Jack Kirby gets a street named after him

Much like Stan Lee received a street named in his memory a few years ago, JNS reports the late Jack Kirby has now received a street named after him, part of a project the law firm agent Roy Schwartz and the American Jewish Historical Society worked on getting approval for:

It is no small thing to get a street in Manhattan named after you, but the creator of such timeless superheroes as Captain America, the Fantastic Four, Ant-Man, the Hulk and Iron Man received that honor on Monday, when the Lower East Side block where he was born was named “Jack Kirby Way.” [...]

“Widely recognized as the most prolific and arguably most important creator in the history of the comic book medium, Jack Kirby is also one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century,” according to a new exhibit on his life and work at Manhattan’s American Jewish Historical Society.

The exhibition, “The Jack Kirby Way: How a boy from the Lower East Side became the King of Comics,” is co-produced by the American Jewish Historical Society and the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center. It will be on view through Nov. 30.

One of the artifacts on display in the show is the original “Captain America” comic books, issues 1 through 10. Joe Simon, who co-created the character and many more with Kirby, owned the issues on display.

The iconic first issue of “Captain America,” published in March 1941, shows the superhero punching Hitler in the face, before the United States entered the war. Many Americans had not yet come to support the idea that the Nazis needed to be vanquished.

Based on this report from Breitbart from last year, some could reasonably argue the same sadly holds true for today when it comes to the Islamic Iranian regime, in example. If Kirby and Joe Simon were alive today and created Cap in modern times, the sad but possible reality is that the Star Spangled Avenger wouldn't get the same kind of positive regard seen in the Golden Age any more than any other Marvel/DC heroes created since.

Its publication led to death threats to both men by the German-American Bund, Roy Schwartz, a board member of AJHS and the person who drove the effort to get the street co-named in Kirby’s honor, told JNS.

The police, when contacted by Kirby and Simon, refused to do anything to help, according to Schwartz.

Then-mayor Fiorello LaGuardia contacted the comic book artists and promised them personally that they would be kept safe. LaGuardia’s mother, Irene Luzzatto-Coen, was a Sephardic Jew.

And on this, it's vital to note that even today, that's not always the case in NYC, where this stuff has become a particularly sad staple ever since Zohran Mamdani was elected the 1st Muslim mayor in the Big Apple, and what he's been doing now would be hurtful to Kirby. Do the organizers of the campaign to have Jack Kirby's birthplace named after him realize that, if they don't have any concerns over what came about even before October 7, 2023 and Mamdani's election, then this whole campaign's otherwise meaningless?

As a little boy growing up in Tel Aviv, Schwartz was obsessed with comics, including Kirby’s, he told JNS.

American relatives would mail him new releases, and he learned English by reading them.

Now employed by day as “a mild-mannered chief marketing agency for a large law firm,” as he told JNS, he is the author of “Was Superman Circumcised?” and other books and essays exploring Jewish aspects of comic book history.

Schwartz was the driving force behind the labyrinthine bureaucratic process by which city agencies approved a co-named New York City street.

“There was enough red tape to circle Galactus several times,” Schwartz told JNS.

Captain America was and remains his favorite superhero, Schwartz told JNS, a few feet away from the newly-renamed street sign.

But predictably, they won't get into how, less than a decade after Kirby's passing, Marvel under Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas spared no expense taking apart much of what made Cap work in the first place, lacing the series published under the Knights imprint with anti-American propaganda, something that's continued until even recently. Equally bad is how they repeatedly tried to "replace" Steve Rogers with PC tokens. So what good does it do for Schwartz to just make the statement without bringing up how sad it is that Cap, along with tons of other Marvel/DC properties, major and minor, were effectively destroyed for the sake of woke leftist propaganda? Why, what if Mamdani had anything to do with the red tape encountered? In that case, Schwartz would be wallowing in the exact cowardice that all but victimized Kirby in his time by not showing the courage to discuss anything.

Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, is a long-time, major Kirby fan.

“I love all of his work. It continues to blow me away, and he was so prolific,” he told JNS. “He is so Jewish, so if you take pride in the accomplishment of fellow Jews, then he’s someone you should know about.”

