Comic Industry News

[Thrizzle]

I will purchase that item.

 

Horse.

[Iambaytor]

List of new DC books launching soon:

 

Batman Beyond

Written by Dan Jurgens, art by Bernard Chang

 

Black Canary

Written by Brenden Fletcher, art by Annie Wu and Irene Koh

 

Constantine: The Hellblazer

Written by Ming Doyle and James Tynion IV, art by Riley Rossmo

 

Cyborg

Written by David Walker, art by Ivan Reis

 

Dark Universe

Written by James Tynion IV, art by Ming Doyle

 

Green Lantern: Lost Army

Written by Cullen Bunn, art by Jesus Saiz & Javi Pina

 

Doomed

Written by Scott Lobdell, art by Javier Fernandez

 

Earth 2: Society

Written by Daniel Wilson, art by Jorge Jimenez

 

Dr. Fate

Written by Paul Levitz, art by Sonny Liew

 

Justice League of America

Written and drawn by Bryan Hitch

 

Justice League 3001

Written by Keith Giffen, art by Howard Porter

 

Martian Manhunter

Written by Rob Williams, art by Ben Oliver

 

Midnighter

Written by Steve Orlando, art by ACO

 

Mystic U

Written by Alisa Kwitney, artist to be revealed

 

Omega Men

Written by Tom King, art by Barnaby Bagenda

 

Prez

Written by Mark Russell, art by Ben Caldwell

 

Red Hood/Arsenal

Written by Scott Lobdell, art by Denis Medri

 

Robin, Son of Batman

Written and drawn by Patrick Gleason

 

Starfire

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Amanda Conner, art by Emanuela Lupacchino

 

We Are Robin

Written by Lee Bermejo, art by Khary Randolph

 

In addition, four six-issue mini-series have been announced:

 

Bat-Mite

Written by Dan Jurgens, art by Corin Howell,

 

Bizarro

Written by Heath Corson, art by Gustavo Duarte

 

Harley Quinn/Power Girl

Written by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner, art by Stephane Roux

 

Section Eight

Written by Garth Ennis, art by John McCrea

 

Section Eight

Written by Garth Ennis, art by John McCrea

 

[The NZA]

now you have my attention.gif

 

also gotta go tell bish about Jurgens on Batman Beyond

[Iambaytor]

So... something happened today.

 

Apparently a few years back, comics blogger Chris Sims (of Comicsalliance) was a complete wankfuck to another comics blogger: Valerie D'Orazio. Long and short of it is she was treated like a woman with a voice on the internet (think Zoe Quinn but on a smaller and much less public scale), particularly when she wrote a Punisher one-shot that Sims did not like. Well, flash forward to right now and Sims has been hired to write Marvel's new X-Men book based on the 90s cartoon and D'Orazio called him the fuck out because he never even tried to apologize, even though to his credit he did stop.

 

So we see the usual thing, Sims backpedaled super hard apologizing to his fans and D'Orazio's husband (and then eventually to D'Orazio in a public forum where everyone could see what a great person he was now) this is all nothing new, happens all the time, whatever. Here's where things get complicated though: Chris Sims is one of the most publicly progressive people at the fringes of the industry right now and Comics Alliance pretty much exists solely to push a progressive agenda (I am not saying this out of derision or scorn, that's what it's doing and bless them for it) so they've gotten involved and they wrote a really cringeworthy statement you can read here that points out that Chris Sims is a really solid guy now (his attempts at smoothing this over point out that he isn't), trying to sweep this whole thing under the rug, making Sims out to be the victim here, greatly understating how genuinely uninterested D'Orazio is in forgiving Chris Sims so that people can feel better about reading his comic or his articles, and trying to make this whole thing seem like a Gamergate-calibur conspiracy cooked up to undermine the last bastion of progressive comic book criticism that is comics alliance (there's a really awful part where they start fanning themselves over the "de-humization of D'Orazio" by using her as a way to push an agenda in the body of an article where they push aside her feelings and opinions in an effort to stand by their cash-cow writer.)

