Specialty store manager in Ventura County "contracted" to sell classic comics

The Ventura County Star tells about a man in the region who's making a living selling classics like the Action Comics premiere from 1938 "under contract":

The Ventura County comic book store owner sat in economy on a flight to Sarasota, Florida. In the backpack, sheathed in a hard-cased shell insulated by bubble wrap, was an original Action Comics No. 1. Heague is contracted to sell the 1938 comic book that features the first appearance of Superman and also marks the introduction of superheroes.

There are maybe 125 copies in the world. One in near-mint condition, once owned by and stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, sold at auction for $15 million in January.

Action No. 1 is not just a big deal. In the world Heague has been obsessed with since he bought Web of Spiderman and Green Lantern comic books at the age of 8, it is the biggest deal.

“It’s a unicorn. It’s such a rare thing,” Heague said. “What I have – the stores, my very existence – it wouldn’t exist without Action No. 1.”

Heague, the personable architect of a social media network that includes 22,000 Instagram followers and 9,000 on Facebook, owns Arsenal Comics & Games in Newbury Park and Ventura.

Four years ago, the Ventura native negotiated with Marvel for 6,000 copies of “Amazing Spiderman” to be published with a cover featuring the Ventura pier and the landmark two trees that once sat on a hill atop the city. It was his store's biggest-selling book ever.

He writes comics too in genres ranging from horror and superheroes to humor and romance. An Archies book he wrote with co-authors that include actor Patton Oswalt sits for sale in his stores.

With ties across the comic book industry, he's also developed a reputation for selling big-name books, like the publications that marked the first appearance of Spidermen, the X-Men and the Avengers.

A friend connected him to a man who lives outside of California and owns some of the most valuable comics in the world. The collection included an Action No. 1. The man was looking for someone to sell it for him.

Heague, 33, flew to the man’s home. They talked. Heague, who sells facsimiles of Action No. 1 for $9.99, held an original version of the comic book for the first time.

Just so insulting to the intellect how this is a big deal, but not the reprint archives of Superman's past publication history. Instead of talking all about what the Man of Steel was like in the past century, both good and bad, all they can discuss is owning back issues they'll never read, and keep in plastic "slabs" for ages on end. Even fascimiles are nothing to celebrate, seeing how expensive they are at nearly 10 dollars, and the money spent on those could also be reserved for printing more paperback/hardcover archives too.

I'm also not impressed that the merchant went out of his way to arrange for variant covers of Spider-Man boasting the sight of a Ventura location, but wouldn't negotiate for wall paintings that could feature the same scenario to sell at his store. No doubt, the guy doesn't see any problems with increasingly expensive pamphlets either, and if not, that's another serious letdown. And some specialty store owners even do contract work for all this? That too is ludicrous.

In addition to the above news, The PRP also highlighted a musician who's also making a big deal out of owning a back issue of the Action Comics premiere:

System Of A Down drummer John Dolmayan hasn’t only pursued a life-long passion of music with the aforementioned Armenian-American nü-metal stars, he’s also spent decades in the comic books industry. His Torpedo Comics shop in Las Vegas, NV has been featured on ‘Pawn Stars‘ and he’s worked conventions promoting the business, while also creating and launching comic books of his own.

Over the weekend, Dolmayan showcased what may be his most valuable comic, a copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1. That book marked the first appearance of the iconic DC superhero Superman. An 8.5 graded copy of that book sold for $6 million at auction back in April of 2024.

In other words, this guy's the next speculator to buy these classic back issues in circles on the market, just because owning one is such a big deal, and won't be selling it to a museum at all. That's what's wrong with the whole picture here, and again, it's hugely disappointing how the speculator market continues to be fawned over at the expense of merit-based storytelling in the present.

A co-founder of the CBDLF sides with anarchists in Minnesota

The Comics Journal did a very biased interview with Greg Ketter, the owner of a specialty store in Minnesota who was a co-founder of the CBDLF years ago, and what's told here is a very disturbing example of how leftist the magazine and their interviewee are, in how they view divisive issues like illegal immigration, and rioting. They also distort specific facts about 2 antagonists:

In the now-famous protest photo of Greg Ketter by Theia Chatelle, Ketter is poised, tree-like, in mid-stride, his body clouded in mists of tear gas. Moments earlier, he had given the quote to the TV cameras that wrote itself into a part of cultural and political history: “I’m 70 years old, and I’m fucking angry.”

