Right now I am watching two huge industries crumble. Comic Books and News. It's been a long time coming, for both of them. The beginning of their end was in the early 90s and it's been a slow slide down a very steep grade that they themselves made.
I've been avidly watching them. While rooting for comic books, every decision they have made since the late 90s was a huge sign post as the direction they were headed. When you begin telling your customers who buy your book that they don't make books for YOU, then yeah, you're headed to the curb. Two weeks of store closings and the entire industry has collapsed. Now their sole distributor, that they went to bat for in the 90s in an anti-trust investigation, has folded and they have no way to get their books to the comic book stores which are the ONLY places you can get new comic books, which makes sense send there were barely enough stores open to keep the industry crawling as it was before the Wu Flu. So, even if there are stores that will be re-opening over the next few weeks and months, they will get no new product because Marvel and DC thought it was a really good idea to put all of their eggs in Diamond Distributors basket.
One huge bad decision has not only crippled the industry, but an industry in decline? They won't be back. Disney and Warner Bros. will definitely axe Marvel and DC when all is said and done because they are hemorrhaging money in an industry where entitled, self-absorbed babies have been spoiled for the past twenty-five years and are now getting a harsh dose of reality. Personalities such as Heather Antos and Gail Simone won't have anywhere to go. Better thin up those thighs for the stroll girls. That's where you go when you've got nothing else to sell. Talentless hacks like Mark Waid had best start greasing up their sphincters because they put everything into an industry that they, themselves, have burned down.
There will be no Marvel phases at Disney. There is so much financial trouble there they will look to close down Marvel Comics and survive on IP, but it won't be there. Warner Brothers was looking to sell DC two years ago and they still were before all of this.
They were warned. It's not been a secret. I know I was discussing this in the early Naughties, but no one wanted to listen. So I shrugged, and spent my money elsewhere. D&D books must be bought. I have never been one to hang on dead things out of sentimentality.
For the News Industry. Oh, I've been ringing this bell since the Bork Hearings. This was a huge signal to me that you could not trust the media. ANY media. I read the news, and then I start digging and I must be able to find, through my own sources, at least two people who can credibly corroborate any given "unnamed source" supposedly tells them. In the 30 years since, I've finally come to realize that the unnamed source is some drunk at some bar or some Twidiot giving voice to their most vapid paranoid fantasies and someone shrugs and thinks, "Oh, that'll get a click".
News these days is all about those Facebook and Twatter clicks. I don't do it. I don't click through. Ever. When I do get something, I archive it. Because, if the lie is noticed, you know that story will change with no notices given. Sort of like the fucks given when they screw up in such an epic manner. Think the NYT and the Kavanaugh vs Biden stories.
I can only tell you that there has never been a group of more deserving people than those in the Comic Book and News businesses. That is why so many of us have made bowls of popcorn, grabbed some soda and we're watching as they go down clawing each other, stabbing each other in the back and screaming like a two year old denied a candy bar in the grocery store check out aisle.
The fact that they have called us names, insulted us, and told us we have no right to judge them on their seats on Olympus, only makes it more hilarious as they fall from their lofty pedestals. All of them have sat for years reading and believing their own press and their own fluffers. Now, all of a sudden there is nothing between them and reality and they don't like it.
Oh sweetie, enjoy the ride down. You are going to get exactly what you deserve.
I've been avidly watching them. While rooting for comic books, every decision they have made since the late 90s was a huge sign post as the direction they were headed. When you begin telling your customers who buy your book that they don't make books for YOU, then yeah, you're headed to the curb. Two weeks of store closings and the entire industry has collapsed. Now their sole distributor, that they went to bat for in the 90s in an anti-trust investigation, has folded and they have no way to get their books to the comic book stores which are the ONLY places you can get new comic books, which makes sense send there were barely enough stores open to keep the industry crawling as it was before the Wu Flu. So, even if there are stores that will be re-opening over the next few weeks and months, they will get no new product because Marvel and DC thought it was a really good idea to put all of their eggs in Diamond Distributors basket.
One huge bad decision has not only crippled the industry, but an industry in decline? They won't be back. Disney and Warner Bros. will definitely axe Marvel and DC when all is said and done because they are hemorrhaging money in an industry where entitled, self-absorbed babies have been spoiled for the past twenty-five years and are now getting a harsh dose of reality. Personalities such as Heather Antos and Gail Simone won't have anywhere to go. Better thin up those thighs for the stroll girls. That's where you go when you've got nothing else to sell. Talentless hacks like Mark Waid had best start greasing up their sphincters because they put everything into an industry that they, themselves, have burned down.
There will be no Marvel phases at Disney. There is so much financial trouble there they will look to close down Marvel Comics and survive on IP, but it won't be there. Warner Brothers was looking to sell DC two years ago and they still were before all of this.
They were warned. It's not been a secret. I know I was discussing this in the early Naughties, but no one wanted to listen. So I shrugged, and spent my money elsewhere. D&D books must be bought. I have never been one to hang on dead things out of sentimentality.
For the News Industry. Oh, I've been ringing this bell since the Bork Hearings. This was a huge signal to me that you could not trust the media. ANY media. I read the news, and then I start digging and I must be able to find, through my own sources, at least two people who can credibly corroborate any given "unnamed source" supposedly tells them. In the 30 years since, I've finally come to realize that the unnamed source is some drunk at some bar or some Twidiot giving voice to their most vapid paranoid fantasies and someone shrugs and thinks, "Oh, that'll get a click".
News these days is all about those Facebook and Twatter clicks. I don't do it. I don't click through. Ever. When I do get something, I archive it. Because, if the lie is noticed, you know that story will change with no notices given. Sort of like the fucks given when they screw up in such an epic manner. Think the NYT and the Kavanaugh vs Biden stories.
I can only tell you that there has never been a group of more deserving people than those in the Comic Book and News businesses. That is why so many of us have made bowls of popcorn, grabbed some soda and we're watching as they go down clawing each other, stabbing each other in the back and screaming like a two year old denied a candy bar in the grocery store check out aisle.
The fact that they have called us names, insulted us, and told us we have no right to judge them on their seats on Olympus, only makes it more hilarious as they fall from their lofty pedestals. All of them have sat for years reading and believing their own press and their own fluffers. Now, all of a sudden there is nothing between them and reality and they don't like it.
Oh sweetie, enjoy the ride down. You are going to get exactly what you deserve.
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