But does this guy appreciate where Marvel/DC went with Kirby's creations post-2000, including the New Gods? I seem to recall Jim Starlin wrote a miniseries called The Death of the New Gods 2 decades ago, and that wasn't exactly what Kirby got into the business to do. Such a story was a slap in the face to his legacy, just as much as what became of Cap, because if memory serves, Big Barda was meant as a tribute to Kirby's wife. I recently bought an archive of Kirby's work on the New Gods from the early 70s, and that's the kind of work that counts. I will not waste time and money on the post-2000 stories that did a terrible disservice to Kirby's efforts. Also, look who turned up as guests at the event:

Less elaborately dressed but honored with seats on the dais were Schwartz, Tom Brevoort, executive editor and senior vice president of publishing at Marvel Comics; Marvel artist and writer Jim Steranko; and former DC Comics president and publisher Paul Levitz.

While Steranko's a decent visitor, that a leftist like Brevoort, who actively defended Marvel's deconstruction of Kirby and Lee's work, would attend is disgraceful and embarrassing. Even Levitz, who fulfilled quite a bit of the same when he was a leading executive at DC (and was an apologist for Planned Parenthood), isn't exactly somebody I'd consider welcome there. Yes, I do recall he was willing to sign a petition in defense of victims of October 7, 2023, but there's still no telling if he's fully reevaluated his past mistakes, and so far, he's never publicly said so. Worse, both Marvel and DC continue to employ people throughly unsuited for the jobs, and that certainly doesn't reflect well on Brevoort, considering he still works for Marvel.

Kirby certainly is worthy of a street named after him. But not all the people involved are worthy of backing his legacy.

Even a UK collector only thinks of selling his trove through auctions and not donating to museums

The BBC covered the story of a collector from Newcastle, who's got a sizable collection that he too can only seem to think of selling through auctions now that he feels he'll have to part with it, and doesn't consider contributing to a museum any more than his USA counterparts:

Many children collected comic books, from The Topper to Roy of the Rovers, The Dandy to The Beano.

But Peter Hansen never stopped, with his haul growing into one of the country's largest private collections of British comics.

Now at the age of 70, he is starting to part with the bulk of his beloved books, which are stored in a barn in Northumberland.

Two recent auctions saw parts of his 45,000 item collection sell for more than £250,000.

"After all this time, I think it's time to let go," Hansen said.

Well boy, did he ever. To the point where he doesn't think future generations should see any of these famous publications on display at a museum. What a sad farce this is. And the biggest irony is that:

His collection became so prestigious he often loaned material to institutions such as the Cartoon Museum and the National Centre for Children's Books.

But he wouldn't fully sell or contribute his collection to them? That's what makes this auction sale all the more ridiculous. Many of the buyers at auctions likely won't read the stories, and only keep them locked away tight; that seems to be the norm these days, and it's quite frankly atrocious. It's a real shame this auction farce continues even overseas, because it's not furthering the medium, but rather, perpetuating its obscuration, and taking up valuble space in the news that could be filled by articles arguing why comics have to make the shift to paperback/hardcover instead of pamphlets or issues of an anthology. How much longer will this absurdity continue even in Europe?

What Alan Moore says about Frank Miller and the industry

Alan Moore, having long had little to do with the comics medium for years already, was interviewed by the UK Observer, and has rather unsurprisingly unflattering words to say about Frank Miller. But first:

You are ‘divorced’ from your earlier works like Watchmen and V for Vendetta, but they are powerfully predictive, rather than histories.

They were never meant to be predictive. Friends want me to write something nice. Why do I have to keep doing these terrible dystopian stories that then actually happen?

Well if he realizes why, more importantly, apocalyptic stories only built upon pessimism can be discouraging when you hammer away at them with no brighter side to balance, at least that's something. Though it doesn't excuse that he's such a leftist, and unfortunately, as the following suggests, he hasn't risen above this in real life:

With the [Guy Fawkes] mask from V for Vendetta, you created a symbol for resistance.

