Why comics matter

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Welcome to CR Town! You just need to know where to look. Comics were blamed for almost every branch of bad behavior in the s. Now, comics are a positive foundation for millions of people of all backgrounds to come together and celebrate stories.

Every reader can identify with something different when they pick up a comic by uniquely attaching to some characters, writers, or artists. When you come together and find others that you can share those experiences with, it magnifies the whole process.

Local comic book shops are like tiny hubs of community where people can gather, discuss ideas, and build relationships. Some comic books span over 75 years, so there are multiple generations of people who can connect with the same subject. In the exponential variation of that concept, conventions have escalated into a massive beacon of culture. Where San Diego Comic Con was once just a singular event, conventions are now widespread throughout the country.

Conventions not only provide people with the chance to connect with other readers, but also the artists, writers, creators, and celebrities attached to the very medium they create and enjoy together. Thankfully, there are plenty of jumping-on points in ongoing comics. Some series like Detective Comics and Action Comics are in the ballpark of their thousandth issues, but story arcs make it easy for readers to jump in when another arc begins.

This means there are multiple opportunities to dive into pre-existing books with little to no backstory required. Entire timelines are rebooted every few years that give new and seasoned readers a fresh start in the Marvel or DC universes. Meyer generally considers to be the year SJW Marvel officially started in full, with the release of Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan , and when Marvel Comics went all in on far left politics as a whole. Before that, he cites , with Kelly Sue DeConnick's reinvention of Carol Danvers into Captain Marvel, to be "ground zero" of the era, and to be the "first shot" of the culture war with Dan Slott infamously telling a fan to "go fuck yourself".

Another point of criticism is how many comic book creators, especially new ones, base their entire careers off of getting into Hollywood, or the "Netflix deal" as he calls it, hoping to make a lot of money that way. He says that indie publishers nowadays, notably Image Comics, produce nothing but Netflix pitches that don't stand on their own or are appealing as stories.

Meyer points out that the return on investment in Hollywood for a Netflix deal is actually low, especially for bad selling comics, and that there's more money to be made focusing on making good, sellable comics to the actual audience than trying to use comics as a "bus ticket" to get into Hollywood. Attention is drawn to the obsessive need to get into Hollywood, which is born partly because the mainstream industry is in such dire shape, and because many new creators have little interest in the medium itself.

This is even despite the industry as a whole moving away from comic book adaptations, due to not having a need for them anymore. He points out that the MCU alone has enough content that someone who has never read comics can make a story out of it, as with WandaVision. As such, there's no real place for comics aimed specifically for TV and movies anymore. The common defense that comics have always been used for politics to excuse the current state of the industry has been refuted and debunked on a number of videos.

Meyer says that while comics have been political in the past, those stories were the exception rather than the rule, and even then had nuanced themes that weren't completely exclusionary, explored the validities of different perspectives besides strictly the left-wing view, and combined that into stories that stood on their own. Many pros and defenders often cite examples like "Captain America punching Hitler in his first issue" or "X-Men being an analogy for civil rights" as for how today's comics are no different, but he sees that to be strawman argument.

He says that comic books, for the most part, weren't focused on politics. Even the X-Men, famous for being an analogy for civil rights, wasn't very political on an issue by issue basis, instead being about superhero action, soap opera plots and character development.

Many X-Men comics also featured elements that these same people would find "problematic" such as beautiful women, strong men, an organically diverse cast, and excessive violence. Also, even in the case of Captain America punching Hitler before the US entered World War II, that wasn't a controversial statement back then: Everyone knew Hitler was evil, but the real controversy was whether it was worth it for Americans to get involved in a bloody war going on in Europe, to fight and die for their cause.

The context of the "controversy" tends to get altered to serve the narrative of comics being political, as it's more convenient. Furthermore, these pros tend to cite such exceptions, and present them as if that was the norm. Such as naming notable stories with political undertones as proof, but also conveniently leaving out the many, many more non-political stories of the past that vastly outnumbered those that were.

Today, it seems like all the mainstream comics have become political, and it's exclusively from the far left perspective, about identity politics, intersectional feminism, and social media activism, with said stories completely degrading the characters involved. All of this is from far left psychopaths who openly despise the characters, the universe, and the reader, which is a far cry from how comics were written before.

As a whole, the argument of comics "always being a political medium" easily falls apart when place under even the slightest amount of scrutiny.

He is a former member of the United States Marines, Army and National Guard, and has fought in both Iraq and Afghanistan, a point he often mentions in his videos. He has three children, two daughters and a son; one Afghan Muslim daughter, and two Hispanic children one Jewish and the other Christian.

He owns a dog, a female boxer named Luna, who is a fan-favorite and considered by some to be the unofficial mascot of the channel.

Politically, Meyer considers himself to be a center-right Republican, not being heavily invested in politics as a whole but having values more right-leaning in general. Although not a major fan of manga, he admires how it runs as a complete meritocracy and cites that industry as the perfect example of what American comics should be.

Meyer stated that the core reason why the comic pros reacted so harshly to his criticisms was due to the fact that all comic book websites had answered to them for a long time, thus no one ever criticized them, and they had gone over five years without any harsh criticisms of any kind by the time Meyer first appeared in , to be torn apart on a public stage from someone who is out of their reach.

He states that his opinions aren't actually controversial, but match what longtime fans of the medium have long been thinking. The Marvel Universe and its characters and stories is Meyer's all-time favorite franchise. He describes seeing Marvel's downfall in the present as "heartbreaking" to watch, which is why he started the channel to begin with. His favorite run is Fabian Nicieza's issue New Warriors series, with Night Thrasher being his all-time favorite superhero.

In , Meyer got a publishing deal with indie company Antarctic Press for his crowdfunded book Jawbreakers: Lost Souls which would've been for the Jawbreakers series, plus additional books he would make, most likely including Iron Sights and Impossible Stars. The idea was to give comic book stores products they could actually sell, and give customers good comics directly outside the crowdfunding space. However, comic book creator Mark Waid, who had been an enemy of Meyer since he started, and holding many connections in the industry itself, called Antarctic Press to have them cancel the book.

He threatened to get AP blacklisted from the industry, which would extend to all associated creators like Fred Perry and Rob Espinosa, if they didn't comply. Antarctic Press, facing enormous pressure, bent the knee and cancelled the book and Meyer's deal. Later that year, Meyer sued Waid for tortious interference and defamation.