EXTRA EXTRA! SUBSTACK SMELLS
Was I surprised at the high profile signings Substack revealed on Monday in the New York Times? Absolutely not. I am a high-powered mover and shaker in the comic book industry, a trendsetter always on the lookout, the very vanguard of the vanguard, plus I’m cool, and also I’m very smart. Getting imitators is just more proof that I’m correct, which I already knew, from being correct all the time. I’ve laid out my credentials all over the past seven months of this newsletter being a thing. I need you to understand this so you can understand the following: I joined Substack before it was cool to do so in comics, and I left Substack before it was cool to do so in comics. I don’t believe in Substack, and I don’t believe in comics on Substack. Allow me to run the case down for you:
THE BULK OF THE BUSINESS IS STILL IN STORES
Last weekend, the two current heads of DC Comics, Senior VP and General Manager Daniel Cherry III and Chief Creative Officer Jim Lee, gave an interview to the Hollywood Reporter in which they talked about the year that has been, as well as their plans for the future. There are no earth-shattering announcements in there, nor is there anything that would surprise anyone that’s been paying attention (hi) but it is worth looking at to see what the leadership at DC is saying about the comic book market to the rest of the entertainment industry, especially when it comes to the digital market that Substack is launching in. Basically, they confirm what we already knew from the data in the ICv2-Comichron Comics Sales Report for 2020: however you define the industry, whether or not that includes Reina Telgemeier, Dav Pilkey, or Demon Slayer along your standard Big Two fare, digital comics are only a small fraction of this billion-dollar pie.
If you want to meet the people where they are, which I believe to be a requirement if Substack is ever to make good on the substantial advances they have paid out as part of their deals, graphic novels seem to be where it’s at. Unfortunately for them, all the content that is made for Substack is creator-owned, meaning that, when the books get released via traditional channels, they will not see a penny of it. Now, you could argue that comparing Substack’s offer to the current landscape of digital comics is irrelevant, because Substack is an entirely new kind of delivery mechanism for content. My answer to that argument is simply this: so were Juicero and Quibi.
I DON’T THINK THEY KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING
Despite (or because, depending on how you see it) getting Secret Empire’s own Nick Spencer to seek out “partnerships” in and around the comic book industry, everything about the way Substack have been running their comic book business has felt amateurish at best. As per James Tynion IV’s own newsletter, they have not figured out a format or a delivery mechanism for their stories, nor have they come up with a technological solution to read any of the fiction they host in a set order. That part is baffling, but not worrying on its own. Where I start to get serious concerns is in the way Substack is actually running this business.
Consider for a moment the lineup of talent that they have announced so far: alongside the aforementioned James Tynion IV, there’s Saladin Ahmed, Johnathan Hickman, Molly Ostertag, Scott Snyder, and Skottie Young. All of them are either writers or artists that write their own stuff. By Substack’s own admission, all their lucrative Substack Pro deals are directed at writers, who then own the material created, and act as publishers, cutting deals with the artists (with Nick Spencer and his team helping to put the deals together). Materialistically and philosophically, this approach of treating the writer as the sole creative force behind a comic’s direction is incredibly thorny.
On the philosophical side, it’s plainly and simply wrong: Batman would not be the hottest superhero comic on the shelves without Jorge Jimenez’s incredible design sense, and, for all the ambition of its big plans, the main attraction of the X-Men books in 2021 is Pepe Larraz pushing the boundaries of sequential storytelling with a strength unseen since the days of Frank Quitely. On the material side, well, considering how important they are to the way a comic is, artists are entitled to a seat at the table, and the cold hard cash they stand to make from sitting there. It’s only been a couple of weeks since we, ALLEGEDLY, saw the kind of bullshit that can go on when one party in the writer/artist relationship holds all the cards. I don’t care for it, and I don’t think anyone that cares for the welfare of all people in this industry does either.
ALSO: IT’S SUBSTACK
Once you’re past those two hurdles, you arrive at the same final point I arrived at all those months ago, too big and too glaring to ignore, even after signing a six-figure deal. Substack, as a company, is completely fucking evil and no one with even a shred of empathy for humanity as a whole should be in business with them. This is the company that has, for the past several years, looked the other way as Graham Linehan has grown increasingly unhinged in his violence against trans people. This is the company that had to be dragged kicking and screaming into even admitting that, through the Substack Pro program, they were giving undisclosed amounts of money to writers that they picked themselves. Masquerading their blatantly editorial decisions behind the fig leaf of “business”, they have not disclosed the names of the people they are funding. Among those who did fess up to making a deal with Substack, you’ll find a veritable rogues’ gallery of reactionaries of every stripe, complimenting their versions of violence against trans people with the usual right-wing canards of “cancel culture run amok”, “what should we do about the cancel culture question”, and of course, “the biggest threat to the world right now, top of the list, is cancel culture”. This is the company that has just acquired Letter, a company with even more reactionary writers doing the exact same thing, just formatted differently.
Directly or indirectly, any content you put on Substack goes towards funding a large-scale idea laundering operation, where venture capital billionaires ghouls get to pretend whatever little thought popping out from their genocidal id is thought-provoking or worthy of any kind of debate whatsoever. They want to buy credibility, and some writers are all too fine selling it. And all the while, Substack CEO Chris Best quips about “defunding the thought police”. It is an entirely monstrous company to associate yourself with, and that’s what got me to bail. But by all means, do not take my word for it. Molly Ostertag has already announced that she’ll be giving away the proceeds she’ll be making from subscriptions to her newsletter to several charities, on a rotating basis.
