Eisner nominated writer of stuff about webcomics, fandom, and more comics. Charging into the future like there's no tomorrow!
he/him
I suppose an #introduction is in order. I write a lot about #comics and comics fandom. My book on #Webcomics was nominated for Eisner Award in 2021. I also do the "Incidental Iconography" column for Jack Kirby Collector and I blog at KleefeldonComics.com.
I've got a day job, too, but you don't want to hear about that.
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Hmm. I'm debating on what this will mean for comics. After all, the big publishers have, by now, already signed exclusive distribution deals with other distributors. Alliance will get Diamond Select Toys so I'm sure they'll work with comic shops, but how much of an impact will that have on the comics industry proper?
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/59164/alliance-entertainment-acquire-diamond-assets
Video: Governor JB Pritzker (D-IL) HRC Dinner 3/22
"I've always embraced the norms and rules of decorum... even when the other side of the aisle was periodically tossing those norms... I hoped that some part of Donald Trump's cruel nature would bow to two and a half centuries of tradition for 10 years ever since Donald Trump descended that ridiculous gold escalator... [but] the response to authoritarianism isn't acquiescence. Bullies respond to one thing and one thing only. A punch in the face"
GOP: “We need safeguard to keep this from happening, and I’m sure they all learned something”.
Assholes, there are safeguards. That’s why it is ILLEGAL to share classified info on an unsecured private device using an unapproved chat service, with people who don’t have a clearance.
This is also why each of these fuckheads should have gone through the same training every other person with a clearance is supposed to complete.
The safeguard is put them in jail for such gross negligence.
Warnings were sent out
They were ignored...on purpose?
They should all resign
https://bsky.app/profile/davidfolkenflik.bsky.social/post/3ll7iqekjrk2y
#FireHegseth
#ImpeachTrumpNOW
You better believe that the nazi militia groups are standing by, ready to jump in and start shooting people when the mass protests start again. You better believe that this will be sanctioned by the Trump regime. You better be ready.
"NASA has deleted two comic books about women astronauts from all its websites... 'First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity' and 'First Woman: Expanding Our Universe'... the sweepingly discriminatory policy is censoring content with messages as wholesome and harmless as 'women can be astronauts, too.'"
#comics
https://futurism.com/nasa-deletes-comic-women-astronauts
Have you had a chance to check out my Eisner-nominated book on #Webcomics
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/webcomics-9781350028173/
Here is my latest Kleefeld on Comics post: Comics Business Turbulence
http://www.kleefeldoncomics.com/2025/03/comics-business-turbulence.html #KleefeldonComics #comics
I find it interesting when cartoonists inadvertently showcase how far in advance they work on their strips. Stephen Pastis here is apparently working about five weeks ahead. https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2025/03/25
Struggling to come up with #3GoodThings this AM, so I'm going to fall back on some evergreen ones...
1. No major health problems
2. Secure roof over my head
3. Fridge & pantry are reasonably stocked
Excellent observations about what the Signal fiasco tells us about how Trump junta is operating more generally. From Josh Marshall, https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/signalgate-is-bad-but-opsec-isnt-even-the-worst-part-of-it
"Trump’s entire national security team—not only his Nat'l Security Adviser & his CIA Director and his Secretary of Defense, but also his Chief of Staff, his Secretary of State, his Vice President, his Director of National Intelligence, & others—did nothing as the entire team shared information about an upcoming & recently completed military attack, on Signal…
There’s no way Bondi or Kash Patel will investigate this…they’ll do nothing to hold Trump’s people accountable."
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/25/seven-reasons-trumps-entire-national-security-team-should-resign-in-disgrace/
Scanning through LinkedIn (I unfortunately feel some minimal level of ongoing engagement there is professionally necessary in the long term 
) and I sometimes see people's work anniversaries highlighted. I'm often curious about the particularly long ones; have they REALLY been at that company for ten years, or did they just forget they have a LinkedIn profile altogether?
Good summary.
I wanted to add here some related thoughts, starting from a suggestion to be wary of the statement "Government needs to be run like a business." It should not. It's meant to sound unobjectionable, but is a radical shift away from anything familiar.
The Constitution is designed around the notion of decentralizing control. It's inefficient, as people often notice, but that's by design. Inefficiency is protection from tyrants. It makes things happen slowly, allowing time for deliberation. Every time you make something efficient, you enable change to happen faster than government can respond, as is happening now with DOGE.
