Diseased #Comicsgate - The Culture Wars Hit The Funny Books!

[MirrorNoir]

As I said before, Ellis will grovel for forgiveness. He has zero spine.


Zack's take was pretty accurate as far as I'm concerned. He makes a great point that these people didn't object to the things Ellis was doing, their issue is that he stopped doing them. He was able to have cybersex across all manner of defunct platforms during apparently the entire GWB administration and nobody said shit until drunk senpai stopped noticing them.

Ellis is no good to any of these people if he's permanently cancelled. They need him to cuck and get back to work so he can boost their projects and give them a platform like he did for a handful of other insufferable weirdos that haunted his forums for years (that he evidently didn't harass for nudes and fake sex). He'll probably have to submit any future work to a small group of commissars to make sure it's "good" and that women aren't depicted in any way that could be described as "sexy" or overtly feminine and no competent male characters for good measure.

They'll trot his rehabilitated corpse out as an example of "transformative justice", but there won't be any actual forgiveness for him. He'll be allowed to have a sliver of a career as long as he behaves but they'll still be allowed to harangue him and remind him of his indiscretions whenever the mood strikes. When he dies, that's how they'll want him remembered.

He could shrug this off at any moment and just do what he wants, but he will not. He could be successful in crowdfunding but he'd rather debase himself for the opportunity to be back in the good graces of Image, Marvel, and DC. His new handlers need him to be involved in the mainstream.

Not exactly. Ellis hasn't had a massive big sales hit since Thunderbolts and even then, the second half of that twelve issue run was full of delays that forced Marvel to churn out a bunch of one-shots and minis to keep the momentum going. And you can go further that Ellis's sell-by date expired the second Transmetropolitan ended because, at the end of the day, that was his big career defining project that lasted the longest of all of his works and which people actually was emotionally invested in due to the fact that it came out monthly and consistently monthly. To the point that people joke that Ellis can't be arsed to write more than six issues of any book before he gets bored and quits.

Hell, he can't even rest of his Wildstorm laurels after he scorched earth with the reviled "The Wild Storm" revival, which pissed off old fans and was filled with such utter woke/SJW bullshit (most notably Ellis having the character Henry Bendix be a literal evil white male who daydreams about owning black people as slave") that DC killed the project after Ellis submitted an ultra fucking woke reboot of Wildcats and started letting DC writers use Wildstorm characters again, after embargoing them for Ellis's project. Even an Ellis penned Planetary reboot is now impossible due to The Wild Storm, as NO ONE wants Ellis allowed near those toys after that debacle.

And it probably pisses Ellis off to a high degree that he can't even get Transmetropolitan adapted now. Let alone rebooted with a sequel or prequel series after his sycophant Andi Khouri killed Vertigo. Which is funny, as it's been long rumored that one of the chief rumors floating around that Transmet never got made into a TV show or movie because Ellis INSISTED Patrick Stewart play Spider but Stewart (in spite of being a fan of the book) just not being interested in it.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Game over, girls.

Twitter / Archive edit: Archive is not cooperating. Sry.

Spoiler: Just a thought...

For Zach's next off the wall epic, he should do a comic about a dude who looks like Mister Potatohead with a harem of 30 year old social climbing arrested adolescent talenteless chubby chicks trading their dubious favors hoping for jobs and influence. I'm sure he could script it in between breakfast burrito runs and trips to Staples for more Gemini mailers. He could even market it as "ripped from the headlines."

 

[Strix454]

Game over, girls.

They shifted up tactics this time in a way thats important to pay attention to. The direct attack on him didn't work and they could not get him cancelled that way. So they pretended to want "dialogue" with Ellis to resolve the issue. Ellis fell into the trap by agreeing to it and then image slammed the door shut on him.

I would imagine that their demands in the "dialogue" will be for all his money followed by his suicide. He can't return to comics now without their approval which they will never give. Checkmate Warren.

The lesson in all this is that they are far more dangerous when they come pretending to be kind and wanting to settle issues than when they come at you as a mob with pitchforks and torches.

 

[:gold:]

They shifted up tactics this time in a way thats important to pay attention to. The direct attack on him didn't work and they could not get him cancelled that way. So they pretended to want "dialogue" with Ellis to resolve the issue. Ellis fell into the trap by agreeing to it and then image slammed the door shut on him.

