Cultural Commentary: April Edition - Another Month, Another Sci-Fi Franchise Falls
Yes, I'm referring to Warhammer
I’m by no means a Warhammer fan. I won’t lie, I don’t get the appeal of it, or 40K. I just don’t. I’m not particularly into German power-fantasy stories, or much German literature at all. Sorry, but I don’t understand the appeal of much of what they write, as I find they lag far behind Japan, France, and the Anglosphere in terms of literary accomplishments.
That said, to say that Warhammer has been a success goes without saying. It is a franchise beloved by millions, in some ways more popular than Dune or Star Trek, with a lot of ‘cultural cache’. It happens that it has been as of late utterly and completely subverted, by those who are ‘woke’. Twisted now beyond recognition, it is now being squabbled over and likely will be another lost franchise amongst many.
And the drum must be beaten; they take it over, those of us who oppose such ideas must at once create something new to replace it. As fast as they can destroy, those who are artists must create. We must bear in our minds the example set in Tolkien’s Silmarillion with the Valar, who created endlessly, while Morgoth destroyed. Why? As fast as he could destroy things he could not always keep pace with their efforts to build something lasting in Arda.
The trouble some might point out is that the corporations have control over all the major franchises. But the thing to remember is that they weren’t all built by big corpos, but by the money, passion and time of those of us of the ‘lower classes’, they are twisting them because we love them. It is for this reason that it is important that we keep building, creating and writing, as there is more to the culture than just franchises. Literature is the meats and potatoes of a society, and if we stop creating it, we all will lose something precious, but if we keep building, keep writing then we’ll have preserved something of inestimable value something that preserves the ideals, values and thoughts of our time-period and society or culture.
That said, it was only a matter of time before Warhammer was lost as it is a beloved franchise and those in control of many of these fiction-franchises know how beloved they are and wish for nothing more than to twist them.
Over on twitter and youtube, the EVS/Comicsgate meltdown continues, with the main trio of comicsgate upset that they were forbidden from attending the Chicago Comics Convention the one named ‘C2E2’ that takes place there every year. According to some it is cancel culture in action, but I had thought that EVS, his friends Shane Davis and Jon Malin were already cancelled, so were they or not? According to others, they paid for a table in Shane’s name, but were going to sublet it to others (i.e. EVS & Malin), which goes against the rules of the convetion. The rules being that you pay for a table per person, and you can’t sublet it.
Strict sure, but this is what some say. As it is, I can’t seem to get anyone to agree on what the truth is over on twitter, so will just assume that it’s a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. Likely the C2E2 folks don’t like EVS and his gang, but that ought to have been more than reason enough to be on one’s best behaviour so as to make money, but instead the trio have gone out of their way to antagonize and ‘secretly’ sneak into the convetion. And by secretly I mean, go in as themselves, on a visitor’s pass paying the entry fee, to buy a bunch of comics. Between these actions, and a series of attack ads on Nerdrotic’s wife, it is getting pretty unhinged.
What is worse is that cancel culture has claimed a victim in the shape of Ed Piskor a talented comic book artist, who committed suicide due to false allegations that won him the ire of legions of people, in the mainstream industry, and also won him a nickname by EVS ‘Creepy Ed’, the name stuck and people hounded him to his death. And while most were calling for a moment of silence, some tried to jump on his carcass to claim attention and five minutes of fame in a shameful display of disrespect to a broken man, who recently passed and to his bereaved family.
Honestly the death of this man should have been a signal that there must be change, that people have gone down the wrong path. But sadly, it seems to have been already memory-holed and people no longer care, or are hardly interested in honouring the poor fellow.
Only positive thing one can say about the American Comic Book scene is that the indie scene continues to thrive, with Iconic Comics doing quite well, along with the new ‘Yaira’ comic by Eric July. Apparently it broke a million dollars in terms of how much it made, whether it is any good waits to be seen. Indies are starting to flower here and there, so good for them.
What is more is that Japan has begun to give sway with regards to some of their characters in their video game sphere, as they’ve brought in their first African character drawn in semi-anime style, the art isn’t very good. Showing that the Japanese still have a lot to learn about drawing this sort of character, and yet legions of lefties hailed it as a victory of some sort. When it means nothing, especially when one considers that the new Conservative party of Japan has begun winning ridings and seats, and that Japan is swinging from the popular liberal LDP party towards the right and the more nationalistic factions and parties who are apparently on the cusp of forming a coalition. Japan’s also withdrawn their financial support from Blackrock, and have begun investing it at home, even as Kishida vows to import about 800,000 Kurds into Japan.
