There is no populist fascism in America from the right. It's on the left. The claim that it's a conservative phenomenon is just liberal propaganda churned out by the very billionaires who own the mainstream media and in cooperation with the government seek to control the means of production. and shape the culture into a distortion of natural living. DEI, Transgender nonsense, all attacks on the traditional nuclear family. It's all from the left. So Moore's assertion is simply him doing the bidding of the elites he pretends he doesn't do the bidding of. Moore is just being a pissy old man who resents the fact that people who align with the conservative /traditional political and moral views ended up being the audience for the best stories. Hence, his anger and deconstruction. One could trace it back somewhat to his disillusionment that Steve Ditko didn't do drugs and turned out to be conservative. History seems to show that Dr. Wertham was correct by looking at comics today and without any moral, or systematic philosophy behind the writing beyond neo-liberalism based on emotion and anarchy, the sales have plummeted. Moore and those of his socio/political ilk who are not talented as writers have churned out liberali propaganda and bilge and sludge for several decades now and virtually ended the major comics companies. Needless to say the superhero movie genre was at its peak during the period of the most authoritarian overreaches in American history and it reflects the individual acheivement in light of an oppressive government. (Iron Man vs the Military Industrial Complex. Batman vs corrupt politician and organized crime aligned against the citizenry) Dr. Strange turns his back on materialism to become someone who selflessly works on a spiritual plane, Ant Man, Guardians, Man or Steel, Logan, Deadpool, Captain America etc. all belie Moore's claims. The interesting thing to note is the shift of quality and emphasis in superhero movies once Trump took office and everyone had to be told what to think, how to think and how to "hate the orange man" and nobody bought into that bunk. Moore completely misses the mark in favor of his pet issues. G. K. Chesterton died nearly a century ago and had a far firmer grip on reality than Moore's snobbish and resentful petulance.

This and Dial H were great.

The biggest issue is they gave her origin to Carol. Then made her Carol's Subservient, which is disrespectful to her character

If Marvel were to give Scarlet Witch a talking cat (Liho) then perhaps Marvek could have its own Sabrina the teenage witch.

Truly one of Disney/Marvel's greatest achievements. I hope they learn from this.

Says the guy wearing a Hammer and Sickle T-shirt... infantilization.?.. talk about projection. Moore needs to read up on some history .. in particular on Stalinist Russia and the dehumanizing and deaths of millions. I am a comic book reader. I know that superheroes don't exist, you know. Yes, I can distinguish make-believe and reality (unlike Stalin fan Moore). That's maturity. I like horror too. I know werewolves don't exist .. but they can make for a good story. Infantilization my arse.

i mean it's no longer a " comic con " its popculture con now, gotta look at the smaller shows that are just comic centric like the old days

Im a traditional artist who does artist Alley at cons across the country. Even though i do more horror art than pop culture art, i do all types of cons. In my experience at least, horror fans buy more art and merch in general than comic fans. The horror community is so nice for the most part. For me also, being a traditional artist helps me stand out among the increasing amount of digital artists. I do a lot of on site commissions at my table. Some cities though are being over saturated with cons though, with some having a different convention every other week with diminishing returns.

"You don´t send to save the world someone who want to change it."

I’m going to Galaxycon later this month. On the guest list there were no comic book creators. I feel like the luster of these conventions has been lost a bit. This makes me sad bc I love cons, getting to meet awesome people.

Alan Moore isn't right about anything. He's a hack.

How you explained comics is exactly how Funko Pops! are! It's not dead, in fact still thriving. Is just the general people/mainstream audience isn't into it. Those are the basic people that will say something is dead but actually is the total opposite. They're the kind of people that collect Beanie Babies, Hydro Flask then move onto Stanley Cups, Pillow Pets then move onto Squishmallows. They will say Funko and comics are dead but everything they collected actually died or will die off!

I've never been to a con. At this point i dont think I ever will. High ticket prices mixed with over priced books and big crowds are not appealing to me in the least. Social media has made it too easy to find the books I'm looking to purchase at competative prices from my living room.

video is waste of time

Yeah, it;s true. Comic conventions are so not about comics anymore. it's weird. Then again I grew up attending Creation Cons and Big Apple Comic Con. Star Trek conventions used to happen every year in New York City long before the movie and Next Generation. I really never looked into what happened to them, but by the sound of things they may have simply converted to another form. I remember when San Diego Comic Con was just a convention. I don't know when it became the Mecca of comic cons, but one day it was and it's pretty much stayed that way since. Now it's an entire production on a scale I could not imagine back when I was sixteen working my fast food job to afford going out of town to a Creation Con. At first I liked the idea that comic conventions became mainstream. Now. . . I simply don't know how to feel. Well except one part. Cosplay. IMO, if anything is responsible for elevating comic conventions it's cosplay. Cosplay does not get the credit it so richly deserves. Good video. I'm glad to be a new subscriber.

