Following our year-end listing of the top new stories in 2019, the question arose as to what were the top overall postings in 2019. That is, what were the most-read articles, regardless of what year they were published.
So, to satisfy curiosity, here are Sacred and Sequential‘s most-read pages over the course of 2019:
Review – Toscano and Hartmann-Dow’s The Amazing Adventures of the Afterbirth of Jesus
More Than You Ever Wanted to Know on Black Panther and Religion
[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.]
Pope Francis is an extremely popular figure. His Holiness was once known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina before he ascended to the papacy, just as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI was previously Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger of Germany. And, at the time of his own ascension, it made no small news that, as young Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was a member of the Hitler Youth (though, reportedly, an unenthusiastic and even subversive one).
So, when it was announced last year that the publisher formerly known as Bluewater Productions would do the graphic novel The Life of Pope Francis, eyebrows might not have been raised. After all, comic book biographies of real-life celebrities and political figures had been Bluewater’s modus operandi, having also done an earlier biography of Jesus Christ.
Bluewater Productions, however, is no longer Bluewater Productions. Their site currently lists their new name as Tidalwave Comics in its URL and its logos. But traces of their site content as well as their listings on sites such as Comixology and Tumblr still has them listed under their 2015 rebranding: Stormfront Comics.
As noted by Bleeding Cool, that new name has some ugly connotations:
Continue reading Alt-Right Traces in Comics Publisher’s Past, Now Marketing Trump?
According to Chick Publications, their CEO and founder Jack T. Chick died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday night. He was 92. His death is mourned by some, and celebrated by others.
Since the news broke, “Jack Chick” has been trending on Twitter. It is not a pretty picture that is being presented. This is in no way surprising. For all but a select few, the man did not have a nice word to spare. And for the rest of us, he offered only glimpses of the hellfire that awaits us.
I should back up a bit, though, on the off chance that anybody visiting this site doesn’t know who Jack Chick was. He was the creator of the famous and notorious “Chick tracts,” small pamphlets containing black and white Evangelical fundamentalist propaganda comics. Chick had been publishing these pamphlets since the early 1960s, and his oeuvre touches on an impressive array of topics, from evolution to Halloween to “false religions” (everything that is not Protestantism, basically) to the end-times to, famously, role-playing games. The basic message was always the same, however: it doesn’t matter how good or bad you have been in your life, you are going to hell unless you accept the brand of Christianity that Chick promoted. You can read most of them here. He also produced comic books and sold literature that promoted his world-view.
The legacy he leaves behind is a strange one.
In September, Tzion Publishing put out the call for all interested parties to submit contact information for their forthcoming Spring 2017 comic book series, Shabbat Man. Featuring “Joshua Polmar, an adult convert to Judaism,” the comic will square him off against “Jerome Goyim is the epitome of evil in the world and he is a slave to his wicked animal soul,” according to Tzion’s website.
Curiously, many of the characters in the dramatis personae are either adult converts to Judaism or struggling with their Jewish identity. Combine that quirk with Tzion’s stating that Shabbat Man “is designed to teach the reader about one or more of the 613 commandments and about Judaism, in general. The adventures delve into the finer points of Judaism making non-Jews more aware of Jewish traditions.” Do we have the makings here of proselytizing Jewish comic book?
Of course, “Shabbat Man fights for justice on behalf of all people,” despite the questionable name of his arch-nemesis. And, there are product placement opportunities open to one and all…
…particularly in the areas of “lady’s high heeled shoes” and “beverages.”
