After the overrated Barbie movie, Mattel reportedly needs a new live action "hero" in the form of Masters of the Universe

About 3 years after the woke Barbie movie that regrettably grossed a billion dollars at the box office because of cunning concealment of its political messaging, the UK Times (archive link) reports on how Mattel toy corporation is banking this time on a live action adaptation of their Masters of the Universe toy line, which saw animated cartoon adaptations in the mid-80s and early 90s. At this point, it's starting to become rather comedic how Hollywood relies on toy merchandise as a wellspring, but anyway, let's see what they say here:

The summer of 2023 marked a high point in the 81-year history of Mattel, a global toymaker based in El Segundo, near Los Angeles. The release of the Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie, captured the global imagination, propelling Mattel and its flagship doll into the centre of the cultural zeitgeist.

For Ynon Kreiz, whose role as chief executive of Mattel was parodied by Will Ferrell in the film, it looked like a mission accomplished. After starting his role in 2018, Kreiz wanted to transform the image of his company from toy manufacturer to intellectual property (IP) powerhouse.

Now what does this mean? He's okay with making himself look bad, considering the film was a blatant attack on "sexualized capitalism", as per the ludicrous viewpoint of its director? Naturally, they won't get into details about how "imaginative" the film actually was, based on the politics it built on.

But three years on from the release of Barbie, it’s not clear that investors have recognised this shift, and now one activist investor in the Nasdaq-listed business is calling for Mattel to be taken private.

Over the past year or so, Donald Trump’s tariffs regime and other international trade concerns have knocked about a quarter off Mattel’s market value, now just over $4 billion (£3 billion). The toy market has traditionally been heavily dependent on its supply chain in China and the Far East, after all.

“We believe the market is not valuing the progress we’ve made, and more importantly the future potential of where we’re going,” said Kreiz over coffee in a London hotel.

Sounds like here, they're making a predictable swipe at Trump over his wish that businesses stop relying heavily on foreign countries to do the work, rather than USA citizens at home. Very unimpressive.

This week, he hopes the release of his second major Mattel movie — Masters of the Universe, made with Amazon MGM and filmed primarily in Sky Studios Elstree — will solidify his company’s entertainment credentials.

Masters of the Universe, starring Nicholas Galitzine, will be followed this autumn by Matchbox the Movie in October, and from there Mattel has more than a dozen other films in the works, incorporating Barney, Bob the Builder and Polly Pocket. And meanwhile, the company has invested big in making mobile games built on some of its other assets, such as Hot Wheels and Uno.

“We evolved from being a manufacturing company to an IP company — now we’re very much about brand management,” said Kreiz. “Which means it’s toys and entertainment managed together.”

Maybe that's the problem - they're making too big a deal out of adapting almost everything to film, and TV. It's honestly silly by now.

I met Kreiz the morning after the Masters of the Universe premiere in London’s Leicester Square. “People think it’s another superhero movie, but it’s so much more,” he gushed, referencing its humour and emotion.

Those that remember the original cartoon from the 1980s might raise an eyebrow at this. But those same people might equally have been sceptical about how Barbie could be turned into a Hollywood success.

The problem there is that Warner Brothers, as the studio in charge of that film, cunningly concealed how woke it sadly was. Yet according to Danusha Goska at Front Page, nobody laughed or applauded at the screening she attended. So artistically speaking, it's not like it was that kind of success, though it obviously means nothing to the profiteers who bankrolled it. Now, based on such a shoddy tale's box office grosses, they're following it up with the MOTU live action adaptation, the 2nd of its kind ever since nearly 40 years ago, another was produced in 1987, and there's something very bizarre told here:

So can He-Man, Skeletor and the other characters in the movie have the same cultural impact as Barbie? “In terms of the box office, not every movie will be the next Barbie,” said Kreiz, suggesting the answer is a firm no. “But it doesn’t need to achieve the same box office performance to have a real impact and resonance in culture.”

Nor, he added, is the box office all-important for Mattel. “We expect to see much more toy sales from this movie relative to the Barbie movie,” he said.

Why? Kreiz explained that Barbie was not “toyetic” — industry jargon meaning that it did not prompt significant new doll sales. Masters of the Universe was “not designed to sell toys” but, given the superhero nature of the film and the number of characters, it is by comparison “very toyetic”, said Kreiz.

While on-screen entertainment may play a big role in the future of Mattel, for now its major revenue source remains the physical toy market. Kreiz’s business was a victim of Trump’s tariffs regime, which disrupted and caused confusion for all US businesses that rely on international imports and exports.

