Tag: Comic Books – Bent Corner

Joss Whedon tweets for the death of Donald Trump

Has Joss Whedon lost his mind? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he has a brain tumor or full-blown AIDS of the brain

It looks like all that toxic masculinity Joss Whedon has been employing the last few years has finally caught up with him. And not in a good way either. The man behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly took to Twitter to share his opinion that for the good of the country, he wants President Donald Trump to “quietly” die.

Has Joss Whedon lost his mind? I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that he has a brain tumor or full-blown AIDS of the brain.

A normal person in command of their mental facilities doesn’t go on Twitter and express the opinion that he wishes the President of the United States would die.

Joss Whedon is not acting normal.

Draft dodging Donald Trump's transgender military ban - Bent Corner — President Donald J. Trump.

I’m no fan of our current president either. I didn’t vote for him. I look forward to the day he is no longer in office. That doesn’t mean I want him to die. Even if I did, I would not go on Twitter and express those feelings, especially if I had over 225 thousand Twitter followers. What if one of them is even more insane than Joss Whedon and for the good of the country, tries to make Whedon’s wish come true?

I don’t think there’s anyone I dislike so much that I would want them to die.

Joss Whedon tweets for the death of Donald Trump - Bent Corner — Twitter sees everything. It reacts to some stuff, it ignores everything else.

And how exactly has Joss Whedon’s life been ruined under the Trump Administration? How is it any worse now than it was under the Obama Administration? What’s changed for him? Considering his tax bracket, Joss Whedon got a huge tax cut because of Donald Trump. Whedon is a richer man now because of Donald Trump and for that he wants him to quietly die?

I’ll be really interested to see how Twitter responds to this tweet. Technically, this would be considered hate speech under the Twitter Terms of Service (ToS) and would earn Joss Whedon a suspension of his account. My guess is that won’t happen in this case. Normally only transgendered people get away with tweeting death threats. Joss Whedon is not transgender, but he is a male feminist.

I don’t know if the same relaxed rules apply to famous male feminists. If Joss Whedon doesn’t get a Twitter suspension, I will have my answer.

The BuzzFeed News article about #Comicsgate

According to my count, the word “troll” appears 28 times in the BuzzFeed News article. That seems excessive.

BuzzFeed News published an article about Comicsgate, something they identified as an online harassment campaign and culture war against people pushing to diversify the comic book industry, whatever that means.

According to BuzzFeed News, Comicsgate “trolls” target those calling for increased representation for women, different races, and the LGBT community in comics. If you decide to read the article, be prepared to read the word “troll” quite a bit.

According to my count, the word “troll” appears 28 times in the BuzzFeed News article. That seems excessive. The word “troll” has always been pejorative and a disparaging word. Lately, it’s become a derogatory term for anyone you disagree with… online.

Disagree with a neighbor over a fence in the real world, chances are you’re not going to call them a troll. This specific slur is something used exclusively for people on the Internet.

Speaking of inappropriate words, the word “Nazi” appears 17 times in the BuzzFeed News article. That struck me as somewhat odd since this is an article about the current state of comic books, not World War Two.

I had a hard time taking the article seriously. It relied too heavily on words aimed at offending and defaming.

What people like Rachael Krishna, the reporter at BuzzFeed News who wrote the article, don’t seem to understand is that comic books have always been diverse.

I’m assuming she isn’t aware of this because she’s probably never read a comic book. That’s not meant as a slight on her. I just assume most normal people haven’t read a comic book. I’m usually right.

Storm on the cover of The Uncanny X-Men from 1987.

Comics have always been inclusive. They’ve always featured characters from diverse backgrounds. Comics have always catered to the marginalized in society, the outliers, the geeks and the freaks.

When people push to diversify the comic book industry, it confuses many comic book fans. How do you push to diversify something that’s already diverse?

The goal in comics should always be to make them better. At $3.99 for a monthly floppy comic book, something that can be read in less than ten minutes, the comic book industry owes it to the fans to make the best product they can possibly make. That means hiring the best writers, artists, inkers, colorists, letterers, and editors. No special consideration should be given to a person because of what part of the world their parents came from, what pretend deity they choose to pray to, or what gender they most associate with on any given day.

It’s about the product.

If you are working in the comic book industry and you’re trying to do anything other than improving the product you’re working on, you’re doing it wrong. Stop doing that and concentrate on making the product better.

Comic book social justice warriors attack another business

The comic book social justice warriors who struck Gotham City Pizza this past Sunday evening/early Monday morning also struck Smoke Shack BBQ located two miles from Gotham City Pizza. The attack on Gotham City Pizza was obviously in retaliation for hosting Ethan Van Sciver on Saturday. The weird thing about this other attack is it happened the week before the attack on Gotham City Pizza.