Agreed especially San Diego con! I go to the Planetcon in Kansas City and there were plenty of comic artists and writers and some pop culture guys like Henry Winkler. I also noticed a rise in comic-only shows which are always packed. The Berkeley show says no cosplay, no media just comics. So there is hope in the smaller cons.

Woke infiltration diluted the brand.

Kind of hard to support an industry that hates you and everything you love.

I think you miss the elephant in the room. C2E2is now actively harassing over half its audience by removing and banning conservative leaning fans and creators. The fact C2E2 would rather have empty floor space than allow conservatives participate is sickening. It kept me away this year.

I've only gone to two Comic conventions. The biggest was the Baltimore ComiCon in 2014. It was really stressful on Day 1, way too crowded for someone like me who just wanted to hit as many dealer stalls as possible. (It still had a lot of dealers back then.) The high point of the convention for me was getting to meet Herb Trimpe, the artist of my early childhood favorite comic, the 1977 Marvel (Toho) 24-issue Godzilla run. (Sure...I know about Hulk 181...but I didn't when I was 12.) I just loved Godzilla, and that was the first complete set I ever had. Anyway, I had two of my original, tattered Godzilla comics that I had bought off the spinner rack, VG at best, read many times, probably in one hand with the cover folded back behind as was common in those days. My wife and I waited in line with all the people and their stacks of crap to sign, and their little CGC yellow signature envelope box whatever things, and he was so polite with those hounds and flippers. (Addendum after reading a few comments below...he was not charging for signatures.) When I finally got to the table where he sat smiling, with his charming wife, I handed him my two crappy Godzilla books with a tear in my eye, he immediately looked up...no one was holding Godzilla...I just told him how honored I was to meet him, the honored artist of Godzilla and Shogun Warriors (Hulk or Wolverine never came up). He asked where to sign the books, and I said "I truly don't care, I can't believe I'm meeting you." I asked to shake his hand for making my childhood a bit brighter sometimes, which he graciously did with a big grin. Somewhere in the brief conversation, we discovered we had both served in the US Air Force. He was enlisted in the early 70's and I was an officer for 22 years starting in the 1990s. He stood up, walked around the table (now mind you, there's a MASSIVE line, easily 100 people...). He INSISTED on saluting me while my wife took a picture, and his wife was grinning so wide. Even our wives hit it off. I treasure those two comics and my meeting with Herb Trimpe. He passed away nine months later. I have told this story to others, and they tend to not believe me until they see the pictures, much like your pics! Other than that bright spot, I found my two comicons way too crowded and poppy and cosplay-ey and not enough peace and quiet to look at awesome back issue comics.

I live in Michigan, which use to be a hot spot for Comics, no longer…….Motor City Con is coming up next weekend, which I plan on attending. praying it’s not a cluster fuck full of Teens, jumping on Mystery garbage, which I’m expecting…..sadly 😢

Most Cons have turned into Media and Cosplay Mystery Box Shows……..been going on for the past 4 years. No longer the Cons of Comic Books

There’s only 1 Con that’s mainly Comic based left, and that’s Heroes Con in Charlotte NC

Back in the day I would only go to these things to buy comic books and meet artists but now I have to navigate through a jungle of irrelevant material that I just wish was not there

I’m a creator and have been doing cons for about 20 some years. I think one survey I’d be interested in seeing is an honest breakdown in comics sales: when you buy comics, is it to actually read them, just collect them, or a mix of both. I’d love to know that number. Artist alley feels pretty dead to me as far as people who actively seek out comics to buy from creators. What does sell at large cons is characters and properties people already know. So prints, sketches of known characters (the wall of prints vendor) and tables that have little to no comics are popping up. Where do I sell the most honest to god comics I make? Non-con events like music or book festivals. School book fairs are killing it on YA graphic novels. Alternative craft shows were also moving my comics. You get a large enough crowd and little to no competition, people still like comics. But when I do a mainstream con, it’s basically an autograph show where people only want Patrick Stewart’s autograph. It’s depressing.

Commercial capitalism is the death of many niche things

Hey what are the stands you use again? I can't find the link! I love them!

Went to NYCC in 2022 and felt very similar to you. One factor that sucks is basically all of the comic creators now charge for signatures when the con tickets themselves keep getting more and more expensive. I think first signature free is a good compromise with some obvious exceptions for certain speculative books. I skipped out on NYCC 2023 but my friends who went said it was disappointing. I’m thinking of going to Baltimore from now on instead of NYCC because it seems like it still has that classic comic con feel.

