Fired 'X-Men' writer denies 'egregious' conduct, blames homophobia



Was his cosplay too gay?

Former "X-Men 97" showrunner Beau DeMayo claims the studio stripped him of his season two credits because of some homoerotic fan art he posted on Instagram for Pride Month.

DeMayo recently reposted the art — a cartoon he drew of himself as an underwear-clad, musclebound Cyclops — along with the comment that "On June 13, Marvel sent a letter notifying me that they’d stripped my Season 2 credits due to the post. Sadly, this is the latest in a troubling pattern I suffered through while on working on X-Men ’97 and Blade."

The "troubling pattern" DeMayo mentions would seem to allude to his mysterious sudden firing from the show in March.

Marvel responded to DeMayo's post by offering its own reasons for this parting of ways. "Mr. DeMayo was terminated in March 2024 following an internal investigation," the studio said in a statement. "Given the egregious nature of the findings, we severed ties with him immediately and he has no further affiliation with Marvel."

The studio further claimed that it stripped DeMayo of his credits after he repeatedly violated his termination agreement.

As for the exact nature of the behavior that led to DeMayo's firing, showbiz journalist Jeffrey Sneider cited unconfirmed rumors that DeMayo groped an assistant and sent male staffers suggestive pics of himself naked and in "superhero" poses.

Although DeMayo has yet to offer his own detailed version of why he was fired, in a recent post on X, he wrote that "the truth will be revealed."

A a popular reboot of the beloved 1990s "X-Men" animated series, "X-Men '97" faced criticism from some fans for taking the previously male character Morph and making him "nonbinary."

DeMayo, who took credit for the change, later confirmed that the character had "romantic feelings" for fan-favorite Wolverine.

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Colin Kaepernick's next act: Big Tech-funded AI comic book mogul, but will anyone care?



NFL quarterback turned activist Colin Kaepernick has launched an artificial intelligence-based platform for creating comic books and graphic novels.

The platform, called Lumi, said it allows artists to skip over gatekeepers, high production costs, and production timelines within the comic book and graphic novel industry. Lumi is led by Kaepernick and venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, a company that boasts dozens of startups in its portfolio.

"By leveraging advanced AI tools, Lumi enhances the creative process, allowing creators to focus on bringing their stories to life, while the platform handles all of the logistics," the company said in a press release.

The platform can turn "any creator into Disney," it claimed.

'It's unclear what gatekeepers Mr. Kaepernick is referring to since he had a lucrative deal with Netflix for a show no one seemed to like.'

Kaepernick transitioned into left-wing activism after kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games following losing the starting quarterback position on the San Francisco 49ers. He made vague claims of oppression and has since enjoyed several high-profile endorsement deals while allegedly also feigning attempts to return to the NFL.

As such, the Lumi press release was not without activist language.

"Lumi aims to open the funnel, enabling anyone to access storytelling superpowers, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and equitable world," the company wrote.

Funding has also come from unnamed tech executives from social media platform Meta and rapper Chamillionaire. Perhaps most notably, tech company Contextual AI has also thrown its hat in the ring after securing $80 million of its own. It is unclear, however, to what degree any technology from Contextual AI will be used for Lumi.

"Lumi addresses an unnecessary dependency on gatekeepers that slows creators down," Kaepernick said. "This allows creators to get back to what they ultimately want to do: create . The platform empowers creators to work freely and independently, deciding when and how they want to collaborate with others. This independence is crucial for fostering a vibrant and diverse creative ecosystem."

While the platform potentially leads to a faster end product, it certainly leapfrogs many artists along the way in an industry already suffering.

"I think this is sad because it cuts out all of the talented artists, actors, and talent that create stories and replace them with soulless AI," Return's managing editor, Peter Gietl, remarked.

"It's unclear what gatekeepers Mr. Kaepernick is referring to since he had a lucrative deal with Netflix for a show no one seemed to like. It remains to be seen whether AI-created art will resonate with an audience; it hasn't so far, but I think it is possible a talented person could use these tools to create great art," Gietl added.

Blaze News previously spoke with musicians regarding AI-generated music who overwhelmingly stated that any type of AI-based artform is likely to lack a human touch that resonates with audiences.

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'Fantastic Four' reboot will have a female Silver Surfer — Marvel casts Julia Garner for role with obscure justification



A new version of "Fantastic Four" will feature a female actress playing the role of the Silver Surfer character, reaching deep into Marvel lore to justify the gender switch.

Rumors from November 2023 turned out to be true after industry insiders tipped fans off about the potential gender switch for the Marvel reboot. In fact, the rumor even goes back to 2019 when reporter Mikey Sutton claimed that a new "Fantastic Four" movie would open with a transfer of power from the Silver Surfer to a female character.

The Silver Surfer is set to be played by Emmy-winning actress Julia Garner, Deadline first reported. The announcement raised the question among fans as to why the typically male character would be played by a woman.

In the 2007 film "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," the title character was played by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne, neither of whom are women.

However, it is actually a different female character who will take on the role as the Silver Surfer, and the justification of the character is about as obscure as one can get.

The character's name is Shalla-Bal, and fans will have to dig deep into their archives to find an instance when she inherited the role.

Shalla-Bal was first introduced in the debut issue of the Silver Surfer comic in 1968 and spent 50 years in comic book lore as the Silver Surfer's love interest.