Perhaps he's telling them this because he realizes lightning may not strike twice, and the live action MOTU movie may not see the same bizarre success the Barbie movie had. I'm honestly not excited to see yet another film based on toys adapted to another live action absurdity, and one must wonder why they'd want to make films that could discourage sales of their toys, which appears to be the result of the Barbie movie. Seriously, is that what they want? That their original toys crater in sales, not unlike how mainstream comicdom did in the past quarter century, no matter what the box office for the films based on them? Well that's not good. And if they're okay with discouraging toy sales, that's troubling. It's also confusing, seeing how the guy says they don't care about the box office results. Not that I consider movie adaptations such a big deal, but it's still bizarre why a movie could be produced to serve as some kind of "loss leader" for selling toys, with no clear clue as to whether the gamble will pay off. What that suggests is that the new film doesn't stand on its own in terms of entertainment value, and if not, it perpetuates a serious problem with how entertainment products are being sold, developed and marketed.

Whether the new MOTU movie sells and audiences flock to see it remains to be seen. But based on how absurd the company management at Mattel is these days, that's why it's hard to understand why we should bankroll these productions if story merit's not the name of the game here.

Dark Horse closing its affiliated stores, and sees a company union formed

KOIN-6 reported that Dark Horse, now owned as they are by a Swedish company, will be closing a few specialty stores they've owned in Oregon as part of their shift to emphasize video games and movies:

A major comic book company is shuttering its two Oregon stores later this summer as part of a wider restructuring.

Dark Horse Comics has announced its Things From Another World stores in Beaverton and Milwaukie will close on Tuesday, June 30. Its California store is also slated to close months later on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

[...] With the looming closures, the company revealed it is now focusing on its entertainment sector to ensure that its writers and artists “have the development support, creative partnerships, and resources to bring their visions to life across film and television.”

Dark Horse, which was acquired by Swedish video game giant Embracer Group in 2022, is additionally launching a new initiative that will reimagine its comics as interactive games.

Sounds like they could be on the way to changing their business into a video game producer instead. Which actually makes a farce out of what their alleged goal was to start with when they first opened as a publisher in the mid-80s. And look how it's implied they're more interested in emphasizing adaptations for the film industry. Seriously, does that do the comics medium any favors? Not really.

As though the above news wasn't problematic enough, Courthouse News says some employees of the publisher are forming a union:

Workers at Dark Horse Comics publicly announced Wednesday that employees at the comic publisher’s headquarters have organized a union, joining a growing wave of labor organizing across comics, games and creative media.

The union, called Dark Horse Workers United, says it has support from a supermajority of employees across multiple departments at the company’s headquarters in Milwaukie, Oregon, just outside of Portland.

“At the moment, we have just under 70 public supporters and more who are aligned with us but not public,” said Riley VanDyke, a graphic designer and member of the organizing committee.

VanDyke and fellow organizer Riley Pittenger, who works in sales, said the organizing effort began roughly a year and a half ago with a small group of employees frustrated by low pay, inconsistent workplace policies and a lack of transparency across departments.

“Dark Horse’s strength is in its employees,” VanDyke said. “Everyone is extremely passionate and kind and creative, but they’re also extremely underpaid.”

This reminds me of the time when some workers at Image formed a union, and what was problematic about that was that the members did so because they wanted to control the narrative in terms of creativity, and what they believed contributors could or couldn't do. Maybe this is more about pay, but if it mutates into something more ludicrous, that won't bode well for creative freedom at Dark Horse.

Workers described what they called a “passion tax” within comics publishing — the idea that employees accept lower compensation because the work is creatively fulfilling.

“It’s an open secret that the company leans on the ‘passion tax’ to get talented people for very low cost,” VanDyke said. “We love working here. We love the work we do and the people we do it with, and we want our collective standard of living to reflect the amount of passion we put into the work we do for Dark Horse.” [...]

Organizers framed the campaign as part of a broader labor movement within creative industries, including recent union drives in publishing, games and comics. Fellow Portland-based comic publisher, Image Comics, formed Comic Book Workers United in 2023. Yet that union has seen little progress and soon filed complaints against Image with the National Labor Relations Board for reportedly mistreating and targeting union members.

“I hope we can influence more creative workplaces to take steps to take back some of their own power,” VanDyke said. “Creative jobs are some of the easiest to take advantage of, because creativity isn’t valued like more ‘hard skills,’ most of the time.”

