(Note: I wrote this over a year ago. I’ve changed my mind about Comicsgate since I originally wrote this. I’ve added an update section at the bottom of this post.)
For a while, I’ve had some strong opinions about comic books. My biggest concern is that comics cost too much. The average price of a monthly comic book is $3.99. That’s too much for the amount of entertainment you get. Considering that it takes less than 10 minutes to read a 22-page comic book, it’s the most expensive form of entertainment I enjoy. In comparison, I pay $14.99 a month for an Audible membership and for that, I get one audiobook. I get hours and hours of entertainment for my $14.99. Currently, I’m listening to a book that’s over 17 hours in length.
The truth about Comicsgate
I learned over time Comicsgate was about all sorts of things I didn’t agree with. These things included:
- Anyone who doesn’t agree with Comicsgate is called names. If you’re not down with Comicsgate, you’re a social justice warrior (SJW). Men are called cucks, soy-boys, radical leftists, or some other derogatory name. Women are called cum dumpsters, fake geeks, diversity hires, or worse. Since most supporters of Comicsgate hide behind fake names, they throw these insults towards people while protected by anonymity. I take a dim view of fake name people attacking real name people.
- Comicsgate supporters claimed to want politics out of comics. That turned out not to be true. They were fine with politics if it was Trumpian in nature. I’ve watched live streams on YouTube with Comicsgate people and they never grow tired of bashing Hillary Clinton or anyone critical of Donald Trump. I reluctantly voted for Hillary Clinton and I’m critical of Donald Trump. When Comicsgate creators bash Hillary Clinton supporters and people critical of Trump, they’re bashing me.
- Comicsgate supporters wanted comics to be more affordable until they didn’t. Everything began to change for me when the leaders of Comicsgate, Richard C. Meyer, Ethan Van Sciver, and some of the others began asking people to help fund their independent books. These books cost more than traditional comic books. A lot more.
Comicsgate related books
Jawbreakers: Lost Souls, Richard C. Meyer, 112 pages, $25 + $10 shipping.
Cyberfrog: Blood Honey, Ethen Van Sciver, 48 pages, $25 + $10 shipping.
Red Rooster: Golden Age, Mitch and Elizabeth Breitweiser, 40 pages, $25 + $10 shipping.
There are others, but these are the most popular books in Comicsgate. They describe these books as graphic novels. Most people associate graphic novels with five or six issues of a floppy comic that have been bundled together into a book. Most graphic novels have at the very least 120 pages (5 floppy comics). The graphic novels offered by the Comicsgate crew have fewer pages. In some cases, a lot less.
What I find to be especially obnoxious is the $10 shipping. Since these books are only available through the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform, the only way to get one is to have it shipped to you. The price should then be rolled into the cost of the book.
Have Comicsgate creators never heard of Amazon?
These creators could have used Amazon to fulfill orders, allowing Amazon Prime members to pay nothing for 2-day shipping. I’m currently listing my old graphic novels on eBay. It costs only a couple of bucks to send a graphic novel U.S. First Class Mail. If it’s too heavy for that, I send them U.S. Media Mail.
I ship them in padded envelopes I purchased in bulk at Sam’s Club. I can do this because the books I’m selling are actually graphic novels. Most of the graphic novels sold on Indiegogo are not really graphic novels so they need something more substantive than a padded envelope. I imagine at the very least they will need to be bagged and boarded and sent in something more rigid than a padded envelope. That’s what I do when I ship a single floppy comic.
Since the buyer is paying to ship when they buy a graphic novel from me on eBay, I make it as cheap as possible to send it to them. I get the impression these Comicsgate creators never even considered making the shipping as affordable as they could. They seemingly just don’t care.
Indiegogo is a terrible place for the consumer to buy comic books
This IndieGoGo business model is beyond stupid. These books are far too expensive even without the extortionate cost of shipping. Any success these creators enjoy will be short-lived. Show me a consumer willing to pay $35 for a 40-page comic and I’ll show you a consumer who will probably never do it again.
I know I won’t.
By charging $35 for a 40-page graphic novel, these Comicsgate creators are making comics even more expensive than they are now. They’re also being rude to the fans. Charging $35 for a 40-page comic is rude. Comicsgate followers don’t realize how poorly Comicsgate creators are treating them. That doesn’t mean they’ll never realize it. Just wait for them to get their wafer-thin $35 “graphic novels” and begin to realize what they could have bought on Amazon for $35.
Update (January 13, 2020)
My options have changed somewhat since I first wrote this. I have a tendency to look at things in black and white: something is one thing or it is another. This is a dumb way of looking at things. Things are almost never black and white. Almost everything is in various shades of gray. Comicsgate is no different.
There are good people in Comicsgate. Some of the worst people in Comicsgate when I wrote this post are no longer part of the movement. Mike S. Miller left Comicsgate after the rest of Comicsgate made it clear they weren’t interested in going after gay people. He is an anti-gay bigot who blames his homophobia on his Christian religion. I hate people like that. They fixate on the part of the Old Testament Bible that says:
If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.