 

So Chris Sims (and Comics Alliance since they've decided that this is the hill they want to die on) are in a spot that has been criticized BY Chris Sims and Comics Alliance such as the recent Brian Wood scandal, the fake geek girls scandal, and the continued existence of Orson Scott Card. We have a figure from the other side of the tracks who fucked up and his supporters are trying to make excuses for him despite the fact that they would and have thrown any and every other figure under the bus on this.

 

I knew this would happen eventually and I'm sure it's going to start happening a lot more. As I said, Sims has been a big voice of progressive views in comics and popular culture in general but it doesn't change the fact that he acted like a total cunthammer and only made amends for it when it came time to actually face the consequences. The woman with PTSD sure as fuck doesn't care about how sorry he is that his book isn't selling because he was a dick a few years ago, so why should you?

 

The phrase "don't meet your heroes" comes to mind here. I love a lot of things and I have come to the conclusion that every single person that makes them is just filled with dark awful fucking thoughts all the time and if I hang around with a proverbial butterfly net to catch them, I am not going to be pleased. I appreciate seemingly perfect celebrities like Weird Al Yankovic and Neil Gaiman but I know they're probably also filled with hate-spiders and just have the good sense to keep them inside. It's my problem with the whole vote with your dollars ideology, and Nick has called me out on this before saying that this kind of thing isn't an all or nothing deal, but I don't see how that can be.

 

Sure, Chris Sim's sins are less than Orson Scott Card's and Card's are less than Bill Cosby's and Bill Cosby's are less than OJ Simpson's but who the fuck cares who did the worse thing when the end result is "X is an awful person in real life?" And I'm not saying I don't draw the line at certain things, but I think rather than watching people "hem and haw" over whether they can like a thing they like just because its made by someone with a morally objectionable viewpoint it's better to just be honest and say "I like this thing, but the person who made it is a dick." Yes, by buying this thing you are putting dollars into their pockets but there's this weird disconnect where people seem to think that Orson Scott Card just checks his bank account every day and goes "Wow, look how much money they're giving me to hate the gays!"

 

Point being, if you're morally against buying or supporting stuff by people who are part of the problem then maybe keep clear of Chris Sims and Comics Alliance (at least until they start acknowledging that they're now a cog in the machine they have been trying to dismantle since their inception) and stop trying to make excuses for why it's "okay." It's okay because you like the X-Men and Chris Sims happens to be writing it and his shit-headedness has nothing to do with that, not because "he's changed." Be strong, boycotters. This shit isn't going to get any easier for you.

 

Everyone else, go read Ender's Game and eat a chicken sandwich and give thanks that your life is much less stressful.

Edited March 19, 2015 by Iambaytor

[The NZA]

...yikes

 

this (and the Wood thing, which i thankfully largely missed) are pretty ugly, glad to be on the outside of all that.

 

it's also easy for me cause, you know, i'm a) not reading most x-titles b) mostly downloading anyway and c) have better chicken options, like church's or popeye's

[Keth]

Jim Starlin cuts ties with Marvel

 

Quote

More recently, he claimed to have made more money from Batman V Superman than from all Marvel films combined. In spite of this troubled history, Starlin has been writing for Marvel Comics for the last few years.

 

By Starlin’s account, the problem lay with Marvel’s editorial decisions. He learned that Marvel’s ongoing comics were planning a plot that was “strikingly similar” to the one he was writing. Although Starlin refuses to give details, he seems to be describing the setup for next year’s Infinity Countdown. Marvel recently announced that this would be the “greatest epic in the history of the Infinity Stones.” Understandably frustrated given he had been working on the graphic novel for almost a year, Starlin challenged Marvel’s Executive Editor, Tom Brevoort.

 

“At first Tom denied giving his approval to the plot. When that turned out to be false, he switched to claiming there was nothing similar about the two plots. When that didn’t fly he changed his story to it was all an accident. These changes of excuse and other bits of procrastination ate up a month, by which time the current Thanos on-going art team was too far along for anything to be done about the situation.”

 

Ironically enough, Starlin notes that he had originally lobbied to write the ongoing Thanos comics in the first place. Now, he’s had enough. Starlin has publicly stepped away from Marvel Comics completely, although he noted that he has no issue with Marvel Studios. “Them I like,” he commented, and confirmed that they had “treated [him] very well and generously.”