It’s one of the works that I’ve disowned, although I am very glad if that mask has been useful to a global protest movement. I was glad that Occupy could find a use for it. I was optimistic when I saw Tunisian school kids wearing it at the start of the Arab Spring, but that replaced the old governments with worse ones and led inexorably to [war in] Syria. If the old world refuses to die, the new world cannot be born.

What do you mean by ‘the old world’?

The ferocity of the rightwing push that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. I can’t really attribute that to anything other than a desperate sense that they and their politics have no part in the future.

What a groaner. He just won't let go of the whole notion on right-wingers could be a problem, but not left-wingers. And does he turn a blind eye to the dangers of Islam, which is consuming the UK even now as we speak? If he believes the "Arab Spring" really had any positive impact in Egypt, reality contradicts that. And how come he denies Watchmen and V for Vendetta were meant to be predictive? Is it because he feels that part alludes to more recent world issues he never actually meant to write a metaphor for? Also appalling is his continued favorability to the Occupy movement, years after the fact, and if that's how he's going to opine, there's no chance he sees anything wrong with how things are really going in Syria now, and the disaster its current autocrat is inflicting upon anybody considered a "kuffar".

How did you get from learning in the library to writing Future Shocks, a sci-fi cartoon strip in 2000 AD?

I asked my friend Steve Moore, who had been working as a comic script writer. He taught me the basics, and I started submitting stories to Doctor Who weekly and 2000 AD. The 2000 AD editor rejected them but liked my style, so gave me Future Shocks. They were a great way to learn how to tell a story. I don’t acknowledge them [now]. The companies have lawyers and will fight you in court until you are destitute. I don’t want to be associated with the comics industry, which is poisonous.

OK… a couple of questions about that poison. The Dark Knight’s Frank Miller, who I think you fell out with…

He’s one of the reasons I’m embarrassed to be connected with the comics industry.

There is one year, 1986, when he releases Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, you release Watchmen, and it changes comics for ever. He’s now worth $45m.

I’m aware of this. Comics are a wonderful medium but the industry is corrupt. One of the reasons I disowned that work is because it is owned by DC Comics. They can give it to any writer. There was a TV series called Watchmen and my only connection with that was receiving a parcel with a powder blue barbecue apron bearing the hydrogen symbol and a letter that began, “Mr. Moore, I am one of the bastards currently destroying Watchmen…” I wrote back a brief letter, saying that this work has been stolen from me so, as far as I’m concerned, it is unauthorised.

Okay, so he's seriously discouraged based on his experiences with a company that came to rip off its contributors more than once, recalling how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were at one point being short-changed by DC on Superman until they went public about it in the mid-70s. A big difference is that, as the creators of the first prominent superhero, they had some backing in their time, including the late artist Neil Adams IIRC (but who knows if they'd find it now?), while Moore, by contrast, didn't find anything of the sort, if at all. And I guess he resents that, but again, his leftism is making it difficult to care.

As for his beef with Miller, I assume it's because Miller by contrast went on to work in films to some extent, even though in the end, Miller didn't have much more success than any adaptations of Moore's work did, recalling the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Watchmen films were disasters, and so too was V for Vendetta, IIRC.

Screen Rant addressed this in turn, and they unshockingly take Moore's side regardless of where Miller's been going lately, telling that:

However, that friendship was already seemingly over by 2011, when Moore was harshly critical of Miller's public comments about the Occupy protest movement in an interview. Both before and after that, Moore has criticized what he considers the "misogynistic," "homophobic," and "fascist" overtones of Miller's work. Alan Moore clearly came to dislike Miller's later comics, like Sin City and 300, but the root of the issue, on and off the page, is political.

[...] Frank Miller is frequently described as a conservative, though he disavows that label himself. Meanwhile, Alan Moore is a self-avowed anarchist and magician. But one thing they share is how much their personalities, and their ideologies, drive what they do on the page. Which makes their creative and political differences indistinguishable. Then add a professional layer to that: Miller embraced the comics industry, while Moore forsaked it.

Yes, for nearly a decade, Miller's been doing everything he can to back away from any such labeling, even going so far in his recent documentary to say he's sorry for attacking the Occupy movement. Assuming Moore knows this, it just shows that the whole notion he's going to forgive and forget so easily is exaggerated. For if the Observer interview is any suggestion, he won't change his mind anytime soon.