Management has not responded publicly to the campaign as of Wednesday, though organizers said they hoped the company would voluntarily recognize the union.

When it comes to payment, certainly they've a right to ask for better wages. But that doesn't mean this union couldn't end up being corrupt and demanding control of other people's creativity. And if it does, what's the point of doing business with them anymore? As far as recognizing the union goes, if you think unions today can be a bad influence, Dark Horse is unfortunately more likely to validate this union, especially now that they're downplaying comics production in favor of movies and video games. If Image is resisting whatever union they still have among employees because it's more interested in controlling creative license, that's good. But DH could be more vulnerable, and for all we know, as a publisher, they could be getting outmoded pretty soon, based on where they're going.

What lessons can be learned from the Neil Gaiman debacle?

A writer at Consequence of Sound discussed what she thought of the Neil Gaiman sexual abuse scandal, now that the Good Omens TV adaptation is over:

For decades, Neil Gaiman was one of the world’s most famous authors, in a world where famous authors are a rarity. His signature comic book series The Sandman is considered one of the most important and influential comics ever published, his novels have been massive best-sellers, and multiple movies and TV series have been made based on his work. His iconic leather jacket and black messy hair were instantly recognizable to anyone who’s been to a fan convention. He was a guest star on The Simpsons not once but twice. He was, at one point, a huge deal.

And now he isn't, for valid reasons. What I don't understand is how nobody ever questioned whether it was in good taste to turn Silver Scarab and Fury from Infinity Inc. into plot devices in Gaiman's machinations for his decidedly overrated Sandman series, which in the end were meaningless. And as noted earlier, how did he have veto power over what characters could have the Sandman name applied to them? All that did in the end was add to the harm doubtless caused to characters like the Golden Age Wesley Dodds. On the subject of his TV and film projects, it's told that:

The 2024 allegations had a cascading effect on all those projects. Dead Boy Detectives was canceled in August 2024 after one season. In the summer of 2025, The Sandman wrapped things up with Season 2 (despite there being plenty more material left in the original comics). And as for that one remaining unreleased project, Anansi Boys star Delroy Lindo told EW in 2025 that “I don’t think that’ll ever see the light of day. It’s too bad on many levels, but I was really excited to do it.”

Lindo did express optimism for the show one day being seen: “Maybe it’ll be released. This is another reason to knock on wood.” It’s natural for Lindo to want to see a project he worked hard on not linger in the void. It’s also worth noting that Anansi Boys featured a largely Black cast, and there’s something uncomfortable about it being shelved while the final installments of Good Omens and The Sandman, led by white actors, did manage to make it to our screens.

Well, that can suggest that, despite all efforts made by the woke crowd to make it seem to the contrary, there is still favoratism in Hollywood that puts such a huge value on productions with mainly white leads, while productions with Black leads have no such luxury. Seriously, the Sandman TV show should've ended after just half a season, and chances are it'll all be forgotten as the overrated slop the comics definitely were.

It’s all part of the same uncomfortable calculus we’ve been stuck doing since 2017, as the worst qualities of one-time favorites have been exposed, leaving those who believe the victims scrambling for the most correct answer to these ethically murky (at best) situations. For many, Gaiman was a pop culture god on the level of Joss Whedon or Woody Allen. His fall from grace happened later than theirs, but the impact has been similar for fans, left to grapple with how they feel about their beloved favorites in the wake of knowing very unpleasant things about them.

Beyond being a fan of his work, I’ve interviewed Gaiman four times over the course of my career, including two occasions in person. I wish I could tell you that when I was sitting opposite him, I had some sort of sneaky feeling that he was capable of great harm, but I can’t. He had a bit of an ego about him, but it was easy to accept that as a natural consequence of being literally one of the most famous writers of his generation. Otherwise, the mask never slipped.

Creators like Dan Harmon have come back from rough tales of their behavior with thorough apologies, but Gaiman has firmly denied that there’s any truth to the multiple accounts of abuse, leaving these reports to fester in the imagination rather than heal. It’s a lack of self-awareness that’s disappointing to witness, though it’s far from the only disappointment now associated with Gaiman’s legacy. The real disappointment comes from knowing that an author so many believed to be capable of deep empathy was allegedly capable of empathy’s exact opposite.

