09/17/2021 - COMICARTISTPRO SECRETS - COMICSGATE DEBATE! Is ComicsGate Valid? Taylor C. Mitchell vs. EVS!
It's been a long time since Frog (or any Comicsgater) has engaged with any leftist, but for some reason this has been changing lately. Guys like Billy Tucci, perhaps unaware of the reality in which he's stepped foot, recently ran a livestream titled "
BROFESSIONALS: COMIC INDUSTRY MEDIA BLACKLIST ON CG SUCCESS?" (presumably this also includes Billy Tucci), asking why CG comics aren't receiving the journalistic accolades for their success that they should. Somewhat nervously, long-time CGer Art Thibert tried to vaguely inform his fellow "Brofessional" boomers like Andy Smith and Tucci that Comicsgate was not always as sedate as it is right now. That if they had seen some of the shit he was around for in the beginning, that avoidance by comics journalists would not be so bewildering. At the same time, new aspiring anti-anti-SJW youtube grifters like Forced Adversity have entered the scene as well, feeling they can start their breadtubing careers specializing in the untapped content that his Comicsgate and uploading many insightful videos along the vein of "did you know Ya Boi Zack's comics are late? I just heard of this lately. In any case, this proves all of Comicsgate is a grift".
Whatever the cause, there definitely seems to be a push from newer arrivals from both sides of the fence for Comicsgate to lower the North Korea-style isolation and re-engage with beardy weirdos like Dan Shahin, Jason Youngbluth, Dane Whitman or Rich Johnston.
And with that, Frog has invited
Taylor C Mitchell, unsuccessful comics/breadtuber to come on and debate whether "Comicsgate is valid". Frog lays out the story of how the two of them came to this debate - Frog searches his name on social media frequently, and Taylor was of the few critics who has not resorted to misspelling Frog's name or inserting asterisks into the name to escape his watchful eye. Taylor explains that he watched some of Frog's debates in the past and said that he wasn't going to resort to the common complain of myopically focusing on a single tweet and promising he'll be contesting a number of substantial issues.
The first is contesting Frog's usual rebuttal to reported growth in the comic book industry that is attributed to Dogman and Catboy comics, which Taylor disagrees with; Frog refers to a Comichron statistic that graphic novels during 2020 grew 9% while periodicals (floppies) decreased 20% which sets off a dry discussion of industry sales numbers. However he didn't have the numbers handy, which Taylor deftly leverages to get out of this discussion of the health of periodicals as a whole to bring up a point about how the #1 issue for July 2020,
Venom #25, (a floppy) sold 285,000 copies, nearly doubling the sales of Johns/Van Sciver's
Green Lantern: Rebirth #1 (also a floppy). I'm not sure what this intended to prove (since Green Lantern was hardly an A-list property when the pair received it and subsequently had multiple reprintings because of its popular reception) but on the other hand neither did Frog, who scrambles a counterargument something about incentive variant covers. Mitchell points out that Venom #25 had a second printing commissioned, which does rebut the incentive variant rhetoric. This segues into Mitchell bringing up that Emelie Clark's pube-powered superheroine
M.O.M was laughed at at Frog but did hit #7 on sales, and aren't sales good? And that BRZRKR celebrity comic, isn't that doing good? Surely positive examples like these two are representative of the overall health of the 44,000 comics tracked by BookScan, no?
Frog brushes off (or more accurately, ignored) this argument to retread the concept of predatory publishing; where the speculator market for rare and collectible comics is exploited by publishers by printing out variant covers and selling them at a ratio to retailers contingent on how many they order. For example, for every 50 copies of X-Men #1 that is ordered, they'll get a rare Jim Lee variant or whatever, resulting in a boom of orders that is increasingly non-representative of the number of customers actually ordering it, and proceeds to question touting the relative success of sales within the existing comic book industry when the IPs represented, like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Star Wars, are ubiquitous and a household name to billions. By that standard, comics about Star Wars selling at most 100,000 copies is hardly anything to brag about. Mitchell cites another singular example of a floppy (Moon Knight) doing well and the debate devolves into crosstalk with Mitchell arguing that because Moon Knight #1 (2020) is outselling Green Lantern: Rebirth #1 in 2005 the industry is therefore doing better, and Frog ranting about incentive variants. This is broken up by seguing into the 20% growth of graphic novels, with Frog arguing that this is due to manga and YA/children's graphic novels being factored into that total.