Edwin Boyette and Doug TennApel also left Comicsgate for the same exact reasons. TennApel said he originally joined Comicsgate because he was “looking for some manly men to fight against the rainbow flag.” When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, he left. Good.
I never liked any of these people. There are bad people against Comicsgate. Their online existence seems to exist for the sole reason of attacking and criticizing people associated with Comicsgate. People like Renfamous and SJW Spider-Man. There are others who harass Comicsgate people, but Renfamous and SJW Spider-Man are the worst of the worst. They encourage a lot of other people to act like them.
I’ll be completely honest and admit I was sucked into their bullshit. I then got to the point where I wondered why they didn’t just ignore what some people associated with Comicsgate were doing. By singling people out and putting them on blast, they were giving them much more attention than they ever would have gotten on their own. Some of the people they retweeted had less than 100 followers. When I expressed this view, I was more or less told to mind my own business, that they had been doing this for a long time and they knew what they were doing.
Okay, sure. I can’t help but notice that Comicsgate is still a thing. It seems to me that if they truly knew what they were doing, Comicsgate would no longer be around today.
I have a generally dim view of comicsgaters…if anyone even iDENtifies with that term. I have heard someone associated with diversity and comics named ‘Zach/Zack’ say that he never, ever told his followers to harass, diss, or otherwise bother retail stores and their staff who had publicly chosen not to support the Jawbreakers comic. So…who knows?
I had no idea that these comics coming out from these comicsgater folks (‘there is no comicsgate. there are no members of comicsgate. the first rule of comicsgate is…there is no comicsgate. by the way, we hate the liberal agenda and SJW memes.’)…whoever they may be, cost so much money. Yah, up until 2013 or so I was working as a manager of a comics shop, more or less, and managed to continue to read comics for free…but when I quit, prices reached up to $3.99, I had pretty much had it and had no more interest in spending that kind of money. I ultimately just used the library, haunted used bookstores with good graphic novel selections, and eventually found…other sources online. I have no difficulty reading comics in digital format. Doesn’t bother me at all. I no longer have a fetish for the soft paper, and I still have 8 short boxes and more of my original collection. Sorry this is so rambling. I think there is a hella lot of conservative, anti-progressive sentiment in the comicsgate view of the world, sad to say. I just read comics I enjoy, I don’t kvetch about the ones I don’t. Or that my creative efforts weren’t good enough for DC or Marvel. Keep on keeping on.
Here’s the problem, if you’re critical at all of the way the comic industry is run by social justice types, and they think you’re a threat, they’ll do anything to make sure you lose your job or something…that’s why I don’t lose my real name.
Honestly I probably have the same politics as you and I would find it annoying if the comics in question shit on trump or hillary. There’s plenty of people like me that do not support idiots like vox day or those that just want it to be right wing politics only. But right now they aren’t in control of the industry, a bunch of people that cling way too much to their left wing politics are.
You might not read this or you might not believe me, but you can check my twitter and this view is consistent with my views on twitter.
I understand your point on the price of comicsgate comics, but when you kept confusing graphic novels with trade paperbacks it’s just became annoying and it was too difficult to finish reading. Until that part, though, it was a good article.
Trade paperback is a publishing term not specific to comics. Graphic novels are self-contained stories. They are either created as self-contained stories or consist of individual monthly floppy comics collected to complete a story arc, or in the case of a mini-series, a complete story.
In comics, trade paperbacks are different from a graphic novels, because graphic novels are usually original material. Wheres as trade paperbacks, or trades, are collected reprints. The term in comics differ from it’s publishing counterpart.
Is WATCHMEN in your opinion a graphic novel? Since it was released first in 12 monthly floppies, I’m guessing not. Most of us (I think) would describe WATCHMEN as a graphic novel.
What would you call a hardback that contains collected stories? It’s clearly not a trade paperback.
correct
I can only assume that DC Comics marketed books like Watchmen as graphic novels, because the story were originally self-contained and to simplify it for the general audience. But yeah it is a trade paperback.
And despite the bookbinding process of the book a trade is still a trade.
Leaving aside the tiresome back and forth about TPBs and GNs, and to focus on your real points, I agree.
It is also a fundament of “comicsgate” post-EVS that it is entirely money obsessed, be it overpriced books, many of which have still not come out, superchats, GFMs for false causes and champerty or other televangelist schemes.
Combined with Stalinist cults of personality and their preying on the weak minded it is disturbing in every way. But, it is also nothing more than the final expression of consumerist thinking. Training people to be choosy as to what they consume – but never once stepping back to say “fandom” is a fetishistic concept that is unwelcome in a healthy society.
People who point out these bad things about ComicsGatekeeping got harassed, abused and doxxed, their social media accounts were report bombed.
Many women got very sick threats.
Yet CGers try and convince you that those who point out this abuse, and also suffer that abuse, are somehow magically the bad guys.
Your ADHD super justice did not lie to you. Bigotry and abuse is bad, hiding it is bad, lifting a lid on it so people can know about the practices of those they might have otherwise supported is not bad, especially when you put yourself in the firing line to do so