On this, I think it would be recommended to consider a research report related to the Timothy Busfield sexual abuse scandal, where a point is made that, "The reality is that having a good guy persona is not incongruous with being a predator, said Northeastern University experts on sexual and domestic violence." It can also be described as a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing persona, and there's sadly only so many slimy figures in entertainment and elsewhere who've used that tactic to their advantage. But why cite Woody Allen? Since no concrete case was ever made against him, and he seems to have recovered in reputation in the past few years, citing him as an example doesn't work well. Whedon, by contrast, was accused of abusing Charisma Carpenter just for getting pregnant, and that alone is enough to look upon him in disgrace, considering she'd been a victim of a serious crime in the early 90s.

The rise of nerd culture in the mainstream was made possible in part by deifying creators. But gods complicate things. Maybe it’s best to let them fade away. Neil Gaiman included.

On that, I think plenty can agree the time has come to stop putting "celebrities" on pedastals, because in the long run, it's not helping a bit. If there's an important lesson to learn in these debacles, it's that judgement of persona is seriously needed, if they're to be celebrated at all.

Some history of Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau

The UK Guardian wrote about the history of cartoonist Garry Trudeau, who created the Doonesbury comic strip in the late 60s/early 70s, and how he developed it as a liberal-leaning tale over the years, one where the characters age in contrast to Peanuts, where they don't. And here's an example of the politics it emphasized:

Coming from an all-male prep school, Trudeau arrived at Yale with his own archaic views about women, and his earliest comic strips displayed sexism. However, his worldview was rapidly upended when he began dating a woman hailing from three generations of feminists. “She gave him an education, a crash course,” Kendall notes. “He quickly developed and got it.”

This awakening birthed the character Joanie Caucus, a middle-aged woman who leaves her husband to go to law school, cementing Trudeau as a mainstream advocate for feminism in the 1970s.

This capacity for personal and artistic evolution is, for Kendall, Trudeau’s most defining and admirable trait. “I feel like in this culture right now, there are a lot of people, particularly men, who kind of get stuck in adolescent mode. The one thing about Garry that moves me is his development and growth.”

This extended to his depiction of war. In his early 20s, Trudeau drew strips featuring the character B.D. (named after the Yale quarterback Brian Dowling) going to Vietnam merely to avoid writing a college term paper. Decades later, during the Iraq war, an older, wiser Trudeau depicted B.D. losing a leg and suffering from PTSD – a storyline handled with depth and care.

Trudeau also demonstrated a sensitive understanding of race and religion, mainstreaming Jewish characters like the radical student leader Mark Slackmeyer, and capturing the nuanced generational divides between assimilationist parents and their radicalised children.

Be that as it may, his left-wing view of issues like the Vietnam war and even the Iraq war, which seemed to be that they should never have been carried out at all, is dismaying in hindsight. Why, surely "radical" isn't also a concerning description? The way Mark's characterized looks awfully absurd by today's standards, where you have school students radicalized against figures with backgrounds like his. Come to think of it, does Trudeau even still care about whether children are radicalized, if he ever did at all? And if you needed another clue what's wrong with Trudeau's approach, it's what he thinks of Donald Trump, and has for a long time:

Currently, Trudeau is only producing fresh Sunday strips – with the dailies existing as “Doonesbury Classic” reruns – and about a third of his new output focuses entirely on Donald Trump.

Trudeau has been tracking Trump since 1987, recognising him early on as an outrageous, narcissistic character, frequently placing him in adventures with the Doonesbury gang. Kendall says: “Trump is a very colourful character. Trump’s hair and various body parts are fun for the cartoonist. I guess he wants to talk about the effect of Trumpism on the Doonesbury gang and how it’s affecting the baby boomers, not just American politics, but American culture as well.” [...]

This is a tough moment for baby boomers who won struggles for feminism and civil rights in the 1960s only to see many of those gains stalled or reversed by Trump, the Republican party and a rightwing supreme court. Can Trudeau remain optimistic about America? His biographer thinks so.

Wow, so all Trump's capable of doing is taking apart supposed achievements made by feminists, which really wasn't much, or they let deteriorate themselves after they were fine with LGBT activists taking apart anything to do with women's safety and dignity. I once read Doonesbury many years ago, but today, can't say I'm so impressed with it in hindsight, realizing Trudeau followed a leftist anti-war narrative that was sadly cemented by the disastrous way the Vietnam war was handled, one that never sought to dismantle the commie leadership in the country's north. I do recall a few strips where Trump was drawn in, depicted acting chummy with figures like Duke, who was depicted as a drug addict, and was in some ways meant to be a de facto baddie, perhaps even a caricature of conservatives. Well, no surprise, really.