Substack is a uniquely toxic work environment. Based on everything that they have done so far, this is only going to get worse. I wouldn’t stake my future on a platform that’s quickly becoming a go-to place for the hate screeds of the media class. More importantly, I wouldn’t stake the future of the comic book industry on that same platform. Based on the facts that are available to me, I think comics on Substack are going to fail, and I wish for them to fail. Then again, what do I know, I’m only the best one to have ever done it.
HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS: I BURN BRIDGES JUST TO FEEL MAAAAN
I don’t know that there’s much to say about Rorschach #11, but, for the sake of completeness, I’ll give it a try. The facts of the case have been laid out, the story has been told, and now all that remains to tell is the story of the story. Really, it’s the story of the stories, plural, as every plot thread in the book comes together for the final revelation. Critical bits of truth bring down the conspiracies that brought the detective to his present here and now, and, with apocalyptic clarity, seeing the good and the evil of it all, he must make a decision. It’s the hardest issue yet, and Jorge Fornes does an incredible job selling the emotion of it all, the conflict, the pain, and the determination that haunt the piece’s central character. Adding to the torment, the stories weave in and out from one panel to the next, creating a powerful feeling of frenzied confusion, but still maintaining clarity thanks to Dave Stewart’s stellar as always coloring work holding it all together.
This excellence allows Tom King to make his final philosophical argument plain, and his influences clear. This is where we quote Hannah Arendt, this is where we bring up Eichmann in Jerusalem, this is where we consider the reasons why people do what they do. Tom King is a storyteller, and at this particular juncture in his career, he’s interested in the stories we tell about ourselves, and how we act on those stories (Strange Adventures is part of that same cycle and it’s well worth reading as a companion piece.) But what do you do when you realize that the story you tell yourself about the world is just that, a story, and that it could just as well be a completely different story? How do you react in the face of that particular Armageddon? What would Rorschach do? Here’s a picture. What do you see?
A quick word of warning: you need to read everything I’m about to say in the next few sentences with a heavy grain of salt, because, while Defenders #1 is one of the finest books released all year, it’s drop-dead gorgeous, it’s got the characters just right and its intrigue at the heart of the cosmos, teased all the way back in Marvel Comics #1000 and earlier, excites me in the way few things not bringing up the words “transmatter symphonic array” do, I am an absolute Defenders fanboy through and through, and everything I’ve ever done, including THE VERY NEWSLETTER YOU HAVE BEEN READING ALL THIS TIME, is colored by that fact. Read the criticism I have of this first issue like the petulant demands of a pampered child who got everything he has ever dreamed of, and remember that, underneath it all, I loved this comic.
The absolutely and completely fake problem I have is that a lot of this first issue is spent on setup and justifications for the Defenders to be a thing, when the Defenders don’t need an excuse to be a thing. They’re the single greatest not a team in the history of comics! They punch mystery in the face and they protect reality against the impossible! I don’t need the recaps, I don’t need the history lessons, I just want the wonder and the majesty and the mystery! Also it should be an ongoing book! There should always be a Defenders ongoing, and it should always be this good! I want more of it! I want it now! The Defenders are cool! Stop acting they’re not cool!
The thing about I Am Batman #0 is that it’s not a great comic. Even surrounded by the near-future drama of Future State, it retains too much “hero origin story” cliché beats to feel like its own thing. It’s about a guy who found his resolve and tries to do things his way, but wouldn’t you know it, his inexperience leads to things going wrong and he needs to look for a new approach, which might just be crazy enough to work. You’ve read a dozen comics exactly like this one, and some of those didn’t have Travel Foreman’s pencils, stuck in uninteresting layouts and getting marred with a gradient barf symptomatic of a form of modern coloring that has never meshed with Foreman’s style.
And yet, it’s an interesting comic, because it exists in conversation with the rest of John Ridley’s DC work, specifically The Other History of the DC Universe. It’s centered on Jace Fox, the Next Batman, but it makes time to check in on Renee Montoya, now Gotham PD’s commissionner, and it namechecks Tatsu Yamashiro as one of the influential people in Fox’s life. Those perspectives, and the ways in which they inform what’s going on, especially with the loaded imagery of cops and protests at the center of the issue’s event, add something to the issue in some ways that are worth thinking about. I just wish the book did anything more interesting, visually or thematically, to make it all work.
Finally: I have no idea what the deal is with that Pennyworth television show, beyond the fact it looked kinda dumb, but holy moly, Pennyworth #1 was just a good time. It’s a big goofy cold war spy comic heavy on the pulp, with all the Cool Tradecraft moves, the charming as all hell characters doing high-stakes capers, and a nice thick slice of pure comic book nonsense. It’s all the globe-trotting action and thrills that are part of a balanced fiction diet, served with great panache. I didn’t expect that from a comic based on the television show I’ve never watched or cared about, and those surprises are always nice.
And I’m going to call it RIGHT THERE before ANY OTHER ANNOUNCEMENT DROPS! Chip Zdarsky announced he was in right as I was finishing this, so I’m not taking any more risks and I’m dropping earlier than usual! I think taking my time with these works out better but needs must! Substack can go to hell, you can go and subscribe! Subscribe and tell your friends to subscribe! My newsletter is cool and good and not participating in hate! I love you! HUMBLE YOURSELF BEFORE COMICS!