Good morning to everyone except the spirit of the long-dead racist murderer Christopher Columbus. May you suffer forever, you horrible monster.
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, and because healthcare in the U.S. is a nightmare at the best of times, not to mention for freelance artists, consider donating to the still-ongoing medical fund for comics artist Jeffrey Veregge. Veregge has been in and out of the hospital several times over the course of 2021, and has been unable to work during that time, despite being his family’s sole provider.
Please also consider the following causes below. President Biden is happy enough to sign a little proclamation in honor of Indigenous people, but given that private oil pipeline companies are paying off cops to arrest protestors, and given that the Duwamish tribe is still fighting for proper recognition, words are kind of less than the bare minimum.
- National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center
- Stop Line 3
- National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
- Indian Residential School Survivors Society
Last week Wendy mentioned how Disney’s getting into some litigious nonsense with the heirs to the Ditko estate, but of course, there’s more! Neil Gaiman, aka The Sandman Guy, is moonlighting as The Worst Guy You Know in order to spread awareness of all of the other people Disney should be paying but isn’t. On the list is AC Crispin, author of the Han Solo trilogy of Star Wars books, as well as Mark Verheiden, author of comics featuring both the Aliens and Predator properties for Dark Horse Comics back in the day. Verheiden was clear that Dark Horse never missed a payment, but when the license transferred to Disney, they proceeded to print a brand new omnibus edition of Aliens without bothering to compensate him. No one is really surprised that Disney is fighting to retain ownership of all of these purchased brands whilst simultaneously refusing to pay royalties to their original creators, but lord, do they have to be so obvious about it? Anyway, maybe it’s time we build a big enough mousetrap for ol’ Mickey.
Of course, right in the middle of that, Disney turns around and announces an adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese, because that is exactly how they operate with PR. Everyone pay attention to the shiny new thing! Woo, diversity! Look, this is great for Yang, but let’s not pretend we don’t know that Disney’s hoping you’ll pay attention to this instead of all that above. Here’s hoping they treat Yang right.
Speaking of adaptations, you know that new Batman Webtoon everyone loves? It’s getting one too!
Back in the comics sphere, creator and game designer Shing Yin Kor has been named as a finalist in the National Book Awards for their OGN The Legend of Auntie Po. Good luck!
More good news: Scout Comics has partnered with Mucho Mas Media to create Chispa Comics, a Latinx comics imprint. I’m really excited to see what comes out of this!
Okay, I think that’s it? Oh, wait, right. I need a saga. What’s the saga? It’s Songs for the De—oops, I mean, it’s Saga coming back in January 2022. You can’t even hear it!