Ketter had come out on that Saturday not to protest, exactly, but to be a part of the Minneapolis community confronting ICE and CPB. He had been drawn out, initially, by the killing of Renée Nicole Good earlier in the month, and when ICU nurse Alex Pretti became the second Minneapolis resident killed by federal authorities in the space of three weeks, Ketter felt compelled to stand with others at the site of the murder. "I got there about an hour after the murder and went right up to the intersection that ICE had taped off and stood guard. There were perhaps 50-100 of them and several hundred observers/protesters milling around. Some were right up front yelling and swearing. I became one of them," Ketter wrote on his Facebook page.

Ketter is a comic shop owner, and a notable one: his shop DreamHaven Books, founded in 1977, is the oldest continuously operating comic shop in Minneapolis, and among the oldest in the United States. And while the extent of national attention has been somewhat new to Ketter – he spent the three days following his appearance on the news fielding interviews with national and local press – it is not the first time he has stepped into the media spotlight. In 1987, he became one of the founders of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and remained on the board of that organization for the next two decades. In 2020, his shop was damaged during the unrest that followed the murder of George Floyd, prompting Ketter to reluctantly open a GoFundMe to support the store’s recovery.

This is easily one of the worst articles I've ever read coming from TCJ, and compounds the far-left vision they appear to go by. From what's been reported, this Good tried to ram an ICE agent with her car, all for the sake of a petty political position. And the agent she attacked had previously been struck by an illegal immigrant who was a child rapist. And Mr. Ketter's taking the side of the anarchists? This is a most embarrassing moment for comicdom and its marketing division. Also notice how the magazine and interviewee also obscure Floyd's disturbing criminal background. And they expect everybody to view them as a serious news source for comicdom? Why, how does being foul-mouthed make one a better person? Here's more from the interview itself, and it's such a groaner:

For people who aren't in Minneapolis, can you try to describe what it's been like, and what it’s like now?

Well, I guess in Minneapolis, we really do care about community. We care about each other, and people have been tremendous about the whole thing. And we like immigrants, overall. I mean, unfortunately there's been news about the fraud and everything else, which was a very tiny percentage of people and a smaller percentage of immigrants, but they happen to be involved and that's a shame. But overall, people are just very pleased that we have the immigrant populations that we have.

How did you kind of get involved in...it feels wrong to call it a protest. But how would you describe what you were doing out there?

I was there for several reasons. For some reason, I wanted to be present. When they killed Renée Good, I went to the memorial that evening, and that was just thousands of people getting together to show respect. And there was a lot of “Fuck ICE,” and everything else going on, but really I think it was just to show support. And Saturday, I went down there because I felt I should be there and I hadn't actually witnessed ICE at all. Amazingly, I hadn't seen any of the things going on. I'd been to other gatherings. I'd been to strategy meetings and things like that, but I hadn't seen ICE itself in the flesh. So I went to watch, to see what was going on.

Had you been involved with any political activism in the past?

A bit. I mean, I was a co-founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which we started in response to prosecution of [the Illinois comic shop] Friendly Frank’s back then. And Denis Kitchen called me, and right away, and we started fundraising, and then we started the permanent CBLDF. I was on the board for the first 20 years, and then I moved on. I've always been a free speech advocate. That's been my main thing.

And what if it turns out that Mr. Ketter vehemently refused to give Mike Baron any backing on his part when the veteran writer of Nexus had to file a lawsuit over a left-wing news site's incitement against him for publishing an indie comic titled Private American? Some "free speech advocate" Mr. Ketter is then. It's clear the CBDLF's operated almost entirely according to their political standings, and that doesn't help at all. Let's also recall the same outfit was also once managed by Charles Brownstein, who was accused of sexual misconduct in the past 2 decades, so it's not like they were ever clean as a whistle even on those particular matters. And then, look how Ketter downplays the Somali Muslim community fraud scandal that was discovered in Minnesota, and no mention made how widespread it's been said to be, with a number of arrests already made. And again, how does repellent profanity make one a better person, or reflect well upon the mob Ketter joined? Based on this, no sane person, in comics or out, should seek the services of the CBDLF with people like him in charge. Mr. Ketter also brought up more of his MO, political or otherwise, and this too is telling:

It’s a bookstore market versus a periodical or a collector’s market.

Right. I try not to cater just to the collector market. I do have collectors comics; I have back issues of certain things. I buy some of them, and we have a decent selection of some older comics, but I don't go out of my way for that. I've been doing underground comics. I've always been into underground comics, and we have the best selection around here, certainly in the Midwest. And I like unusual things.