From Facebook:

I feel sorry for the chef pig. He had to just stand there and watch comic book social justice warriors destroy the door of the restaurant. It’s bad enough he has to prepare his brothers and sisters for human consumption. He then has to witness comic book social justice warriors commit violence. It’s not fair.

Why would the comic book SJWs who attacked Gotham City Pizza attack a restaurant two miles away the week before Ethan Van Sciver’s appearance? Did they travel down to Ormond Beach, Florida the week before the event to scout out the area and perhaps perform a trial run on another similar establishment?

It would seem so. What else could it be? Simple street crime? In Florida? I don’t think so.

We know for a fact comic book SJWs attacked Gotham City Pizza late Sunday evening/early Monday morning in retaliation for hosting Ethan Van Sciver on Saturday. We know this because… we know it. We don’t need evidence to come to this conclusion. We know it because it’s what we feel.

Now we find out an eatery located only two miles from Gotham City Pizza was attacked the week before in a similar manner. A coincidence? I think not.

If a comic book SJW attacked Gotham City Pizza on November 4 they must have also attacked Smoke Shack BBQ on October 28. To think anything else would be silly, irrational, and disconnected from reality.

Law enforcement needs to do something about this clear and present comic book SJW danger. If this keeps up, every weekend another Ormond Beach restaurant will have its glass door smashed in by funny book social justice warriors. Law enforcement in Ormond Beach needs to create a comic book social justice warrior task force. Gone are the days where SJWs would just block people on Twitter or contact someone’s employer to get them fired.

Comic book social justice warriors are now busting glass doors. This has got to stop.

Was Gotham City Pizza targeted by comic book SJWs?

On Saturday, comic book artist Ethan Van Sciver appeared at Gotham City Pizza in Ormond Beach, Florida. By all accounts, a good time was had by all. People ate pizza and Ethan signed autographs. Ethan even drew and inked a spectacular looking Batman on a formally blank wall.

Then on Monday, Marco Falleta, the owner and general manager of Gotham City Pizza, discovered that someone damaged the front door. It looks like someone kicked the front door.

From Facebook:

Marco described it as an attempted break-in. That was yesterday morning. Since then, the vandalism has been blamed on Social Justice Warriors (SJWs) angry that Gotham City Pizza hosted Ethan Van Sciver on Saturday.

To be clear, Marco isn’t blaming it on SJWs. He doesn’t know who did it or why they did it.

That’s not to say at least some SJWs have a problem with Ethan Van Sciver. Some evidently don’t like him because he’s a Republican. He also received online threats before the event.

Seriously, we live in a world where people threaten other people because they’re a member of one of the two major political parties in this country.

If you’re going to hate Republicans, prepare to hate nearly half the country. Personally, that seems like too much work.

Do I think an SJW traveled down to Ormond Beach and kicked the door of a pizzeria because they hosted Ethan Van Sciver at an event? No, not unless I’m presented with some evidence.

When I hear hoof beats, I think horses, not zebras.

The more likely explanation is that some drunk walking home kicked the door and then drunkenly staggered away. Hopefully, he broke a couple bones in his alcoholic foot.

Someone trying to break in would have arrived with a crowbar and used it to open the door. I don’t think they would have tried to kick the door in.

To blame an SJW for the damage seems like a stretch. Kicking in doors isn’t something SJWs are normally associated with. They tend to send online threats that are never carried out. If they’re feeling overly energetic, they’ll contact someone’s employer in the attempt to get them fired.

Kicking doors? That’s not in the SJW playbook.

I hate to see people immediately jump to the conclusion that an SJW did this. What’s wrong with waiting for the facts before leaping to a conclusion? Jumping to unfounded conclusions is something SJWs like to do. They’re very quick to proclaim something or someone as sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or Islamophobic without a shred of evidence.

I’m assuming Marco Falleta contacted the police. Let the police investigate before jumping to conclusions. Don’t react to things like a Social Justice Warrior. Base your conclusions on facts, not wild speculation.

The Social Justice Comics Code of Approval

One of the problems with buying comic books these days is figuring out if the book is upholding the ideas and virtues of social justice. Does the book feature any characters from a marginalized group? Are any of the book’s creators from a marginalized group?

I realized the comic book industry needs a way of notifying the customer of a book’s social justice credentials when I noticed a stack of America comics at a local comic book shop.

At first glance, I assumed America was about a Donald Trump supporter.

I thought the book’s title was a nod to the Make America Great Again hat Donald Trump supporters love to wear. I thought there were three other books, Make, Great, and Again. Lay all four books next together and they would spell out Donald Trump’s moto.

The book’s title was one-fourth of a Donald Trump hat.

It turned out I could not have been wrong.