Kishida though is set to lose the next election, and it looks like Japan is finally losing patience with wokism and is keen to take back their country in some form. Though, it’ll be a hard-fought battle, as they’ve discovered in their protests against the WHO (which has had to compromise at least for now).
But what is most noteworthy, is the excitement surrounding a Korean video-game, one that is set to prove ‘controversial’ as the lead ‘Eve’ was modelled by a beautiful Korean supermodel, and with the character proving that sex does indeed sell and that people like a beautiful woman.
Some online are screaming about misogyny as always, others are screaming that she is a dream come true as always. So more of the same in some ways.
And while the game looks to have decent gameplay, and some decent characterization, it doesn’t exactly break the mould or defy expectations in a way. What I mean is that it is very much a 2024 video game; there are dlc patches you have to pay for, the studio signed an exclusivity agreement with Sony, who have decided to censure some of the ingame elements such as the grafiti on a wall ‘Hard R’, to apologize to the most incomprehensible of complaints levelled at the game.
So does the game defy the current standards of the industry? Maybe, maybe not. I can’t help but feel that it is a mere bone thrown to satisfy the masses, or some sort of carrot put before the horse.
It is there to keep you in your seat, to keep you slobbering and to keep you from going to indie game studios who publish games directly to pc, or to keep you from going to Nintendo who have been trouncing Sony at every turn in recent years.
Sure you can say I’m reading too much into it, but I just think a little bit of the excitement surrounding Stellar Blade is overblown. Unless the game foregoes all dlc nonsense, and if it did not have an exclusivity agreement attached I’d probably feel a little more optimistic about it, but I don’t.
This is not to say it is all doom and gloom, obviously there are still talented artists interested in making art, and in producing great works. The visuals of Stellar Blade are undeniably beautiful, but as I’ve not checked out the story I can’t judge it, but it could be that it is quite a good story.
So over-all; Warhammer is lost, Japan’s in a weird position and Stellar Blade is a new very popular game that gamers are excited about. One that interestingly will only be censured in North-America, but not Europe or Asia, which signals that things may in fact be changing the world over.
Speaking of which, Bande Desinees has had another successful fiscal period, and is nearing the 1 billion in sales mark, challenging Manga/Anime supremacy over the comic-book scene. This is good news as it means an alternative to the Japanese story-telling medium/style of Anime/Manga. Whether France/Quebec can keep up this momentum waits to be seen, but it is very interesting to comment about and observe.
Also Disney continues to crash and burn, with George Lucas backing up Bob Iger, not sure why but given how ill and tired he looks of late, he might just be exhausted. Nelson Peltz has refused to back down, and strangely it isn’t him going on offense now as Gina Carano with Elon Musk’s financial backing has opted to sue Disney for breaking their contract with her (which was years ago).
Also I’ve got a book out, so do check it out if you are interested in fantasy lit and it has a pretty awesome cover, so do check it out, link is below.
...40K is British, not German, and Germany absolutely does not lag behind France, Japan, or the Anglosphere in terms of literary accomplishments. I would probably put Germany second right after English, and that's mostly because English has become a major world language while German is mostly a language in Europe. Considering China has censorship, German probably has the second-largest amount of literature in the world after English, and the German classics like Goethe, Schiller, Kafka, Hermann Hesse, etc. way outnumber French classics and Japanese isn't even close. I'm also not sure why "people are allowed to put female heads on Custodes if they want now but the actual models still only come with male heads" means Warhammer is ruined, the game and the models are literally exactly the same and there have been bigger lore changes before, like making Necrons into the undead instead of eldritch horrors, making Genestealers into Tyranids, and making Leman Russ a primarch instead of just a random guy, making space marines selected before puberty and raised as super-soldiers instead of being convicts, adding dark space marines as the main enemies instead of orks, etc. If people really hate this lore change they'll roll it back, 40K lore has never been all that consistent and if people just hate it and it causes them to lose sales it won't stick, and if it doesn't cause them to lose sales and people don't hate it then a vocal minority shouldn't be telling everyone what to do, only time will tell how that will go.
If there's one thing that's stayed the same in fandom, it's that politics keep rearing its ugly head there, when it should have no place at all.