I really don't see the point of Doonesbury today, based on how pretentious Trudeau really was in the long run, and Trudeau lost his way morally over a decade ago. I'm sure there's politically emphasizing comic strips on the market worth reading, but at this point, I wouldn't consider Doonesbury one of them.

Polygon says The Boys TV show failed to live up to the comic's "strongest qualities"

A writer at Polygon's claiming The Boys series didn't live up to whatever potential the comics by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson supposedly had, but continues the claim its one of the "best" comics ever on the market:

When Amazon's adaptation of The Boys was announced, I was thrilled. Garth Ennis is my favorite comics writer, and The Boys occupies a stable spot on my Mount Rushmore of best comics of all time right alongside Preacher, Planetary, and The Invisibles. At the same time, AMC's then-recent disappointing adaptation of Preacher had already shown me that the Irish writer’s trademark blend of realistic characters and surreal situations doesn’t necessarily translate to TV.

Watching The Boys on Prime Video felt like eating pineapple pizza: First, you bite in, driven by curiosity over a new spin on something you love; then, the flavor creeps in, and you realize what a mistake this was; finally, you finish it because wasting food is wrong, while contemplating all your terrible life choices. Not that I would ever eat pineapple pizza, to be clear, but I did sit through five seasons of The Boys, and the only positive outcome is that it reminded me just how excellent the comics are.

However, for some “diabolical” reason, at some point during the airing of the show, disparaging the comics became customary among YouTubers and content creators looking for a nice algorithm boost. Panels were posted out of context, highlighting the most graphic and ridiculous aspects of the story while ignoring its robust narrative and character development. Now that the show has ended, people are bringing up its many flaws as a counterpoint, but rather than fueling pointless factionalism, it’s more constructive to focus on explaining why The Boys is one of the best superhero comics you’ll ever read.

No it isn't. A comic emphasizing crudeness and jarring violence does not rate high on my wish list. Nor does a tale making it look like heroes' failure is something to enjoy more than victory. It sounds like the writer's trying the classic cliche of saying the violence was the whole point, as though that actually makes it good on its own, though it sure is funny how surrealism gets a pass here when comics coming from different writers who're less obsessed with graphic violence would likely never get the same acceptance based on their approach to scriptwriting. What's so "robust" about Ennis' comic?

It’s not a secret that Amazon’s The Boys is politically charged, which makes its message a lot less effective than the comics’. Besides on-the-nose references to a certain blonde President, some watchers argued that it’s never actually clear what specific policies the show is satirizing. Sure, there’s the mandatory MAGA-pandering, but Homelander doesn’t lock up immigrants (even if he does start throwing dissenting citizens into work camps in season 5). The show’s assumed anti-Fascist stance also clashes with the refusal to acknowledge the Tomer Capone controversy. More importantly, while people can have different opinions on politics, it’s hard to find someone who disagrees with “big, greedy corporations are bad.”

But if The Boys comics were simply about corporate greed, the series would have been remembered as just another satire of the superhero genre and nothing more. Instead, Ennis does what he does best, portraying painfully realistic characters who struggle through lives where trauma and violence are always entwined. William “Billy” Butcher is the main character of the story, but he’s not the protagonist. That role goes to Hugh "Wee Hughie" Campbell, who acts as the readers’ anchor and the writer’s point of view.

Sounds almost like some of Tom King's stories that allegedly build upon trauma. On the topic of Tomer Capone, it sounds like the leftist viewership of this series despised that he would serve with the IDF for defending the country (which AOL unshockingly distorts, long after October 7, 2023), though even if he did, or still upholds his army career, that doesn't make the show worth watching, based on its own leftism, and that of the comics it adapts. Nor does the alleged critique of corporate greed, which I assume was added to the story to appease conservatives and liberals who take issue with corporatism. But it's entirely possible to write up a story, satirical or otherwise, that focuses on corporate subjects without resorting to the kind of mayhem The Boys does, and Ennis sadly didn't do that.

The stark contrast between the two has a purpose: Butcher is big, strong, and handsome. He’s a tough guy who gets things done no matter the cost. As readers, it’s natural to gravitate towards him for the majority of the story since he represents the stereotype of the cool anti-hero that comics started relying upon from the 1980s. But Ennis, who wrote some of the best Punisher stories, knows what hides behind that costume: violence as a way to exorcize trauma that will never go away. The comics’ final arc almost mocks readers for liking Butcher when he turns out to be a genocidal maniac who is not any better than the wretched “‘supes” he wants to kill, including Homelander. It’s plain, meek Hughie who does the right thing in the end. [...]