"But aren't people buying YA and manga good for comics?" asks Taylor Mitchell, Frog contends it's good for retailers, but imports taking away the customer base is hardly good news for American comic book creators or fans of that niche of comics. Mitchell returns to the success of Donny Cates'
Venom as proof people
do buy SJW comics, but Frog argues that while Cates is an SJW, the content of Venom is not and instead points to
I am Not Starfire and
New Warriors as examples of "SJW comics".
Mitchell next asks how can Frog know they are "SJW comics" if he has not read them, to which Frog replies it's a point of pride that he doesn't read that crap - these people should come to him to convince him to read a comic about a fat goth dumptruck. Mitchell argues that in order to determine if this content is 'SJW' or 'soy' or not, he has to have read it for his cultural criticism to be valid; Frog says no such requirements are needed to point at the obvious like 'Snowflake and Safespace' and laugh. The SJW-ness of this fare is inherent and self-evident. Next is something about Gay Robin and how that stunt marketing was successful, which Mitchell argues proves progressive activism in comics is finacially viable, sort of like when Jim Starlin proved beating Robin to death with a crowbar was financially viable.
A brief recess is held to discuss this frog and if it is a white supremacist frog, detailing particulars about frog anatomy Taylor Mitchell objects to the characterization of him as a volatile progressive reactionary.
Next Mitchell argues that the portrayal of the Clinton Scandal in
Cyberfrog: Bloodhoney was politically charged, but this doesn't really go anywhere as it was quickly and convincingly argued that Clinton's 30 year presidency in the Cyberfrog-universe was a logical conclusion of the Vyzpzz ending human civilization. Stymied, Taylor returns to the
I Am Not Starfire and how Frog took the picture of the protagonist of
I Am not Starfire against "fat and ugly" Mariko Tomasi. Frog says he never said "fat and ugly" he said "dumpy and chubby"; those are Taylor's words.
At around 58 minutes in at Frog's imploring, the subject of the debate - Comicsgate - is broached. First is the Tess Fowler clip where he said God was striking her down for having breast cancer. I am confused as to what this has to do with Comicsgate. In any case, Frog describes Tess Fowler as a disgusting cancel culture practitioner who tried to destroy his life and smear him as a white supremacist along with a list of other grievances, followed by framing Fowler's inability to work anymore is just a taste of what she's been doling out to others. Next Taylor brings up a DM exchange along a similar vein concerning Doug TenNapel's cancer diagnosis between Frog and WC, leaked by the latter. Frog drops any pretense and starts reliving the dabbing on the dirtworm's ill fortune then and there. Frog stands by celebrating when bad things happen to people that meant ill towards him.
Satisfied with this answer, Mitchell moves on to the infamous "machinegunning asians" clip Frog made, shortly after the Zack Snyder/G+G incident. He says this was a perhaps inappropriate joke to make when the nation was gripped in the media stoked fear of Asian-American violence. Frog gives the context behind the great TFM fan-advocacy cuckout in the face of Zack Snyder, and his outrage behind it. He wasn't there, but his "good friends" were.
Frog explains the Stan Lee story, and Mitchell circles backs to the Mariko Tomasi namecalling; Frog points out it was Taylor, not him, who called Tomasi fat and ugly. Taylor protests, then asks if he takes any responsibility when Comicsgaters mob people online, Frog answers that he does not encourage that, but when he tell his fans to mob Shane Davis' IndieGoGo, he does take full responsibility for Shane's success.
