Well, Dynamite done fucked up.
The big news of the weekend was the tacit endorsement by Dynamite Entertainment of a Comicsgate project funding on Indiegogo. This initiative appeared to allow the use of a couple of Dynamite’s characters on a variant cover for the indie project, and came a few weeks on the heels of Dynamite’s CEO, Nick Barrucci, being seen on CG video conferences. That act alone was enough to give us pause, but an endorsement between the company itself and the CG movement was altogether worse, leading to a number of press sites refusing coverage of Dynamite books, as well as several creators pulling out of work with Dynamite. Yesterday, the company tweeted that the cover had been cancelled in a short, terse tweet.
WWAC did not join the host of accounts making public statements on Twitter this weekend about Dynamite, but as a site who has had what we thought was a strong working relationship with them in the past, we were already dismayed by Barrucci’s participation in CG events and had quietly rolled back our coverage then. For the sake of clarity, we’ll be loud now:
We have actively ceased any and all coverage of Dynamite publications.
Barrucci’s lone statement as an apology is not sufficient, and does not display sufficient understanding of the magnitude of the problem with an attempt to court the Comicsgate crowd. That this attempt was made after Dynamite’s attempts at courting female creators in the past strikes us as especially cynical, and we would be hard pressed to believe even a more sincere apology at this point, much less a single tweet.
BOOM! Studios also made a bit of a scene with the announcement of a project co-written by none other than Keanu Reeves, platonic himbo idol of us all. The book, titled BRZRKR, is a completely fictional story about a dark-haired, bearded man who has been alive for eight thousand years.
Right.
Several folks on twitter brought up BOOM’s recent issues with actually paying creators in context of this, and whether Reeves is being paid the standard creator rates there, but knowing his history of not caring about money, he’s probably not too fussed about it.
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On a more somber note involving famous figures and comics, we’re deeply saddened to note the passing of activist, politician, and comic book author John Lewis.
Comics are still dying, or something.
You’d think Afterlife with Archie would have been enough to keep folks at Archie Comics from meddling with the dead, but that hasn’t stopped them from a new partnership with Kate Spade.
After the various reportings on Warren Ellis’ behavior over the last few weeks, his victims themselves have banded together, releasing a statement at https://www.somanyofus.com/.
That’s all I got for you. I’d say I hope this week turns out better, but I try not to tell lies. Be good to each other, huh?