TV Butcher still hates Homelander — he did rape his wife — and transfers that hatred to all the ‘supes, but the show really fails to deliver on the background to that hatred, which the comics explore in the six-issue limited series Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker. This tells the story of Butcher before The Boys: a man warped by domestic violence who gets one shot at redemption, a chance meeting with Becky. The woman becomes Butcher’s salvation, but he’s always doubting how long it will be before the beast comes out again. When Becky dies as a consequence of Homelander’s alleged rape, that’s not simply the trigger to a classic revenge story. The subtle suggestion is that this is what Billy was waiting for: an excuse to embrace his violent impulses again.

I still don't see what's so fantastic about any of this either. All I see is a tale built on repellent violence, physical and sexual, that offers no joy, and it's a shame there's whole generations who're buying into Ennis' vision, hook line and sinker. The leftist angle certainly doesn't help. What's really head-shaking is how nobody conservative seems to care enough today to create comics with visions to counter what Ennis pushes here, and that's one more reason why these kind of embarrassments like the Boys will continue to be produced for a long time, and receive all the TV and film adaptations they don't need. What "qualities" does a story like the Boys have to "live up to"? There really aren't any.

Another "doomscroller" seeks a cure in comic reading

In a case somewhat similar to this earlier one, a writer at the Rockland County Times talks about having found a cure for "doomscrolling" on social media by turning to comics:

All my life I’ve been reading comic books. Starting in elementary school, I used to frequent Funny Business which was formerly in Nyack but has since closed, for all my monthly issues. I read them incessantly, even counting them towards my reading logs, much to my teachers’ frustration. Even now, I still love the medium. The fantastic stories and incredible art alone make picking up a comic book worth it, but something else that sweetens the deal is the lack of distraction.

I am, unfortunately, addicted to doom scrolling, as I’m sure a lot of people are. For those who don’t know, “doom scrolling” is when you scroll on social media for minutes, maybe even hours on end, in an endless depressive stream of content designed to hook you. Scrolling is addicting, I often can’t bring myself to stop even when I want to. It’s like a drug in all honesty. Algorithms incentivize you to stay scrolling. Be it on Twitter, Instagram, or Tiktok, the whole point of those apps are to keep you hooked and engaging with them. The sad reality is that we’re all susceptible, and many of us are already hooked.

I’ve been bringing myself back to reality through comic books. I’ll admit, I most often read them on my iPad. Not exactly a screenless activity. I have apps that give me access to the entire Marvel and DC back catalogues for a small fee every month, and it’s worth it. A major problem with comics is the price, especially for a physical copy of a given comic. The apps I use circumvent that, allowing me to read most comics published by DC or Marvel without breaking my bank. I find my brain to be calmer, I’m more focused, and I’m less depressed. Yes it’s all still happening on a screen, but I believe that it’s not the screen that is dangerous, but what’s happening on it.

On this, one must wonder what kind of DC/Marvel comics he's reading, because if it's the mega-modern woke stuff, then what's the point of this puff piece?

We’re in a time where so much of the “art” we engage with has been auto-generated by a machine. Videos and photos, once considered mediums of truth, are now suspect due to the influx of AI generated material. The brain rot that ensues doesn’t just threaten art in high concept, but it threatens our way of engaging with the world and with other people. It’s important to disengage with scrolling, and reengage with human made art. Comics give you that. The stories are written by people, drawn by people, lettered by people, and made for people. The work is both visually stimulating and creatively engaging in a way that has become lost to so many people.

But what about much of Marvel/DC's output over the past quarter century? What's so great about that, assuming the writer's "engaging" with any of it? There's no description of anything he read, so how can we judge?

With the success of film franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or TV shows like The Boys or Invincible, media that has been adapted from comics are more popular than ever. The original medium those stories were told in give the audience a taste of something that is hard to come by now. Maybe your version of this isn’t comics. Maybe it’s traditional literature, or drawing, or just going on a walk. Whatever it is, make sure you do it. Be a person in the world who engages with human made art, who makes art yourself. No one needs to be a world renowned artist or culture critique. It’s not about that. It’s about getting back in touch with who you are as a person. Where your interests lie when you’re not being force fed “get ready with me” videos, is where your true self is. Bring yourself back to you, read a comic book.