Frog counters by asking if any of the innumerable comic professionals who have said "Fuck Comicsgate" or creators for aligning with Comicsgate therefore guilty of incitement. Mitchell circles back to Mariko Tomasi again, pointing out
some clickbait Frog made last year about Letitia Wright getting mobbed with what Frog argued was Don Cheadle's blessing for not going along with the vaccine. Frog doesn't even remember making the video, let alone care about what he said in it, but Taylor continues to press the point that if Cheadle's "Bye Letitia" tweet amounted to incitement of a mob, what would he consider his youtube and tweets to be. Frog asks what does Taylor think Cheadle meant by that statement, ramping up the rhetoric by asking that if he would find critiquing a shitty comic and blaming someone for infecting and killing half the population equivalent. Taylor Mitchell says Cheadle did not say that, while certain people in the chat disagree:
It does if you're 350+ pounds like Kurtz though I guess
Next is some matter about Chelsea Cain's
Mockingbird mini, which Frog wasn't a part of.
Next Taylor argues that conservatives
are within the comic book industry. Frog challenges him to name one open conservative in comics: Taylor names Bill Willingham. Frog tells him Bill Willingham is Comicsgate since he can't get work anymore in the mainstream, to which Taylor replies that Willingham is getting a 12 issue Fables miniseries with DC. "Good for him" Frog replies, "but he should be getting more". This sets Frog off into reading a letter from the Siegle family decrying the underhanded tactics DC Comics have employed to secure their rights over Superman. Mitchell asks what does this have to do with anything, to which Frog proclaims that Comicsgate stands as a bastion of creator rights where everyone except Mike S Miller can join, create something and keep the money that their creation makes. A place where all, sans Smiller, can forge their own economic destiny free of the interference of large corporations.
The next point of contention is if Dave Sim being declined to work on Cyberfrog after
@EGB , ThatUmbrellaGuy and Warcampaign dug up some weird confessional he made in the 1980s about falling in love with a 14 year old that Rich Johnston found was an example of "cancel culture", if single instances like Gina Carano being fired from the Mandalorian for "making light of the Holocaust" can be credited to cancel culture. Also, Kevin Sorbo hired her the next day, therefore Disney never cancelled her. Frog says no, because he wasn't really feeling Sim's story, collaboration opened a Pandora's Box of creator IP claims.
The next half hour is Taylor taking objection to Frog's long track record of calling people fags and retards and telling people to kill themselves over the internet, which Frog rationalizes this as words said in anger and "common internet parlance". Taylor is less accepting of this, but compliments Frog's ability to spin things. The next matter of contention is Frog's page rate, which is a roundabout way of framing a narrative that he was cancelled for being slow, to which Frog rebuts by saying that at the time, the 7 issues of inked and penciled comic art were seen as perfectly satisfactory by DC at the time. Both parties seem to get tired of the debate at this point (two and a half hours in) and discuss the decision making process that led to Frog going with
Flash: Rebirth over the
Blackest Night event comic.
This is followed by some more talk about calling things gay, but then Taylor comes out and gives his position, which is that if Comicsgate stopped at "We think these comics suck and we're going to do our own thing and we just want apolitical comics", he would celebrate that. But if they want apolitical content, what about
Lonestar working with ICE
? Frog replies "fuck Mike", paraphrasing, adding that making something like MAGA7 is "gay", but it's his book. Same with "Bitch Planet". But what about the "extreme Comicsgaters", asks Taylor, and how Frog's negative rhetoric feeds into that.
Frog says Comicsgaters' behavior has shown marked improvement over the years, to which Taylor Mitchell objects that he's been harassed and called "soyboy" and other taunts for the three weeks leading up to this debate. That said, Frog may not be necessarily wrong on this point.
Next is the matter of trademarking Comicsgate, Mitchell listing a list of people who are verboten from using it: Dave Sim, Vox Day, Liam Gray, Pan & Ro and Doug TenNapel. I personally am greatly gratified at Liam getting top billing before Doug TenNapel, then asks if this is any different than DC Comics abusing their IP rights, but seeing as how Frog doesn't even have the trademark yet let alone issued an injunction against or, any of these guys even wanting to use "Comicsgate" to sell books, it doesn't really go anywhere. I figure someone must have gave him a list.