So do you sell mostly comics these days, or mostly sci-fi prose books?

It's a pretty good mix. LGBTQ+ comics and graphic novels are huge. We're selling everything in that realm. I was just a guest of honor at Gaylaxicon that was put on here: it's a traveling convention for gay science fiction and comics fans. And I'm straight, I've been married for 40 years to a woman, but they made me a guest because I've always been very supportive of the community. But those books are our bestsellers. We're selling lots and lots of good graphic novels.

It wouldn't be shocking if the underground comics he's written have been viciously political too. What are the chances that, in contrast to LGBT causes, he's never been supportive of the Jewish community Stan Lee, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster and Jack Kirby came from? Or even the Armenian community? And where's the sales figures for the LGBT comics he speaks of, or even the GNs? Interestingly, he also says:

Because you sell graphic novels and books, you probably weren't affected by the bankruptcy of Diamond quite as much as other shops.

Not in the same sense. I mean, I never did open up accounts with Lunar or any of those. I would still order DC comics or a few Marvels, and I just gave them up. I just said, "After all this time, I can't order one or two comics from them." I didn't have the volume to order from them, so I didn't bother. And I get almost all my stuff from Ingram now. It used to be Baker and Taylor, but now I get it from Ingram, and I've actually just started buying a few things direct from various publishers. So I guess I have to go back to that. I mean, I've been at this long enough that I used to do that a lot.

Does he mean he hasn't had any luck selling modern DC/Marvel comics? Well at least we know how and why LGBT stories he speaks of eclipsed sales he had of those, in a way. But based on how leftism seems to be his motivation, that's why I can't give him credit for allegedly not relying only on the speculator market. Nor can I really appreciate when he brings up the following:

What do you think made you dial back your involvement with the business as a whole?

Some of it's the disillusionment, like I said: the commodification of some of the comics. I hate multiple covers, and all the variants, and all that kind of stuff. People didn't seem like they were necessarily reading them anymore. They were just accumulating them. I like to have people read.

We're kind of in a residential area. And the neighborhood just loves me, because I have children's books, children's graphic novels. I've been expanding that section all the time.

But does the neighborhood think it's a healthy example to be selling LGBT propaganda in the same store, considering some of it was pushed into school libraries? What if he wants children to read the propaganda, including anything as political as he's taken part in? As for variant covers, hey, I find it hugely dismaying too, how they've become such a norm in marketing, with the worst part being how any company that's specialized in them could be doing it in hopes it'll distract from political propaganda they're turning out. But Mr. Ketter, in all his leftist biases, doesn't seem to dwell on whether that's one of the problems, and that's why his argument rings hollow.

What are the big sellers in that area?

Amulet, the graphic novel series, Phoebe and the Unicorn. Amazingly, Calvin and Hobbes is still one of our bestsellers after all these years. 10 year old boys can't get enough of Calvin and Hobbe. We still sell a lot of Bone. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has picked up again quite a bit for us. I kind of missed the beginning of the trend, but they're doing well now.

You were one of the shops that first sold Eastman and Laird’s initial issue, weren’t you? You got in early on independent comic publishers.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. [And] I had Dave Sim in a couple of times, and he was always supportive. He wanted me to open up a Cerebus-only shop. He insisted that that would work really well: it'd be all Cerebus all the time. And I was like, "I don't think so.” I was there very early on with Elfquest. At the time, I was selling the collections that they were doing, and I had sold more than the entire B. Dalton's chain had sold at the time.

What's that? The same Dave Sim who was mostly shunned by the turn of the century because his work was considered misogynist? Gee, that sure is some "show of responsibility" right there. I thought some of the material I'd found in past years from Cerebus and such by Sim was embarrassingly bad, including an early "parody" of Red Sonja, and if that's the kind of "underground" fare Ketter considers okay, something's terribly wrong here indeed.

With this, the Comics Journal has really clarified what kind of left-wing news source they really are. I wouldn't buy at Mr. Ketter's store even if he offered tons of paperbacks and hardcovers for free if this is the kind of political advocacy he's going to uphold. And all the while, people like him turn their backs on the horror story in Iran, proving just how disrespectful they really are of the messages of the Marvel/DC comics of yesteryear. I don't know about the citizenry of Minnesota, but I will not buy at a specialty store run by somebody like Mr. Ketter. He's only giving the sales segment of comicdom a bad name, and making a case for why specialty stores may be outmoded at this point. What he's espousing is exactly what specialty store managers need to avoid if they don't want to tarnish the reputation of comic stores. And no sensible person should waste money on the CBDLF either.