I can't tell clearly if this is a college paper, but it sure comes off sounding like one, and perhaps the article drew from a local college paper through wire services. The movies are on the decline, enthusiasm for cinematic adaptations isn't what it used to be, yet we keep being lectured the films are soaring all over the place. And a citation for the Boys TV show is decidedly reason enough to give pause.

I will give the article this: AI does have a downside, and internet addiction is a problem too, much like being a TV couch potato in decades past. But what the article's ambiguous about is the entertainment value and lack of citations for whatever titles and fictional characters interest the writer. Without that, it all comes off rather unconvincing.

Tony Isabella villifies ICE in a letter to a newspaper

The leftist veteran comics writer who decided to take up LGBT identity politics at least a year ago, and has to date shown no signs of quitting that insanity, recently wrote a letter to the newspaper of an Ohio city, where he attacked ICE for trying to clear dangerous illegal immigrants out of the country and try to make the USA safe again. First, here's one of his sad forays into transsexuality he's recounting:

April 11: I had an amazing night out with LGBTQ+ friends. Though circumstances made it necessary for me to present in boy mode, I was correctly gendered everywhere we went. That means the world to someone like me.

Naturally, it's regrettable he's still sticking tight with these bizarre identity politics, over a year since he first declared this is how he wants to be known/remembered. Now, here's the letter he wrote to a local paper:

April 19: The (Medina) Gazette ran my letter on immigration and ICE. As I do with all my current work, I signed it “Jenny Blake Isabella.” Here’s that letter:

I’m 74 years old and have lived in Medina for over forty years. I love our charming city, especially because it has shown it can move forward without losing that charm. That is a rare precious quality.

There are two things Medina doesn’t need. It doesn’t need to be a sanctuary city and it most definitely doesn’t need to have an ICE presence, much less welcome that presence.

If Medina has any immigrant problem, it’s that we clearly don’t have enough immigrants to fill all those jobs we see advertised on street signs and elsewhere. Our country was built on willing immigrants to our nation and slaves kidnapped and brought here against their will. Both of these groups have made innumerable contributions to the United States and our lives would be poorer without their genius and hard work. Sadly, the historical truth of those who came here, willingly or unwilling, are downplayed by too many. Indeed, some seek to erase that history.

As for ICE, why would anyone who has witnessed its brutal, cruel and lawless conduct elsewhere want to bring that madness to our city? In its present form, ICE should not be welcome anywhere in the United States.

If our council needs to enact any legislation concerning ICE, it should be to require them to follow the same high standards as our terrific Medina police force. No masks. Wearing name tags. No seizures without real judicial authorization. No absurd shows of force to intimidate people. Being held accountable when they break the law. What is proper for our police force should be the standard for any law enforcement that comes to our city.

And what proof does he have that ICE is nothing but evil and sadistic, yet no illegal migrant could ever be the same? Does he even realize some of the illegal immigrants are ISIS agents? It's very sad but perhaps predictable he'd want to go as far as lionizing illegal immigration too, and one can only wonder if Isabella still believes in any lessons he'd written in past comics that crime doesn't pay. What next, will it turn out he believes Armenians who were persecuted by Azerbaijan should be turned away from the USA and ignored by contrast? There's only so much violent crime committed by illegal immigrants in the past few years alone, and Isabella turns a deaf ear and blind to all of that.

On the subject of masks, Isabella seems unaware there's police anti-terror squads in Europe whose operatives wear ski masks to protect their identities, not because they're some sort of totalitarian enforcement minions. And where does he get the notion ICE's whole purpose is to intimidate people? Certainly not innocents who uphold the law. He also turns his back to ICE officials who were attacked by illegal immigrants and other lawbreakers, and then has the gall to tell us ICE breaks the law? Utterly shameful.

It's head-shaking how somebody like Isabella would even want to work in comicdom's mainstream years before if this is what he believes now, which has the effect of making his past work look like a joke. And now, he even has the gall to do it under an identity politics.

South Park staff continue to explain why they're no longer relevant

Warner Todd Huston at Breitbart says South Park co-creator Trey Parker is boomeranging back on still more cliches attacking Donald Trump:

South Park co-creator Trey Parker once mocked phony accolades for unimpressive people with the phrase “stunning and brave.” Now, he’s become the butt of that very joke, claiming his TV writers face a real threat from the U.S. military with Trump as Commander-in-Chief.