Anyway, now that DC owner Warner Brothers has come under the same ownership as Paramount, one could wonder, will they provide Moore with compensation, if he really deserves it? And given that the mogul who owns both is pro-Donald Trump, one can validly wonder if Moore will even accept any offered? If not, what was his whole rant about in the first place? All I know is that it's just too bad Moore has to be such a far-leftist, and it makes it hard to credit much of his resume outside of a handful of items.

Star Wars' leading actor continues to taint the franchise with his far-left rants

John Nolte at Breitbart addressed the recent anguish Star Wars veteran Mark Hamill caused by writing a social media post wishing ill to Donald Trump:

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s Star Wars star Mark Hamill has not only lost his humanity, but he’s also been exposed as a bald-faced liar.

Earlier this week, and just a few days after hanging out with former President Barry Obama, Hamill took to his stupid Bluesky account to publish a photo of a dead President Trump with the caption “If Only.”

On the tombstone, the date of death is 2024, with the obvious implication being “if only” he had died before being reelected in a landslide in 2024. You can also assume quite reasonably that Hamill wishes that the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, in the summer of 2024 had been successful.

Grim stuff. But when you allow your politics to strip away your humanity, this is how your mind warps.

Naturally, Democrats ignored Hamill’s assassination porn, and the far-left entertainment media downplayed it, but Hamill eventually deleted the post.

Then, on Thursday, he only kind of apologized, but did so by lying about his original post: “Accurate Edit for Clarity: ‘He should live long enough to… be held accountable for his… crimes.’ Actually, I was wishing him the opposite of dead, but apologize if you found the image inappropriate.”

Liar. Hamill was not “wishing him the opposite of dead.”

There was no contradiction in the original post. Hamill expressed his disappointment that Trump was not dead (“If Only”) and then went on to basically say that, since he is sadly still living, I wish all these horrors upon him.

Let's also recall Hamill did voice acting for the Joker during the mid-90s in the Batman Animated Series franchise. Seriously, he is such a sorry case, and it'll be very hard watching the SW franchise at this point when you realize how awful its original star is in his world view. It's also why some people might not be too disappointed Kathleen Kennedy turned the franchise to wokeness, because what good is something where the star of the show makes such heinous statements about real life politicians?

Hamill really crossed the line this time, and while I'd like to think maybe it'd be better reading the comics adapted from SW at this point, even that's not going to be easy.

New cartoon film based on Orwell's Animal Farm succumbs to anti-conservative propaganda

Mark Tapson at Front Page reviewed a new cartoon movie adapted from George Orwell's Animal Farm, and what a shock, it's sadly an anti-Trump metaphor:

You will recall that the fable centers on animals who revolt against their farmer master, take over the farm, set out to fashion a collectivist utopia in which “All animals are equal,” and ultimately succumb to the same fate to which all collectivist endeavors lead: all wealth concentrated in the hands of a few while the rest starve and chafe under an abuse of authoritarian power.

But while the novella may have universal themes about power, totalitarianism, and hypocrisy, Orwell’s specific target was the Stalinist regime in Russia. A socialist himself, Orwell nevertheless recognized and spoke out against the horrors of totalitarianism.

This animated version was directed by actor Andy Serkis – best-known for his role as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy – who dreamed of giving the tale an updated spin for a new generation. He insists that his take is politically fair and balanced: “We aimed to tell this story examining contemporary themes and references without being in any way partisan,” he told journalists. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely, no matter who is in charge.”

This is pure misdirection. Did anyone think a mainstream Hollywood film, which this is, would miss an opportunity to snipe at Trump and capitalism? Andy Serkis gave away the game when he showed up on the red carpet at the film’s premiere sporting a red MAGA cap whose slogan was changed to read, “Make Animal Farm Fiction Again” – clearly signaling that he believes we are currently living under an authoritarian regime led by capitalist icon Donald Trump.

And he introduces a character not in the original story: the ruthlessly greedy billionaire Freida Pilkington (voiced by Glenn “Fatal Attraction” Close) who roars around in a vehicle clearly resembling a Cybertruck – in other words, she is a stand-in for the mega-capitalist the Left loves to hate, Elon Musk.

