From Cover To Cover

On Substack, Diamond, AI, and Decentralized Comic Events- The Comic Bookmarks February 2nd, 2025

All of the comic book links you could want on a lazy Sunday morning (or anytime of the week.)

On Substack, Diamond, AI,  and Decentralized Comic Events- The Comic Bookmarks February 2nd, 2025
Note the date and the new location!
The fight for free speech in 2025 and beyond
On Substack’s ongoing commitment to freedom of the press

When we launched FC2C back in 2021, I was looking for a platform to publish on and Substack seemed to be one of the ones to use but I just couldn’t get beyond some of the choices of who they decided to compensate to help highlight their system. It never seemed to be a “freedom of speech” decision for them but who had the audience that they could bring with them to Substack.

Remember when a couple of years ago all of those comic creators launched Substacks and that was going to be the next great revolution in comics?

That’s not to say that there aren’t good writers (both morally and stylistically) on Substack but when the co-founder and CEO of Substack says Elon Musk “deserves a lot of credit for advancing freedom of speech on X…” you do just have to laugh a bit at that statement.

As far as I can tell, there are still a lot of comic creators and fans on Substack and on X. You do have agency on there and do send messages to those owners every time you check into their systems. They see that engagement and check it as a positive whether or not you see it that way. That’s why I left X and Facebook last year.

Right now, there’s only one Substack that I check out on the regular and that’s historian Heather Cox Richardson‘s. Occasionally I’ll also click on a link from there but that’s about it. There are so many other alternatives to the digital media that appear to be kowtowing to the current administration. Find them. Use them.

Headlines

OpenAI trying to contain major media copyright suit in India
OpenAI trying to contain major media copyright suit in India

All AI news is probably worth linking to right now so here’s a piece from the AV Club about a copyright lawsuit in India. As the article opens with, this is a global issue as these training modules are essentially just gobbling up anything in their way to feel their AI.

OpenAI right now

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— John Scalzi (@scalzi.com) January 29, 2025 at 2:26 PM
Why Simon & Schuster’s Flagship Imprint Won’t Require Blurbs Anymore
In a decision some might call “stunning” or a “tour-de-force,” new S&S publisher Sean Manning has decided to no longer require authors to obtain blurbs for their books. Here’s why.

Have you ever looked at blurbs for comics in press releases or on the back covers of collected editions? They’re often meaningless. “The type of comic that good comics want to be.” “A fantastic cross between White Lotus and Caillou.” Things that could be said about any number of books.

Angoulême 2025 : le palmarès | BoDoï, explorateur de bandes dessinées - Infos BD, comics, mangas
Et le Fauve d’or est…

I love that “Fauve d’honneur” is being translated into “Beast of Honor” by iOS‘s Safari translation and that John Romita Jr. Is being called a “beast.”

Comic Sites on Comic Sites

Business

BOOM! Studios Accelerates Move to PRH for Distro
In Wake of Diamond Chapter 11

This was already in the works after Penguin Random House acquired Boom! Studios last fall but PRH has moved up their distribution plans from July to April. This week was full of some other publishers (see next link) announcing distribution plans due to the Diamond Chapter 11 filings.

More publishers announce changes after Diamond bankruptcy
Black Panel Press, Coffin Comics and Antarctic Press announce changes in the wake of the Diamond bankruptcy and proposed sale.

In many ways, I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen just without Diamond’s demise. We’ve all known that the direct market has been broken since the 1990s but it has zombie-like rambled on, held up largely by Diamond. Now that Diamond is fighting for its own life, it seems irrelevant as market forces have already changed and severed their reliance on Diamond.

Diamond warns of layoffs and Hunt Valley headquarters closure by April 1 - Graphic Policy
The April 1 deadline feels like a new piece of information.

It’s getting a bit hard to see how Diamond comes out of this in the next 2 months. This has been something that’s been building for at least 4+ years, since DC left Diamond for Lunar. It also sounds like they’ve been in the process of trying to find a buyer since last September or October and, to date, there has been no news about their U.S. services being sold off.

There’s still time for something to happen here but it seems clear that the direct market is going to look different by the 2nd half of the year than it does now, or even a few months ago.

The Funny Pages

A small reminder that Paul Kirchner's THE BUS strip is one of the finest examples ever of the possibilities of the language of comics as a form and you should absolutely try and hunt down the two collections.

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— Andy Oliver (@andywpoliver.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 9:10 AM

I’ve never seen these before but will be taking on Andy’s advice and trying to find them.

Interviews

Reviews & Features

Comic Events and Neurodivergence by Samuel Edme - SOLRAD
Today on SOLRAD, we feature an essay by SOLRAD newcomer, Samuel Edme, on attending comic events as a neurodivergent person on the autism spectrum.

This article by Samuel Edme explores the benefits of a comic convention that’s not limited to just one space or location, looking at how CXC in Columbus, OH, features a decentralized plan for its events.

Rachel Johnson: I broke the Neil Gaiman story, but I never wanted him cancelled
When I got first an Instagram message, then a long email, from a young Kiwi called Scarlett back in October 2023, alleging an unnamed British author was a “predator “and “despot”, only one man’s name came to mind.

Recently I’ve usually had anything related to Gaiman under the News heading but this piece by by Rachel Johnson, one of the hosts of The Master: the Allegations against Neil Gaiman (the podcast that originally contained the allegations against Gaiman) feels less like news and more like something else. As far as I know, this is the first time anyone from the podcast or related to Tortoise Media has really said anything about their reporting from the summer of 2024. But it is strange how she tries to backpedal from all of the backlash that Gaiman is now facing, isn’t it?

Our intention with Master was to probe the greyest of grey areas – allegations of sexual abuse within an otherwise consensual relationship.

And maybe there’s something to that intention but you used one of the most popular authors of modern fantasy to do it? What did you expect?

Absolute Wonder Woman #1-3 - The Comics Journal
So, yes, I have wrestled with the Wonder Woman. Not a pastime I’ve sought, over the years. It seems I am only ever interested in Wonder Woman when she’s someone other than Wonder Woman. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake up on the shores of middle age encumbered by the realization that I was... Read more »

I think I come to Wonder Woman from the same direction as O’Neil does. I’ve just realized lately that I love Wonder Woman stories but don’t know if I love the character or any of her series. But I am a fan of O’Neil’s writing.

Spawn de Replay #10: Ignoring
By Steve Morris Personal choice: I’ve never read any of Cerebus, and I don’t see why I’d ever bother with it. By all accounts – in particular accounts from liberals and left…

I keep on meaning to do a reread of Cerebus, maybe just the good parts (and I’ll leave it to you to define what those are.). But it’s also hard to argue with pieces like this. Why should people care? We’ll be saying the same thing (if we already aren’t) about Sandman and Planetary. Cerebus walked so that DMZ could run. And DMZ even got a television season long after it should have.

Commit the sin of empathy.

— Evan Dorkin (@evandorkin.bsky.social) January 24, 2025 at 8:40 PM

Be like Evan Dorkin.