Posing as an oppressed artiste, Parker celebrated how brave he is to oppose Trump — like everyone else in Hollywood — with his long-running cartoon series during his comments as the TV Academy doled out awards to seven TV projects on Wednesday, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

[...] He went on to praise himself and co-creator Matt Stone for their bravery in attacking Trump, saying he and his staff are fearless, “especially this year when we started saying like, ‘OK, so this is the show we’re going to do,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh, OK — that’s gonna really piss some people off.”

He added that one of the reasons he’s so brave is because Trump has soldiers who supposedly would lay siege to their air-conditioned writers’ room.

And what's so brave about censoring the Muhammed cartoons episode they once filmed? Practically nothing, but it's been clear for years Parker and Stone were phonies to begin with, and in the past several months, having been turning out some of the most horrific "jokes" possible:

In recent episodes, the show called Secretary of War Pete Hegseth a “fucking douche,” repeatedly showed Donald Trump having sexual relations with Satan and his own vice president, and even portrayed Trump having an anti-Christ baby with Satan.

I just don't understand what's so funny about "humor" like that. Besides, if they never subjected leftist figures to such "parody", that's telling. Nothing brave about this.

Much like the Simpsons, South Park's been on the air far too long at nearly 3 decades, and it's time it went off the air for a change. Unfortunately, it's apparent they have no intention of stopping, no matter how pathetic South Park's become by this stage.

Mandalorian & Grogu's box office intake is very poor

World of Reel reports the box office gross for the new Mandalorian movie, the first Star Wars related theatrical film in several years and drawing from the TV show, has been very mediocre:

“The Mandalorian & Grogu” is off to a, what you might call, modest but closely watched start at the North American box office, earning about $11-$12M in Thursday night previews after screenings began early at 2 p.m.

That figure trails the $14.1M preview haul of “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” which ultimately opened to $84M over three days and $103M over the four-day Memorial Day frame — numbers considered disappointing for the franchise at the time.

This aligns with $80M 3-day tracking I had mentioned a few weeks ago. It would not be a good performance for a Star Wars movie, an IP that used to tower in Hollywood.

Then, John Nolte at Breitbart followed up on the news with the following:

The Disney Grooming Syndicate’s return to Star Wars feature films has resulted in the lowest opening ever for a Disney Star Wars movie. If you figure inflation in, it’s the lowest opening since 1999.

The Mandalorian and Grogu thudded over the Friday-Saturday-Sunday with just $81 million. With the extra day due to the four-day Memorial Day weekend, it is expected to bellyflop at right around $97 million.

[...] What we can say for a fact is that Disney’s Woke Gestapo killed what had been the case for nearly 50 years, and that was Star Wars as an “event movie.”

Yes, but let's not forget how they took divisive steps 5 years ago by firing and blacklisting Gina Carano from the TV show over her politics. That didn't help the original series' reputation, and if much of the audience simply stopped caring about the Mandalorian based on that, it figures.

If we were to also take one of the official reviews of the film as an example, let's try this one from Sunshine State Cineplex:

Bringing Din Djarin to the big screen seems like a great idea on paper. As an open defender of the series, even as public opinion has seemingly turned against it, The Mandalorian was a breath of fresh air to open up the world around Star Wars. However, The Mandalorian and Grogu has two massive problems that it cannot shake: a lack of stakes and really terrible CGI.

The first is the biggest issue facing the Star Wars franchise as a whole. While scenes with Grogu remain adorable and brilliant, he’s also become something of an overpowered icon. There is zero percent chance that Disney and Lucasfilm will let anything happen to the character. Favreau cannot craft a scene that actually builds tension while Grogu is on screen.

Even with Mando, there are scenes where we could imagine Pascal and the actors who bring the character to life actually face consequences. Instead, as long as Grogu is around, we know that his powers are going to protect Din. There’s a moment that feels like it was ripped from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but because we know Grogu is here to rescue Din, we never actually fear losing the hero.

Sounds like Grogu's little more than a Mary Sue here. Or leads to similar situations for even the star character, played as he is by an actor who's obsessed with divisive leftism. With that kind of approach, no wonder we couldn't expect villains who provide authentic challenges to the hero in the story, combat-based or otherwise. That's what modern storytelling in comics and movies seems to have come down to at times.

If this Mandalorian movie is destined for freefall, I'm not going to care, and as the review hints, the firing of Carano had quite an impact on the series' reception. Unfortunately, there's no chance for now that Disney will ever show any remorse or reevaluate their MO.