[The following piece was originally published at KleedfeldOnComics.com and it is reposted here with the author’s permission.]

On Business: Dixon on Alt-Hero

A couple of weeks back, Vox Day launched a crowd-funding campaign for his brand new comic called Alt-Hero which Day describes as “A new alternative comic series intended to challenge and eventually replace the SJW-converged comics of DC and Marvel.” It garnered a bit of news because Day is a right-wing petty asshole who’s an active racist. He led the 2015 and 2016 “rabid puppies” campaigns to deny any people of color from the Hugo Awards, mostly out of spite for not actually winning an award himself in 2014. He later described his actions as, “I wanted to leave a big smoking hole where the Hugo Awards were. All this has ever been is a giant Fuck You—one massive gesture of contempt.”

Now first off, it’s absolutely laughable that he thinks he can replace Marvel and DC. Politics aside, Marvel and DC have each been making superhero comics for the better part of a century; they do superhero comics very, very well. No one in the past fifty years has come close to even touching their sales on superhero comics. They’re not invulnerable, certainly, but any and every problem they have had and will have is of their own making, not because of a competitor. If someone else is able to usurp their place as premier superhero comic publisher, it will be because they got out of publishing comics.

Second, “SJW-converged comics of DC and Marvel”? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Seriously, no definition of “converged” makes sense in this context. If that’s the level of writing he’s bringing to Alt-Hero, Marvel and DC have nothing to be worried about. Hell, anyone making mini-comics out of their parents’ basement has nothing to be worried about. If I had to guess, I suppose he’s trying to say that Marvel and DC have been taken over by social justice warriors and that they have been pushing a decidedly leftist agenda. Which clearly is not the case if you actually look at any of their books. But Day is doing what he does — whipping up conspiracies to make it look like white men are being oppressed. Because his mediocre work isn’t celebrated enough.

OK, all of that is old news. I only mention it to make sure you’re up to speed on who this asswipe is. (And why I’m not linking to any of it!)

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Any links have been provided by Sacred and Sequential.]

So he tried starting a Kickstarter project for this Alt-Hero comic, but Kickstarter said, “No, you’re a racist touting actively racist messaging. We want nothing to do with you.” He then went to a new openly alt-right version called FreeStartr. (It launched literally two weeks before Day’s project. I’m not investigating this myself, but I strongly suspect it was built largely for Day’s benefit.) It has so far raised over $100,000 from around 1200 backers for Alt-Hero to be published.

What seems to have come to light more recently is that he’s hired veteran comic book writer Chuck Dixon to work on some of these stories with him. Dixon has written a ton of comics, and worked on very high-profile characters like Batman and the Punisher. So this is clearly a “win” for Day to get A) a person who actually knows how to write, and B) a name high-profile enough that it might attract others’ attention.

Dixon, if you don’t recall, caused a bit of a stir himself a few years ago when he claimed that he was being blackballed at DC for his conservative politics. (He was hired in early 2017 to write a new Bane series if you’d like confirmation on how blackballed he actually was.)

I don’t know Dixon personally. He was never a favorite writer of mine, but I have enjoyed what I had read of his well enough. But his decision to work on this seems unconscionable. If he were a new, struggling writer, I could maybe forgive an anything-for-a-check mentality, but he’s been in the business for decades; while he’s perhaps not as in-demand as he once was, I don’t think he’s got so few offers coming in that he would have to pick up any job tossed his way.

So what Dixon is saying in agreeing to work on this is that he’s okay promoting a white nationalist message. And let’s be clear, this isn’t a case of just not objecting to that ideology, but by writing these stories, Dixon is himself actively promoting a message of hate and exclusion. Even if he didn’t know who Day was and his history with racism, there’s no way Dixon could not know that’s the message being promoted here. He’s writing some of the damn books — he would have to be briefed on the concept at the very least, and the concept itself is rooted in racism. Whether Dixon himself believes all the bullshit Day is spewing is irrelevant, he’s taking active steps to promote that message.

I don’t think anyone should be blackballed just because their politics are different; if they can write comics that sell more copies to a broad audience, that’s great. But when you start actively working to spread hate and fuel racial divisions, then you’re actively working against humanity and I don’t think anyone should support or condone you in any way. You should be blackballed now, Dixon. By publishers, by conventions, by readers. That’s a business decision you made, and you decided your hatred was more important than working in civil society.