Tyrants want central control. Be wary of the statement "The President is the CEO" that want you to think a President is a King, a central voice to tell us everything. That neglects the checks & balances of three co-equal branches of government, intended to distribute control, to have the various branches fighting with one another, to make sure there's lots of consensus before anything happens.
When a Congressperson salutes POTUS and says "yes, sir, you're in charge", they breach their oath of office. The whole point of distributed power is distributed thought, which isn't happening.
It's pointless AND dangerous, to have all the thought be centralized in one person and then to have everyone just say "yes" because then you just have a zillion photocopies of one person's thought. If that person is even thinking. Democracy at all levels intends many people thinking in different ways and making sure all paths of thought lead to a convergent place. That's how consensus is built.
But even beyond that, government differs from business in another very important way. Business is founded centrally on the notion of profit made by determining who NOT to serve. It's rarely profitable to serve everyone, so the assumption is that it's fine to leave some unserved. Maybe someone else will serve them. Maybe not.
Business figures out its profitable customer base and just focuses on them. That's NOT what democratic government promises. Democracy, even beyond all the voting stuff, is about believing each person matters just because they exist, that dignity arises not from wealth but from being alive, that we are all equals, that government must serve each of us in a way that does not prioritize rich over poor.
Money already speaks. It needs no representation in government. People sometimes say Big Business needs special attention in government. It does not. It's not going to be forgotten, no matter what government does, so stop feeling sorry for it. It's willing to be petulant but in spite of its many pity parties, it is not suffering.
Undo the Citizens United ruling. Businesses are not people. Profit-making entities don't need to be voting. Their stakeholders can already vote. Businesses need no freedom of speech, no megaphone.
Business isn't going to suddenly stop happening if we change laws in some way that is favorable to regular folk. If the people who are in business now don't like it, they can drop out. Others will happily take their place.
What needs representation in government are regular people. Government sets the rules that all businesses must follow.
Adam Smith, called the father of economics and/or capitalism, expressed concern about morality in business. He very clearly understood that the optimization engine that is the marketplace will not find morality on its own, that business will tend toward tyranny if not forced to do otherwise. He suggested that if you want morality in business, it must be encoded in law.
It's government's job to make good rules that hold tyranny at bay. Some people and businesses will tell you they'd profit better if there were no rules. In my view, where there are no rules, bullies rule. That's no world to be seeking.
Nor should government be privatized. An important thing that government offers is accountability and auditability by the public, and redress of injustice. Many pushes for privatization are attempts to get around such scrutiny and accountability.
Government must NOT be run like a business. Elimination of inefficiency is not necessarily a good thing. Privatization loses control of and accountability for things that affect citizens' lives. Such suggestions are active dangers to democracy to be discussed with great wariness.
Here's what's going to happen when our services are privatized. First, some services will just be gone. Public good services that aren't seen as profitable will be gone. That's things like Social Security. Why would a billionaire get involved with that? They'll just steal the existing funds and shut it down. Second, services that we already paid for with our taxes, which could be monetized, like NOAA, we'll still pay for but we'll pay lots more and we'll pay it monthly like a cable company. We'll end up with a whole list of new service "subscriptions" for everything from the weather to schools. And our taxes will NOT go down because we'll still be paying for billionaires and mega corps to pay NO taxes just like we do now, while the government continues to operate things like the DOD (which will itself be pared down, sold off in parts, and augmented with billionaire-owned privateers). This new country the billionaires want is a return to feudalism in which you will owe your liege lords all kinds of money every month while scrabbling to keep your families alive, with all the "services for the public good" gone.
#coup #corrupion #networkState #darkEnlightenment #fascism #feudalism #authoritarianism #kleptocracy #kakistocracy #oligarchy
IDW becoming a distributor for any other publisher was not something I would've guessed at any point in the current #comics industry reshuffling.
https://www.cbr.com/valiant-comics-idw-distribution/
“The only sure way to protect yourself is to not carry information with you"
*How long will that option be legal, one wonders
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/guide-getting-past-customs-digital-privacy-intact/
In LUNAR Orbit Now: Alter Ego #195, Back Issue #161, Kirby Collector #94, American Movie Comics, and more!
https://twomorrows.com/blog/tnt/in-lunar-orbit-now-alter-ego-195-back-issue-161-kirby-collector-94-american-movie-comics-and-more/ #comics
“They want 1939 Germany but they're going to get 1789 France if they keep fucking around.”