Brad Meltzer claims comics "shaped his childhood"

Pen America did a fluff-coated interview with the overrated novelist Meltzer, who says just about what one could expect of such a pretentious author:

Mary Higgins Clark once said that writing four-minute radio scripts taught her to write cleanly and succinctly, because every chapter in a suspense novel had to advance the story. Your novels move with a similar sense of economy while still leaving room for rich character detail. How do you balance forward momentum with character development, and is that something you learned over time or something that came instinctively?

I honestly think it came from reading comic books growing up. Every comic is a short chapter and ends on a cliffhanger. That trained me to see a novel the same way: short chapter and cliffhanger, short chapter and cliffhanger. It’s what I prefer as a reader and a writer.

You grew up reading comics and later went on to write them. What did reading and writing comics teach you about shaping a narrative?

See above. It was my Mr. Miyagi. It had me sanding the floor and painting the fence, training me in ways I never understood until it was time to fight Johnny.

Gee, that's awfully easy, to say nothing of corny, stuff he's claiming it helped him shape. Whether he grew up reading comics, he didn't learn any moral lessons from them, as his penning Identity Crisis makes clear, and even his Justice League story from 1996 isn't much better. He certainly didn't understand nothing in terms of morality. So of course, we can't expect him to be much different with his upcoming work for Marvel, especially at this dismal point in history. Besides, look what kind of stories did shape his idea of what and how to write, along with an allusion to politics made here:

Were there any specific comic books or books in general that helped shape the kinds of stories you wanted to tell?

Watchmen by Alan Moore is still my favorite book of all time. Batman: Year One. There were so many. They were all part of what I still love today: you need to have adventure, but, at its core, it needs to add something to the character and say something about our time on this planet. [...]

Much of your work draws on history. How do you think about free expression at a time when access to history itself is increasingly debated or restricted?

Clearly, free expression is as vital as ever. But in my mind, history is like your old, wise grandmother. She never forgets. So yes, there are lots of things to worry about these days. Plenty. But history sees it. And she’s writing it all down.

It's always as fascinating as it's hypocritical how leftists like these make the case for "free expression" and allegedly caring about history when they've done nothing to improve the situation much of the world sunk down to over the past decade alone. Let's recall Meltzer made clear a decade ago he was against Donald Trump. And if he was against Trump then, it's a foregone conclusion he hasn't changed. That aside, history may be writing things down, but leftists like Meltzer are selective, and in Identity Crisis, his idea of history was a left-leaning metaphor for 9-11. And one of the most grating things about his MO is that in some cases, he holds his cards close to his chest in interviews like these, but in the end, his approach to writing says it all.

Also note how he takes the cliched approach of citing dark-leaning stories as inspirations. It clearly played a part in his script for Identity Crisis, and that he may have later penned at least one Superman story in the 1000th issue didn't change that, mainly because, if memory serves, he resorted to forms of wokeness there too. It's very sad how Meltzer continues to be welcomed by the establishment and the MSM without question, and they continue to ask him unchallenging queries in their interviews, leaning entirely in his favor.

Another Image comic, written by leftists, is being adapted to TV

The Hollywood Reporter says Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky's Sex Criminals is being adapted to television, making it the next Image-sponsored comic I know of to have an adaptation of recent for live action:

The Amazon-owned streamer has picked up an eight-episode show based on the acclaimed Image Comics title Sex Criminals by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky. Kumail Nanjiani, Emily V. Gordon (The Big Sick) and Tze Chun (Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai) are co-creators of the series, and Nanjiani is also set for an acting role.

Sex Criminals centers on Suze, “a normal girl with an extraordinary ability: when she has sex, she stops time,” the show’s logline reads. “One night, she meets Jon, who has the same gift. And so they do what any other sex-having, time-stopping couple would do: They rob banks.”

[...] Sex Criminals was first published in 2013 to critical acclaim and earned two Eisner Award nominations. Fraction and his wife and fellow comic writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick, previously had an adaptation of the comic in development at Universal Television in the mid-2010s, but the project didn’t move forward.