I would imagine that their demands in the "dialogue" will be for all his money followed by his suicide. He can't return to comics now without their approval which they will never give. Checkmate Warren.

The lesson in all this is that they are far more dangerous when they come pretending to be kind and wanting to settle issues than when they come at you as a mob with pitchforks and torches.

It’s funny that Warren Ellis, an English writer, did not heed the warning of Billiam Shakesbarde: “Hell hath no fury like 200 bipolar dangerhairs scorned.”

 

[MirrorNoir]

Game over, girls.

Twitter / Archive
View attachment 2294066

Spoiler: Just a thought...

For Zach's next off the wall epic, he should do a comic about a dude who looks like Mister Potatohead with a harem of 30 year old social climbing arrested adolescent talenteless chubby chicks trading their dubious favors hoping for jobs and influence. I'm sure he could script it in between breakfast burrito runs and trips to Staples for more Gemini mailers. He could even market it as "ripped from the headlines."

That sounds like a Rich Johnston "comic".

That said, there are a LOT of disgruntled WEF hangers on with stories to tell that SOMEONE should be able to crowdsource a warts and all tell-all about Warren Ellis and his ilk and Ellis's fall from grace.

 

[Miniluv]

Not exactly. Ellis hasn't had a massive big sales hit since Thunderbolts and even then, the second half of that twelve issue run was full of delays that forced Marvel to churn out a bunch of one-shots and minis to keep the momentum going. And you can go further that Ellis's sell-by date expired the second Transmetropolitan ended because, at the end of the day, that was his big career defining project that lasted the longest of all of his works and which people actually was emotionally invested in due to the fact that it came out monthly and consistently monthly. To the point that people joke that Ellis can't be arsed to write more than six issues of any book before he gets bored and quits.

Hell, he can't even rest of his Wildstorm laurels after he scorched earth with the reviled "The Wild Storm" revival, which pissed off old fans and was filled with such utter woke/SJW bullshit (most notably Ellis having the character Henry Bendix be a literal evil white male who daydreams about owning black people as slave") that DC killed the project after Ellis submitted an ultra fucking woke reboot of Wildcats and started letting DC writers use Wildstorm characters again, after embargoing them for Ellis's project. Even an Ellis penned Planetary reboot is now impossible due to The Wild Storm, as NO ONE wants Ellis allowed near those toys after that debacle.

And it probably pisses Ellis off to a high degree that he can't even get Transmetropolitan adapted now. Let alone rebooted with a sequel or prequel series after his sycophant Andi Khouri killed Vertigo. Which is funny, as it's been long rumored that one of the chief rumors floating around that Transmet never got made into a TV show or movie because Ellis INSISTED Patrick Stewart play Spider but Stewart (in spite of being a fan of the book) just not being interested in it.

That's what makes the timing of this shit so weird. Ellis was already well past his sell-by date when this happened. He hasn't had any real relevance in more than a decade. He's already missed the Hollywood adaptation boat that Millar and Ennis jumped on. As you mentioned, his deadline problems are well known to editors and fans alike. His career was already in a slide when this stuff came out despite these things happening when he was at his peak.

It seems like the only reason they're talking about him making amends is because these people still think there's something he could do for them if he was allowed back into the mainstream, whether it's a piece of his paycheck or a platform to boost their own projects. That well has run dry.

Ellis' options are now to remain cancelled forever or come back as even more of a shell, completely indebted to his detractors for allowing him a second chance at making a living.

 

[Rupin]

I guess bending over for the Twitterati didn’t work out too well for Ellis.

 

[5t3n0g0ph3r]

I guess bending over for the Twitterati didn’t work out too well for Ellis.

It's like you can't placate them or something.

 

[Least Concern]

They'll trot his rehabilitated corpse out as an example of "transformative justice", but there won't be any actual forgiveness for him.

Man, I just can’t see them let him get as far as to be “rehabilitated,” and I think today’s news, on the heels of yesterday’s groveling, is evidence of that. But I guess we’ll see.

 

[Mister Dongs]

Back in the day, I was briefly a member of the Warren Ellis Forum. I didn't hang around there for very long. It was incredibly cliquey - a cult of personality disorders - Ellis's and his hangers-on, many of whom were ghastly people, even then. In hindsight, you can see many of the problems that have bedevilled the comic book industry in recent years had their genesis in the febrile, piss-infused waters of that virtual geothermal pool.