Next is the sales success of Spider-Gwen and if this is an example of "genderswapping" succeeding, which I would argue it isn't because Spider-Man comics are still readily available. Frog though simply says he doesn't care. Another recess is held to read superchats. Mitchell returns to the point of "Comicsgate losing sight of its mission of making its own comics by digressing into hating what other people are doing", which is a critical misunderstanding on his part; Comicsgate started as a mission of criticizing/hating what was happening in mainstream comics; if anything the "making our own comics" aspect was a distraction from its original mission. Mitchell again circles back to Frog namecalling people "cuck, pussy, gay, soyboy", and asks how this makes him different from Dan Slott.
It's in the final ten minutes that the debate gets down to brass tacks, when the discussion pivots to Donny Cates, who Frog is outraged at for having used back channels among publishers to smear him as a nazi, and Taylor Mitchell being outraged that Cates was clipped to emphasize his stutter, which I guess is worse than going to someone's employers and saying they're a white supremacist and nazi? Mitchell indeed argues so. If you strike back at someone who strikes you you're a hypocrite is Mitchell's argument, doubling down when Frog said it was weird for Donny Cates to phone him at 1 AM, since he phoned Donny back, making the
Cyberfrog merchant a hypocrite there as well. Frog laughs. Taylor follows this by claiming that the behavior of Donny Cates and Tamra Bonvillain, namely attacking people like Aaron Lopresti for association with Comicsgate, is really all Frog's fault for verbally attacking other creators and the two comic professionals bear no responsibilities for the gatekeeping, blacklisting and whisper networks they've set up long before Comicsgate was even a thing.
Conclusion:
So is Comicsgate valid or not?
This question was never actually touched upon in a substantial manner. Mitchell's argument of diagnosing the health of the entire industry by listing the sales of the top selling floppy of a year doesn't really satisfy any burden of proof, let alone counter the fact that periodicals (the nearly exclusive domain of 'traditional' comic publishers Marvel, DC and Image) have declined collectively by 20%. But Frog sort of fumbled this layup by going off about variant covers artificially inflating sales numbers. Mitchell's contention that CG's case that conservative creators are effectively blacklisted was cut short as well when the only open conservative he could think of, Bill Willingham, is making working on supplementary comics for
Reignbow Brute and variant covers for Jon del Arroz's
Deus Vult. Since Taylor Mitchell's argument relied upon relative performance of comic issues within the existing industry, evaluations of the performance of the western comic industry as a whole (the crux of the pragmatic school of Comicsgate's thesis, and therefore validity) is not addressed.
However the heavy majority of the debate consisted of the questioning of Frog's online conduct, which has no real bearing on whether Comicsgate is valid or not, to the point where Donny Cates and the WEF-founded whisper network established in the early 2000s and their professional targeting of anyone affiliated with Comicsgate was retroactively justified because of Frog's remarks on asians and Tess Fowler years later. Moreover, Taylor's contention that Frog's hateful behavior has distorted CG from it's original mission of making comics (?). As we all know however, Comicsgate's actual mission was sperging online and in that sense Frog is a keeper of the flame.
Post Debate:
With this, Frog decided to open the floor to the Comicsgate community as a sounding board for his thoughts and feelings on how this contest ended. And so, guys like homeless CGer Pops, Sketch Therapy, Soy Rage and Doc Blaylock assembled to lend Frog their sound counsel. Sketch argues that it's racist to assume blacks and latinos are fragile enough to be insulted by words, rejoined by Leroi's co-host 'LordCrackhead' with some dusty "latinks" bit from 2016. 'Monstrositus X' and Mark Yoon show up to lend their support for CG being able to enable their comics while being black and liberal respectively, which puts to rest any claim of it being affiliated with ideology or racism respectively. Soy Rage makes some jokes about sodomizing Nasser. Frog's younger brother Josiah van Sciver makes his first ever appearance, saying that Frog has been calling him gay and retarded all his life and that he had no idea this would distort an entire industry. Frog asks where he slipped up, to which Josiah faults Frog for agreeing to debate someone who had no interest in discussing the topic "is Comicsgate valid" and instead came out with a laundry list of nitpicks of Frog's behavior. Also present was George Peter Gatsis, Shelly Lopresti, DangerVanessa, and at least two dozen others.