Wow, these are some of the most overrated scribes of the past decade or so. And even if this is supposed to be comedy, why must we take pleasure in couples who commit robbery? Or why must we consider it funny? This sounds like another overrated production that spotlights crooks more than heroes too, and that's another problem with modern cinema and TV.

If this is all Image can promote, along with the studios adapting it, no wonder a focus on heroism is sorely lacking by contrast, along with stories that could give sex a more positive name. Sex Criminals certainly doesn't improve on what's gone wrong with modern entertainment.

Neil Gaiman continues his futile defenses

Variety reports the disgraced Neil Gaiman has written one more snoozer of a defense after at least a year since he previously tried to counter the sexual assault accusations made against him by at least 9 women:

“The Sandman” and “Good Omens” author Neil Gaiman released a lengthy statement Monday in which he once again denied sexual misconduct accusations that were originally made against him nearly two years ago.

This marks the first time Gaiman has spoken out about the accusations against him in almost a year, during which time Gaiman had stepped back from the public eye after being dropped from a series of TV and film projects based on his work, including Amazon’s upcoming final season of the “Good Omens” TV adaptation and the streamer’s new “Anansi Boys” TV series, press for last year’s final season of Netflix’s “The Sandman,” and development shutting down “The Graveyard Book” movie at Disney.

In his new statement, Gaiman says there was a “smear campaign” waged against him and that “actual evidence was dismissed or ignored” during this time.

[...] In a court declaration, Gaiman stated that he and Pavlovich had bathed together and engaged in consensual sexual activity, but that they did not have intercourse. He denied the lurid rape and abuse allegations raised in the lawsuit.

Surely that isn't a contradiction? Sexual activity is intercourse, so what's his pathetic point? Nothing new under the sun here. If he's not willing to attend Scarlett Pavlovich's lawsuit if it does go ahead, whether in New Zealand or the USA, he's not proving he's willing to prove his side in court. But he sure is desperate to find anybody willin to defend him. According to the Los Angeles Times:

Gaiman’s most recent statement comes just days after an unidentified Substack user who goes by TechnoPathology posted the latest in a series of articles over the last year defending the fantasy author.

Gaiman claimed he hasn’t been in contact with the anonymous user but would “like to thank them personally for actually looking at the evidence and reporting what they found, which is not what anyone else had done.”

He said “the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored” by most reporting, including “mountains” of “emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict” the claims.

The author also announced in the statement that he’s been working on a book throughout the “strange, turbulent and occasionally nightmarish year and a half.” The project is his longest since the 450-plus-page “American Gods,” he said.

I wonder if the Substack writer is Gaiman himself? Reliance on an anonymous/pseudonymous source doesn't hold up well, because anybody could set up a site serving as apologia, and it doesn't automatically confirm innocence or guilt. And who does Gaiman expect will buy the new book he claims to have written in mass numbers? Perhaps he's hoping any addicts he still has left lacking a moral compass will buy a few copies, hoping even just a handful will provide "proof" virtually everybody's still finding a thrill with his books, comics and film/TV adaptations? And even then, what self-respecting publisher will make a printing agreement with him? That's something he certainly hasn't clearly addressed. It's worth considering that, when the awful Gerard Jones was working on a book writing deal, it was cancelled soon after his arrest on child porn charges. I remember that the title Jones' book was said to have had was "A Nation of Faith and Flesh: the Moral War that Shaped America", as if he couldn't have been hypocritical enough. I'm sure nothing of value was lost when his publishing arrangement was canned.

Anyway, I think Gaiman would do well to just stop blabbering and perhaps go into seclusion for many years now. His comics were worthless and overrated, and I'm sure his novels are too. And he's not doing any good by keeping on with his pitiful defenses. If Pavlovich's lawsuit goes to court officially, and Gaiman's other victims choose to testify, he'd best attend the proceedings and prove himself on public record. His continued refusal so far won't salvage his now tattered reputation.

Will Eisner's IP is now for sale, and it's a mistake doing so

The New York Times (archive link) says the creations of cartoonist Will Eisner are now being sold by his family/estate:

When Will Eisner’s “A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories” hit shelves in 1978, it attracted literary attention to comics and helped popularize the term “graphic novel.” Now it’s on sale, along with rights to the rest of Eisner’s intellectual property.

Up for grabs are Eisner’s graphic novels, children’s books and instruction manuals for creating comics. Also included in the sale are the many characters he created, most notably the Spirit, the influential masked crime fighter who debuted in 1940 and featured in stories that are noteworthy for their moral realism, mature themes, genre fluidity and inventive page design.