Ellis was superficially charismatic. He had it in him to a be a cult leader. If he'd shaved off some of his remaining hair in an interesting way and put on some stripy robes, then the Ellisian techno cult would have been born, channelling articles from New Scientist into works of comic book fiction. Unfortunately for Ellis, a lot of his charisma was a front, papering over acres of self-doubt. Eventually he blinked, his magpie-eyed acolytes saw weakness and here we are.

Warren Ellis' following back in the late 90s and aughts was significant not so much because of Warren himself but the community that accreted around him, that he cultivated to have the stamp of his personality. I suppose what set it apart from the countless independent pleb comic and creators forums around the pre-social media internet was that the WEF community was one of the few, if not only comics-based online communities that had its own distinctive subculture. Not unlike Comicsgate today (which, regardless of what you may think Comicsgate's subculture actually is, we can all agree that it definitely exists).

And while the forums themselves were offlined over a decade ago, Internet Archive and Warren's very helpful encouragement for members to self-dox give a glimpse of who rubbed elbows in there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20080131191409/http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=6&page=1#Item_0

https://imagecomics.com/features/an-oral-history-of-the-warren-ellis-forum-part-i

https://web.archive.org/web/20190211231846/https://imagecomics.com/features/an-oral-history-of-the-warren-ellis-forum-part-i

Image has quietly memoryholed this nostalgic tribute they made to the Warren Ellis Forum, which is unsurprising given their cancellation of Warren Ellis yesterday, but thankfully the internet never forgets. Here's a relation of the forum 10 years after its death by now prominent comic professionals and journos WEF alumni Kelly Sue DeConnick, Kieron Gillen, Matt Fraction, Chip Zdarsky, Sam Humphries, Heidi MacDonald, Christopher Sebela and Bryan Lee O'Malley. Funniest reveal: Chip Zdarsky was the Nasser of the WEF community and it became an injoke for Warren to ban him from the forum.

MacDonald: Another very important thing is that 1999-2000 was the darkest night for the United States comic book industry in the postwar period. The lowest sales, the most companies going out of business, Marvel's firing hundreds of people, companies going under—it was a very dark, bleak cut.

Fraction: It was the moment that Western comics changed. And we knew something was happening, but we didn't know what it was. I remember people who, to this day, you will see still writing things saying women and children do not like comic books, period. And then, you go to Barnes & Noble on the weekend, and there's the women and children laid out like cordwood reading manga and buying $200 stacks of books. Fat fucking books.

Sounds familiar.

Zdarsky: A lot of times I just wish people could see what we were saying. It was nice to be able to have these conversations that were in the public, how people would be able to read them and participate if they're good. And it's not on me if they're bad and they get banned. These conversations are happening in private that could help people, as a resource, and it's just hidden away because you don't want the shitbags to come knocking at your door—because there's nobody to control the shitbags. Whereas Warren used to be able to control the shitbags.

But perhaps most interesting was Heidi MacDonald's very vague recollections of the demise of the community:

MacDonald: It was sad. We all wanted it to go on and on and on, but Warren was smarter than we, you know? It was our first taste of how you can't have nice things on the internet. There's not a place that's open where you can just wander in and listen to all these people talking about stuff and venting. I mean, I'm sure there was some bad stuff that I've forgotten and I blanked it in my mind, but in my memory, it was a wonderful paradise of the internet when the world was young.

Which contrasts strongly from MacDonald's explanation back in 2007 of why she left the WEF spinoff forum The Engine to found ComicsBeat (that very same den of cancel culture Comicsgate rages against today):

Goodbye, Engine - The Beat

Goodbye, Engine - The Beat

www.comicsbeat.com

(Image of forum e-thot with 'WARREN' carved into her skin helpfully provided by Heidi MacDonald)

From where we sit, The Engine was a mixed success. While there was much useful information and intelligent discussion, it was constantly competing with threads full of Ellis-ites posting silly pictures of themselves, such as the above, and the number of exhibitionistic young women who professed themselves surprised at the level of interest in naked pictures of themselves quickly became cloying, then annoying.

Frankly, while we admire Warren for his imagination and writing skills, his twin obsessions — TV shows and BME Goth girls posing topless — were often twin distractions from the real business at hands — COMICS! (Plus, those girls who were talking theoretical physics in one post and posing in their underwear in the next, clearly haven’t learned the fundamental law of human nature that when a woman is in her underwear, a man isn’t going to actually hear a word she has to say.)