Pilkington wants the animals’ farm, so she manipulates the pig leader Napoleon (who represented Stalin in the novella), whose own greed makes him an easy mark. But in Orwell’s version, the ruthless lust for power is the key danger. Greed is not the issue – it is a consequence of unchecked power, yes, but not a central theme, although under collectivist regimes, those in power always live like kings. Serkis, USA Today notes, instead “gravitated toward themes of capitalism, wealth and overconsumption.”

Then there is the hopeful ending in which the animals still believe in the power of collective action for a better future, which runs against the grain of Orwell’s chilling final line about the animals having essentially become indistinguishable from corrupt humans. USA Today sees the movie’s ending as giving viewers “closure,” but in fact it dulls the impact of Orwell’s warning and leaves us feeling not even entertained, much less inspired. It doesn’t help that the incongruous pratfalls and fart jokes simply don’t work.

Well this is bad alright. But also appalling and stupefying is who distributed it:

The baffling thing is that the film is distributed by the pro-Christian, pro-capitalist Angel Studios. If this adaptation were faithful to Orwell’s original vision, Angel’s connection would be understandable. But why would Angel want a clunky, anti-capitalist dud in its repertoire? One social media user put forward this plausible theory: “What Angel gets out of distributing this terrible movie with an all-star cast is that it will break a taboo among mainstream Hollywood figures against working on Angel-produced projects.” If so, this would be a betrayal of Angel’s loyal, Hollywood-despising core audience, and a decision that will likely backfire.

Put another way, they sold out, all because it's such a big deal to be accepted by the Hollywood leftist mainstream. I read the original novella years ago, and IMO, it's all that's needed. Orwell's book didn't need to be adapted to screen, let alone animation, and certainly not with such pretentious people overseeing the production.

The film's amazingly gotten a poor reception, as John Nolte at Breitbart notes, even from leftists, and it's thudded at the box office. Making matters worse is what one of the actors in the film wants in real life, which doesn't help the film's PR any more than Pedro Pascal did the latest Fantastic Four movie when he engaged in political rhetoric. Unfortunately, if recent conduct in Hollywood is any suggestion, neither director Serkis nor the studios involved will learn serious lessons from the catastrophe their political obsessions resulted in, and we could be seeing more of the same in the coming years.

Back issue bins can turn up interesting items, but why not trade collections?

CTV News wrote about what people find in back issue bins, at conventions like FCBD and the Calgary Expo:

If you’re the right kind of geek, there’s a good chance you’ve spent some time lately rooting through comic book back issue bins.

Calgary Expo and Free Comic Book Day are just freshly behind us.

Maybe you were hoping the next flip would bring you a particular something on your list for a mere dollar or two.

Maybe a successful dive through the cheap reads means getting exactly issues 520 and 521 of Journey Into Mystery.

Or maybe you were flipping aimlessly, and it was by the Comic Book Gods’ good grace you hit on the “fear-filled final issues” of that specific Marvel Comics series that someone else either didn’t want anymore or couldn’t sell at face value.

It was a rescue mission, regardless.

How comic book collectors approach it is what can vary, says Bill Bateman from Alpha Comics in Calgary.

“While some are looking for anything to fill in the blanks in their collections, others are looking for that elusive rare book that may have been missed by the store,” Bateman told CTV News.

“Some people show up with a binder of notes showing what they’re missing, (while) some have apps on their phones that do the job a lot faster, and some just know all of the books well enough.”

Sure, there can be gems to find in back issue bins, but if the same issues have been reprinted in trade collections, why must we hear about would-be collectors zeroing in almost entirely on said bins and not searching for paperback/hardcovers reprinting the very same issues? Why not even whether anybody wants specific issues reprinted, if they haven't yet been? That's what I never seem to see these news outlets bring up, nor do they interview people who do. But trade collections or paperback/hardcovers are what comprise the bulk of my collection now, and I think it's working a lot better that way, because thanks to the Marvel Epic Collections and the more recently launched DC Finest archives, I now own hundreds, perhaps thousands of old issues reprinted through these forms of collections for older comics. And these news companies don't want to talk about how great those can be for everybody who hopes to acquire a complete run of various classic series? That's just the problem here.