America is about America Chavez, a very awesome college student raised by two mothers from an alternate universe. She’s Latina and gay, quite a spicy combination!

Even though America Chavez is oozing legitimate social justice cred, it’s hard to get this point across to comic readers. It could be the reason sales of the book have been so low. Not only do comic readers today want social justice in their funny books, they want lots of it.

The Social Justice Comics Code of Approval

I’m proposing the Social Justice Comics Code of Approval. It would appear on comic books that meet the criteria of social justice. A comic would either feature characters in line with social justice principles or the creators of the book would need to represent social justice in the real world. Books that meet either one of these tests will get the seal.

This is what the Social Justice Comics Code of Approval seal would look like:

America would earn the right to display the seal of the Social Justice Comics Code of Approval. Not only does the book’s main character check off many social justice checkboxes, so does the book’s writer, Gabby Rivera. She is lesbian and a Puerto Rican from the Bronx.

Not only is the book’s writer a queer Puerto Rican, I think I read on Reddit one of the assistant inkers is bisexual. At least she was in college. Evidently, she and some friends got hammered on Jägermeister. Her friends dared her to open-mouth kiss another girl for ten seconds. She accepted the challenge. At least she thinks she did. That night is still a little fuzzy for her. This just goes to show you that it’s better to drink milkshakes, not Jägermeister. Not because of the girl-on-girl kissing, but because she can’t remember that night very well.

If America featured the Social Justice Comics Code of Approval, I’m almost certain it would not be hovering at the cancellation level of sales.

America monthly sales to comics shops

America #1 – 43,592
America #2 – 23,987
America #3 – 16,262
America #4 – 12,624
America #5 – 11,354
America #6 – 9,548
America #7 – 9,137

If Marvel doesn’t do something, by this time next year, sales of America will be lower than Cocktails & Mixology by Bill Cosby. Adding the Social Justice Comics Code of Approval to the America‘s cover will go a long way to increase sales.

What good is making a comic book steeped in social justice awesomeness if comic readers don’t know about it.

Canadian comic artist Gisele Lagace stopped at border over plans to do commissions at C2E2

Canadian Comic book artist Gisele Lagace was stopped at the U.S. border and denied entry when she admitted she was entering the U.S. to do commission work at this weekend’s C2E2 in Chicago.

From her Facebook post about the incident:

Welp, no C2E2 for me. Was refused entry at the border. They kept pressing about the comics I had and the sketches, and well, I had to be honest and said that I did get paid for commissions but before hand, but since they weren’t complete, it was considered work in the us. Comics wise, I had maybe $700 in value if I had sold everything. Honestly, it’s not a lot.

Was asked if I was the only one doing this as I looked surprised to be refused entry. I said no, many artists from around the world attend these to promote themselves. I don’t think they cared.

By “promote themselves”, I’m guessing she’s referring to going to comic book conventions and selling commissioned art to fans. In other words, working without a work visa.

When you enter the United States for the purpose of working, you need a work visa. The same applies in Canada. When you enter Canada for the purpose of working, you need a Canadian work permit.

Gisele Lagace continued:

Now that I’ve been refused entry in the US for this, it’s on file. Don’t expect to see me at a US con until I can figure out a way to get in and being absolutely certain this won’t happen.

If she wants to ensure this won’t happen again, she’ll need to obtain a work visa. The problem is that she doesn’t appear to qualify for a work visa. Under the law, she would fall under the Business Visitor “B” Status. To fall under this category, the following two stipulations must be met:

is entering the U.S. to conduct business temporarily; and,
will not be employed by a U.S. entity.

Although this seems to fit anyone entering the United States to do commissioned artwork at a comic book convention, there are limitations to what type of business activities can be conducted under a B visa.

Creating and selling artwork doesn’t seem to qualify.

I think the world of comic book commissions is a shady business. Most artists doing commissions don’t own the intellectual property (IP) of the art they’re creating, nor do they have permission of the IP owner to generate art for sale. Some of the artists working in this murky world routinely rip people off.

I don’t mean to imply Gisele Lagace is a shady character or that she’s ever ripped anyone off. I think she tried to do what a lot of her peers regularly do, but she answered the border agent’s questions truthfully. If she were shady, she would have told the agent a lie.

The comments on Gisele Lagace’s Facebook post indicate most of her fans blame Donald Trump for this. I’m not so sure. When I did field service work in the late 90’s, the company I worked for had a few field service techs in Canada. When they came down for training or meetings, they would make sure not to even bring a screwdriver with them. If the U.S. border agents even suspected they were coming down to work, they would deny them entrance and place them on some type of list.

One of my friends told me he would never do anything that would jeopardize his ability to take his family to Disney World. I respected that.

Trump wasn’t president back then.