There hasn't been publishers at c2e2 the past few yrs, I think. I think c2e2 fell off a lot this yr

I also haven't bought a comic outside of a kickstarter since probably the late 90s. It is true that the western comics are semi dying, they don't have the appeal or story anymore. They do it all wrong and continue to just do the same series over and over and over and over again. They're not fresh or new, they hardly create new series with new heroes and all they do is retcon characters who are already established. You rarely EVER see that happen in manga. Enter said character and that character will be true 30 years from now. They don't drastically change a character. The race, gender, sexuality, background doesn't get messed with. Most people who see that change get pissed, because they have a connection to that character and the writers/creators/show runners/etc ruin it for them by altering everything they know about said character. This just doesn't happen with anime/manga. What's also great about their content is they tend to end them so they stay classics. New series and shows are put out every season. Western side is just Spider-man... X-men... you get the idea. They're almost forced to just do new spins on those characters. Western media is just stale and not good practice. They go about it all wrong.

It's not just comic cons. Pop culture cons in general. Anime conventions have been in this same boat too. I've been saying since around 2014 ish that Anime Expo (which is just as massive as SDCC) was becoming too much like comic con. More mainstream and corporate...

They just started having Comic Con in Springfield , Mass for some reason they did not do it last year ....

Comicons died years ago. I saw the writing on the wall when they merged them with manga otakucons A bunch of lonely antisocial nerds like me surrounded by happy cosplaying japanime fanatics. It's like they were forcing us out of the shadows and Into the limelight . Then it go worse, Hollywood got lazy, stopped creating new ideas and decided to milk Nerdom dry. So the comic book space in comicons shrunk from 90 percent to today 's 20 percent of the space. I go to a Comicon. The prices are inflated, you are lucky to find the book you want at a good price, and the rest of the time, you have a listen to a bunch of actors talking how how great their life and their career is. And the food sucks

All I can really say about your Malcolm X comparison to Cyclops is that it shows you know very little about his feelings toward white and ethnic divisions, let alone his devotion to the teachings of Islam.

When I go to conventions I go for two things: comic creators and cosplay. We wouldn't have Comic Cons without comic creators. Instead of being major stars pulling in fans most of them are tossed into a group of comic alleys somewhere in the middle or the side. They are no longer the big name appeals like they used to be, except for a few names. The sole focus the past few years has been on known celebrity names. Comic Cons are about to have an awakening though. Gen Z and Gen Alpha don't recognize celebrities like the Gen X and millennials. Gen Z and Gen Alpha care more about content creators and tiktok superstars. So it probably wont be long before they start headlining the conventions and celebrities as we know them right now will be bunched right next to comic creators.

You named Stephany Philips as a major comics creator? She’s trash-tier.

This is sad. I jumped back in about 2 years ago....was on fire. Right off a cliff. I will stick around for back issues but the writing isn't very good in the new stuff. It's the problem. Too much social parity and we are losing our ability to immerse in a classic comic universe any longer. Fix the writing, story and continuity and you can try to repair this mess.

American comics are definitely dying. You're doing the culture a diservice by lying about it. But go ahead and continue to provide cover for the failing comic book industry. The only thing even propping the big two up at this point are the massive conglomerates that own them.

Comics are over. Gamers are taking over. Since the death of Ed Piskor it's been realized that American comics are dead. The comic book stores are either going out of business or switching.

I just want to go and have a chance to find great deals and buy comics and maybe some action figures. But not the special guest’s, I mean i different, I do not care to meet any stars, writers, artists and I do not want to pay up to $200 for a selfie and a signature. I just want to save money on things I can find on ebay, but I save the shipping and put that money towards more comic books. So section off the celebrity hounds and keep the sales floor for us collectors.

You'll find it's more pop culture/fantasy/sci-fi than comics as it use to be. Besides, Marvel & DC books suck, so why go see them.🙄🙄🙄

A lot of people will start going for fun at first and might go to all of them in their area but then might stop. Its a hobby kind of and people will get board of anything if they do it a lot. I use to go to cons a lot and then I was just sick of them its the same thing over and over again.

Last “comic con” I went to (uk) had 2 people selling back issue comics out of about 150 stalls. There is a lot of plastic at these events now.

Reedpop run a lot of these.

I like that it’s took yous all this time to realise Comic Cons, are not Comic Cons Now! 😂😂

Got back to C2E2 this yr for the 1st time since 2020 & although it was very busy, I agree with you,, it was missing something. I also didn't like the layout of the con. Those autograph guests directly up in the front entrance didn't make much sense when they had sooooo much empty space toward the back. I love C2E2 but I hope they change things up in future years.

IMO The comics have become part of pop culture not just nerd/underground culture.

Philly Fan Expo this year was a huge disappointment. It was merely a shadow of past Wizard World experiences.

Before the bayarea lost wondercon to anneheim , it began to have booths of porn actresses showing their ass and tattoo freaks, and weirdo sellers selling crap unrelated to the comic book industry or iconic icons 😂❤

I begged my mom to take me to my first Comicon in 5th grade. It was at the Holiday Inn. All room dividers were separated and it was one giant room with nothing but comic vendors. I was in absolute heaven. I don't even go to cons anymore. Just not the same. When this comic boom pops, eventually, comic vendors will be begging the comic buyers back. jmo