Rhiannon Mesler says comic book bin diving “runs on the same machinery that powers a slot machine.”

Likewise, the University of Lethbridge marketing professor and expert in consumer behaviour and decision-making says, “the same machinery social media platforms have spent fifteen years optimizing.”

“What makes it irresistible isn’t the find. It’s the unpredictability,” she says.

“Neuroscientists have shown that the brain’s dopamine system fires hardest not when reward arrives, but when reward arrives unexpectedly.

“And that the dopamine signal actually peaks when the odds are roughly 50-50, when you genuinely don’t know whether the next comic in the box is going to be ‘The One.’”

They make it sound more like a game of hide-and-seek than searching for the best reading material. Another clue the speculator mentality plays a part in this whole affair, which effectively ruins any attempt to sound convincing in their fandom.

In addition to the above, ComicBook also told about a guy who, with aid from his dad, managed to purchase at least 400 of the Amazing Spider-Man issues printed up till around the mid-90s:

Many times, comic book collectors are only interested in building a collection for bragging rights or to hopefully one day make money off of the collectibles. However, there are other times when a collector has a more personal reason for collecting memorabilia, and it has a purer meaning than just looking for the big bucks. In some cases, the idea of collecting comics or other items of memorabilia is passed down through the generations. In those cases, it is more about the relationship between a person and their parents, and that makes completing a collection something that means so much more.

This was the case for a Redditor known as joeltheconner, who just revealed that he finally completed his Amazing Spider-Man run of the first 400 issues. He then added that he has his father to thank for this fact.

In his post, joeltheconner wrote that his dad was a comic book collector and would take him to comic shops when he was a kid. However, he said that he was never as interested in comics until he was nine years old. “At the age of 9. My dad gave me a copy of ASM 300 to read. I was hooked instantly,” he wrote. “From then, we started collecting together. For two years we took our vacations to Chicago so we could go to the big convention up there.”

Around 1998, he said he lost interest and stopped collecting, and then moved on. However, he admitted there was something his dad had said to him before that he thought was cool. They discussed having the full run of a specific comic book title. He chose Amazing Spider-Man and decided he would collect the run of the first 400 issues. That led to a few years ago, when his dad asked if he was still interested in completing that collection. His dad then did something that meant the world to him.

His dad had his “prized” Silver Surfer comics, and he offered to sell those to the local shop to get credit so that his son could work on finishing his Amazing Spider-Man run. “I honestly tried to talk him out of it, but it sounded like a really fun thing for him and I to do together again,” he wrote. “From the first time I stepped back into a shop, it took me right back and I was hooked again. 2 years later, today I bought the last book that I needed to complete the run.”

That book was Amazing Spider-Man #2, which was the first appearance of the Vulture and which was the first book where Spider-Man fought a superpowered villain (Chameleon was the first villain in the debut issue). This man’s dad gave up a prized possession to work with his son to help fulfill a dream. It was obvious that it meant the world to this man. “It’s so hard sometimes for sons to tell their fathers what they mean to them, and I’m going to figure out a way to really tell him,” he wrote. “But thank you, Dad. I owe more to you in this life than I could never repay.”

While it's great for dads and sons to do all sorts of things together, it's simply ludicrous how somebody would like to get as much of Spidey when it mattered in pamphlets, but not in trade collections, which at this point is precisely what I own. As of now, I own, for example, the first 12 ASM Epic archives, and have plenty more coming after that, and hope the ASM run will be more or less completed eventually, so that then, I can try to buy complete sets myself, though admittedly, at this point I'm hesitant to buy those collecting the Clone Saga, which, while it may not be as awful as some other artistic humiliations to come down the pike later, was still very damaging to the Spidey legacy, and certainly the part where Peter assaulted Ben Reilly in frustration and accidentally injured Mary Jane when she tried to get him to stop, after which Peter just ran out of the laboratory in horror instead of doing what he could to mend the damage to MJ. That kind of scene is far more reprehensible than claiming Ben was the protagonist all along between 1975-95 (and it was soon confirmed by writers that Peter was the protagonist within that time frame, not Ben, in their efforts to apologize to Spider-fans they alienated).

