if someone could write a plugin for my internet browser that adblocks kevin smith’s smug, eye bulgey expression on imdb when once a year, his coutenance gets plastered all over the front page, i would be forever in your debt. but i’m not holding my breath.

i think my issue, beyond his oddly inaccurate fascination with canadian culture (i’m a hoser, btw), is his adopting the mantle of the ‘ultimate fanboy’. i have no problem with fanboys, love what you love. i wish i had that reckless abandon of the things i enjoy. but in his case, being a part of it with his comic book show, he props up the industry, not just the product.

there’s an old saying, don’t watch the sausages being made. it gets it’s roots from another older saying about laws, but i always took it to mean ‘if you enjoy something, don’t look too deeply at the creation of it’. i suspect watching sausages being made isn’t as appetizing as grilling them.

i think this is true of most arts. comics especially. there’s a dark history you can feel free to ignore, but like many things, people with talent get taken advantage of by people with money, or just just a lack of shame. by then you forget how we got to where we are, and stan lee has another cameo in a movie, while the original creator of the content whiles away in poverty. this is unpleasant, and you might wish to not know it, but once you throw back the curtain, well, the sausage will always taste faintly of colon and snout. this is my origin story. ‘captain cynicism’.

i’m sure every industry has these kind of injustices but i’m not a part of them, so i don’t see it. but we still use the golden age comics as examples of cartoonishly naive goodness thwarting villians of pointlessly evil intent. so, to me, it seems extra silly that the people who produce them, would not see the hypocrisy in turning themselves into the villian of someone else’s story. then again, no one is drawing that narrative. who would publish it if they did?

i have a history of bad predictions. i once told a group of students where i was asked to do a ‘guest speaker’ thing for (that i totally botched, public speaking isn’t for everyone) that i thought mobile gaming was going to be a brand new era for independent game publishers. and it was. for a few months. and the clash of clans model took over, and clones of freemium games piled up, and my phone became just a phone again. i wonder how man solo webcomic creators thought they would storm onto the scene and take a big wet bite out of marvel’s bottom line?

i know kevin smith and stan lee and the like have a lot of fans, and i’m not trying to ruin anything for you. but maybe this explains why darker storylines with actual unfairness resonate more with me that paragons of virtue, who save the day in the nick of time. i think once you face how sucky life can be, unfairness will feel more real. and once in a while, when a character ekes out some small hard won victory, it will mean more

here’s some art.