What the Rippaverse Means for Comics
Originally posted to Thinkspot on July 20th, 2022.
Eric D July is a Libertarian Commentator who mostly addresses comic book culture on YouTube. His success led to him working on Glenn Beck's Blaze TV.
Most recently, July decided to stop talking about what's wrong with comics and do something about it. He is launching his own comic book universe, the Rippaverse. Using a crowdfunding model, he is selling the first book, a graphic novel called Isom. For 35 dollars, you get a fully illustrated (meaning colored) 96 page book. He's calling it issue one, but 96 pages amounts to around 4 and a half issues, so its basically a GN. According to Eric, the Rippaverse is guided by a Code of Ethics. The first tenant of it is to respect the customer. Meaning, his comics will be trying to earn your money, not just treating you life you don't matter. The last decade plus has seen the rise of a lot of egotistical, ideologue comic book creators who look at readers as peasants who should adore every morsal they deem to throw your way. Rippaverse claims to be the opposite.
The book looks fairly professional, and as of right now, his sales have totaled 2.7 million dollars.
The Left is not happy.
Well of course they aren't. Leftists did a great job of taking over the industry and turning Marvel and DC into an ideological wasteland. They told comic book fans that they were old, straight, white men and were not needed. Sure, I'm old and straight. But for the many people like Eric July and myself, the white part was news. And one of the few things that Eric and I have in common is that we have both railed against the destruction and deconstruction of Marvel and DC. They took something of beauty and value and twisted it. These brands survived generations and guided millions of young people, providing not only entertainment, but reading skills and a moral code. The Left took American Mythology and turned it into a cheap Prostitute. Honestly, that's about as good a definition of Leftism as you're likely to find.
The response to Eric's success has been grumbling from anyone Left leaning. Notorious comic book smear merchant Rich Johnston even published a hit piece on his website, Bleeding Cool. The less angry complaints amount to "these aren't real comic book fans". The idea is that July's audience is made up mostly of Right Wing zealots trying to "own the libs". I saw someone tweet exactly that.
The funny thing is that no one has had a review copy of the book, so all we have to go on is the art by Cliff Richards and Gabe Eltaeb, which looks pretty good.
Maybe Isom will suck. I don't know, but I'm not going to prejudge it without anything to go on. What I will say is that this is a good thing. I have my issues with Eric July, but I have no doubt that he's an actual comic book fan who just wants to go back to reading good comics. Despite what Rich Johnston thinks, Wokeness isn't simply a desire for decency and justice. It's an ideology that tells you the past is evil and you have to destroy it. Ironically, Johnston is the whitest man alive (though not the oldest and I don't know about the straightest) telling a black man his book isn't wanted.
And that tells us all what we need to know. According to basic principles of wokeness, we should all be supporting a black man starting his own brand. How many times have I been told I need to support black owned businesses? Rich Johnston may be an old white guy, but it's okay in this case because he represents the Left. It isn't really about minority representation, it's about ideology. Eric July will never be black enough for people who disagree with him because he's a libertarian and he knows Glenn Beck.
There used to be a comic book community. There was a time when you walked into a comic book store and there was joy to it. People of all races and professions would congregate and argue about their favorite books, characters and movies. The comic book store was our church. And while, yes, the majority of comic book fans were straight, white males, they weren't the only fans. This is fairly easy to prove, since comic book artists aren't majority white. Despite what you may have read on twitter, there was never much gatekeeping in comics, at least not that I have ever seen. Everyone was welcome. We love comics, so we wanted new readers to keep them alive.
Then came the ideologues. They didn't want to be comic book fans. They didn't appreciate the rich history. They didn't just read comics, they changed it.
Comic book stores aren't churches anymore. They're funeral homes. Customers don't talk excitedly about comics these days. They just show up like drug addicts to get their fix. Or occasionally, they do what I did and quit. There is gatekeeping now. They don't want me to read their comics. And so, while I may disagree with Eric July on some things, I applaud him for doing something about it.
15 years ago, this wouldn't have happened. If someone started a new brand, it would either be successful or it wouldn't. But no real comic fan would be out there deriding him and actively trying to shout him down.
Comics used to be positive. And I give credit to Eric for trying to put something positive out there.
***If you're wondering why I never mentioned Comicsgate, it's because it's nonsense. Comicsgate is made up of two youtube creators and then a small crop of other youtubers trying to ride their coattails. When the media refers to comicsgate, they're trying to associate people like me with it. In other words they're trying to make old fans look like bigots. It's bullshit. It doesn't matter whether you lean Left or Right politically, if you just want comics to go back to telling stories instead of pushing the private agendas of writers and editors, you are called comicsgate.
#comics #culturewar #ericjuly #rippaverse
