add on to previous post (weird times pt 2)

in view of the now rather volatile western comic and movie industry with regards to infiltration of supposedly "politically correct" and "social justice" views. i think it is time to step back and just appreciate once more the beauty that is anime, manga and doujins.

japan is truly something else. despite their economic situation, their creative industry is still going strong.... though workers' benefits and situation could obviously be better, especially for the game devs and animators but regardless. they're going very strong. for every one creator that is sunk by the corporate machine, 10 others are still going at it with a vigour that often belies their age.

the proliferation and spread of anime and manga has not stopped and the way its going, will never stop. you really must stop and appreciate the ingenuity that is put into the writings. this is not saying its just the japanese are good at it. the pool includes south koreans and whoever else is doing manga and animes of their own. however, i would like to point out that it seems to be a relatively quiet sort of thing that was created and introduced by the japanese. this unfiltered creativity that doesn't use anybody's lens but the creator's own mind. it is a refreshingly pure thing to behold truly.

some mangas and anime are just for fun and that's fine. others have serious stories and themes. the most important part? they are usually able to tell their stories without having anything like an agenda hidden in it. for manga world, it isn't so much the need to show the world what sort of suffering a girl or person of colour goes through. for them, it is the story that is important, the dramatization and not the attempt to rub any sort of message into someone's face. i appreciate mangas and anime because of the free way they express themselves. this appears to be something precious that the western comic industry has lost, this ... creative expression for the sake of creative expression. if its any wonder why manga and anime is still going strong.

i think, if it is one thing that the western comic world needs from the eastern side is this: real freedom. back in the 60's western comics had all sorts of different and wacky superheroes. there were cool ones and then there were those that made absolutely no sense and of course tanked. but the important part was that the creative juices were flowing. this period was full of ingenuity and is the main reason you have an ungodly huge library of heroes. if the japanese can so effortlessly foster an atmosphere of pure creativity, could the west not do the same?

i believe that the salvation for western comics then lies in europe. america has strangely become a land full of strictures and restrictions. the only acceptable place for fresh ideas in america is on the internet. so then, scratch that. the salvation of the western comic book creativity doesn't lie just in europe, it lies in the free content creators who reside on the internet.

the net is vast and infinite, it should be a great many decades to come for online comics. just stay away from the traditional media and i think we'll all be happier for it.

weird times

not interesting.... but weird.

ghostbusters has undergone a gender bender, iron man is now replaced by 15 year old black girl, thor is now a woman and the list just seems to go on.

why is it that established brands seem to pander to the SJW crowd? is it the money or fear of reprisals? the strange thing is that i don't think it would be reprisals for if that were the case, they would have changed the characters a long time ago.

the ghostbusters one for most of the part seems to be just for the fun of it. the new lady ghostbusters seem less of an experiment than it is a movie that's there just to have fun. the trailers don't look pretty but i'd be looking more at the writing and casting if i was looking for faults. so, its intentionally silly.

whereas with the comics industry things are getting rather weird. i'm apathetic to the whole notion that thor must be a woman or that iron man must be a black teenage girl. all i'm looking for is the real reason behind the sudden change. you don't simply take a character who has been established as such for more than 10 years and suddenly make a huge change. i mean there is a reason that when you have superman, after that you have super girl and super boy. i agree with the camp that says you should make a new stand alone character to represent different parts of society, be they queer, different ethnicity, social status and blablabla.

black heroes. you have so many to choose from. static shock is among one of the chief black heroes i have heard of. cyborg as well. if you must have a female black super hero, storm from the X-men. i'll put it this way. comics have been expanding and expanding their hero and villain roster for so long that you can have a library full of hero bios and history and it'll still need more room to expand. the point of the matter though is you could have created a new character or brought in another character. this is a reverse form of white washing it seems. no matter how many times it is done and no matter which character it is done to, people will never be happy about it. perhaps the SJWs will be happy about it. but then again, if we're talking about taste, they probably don't have any.

but back to the question though. why do it? iron man is still in the picture. and the title is still iron man. how do you reconcile the fact that the titular character is pushed aside for a new character who is of a completely different gender? it doesn't feel like progress. it doesn't feel socially acceptable either. why do writers go out of their way to purposefully change something that had worked previously to something that will antagonize your supporters?

i understand experimentation, but is it? have they really exhausted tony stark's story to the point they have to replace him? i sincerely doubt that. i highly doubt its for the money either.

all i can say is this though. i've ploughed through wikias on marvel and DC characters before. i have also heard horror stories about character reboots so bad that the writers who came after had to reboot the whole thing proper. maybe this is the case we're seeing now? maybe we're seeing writers who take to the helm and using their own.... initiative they've decided to come up with something bad but have not realized it yet? i mean this must be the case because Rob Liefield is still working as a comic book artist isn't it? i strongly feel that all we are seeing now is the creation of a bad part of comic book history, an infamous time where the writers against all logic chose to do what was supposedly right in their mind and in a grand, futile gesture, helped to bury a beloved comic book character.

i'd like to think we're all at a fortune teller's den and we just keep drawing the death tarot. sure, it is pretty  much what it means. Death means dying but the meaning behind the card if i'm not wrong is not an end to something. well... depending on your outlook it is something's life dying but it is a transformative process to say the least. only in death can something else be born. i just hope to still be around when that something nice and new is born though.