It sure has been a week! Elon Musk seems committed to making an enemy of absolutely everyone who doesn’t already hate him for the racism and transphobia, and it’s unclear what the fate of Twitter is going to be going forward. His takeover last week led to, among other things, the revocation of verified status for comics author/former TV personality Judd Winick:
Aaand I just got my verification revoked.
Nice. pic.twitter.com/37TrSf9th4— (((Judd Winick))) đ (@JuddWinick) November 1, 2022
Winick is known to newer comics fans for his bestselling creator-owned Hilo books, but his bonafides stretch back to hugely important runs of Batman and Green Lantern for DC Comics.
After several announcements that only increased the doubt of the userbase, Elon Musk took to permanently suspending verified accounts who proceeded to impersonate him for humorous purposes, including Questionable Content creator Jeph Jacques. This is not having the suppressing effect Musk might have hoped, as even larger Twitter accounts (such as comedian Kathy Griffin) are now pulling the same joke, well aware of the consequences.
As for the comics sphere, the actual news regarding the social media platform is troubling. Its value to the democratization of freelance art can’t really be overstated, and it’s hard to know where artists will turn to promote their livelihoods should Musk’s promises have the deleterious effect they’re likely to. While Tumblr has recently announced somewhat of a relaxing of their very strict content moderation policies regarding nudity, it can’t be forgotten that those policies were implemented as a response to the passing of FOSTA/SESTA, which still remains in legal effect. Mastodon has been a promising alternative from a social media standpoint, but it lacks the ease-of-use of Twitter, which has proven a significant stumbling block to users who lack technical prowess. Cohost seems to blend some of Twitter and Tumblr’s functionalities along with a relatively lax approach to themes of nudity and sex, but it remains to be seen how it will grow to accommodate a heavy influx of new users.
In news not related to social media, publisher Vault Comics is entering the comics-and-music space occupied by Z2, with the announcement of a new comics imprint called Headshell. This announcement comes complete with a namedrop of a new project, a graphic novel written by Fall Out Boy icon Pete Wentz, with art by Lisa Sterle (also an icon, let’s be frank), entitled Dying Inside. Given Wentz’ proclivities with song titles, it remains to be seen what the rest of this book’s title will be.
Regarding Headshell, Vault has promised projects featuring other prominent musicians such as Metallica and Def Leppard. Given the ages of those bands and their general audience demographic, one hopes that some newer acts will be involved as well.
Regarding the comics/music scene, I feel the need to make a statement here: I said some pretty harsh things around the time of Z2’s announcement of the Mitski/Miskiewicz/Kings book, and while we’ve never shied away from editorializing in Previously, I was dismissive of a publisher that was doing some pretty interesting things. I had just come off of writing about the then-latest Oni/Lion Forge absurdity, and I had images in my head of the less-than-stellar TidalWave (formerly Bluewater) biography comics in my head, but that’s no excuse. I painted with a broad brush, and equated the company’s work to exploiting marginalized creators without evidence. I’ve since revisited a lot of Z2’s output, and I’m impressed by its quality, as well as the company’s professionalism and public presence. They’re doing great work, and you should definitely check it out if you’re looking for interesting, inventive comics. Sorry, Z2! I got it wrong.
That’s everything for this week. Here’s hoping the rest of November is a little more fun, huh?