And I have plenty more Epic Collection and Finest archives I've bought, including a few dedicated to Superman's series and spinoffs, all 3 for Black Panther, several for Daredevil, Iron Man, Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Dr. Strange, Justice Society/League, Punisher, Luke Cage, X-Men, Capt. America, Thor, Hawkman, Defenders, Moon Knight and even Excalibur. I also have several omnibuses to boot. And I hope other Spidey spinoffs like the 1976-98 Spectacular will see some Epic archives eventually too. That's what serious "collectors" should really be buying, and considering the back issues are highly likely to become increasingly expensive over time, if they really want to read this stuff, that's why they'll buy the trade collections.

So again, why are we still seeing this otherwise absurd news about people searching for back issues instead of paperbacks/hardcovers? That's another huge letdown with modern news coverage of comidom. Because in the end, it only hints they still don't take the medium seriously, otherwise, they would talk about all these reprint collections and how they can introduce new generations to older classics as a great reading pastime. And this demonstrates how the MSM continues to belittle the medium, by not highlighting a far more convenient approach to collecting notable stories of the past decades by today's standards. Unless something is done to dissuade speculators and collectors from back issues and try trade collections instead, the problem's going to continue for at least another decade or three.

A suicide note by a deceased criminal was found inside a GN

Comic Book Club says a suicide note written by the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly discovered inside a graphic novel, and the news provided even includes a connection to IDW, of all companies:

They say all press is good press, but I’ll be honest: I don’t know if that applies here, because Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide note was found inside a graphic novel.

The news comes via the New York Times, which right under the headline “Purported Epstein Suicide Note Is Released” is the subheadline, “A federal judge released the note on Wednesday, which Jeffrey Epstein’s former cellmate said he found in a graphic novel. The New York Times has not authenticated that Mr. Epstein wrote it.”

Now, there are a lot of important questions about this. Is the note real? Did Epstein write it? And what does it mean, if the pedophile and abuser did, indeed, die by suicide versus the multiple conspiracy theories about how he went out. But if you’re like me, aka, brain totally broken, the main question is… Which graphic novel? That’s certainly a question, and online at least there were plenty of jokes. But can we figure out which graphic novel Epstein was reading before his death? Sorry, alleged graphic novel. [...]

The second, and slightly more eye-opening set of documents are financial reports from ADW Capital Partners from February 17, 2016. Why is this interesting? That’s because the documents are about ADW’s investment in… IDW. And they call out mostly media properties like Wynonna Earp, but specifically also mention, “One of the Company’s most famous properties, ‘Locke and Key,’ is co-owned with Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).”

Look, someone more financially minded than me should explain this, but as far as I can gather, ADW, which it’s likely Epstein was an investor in (given he was receiving emails from the fund) was heavily invested in IDW. And so much so that on March 5, 2019, ADW urged a sale of IDW in a publicly released press release. Later than month, IDW hired JP Morgan to explore a sale, and then less than five months later, on August 10, 2019, Jeffrey Epstein, who we’ve now established was conclusively a huge fan of Locke & Key, committed suicide. Coincidence??? Yes.

Be that as it may, one could wonder if IDW arranged to be sold away from any business Epstein had an ownership stake in because they realized the embarrassment that could entail, after all the woke pandering they went miles out of their way to work on. Or, did they turn to woke pandering because they thought it would serve as a shield from any severe critical drubbing they could receive over an unfortunate if coincidental connection to such a monster? Well even that kind of notion is starting to fall apart, as seen in the near decade since the Harvey Weinstein scandal, so perhaps IDW might want to stop taking a woke position with their comics writing now for a change, since, if they had any kind of meetings with Epstein like Simpsons creator Matt Groening did, it wouldn't help their reputation at this point.

Whatever the case, there's a number of decent products IDW used to publish comics for that I'd rather they never get a license or permit to publish ever again. They've insulted my intellect so badly over the past several years, and have hired at least a few very bad apples of recent, that, unless they took time to overhaul their management properly, it would be ill-advised to buy their post-2020 products again.