Anyways, I noticed that he keeps assuming what “normies” are doing, and what they want. What I don’t get it, if you’re sick of the culture war, then why not engage with the real reasons the wider population may be engaging with things less.
Example:
1. Economy
2. Over saturation / too many choices
3. Lack of promotion by company
4. Yes, Political lecture fests (but being tired of that doesn’t automatically mean you’re in a war, they could simply say “no thank you”)
5. Cultural interests at the time
6. A mix of the above &/ or other things
Why keep assuming everyone is attending the church of Yellowflash & Co. (even though Zack is too much of a bitch to start naming his new obsessions).
Zack understood exactly what you're saying here UNTIL he dropped the Waid lawsuit. Everything changed after that. His content, his attitude, and his business took a turn for the worse and he never really recovered. I won't say it completely broke him, but it put a significant crack in him. Maybe the Piskor shit finished the job.
Before/during the Waid drama, Zack's stance on the culture war stuff was pretty much that he didn't want to read Superman lecturing him on abortion or trannies. It's one thing to write a story that involves those elements, but Superman (or any established character) shouldn't be the mouthpiece for the writer's political platform.
It's shortsighted, lame, and gay. A completely rational take.
AFTER he dropped the suit, he began to express a belief that creators had a duty...nay, an
obligation to comment on current events and to use their platform to take a stand for what they believed. In other words, he adopted much the same attitude towards art and pop culture as his leftist enemies: artists are obliged to be activists.
Did this mean Zack would start injecting his political views, moral stances, and takes on current events into his Jawbreakers comics through carefully considered plots and character development, assuring that they'd be seen and absorbed by as many of his fans as possible while making the most money he can? LOL no.
What he did was start new campaigns for books that amounted to extremely expensive Chick Tracts based on events that were current when Zack wrote them. He threw together comics about COVID, the quarantine, the war in Ukraine, cancel culture, and whatever the fuck that 499 book was about. He even got so high on his own breakfast burrito farts that he started calling his stupid ass books "Theosophy". It's a safe bet he never googled the term and had no idea who Helena Blavatsky was.
Anyhow, those books were MASSIVE failures, with Impossible Stars being the only one to break $100k, IIRC. At that point, Zack had several lackluster campaigns going at once and his audience was practically begging him to 1) ship his books and 2) dance with the one who brought him and just do more Jawbreakers. Eventually he relented and did more Jawbreakers (out of sheer necessity), but he was not thrilled about it so he
killed them off.
All that is to say that Zack began to openly resent his audience after he dropped the suit. He didn't like having to answer to people who gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars to do something he quit on. He didn't like that they chose not to buy his Theosophy horseshit. He hates the fact that they want their books in a reasonable time frame and are vocal about it. He can't stand the idea that they hold Hollywood to the same standards of content that they do comics. He fucking loathes the fact that all they want from him is roasts, rants, and Jawbreakers comics.
As for why he makes assumptions about normies and what they want, just know that Zack possesses a near female capacity for solipsism and projection. Like the "CROWDFUNDING IS DEAD" video where he famously figured that his own failing campaigns were really a symptom of the entire indie scene collapsing rather than him selling shit nobody wanted with an attitude nobody asked for.
