Monday, March 5, 2018

'ALT-HERO' COMICS ON A DEATH SPIRAL

      Just as we predicted only late last year, Vox Day and his cult would fail in their attempts to co-opt the comics industry. As a sign of the impending decline, Vox announced with considerable arm-flapping that retailers are now selling his propaganda "at 24.5% less than the top 300 best-selling comics." He also promised---as he has with previous failures---that "the deluge is coming!" The deluge of bankruptcy attorneys and creditors, most likely. 




       What kinds of products do booksellers typical mark-down? Usually either publishers' overstocks or unpopular material that they can't otherwise sell. The reason that the top 300 comic books cost more is because customers will pay more for them and the lower-ranked stuff is cheap because it either sells at a loss or goes to the recycle-bin as a tax write-off.

         The guy just doesn't understand market forces. Or much of anything else, for that matter. And it's a bit ironic anyway, considering that just a few months ago he told us that "Comic shops are going out of business left and right, so we see no need to pay any attention to them at all."

         This is what happens when people on the Right try to use the tactics of the Left: it always backfires. Take for example an ABC television show called The Real O'Neills. The show was conceived by a Catholic-hating homosexual named Dan Savage. The first few episodes got high ratings because they were'edgy' and 'controversial'; but the rest ended up losing advertisers and had to be subsidized. Why? Because after the initial shock-value wore off, the only viewers interested in its message were other Catholic-hating homosexuals.

           It's the same dynamic with 'Alt-Hero'. Vox miscalculated by thinking that the grovelling flatterers who fawn over him in the comments' sections of his blogs are representative of Mainstream America. Once the political incorrectness of 'Alt-Hero' stopped "triggering SJW's," nobody cared. Vox was actually half-right; in that consumers of contemporary comics are disgusted with its content; but that's because of bad writing and overt politicizing. Vox' mistake was throwing more bad writing and overt politicizing into the mix. 




         In case everyone has forgotten here: comic books are a literary form of escapist entertainment. People of all ages read them to relax and identify vicariously with heroes---not to be triggered and lectured by social engineers or political reactionaries. This is how the NFL sabotaged itself: with anthem-protests and other PC pandering at an audience trying to get away from that nonsense for a few hours on Sunday.

         The comics industry overcame a similar problem during the early 1960's and solved it with some innovative, out-of-the-box thinking. That's what it's going to take to turn it around again. 




        

        

       

5 comments:

  1. "This is what happens when people on the Right try to use the tactics of the Left: it always backfires."

    Thanks for stating that. I'm really bothered by people whom claim that having the moral upper hand doesn't matter, especially Christian people or I should say, alleged Christian people. Vox is still at it again today,trying to claim that the moral upper hand is irrelevant. If he weren't so blinded by his own ego, he would grasp that one reason why people like comic books is because they deal with the power inherent in having the moral upper hand. Heroes are made, battles fought, and the good guys always win. There is no such thing as a good guy using bad tactics, rejecting the importance of preserving the moral upper hand because that just makes you another bad guy. We tend to read comic books for recreation, relaxation, but also because they inspire our higher selves, they help us to imagine what virtue, morality, the "good guys" actually look like. If VD is as confused about his comic books as he is about his politics and his understanding of morality, they are indeed, doomed to fail.

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    1. Yes, he's been claiming that the moral high-ground is irrelevant for some time. For people on the Right to take that position implies that they believe that people need to be manipulated for their own good. That's makes them just as bad as the Left.

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  2. You seem quite delusional and desperate to attempt to distort reality in a way that comforts your feeble mind. The stores are not marking down his comics because they are not selling, rather that one of the goals of his venture was to grow the market for comics (which have been devastated by loonies like you), and it was a deliberate effort to attempt to bring down the price of Alt Hero to a more affordable figure (thus actually doing something positive for the consumer, unlike anything you have ever done, despite your constant efforts to artifically inflate your self-esteem with trivial and trendy social justice activites). Vox explains this in several interviews, in which he describes the current scenerio of the comic distribution model in which distribution companies like Diamond are taking 20%+ at the point of sale (I dont remember the exact figure), and he will be bypassing the distributors like Diamond and passing on the savings to the customer.

    Why am I ever writing this ? I've already spent too much time for someone that does not care for the truth.

    To any sane unbiased websurfer, Just look at the real world vs the bullshit you see written here...

    If Vox doesnt understand market forces, how the fuck has he been running a succesful game company, a book publshing company, written and published multiple succesful novels, and now raised over 1,000% of his $25,000 goal to introduce a new comic. Apparently he is also starting a new comic book publshing company, that will sell in house and third party comics. It is almost as if authoritarian freaks like you have grown accustomed to throwing a public temper tantrum and having companies give in to whatever whimsical and fabricated ethical violation of the day is, so much so that you think that you can change the actual material world by just crying and waxing on about out a narrative you so desperately wish to be true. Fortunately, for the rest of the sane and well minded world, what you believe does not change the truth. When the worlds realities collide with the fraily of our humanity, individuals with wisdom and fortitude will do their best to adapt himself to the world and negotiate a positive outcome; for SJWs, they try to force the world to adapt to their weakness.

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  3. "You seem quite delusional and desperate to attempt to distort reality in a way that comforts your feeble mind."

    Vox is actually a small and somewhat unintelligent man with a special knack for brainwashing people into believing the subjective truth of his own perceptions really IS reality. He is much like a cult leader that way and quite predictable. For example, his followers will always use the words "delusional" and "feeble-minded" when attempting to defend him. I call it the "imprint of Vox."

    The sad thing is that Vox is neither successful, intelligent, or good, it is just that people are foolish and more gullible than I once believed, so they are easily deceived by those who know how to tickle their ears.

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    1. "That's a tell-tale Gamma sign. When men accuse others of 'rants' and 'tantrums' it is a projection of their own Gamma rage."---Vox Day.

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