Eisner’s last work featuring the Spirit, a 72-page story from 1996 called “The Spirit Returns,” was never published. It, too, is up for sale.

Eisner died in 2005, followed by his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, in 2020. Since then, Carl Gropper, Ann’s nephew, and his wife, Nancy Gropper, have run the estate. Now in their 70s, they hope to find a buyer eager to keep Eisner’s work, especially the Spirit, in the public eye.

“We expect either a movie or an animated feature, we hope, in the future,” Mr. Gropper said.

The family is aware that the Spirit’s 2008 sojourn to the big screen did not fare well despite its comics world star power. “The Spirit,” written and directed by a fellow comics innovator, Frank Miller, had an estimated budget of $60 million but earned less than $40 million worldwide.

It's already old news for realists who keep track of the medium that Miller's an otherwise overrated writer/artist, so that he could botch the production as badly as he did is probably no surprise. And that's not the only failed adaptation of Eisner's work. In 1984, there was a film adaptation of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, another of Eisner's early creations from 1938 that didn't fare well either, and I think there was a made-for-TV adaptation of the Spirit 3 years later that fared no better as television fare. Eisner's comics may make great pastimes, but they haven't amounted to good movies or TV programs, unfortunately.

Regardless of that, his family/estate owners are making a sad mistake to sell off his stuff, because in this woke age, who knows how badly it'd be desecrated if it ends up being sold to a conglomerate? On which note, DC published comics based on the Spirit nearly 2 decades ago, which were nowhere as good as what came before, and are tainted by having the disgraced Justiniano as an artist on several issues. What if whatever's still under Eisner's estate is sold to DC/WB in their current leftist form? So long as DC's output is corporately owned, it's clear it won't be good.

Surely most telling is that Eisner's relatives may be trying to sell off his IPs now for the sake of movie and cartoon adaptations. Well that's insulting to the intellect, and if it's all they care about, then it'd be better if his IPs became public domain, and of course there's publishers who could always ensure they'll continue to see publication. That said, it's not hard to guess there's quite a few leftists today who don't respect Eisner's work, not even the award ceremony named after him, considering what kind of stuff they choose for giving prizes too nowadays, and that's one more reason why it's a terrible shame such a fine artist not only had his work slighted, it's bound to continue getting worse if his relatives don't at the very least sell wisely.

Comics from India keep up with changing times, and publishers respect suitability for children

France24 wrote about India's comics, which draw from early local mythologies:

Nearly six decades later, the comic, known simply as ACK and meaning "immortal illustrated stories", is still holding its ground in an era ruled by smartphones and streaming television.

Founded by storyteller Anant Pai after he noticed children on a quiz show knew more about Greek gods than their own mythological heroes, ACK quickly became a cultural touchstone.

Its titles, from tales of Hindu deities to biographies of freedom fighters, sold in the millions and were translated into multiple regional languages. [...]

Production depends on the same painstaking research, writing and colouring, although some images of deities have evolved.

"We used to have a very slender Ram, a very slender Shiva, drawn lovingly by artists who drew by hand," said Puri, 68, who has been with ACK for 34 years.

"Today the artists... give them six-pack abs and muscles."

Not all fans love the makeover, but Puri said times change.

"Children today are not used to that old kind of art," Puri said. "We have to adapt to what the children want."

Storytelling has also shifted.

"If, earlier, we used to show the man sitting with a newspaper, and the woman sweeping the floor or cooking food, that's changed," she added.

"It could be the woman sitting and reading a book, and the man gets her a cup of tea."

That's okay, because even women need a rest and a good cup of tea or coffee. That doesn't mean it's wrong, however, to draw a woman doing household chores, but perhaps a balance of both men and women doing housework could be helpful. One other thing that's amazing about this history item is the following:

But one frontier is firmly off‑limits: artificial intelligence.

"Art is to be respected, a writer's work is to be respected", Puri said.

Comic designer Srinath Malolan, 24, who grew up reading ACK in his school library, said the human-made process ensures content remains safe for children.

"The internet can create whatever it wants... we have meticulously looked at what we are giving the kids," Malolan said.

Wow, that's showing a lot more responsibility than what's been seen in the west this past decade or more. Obviously, if you know where to look in the east, there's respect for family and parental values in retaining good taste. I'm sure even in the west, these comics could resonate, so let's hope the publishers make an effort to market them in the USA too, if they haven't done so yet.