, the editing, and produced a modern science fiction classic. Start reading here.
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