I for one am inclined to believe this explanation over the blandishments MacDonald offered to Image a decade later - even without the convincing photo evidence, Heidi MacDonald's description of Ellis as a man who grew increasingly uninterested in comics, let alone leading the comics subculture he founded, as his attentions turned towards TV serials (and writing them) and cooming to goth girls on the internet definitely has the ring of truth to it. Especially given the trajectory of his career since 2007. A lesson to be learned for sure about a leader of a subculture, community, movement (at least in Heidi's eyes) or whatever you want to call it, who over time grew bored with his success, stagnated, took it and his community for granted, and the resulting decade-plus of seething, vengeful anger from the people that felt betrayed in his wake.

Thanks, Heidi

 

[Greed]

Man, I just can’t see them let him get as far as to be “rehabilitated,” and I think today’s news, on the heels of yesterday’s groveling, is evidence of that. But I guess we’ll see.

I also doubt he'll get a shot at "rehabilitation". This whole thing is a cautionary tale. If you didn't actually do anything wrong, don't apologize. By ceding to their demands and attempting to find common ground, he's essentially validated everything they're accusing him of, at least in the public eye. I have to keep reminding myself that this is all the result of him...getting laid too much? From an uninformed outsiders perspective, you'd think the guy was a serial rapist. Especially when his accusers are always careful to never be too specific about the nature of his offences. So to rehabilitate him, they'd be embracing someone they've accused of, at the very least, being an egregious sex pest. I don't see that happening.

 

[Rupin]

I see Blue Bombshell blew DameGang out of the water by hitting five figures in less than 7 days.


I guess one lesson we can take from this is, if you’re gonna crowdfund a fetish book then at least make sure it shows some T&A.

 

[Mister Dongs]

I guess one lesson we can take from this is, if you’re gonna crowdfund a fetish book about then at least make sure it shows some T&A.

Damegang has 33 more backers than Blue Bombshell - for me the lesson to take away is to add "executive boxset" ties with more explicit porn in them like Clint Hilinski did:

 

[Strix454]

I see Blue Bombshell blew DameGang out of the water by hitting five figures in less than 7 days.
View attachment 2294899

I guess one lesson we can take from this is, if you’re gonna crowdfund a fetish book then at least make sure it shows some T&A.

Actually the mistake in DAMEGANG was the typical one of not charging enough and not offering really high tiers. Blue Bombshell is $85 a backer were DAMEGANG is making $46 a backer. Blue Bombshell's lootboxes and booty boxes are what set them apart.
You have to give them opportunities to spend ALL their money. No tier is to high. Jeff Hicks was the old master of this. Nobody may have taken him up on that tier where he would hand deliver Stealing Solo to you, but he was right in offering it.

 

[Boobie Bomb]

Ironic that this retard would have to make a video on it. :/

 

[Rupin]

Damegang has 33 more backers than Blue Bombshell - for me the lesson to take away is to add "executive boxset" ties with more explicit porn in them like Clint Hilinski did:

View attachment 2294964

I think Blue Bombshell is gonna have way more backers than Damegang. It’s only been a week compared to Damegang’s 20 days but, yeah you and @Strix454 are correct in that he should have put a lot more thought in his higher end tiers and adding a naughty variant of the book would have definitely increased his sales.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Ironic that this retard would have to make a video on it. :/

at 2:10 - "I was watching this, literally minute by minute."

Delete your twitter. Get off of Twitter now. Don't pay attention to Twitter.

 

[Boobie Bomb]

First sand nigga to write a story about shitty sand nigga ms. marvel meanwhile water is wet cause Marvel and DC Comics sucks balls.

 

[Greed]

Nobody may have taken him up on that tier where he would hand deliver Stealing Solo to you, but he was right in offering it.

Was this actually a thing? And if so, how much was he charging for it?

 

[Strix454]

Was this actually a thing? And if so, how much was he charging for it?

The campaign is here

This is the description:

Hand Delivery By Me
$5,000 USD
This is the crazy perk. At this tier, I will drive anywhere in the 48 continental United States and hand deliver your box full of Stealing Solo goods. I will also stream the journey along the way, feature you on the channel and interview for a fan documentary that we produce in your honor. If you choose this tier, we will work with your schedule.

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