As Bounding into Comics reported, the character has spent a very minimal amount of time as the Silver Surfer and never in the main timeline/universe of Marvel.

Shalla-Bal was seen in the role in the final two issues of 1997's "Earth X," in which she was temporarily granted the Silver Surfer's powers so that she could stop an invading force.

In total, the character's total time as the Silver Surfer has amounted to roughly four pages across two issues since 1968.

Thoughts?
— (@)

The character was given a similar role as Starbolt in 1982 but appeared gold.

Despite the technicality, Deadline cited inside sources that the character is the Shalla-Bal version of the Silver Surfer. For a reimagining of a franchise like "Fantastic Four" that hasn't been seen for 10 years, the film would have to take place in the exact timeline at that specific moment, coupled with an explanation as to why the Silver Surfer is a woman.

While audiences will have to wait for specific details, the internet is already alive and well with heated debates as to whether or not the character is another woke choice by Marvel and Disney. This, despite both companies going nearly — if not completely — undefeated in recent years in terms of using the Kathleen Kennedy method of storytelling.

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'They think third-wave feminist comic book stories are going to bring girls back': Chuck Dixon bashes Disney, woke comics

'They think third-wave feminist comic book stories are going to bring girls back': Chuck Dixon bashes Disney, woke comics



Legendary comic book writer Chuck Dixon explained that the comic book industry's strategy of "feminist" storylines will not bring back a once formidable audience of young women, nor will Disney's transformation of male-centric franchises into "girly stories."

The former DC Comics and Marvel Writer, who now writes for the independent Rippaverse Comics, called the comic book industry's latest attempts at storytelling tired injections of "third-wave feminism."

Dixon added that not only are the new stories void of what comic book readers enjoy, the content actually turns the typical fan away.

Dixon spoke to Bounding into Comics' Brett Smith, who pointed out that companies have been abandoning the key male demographic in recent years.

"Something else we’ve talked about is that it’s always been a ‘male-centric,’ or it’s been a industry which has been driven for male readers, for boys," Smith said.

Dixon interjected saying "Not always! Not always." Dixon then explained that in the "'50s and '60s, it was girls buying the comic book market.”

"'Archie, Young Romance' sold three and a half million copies a month for years," he noted. "You had lots of romance titles. You had 'Archie.' And girls were reading regular comics too! They were reading 'Little Lulu' and 'Uncle Scrooge' and 'Green Lantern' – my sisters read Green Lantern because they though Hal Jordan was cute!" the writer continued.

Dixon, who was recently quoted as saying that new comics are "literally shaming the reader" with woke storylines, said that the industry "totally abandoned that [female] market," and now "they don’t know how to get it back."

"They think third-wave feminist comic book stories are going to bring girls back to read; no, no they’re not. Because girls, your female readership – I was successful on 'Nightwing Vol. 2' because I was writing the kind of stories girls like too, you know, there was a lot of inner relationship. It was a more dense plot. It wasn’t just about guys punching each other," Dixon detailed.

Male audiences need to continue to "reject what they see," the writer went on, soon taking aim at Disney. "That has to happen over and over and over and over again ... the streaming services, movie attendance, television series, everything else falling apart; because they're not aiming it at [what] an audience wants to see."

"Look what Disney did," he continued. "[The company] spent $8 billion to get two male-oriented franchise and immediately turned them into girly stories."

"[Disney] needed material for boys, they didn't have anything for boys in their library, and and then they screwed both of them up in the worst possible ways you can imagine," he added.

Dixon noted in the summer of 2023 that Marvel — now owned by Disney — sometimes has disdain for its own readers, particularly in the case of "The Punisher."

"The main reason they wanted to get rid of the Punisher is because they hated the Punisher [for being blue-collar], and they hate you for liking it. It's that simple."

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Marvel rumored to gender-swap Silver Surfer character with a woman in 'Fantastic Four' reboot



The woke Marvel machine shows no signs of stopping after outlets have reported that the iconic Silver Surfer character may soon be a woman in an upcoming film.

Fresh off a disastrous showing for "The Marvels," along with a trouncing of parent company Disney at the hands of "South Park," the comic book creators are rumored to have gone full speed ahead with a remake of the "Fantastic Four," slated for a 2025 release.

As reported by Bounding into Comics, industry insider Jeff Sneider recently dropped the hammer that the Silver Surfer character would now be a woman, replacing the male character with an existing Marvel female who would for some reason drop her original superhero story arc in exchange for the surfer.

"So you know Galactus is going to be part of 'Fantastic Four.' The idea is that one of his four heralds is going to be female – I have heard that the Silver Surfer is going to be female," Sneider said.

The reporter reiterated this claim on his podcast a week later when he said, "Yes, you can expect to see a female Silver Surfer, as I noted on last week’s 'Hot Mic' podcast."

Sneider wasn't the only one to predict the change, and with multiple sources for the alleged storyline, the veracity of the claim becomes far more likely.

Weeks prior, a noted industry scoop-finder who goes by the moniker "My Time to Shine Hello" told his 150,000 followers that "Galactus' herald in the [Marvel Cinematic Universe] Fantastic Four reboot will be a woman."

Galactus is an incredibly powerful character in the Marvel universe, and his heralds are characters he endows with some of his powers. Silver Surfer has been one of those heralds.

Galactus' herald in the MCU Fantastic Four reboot will be a woman
— (@)

The rumor even goes back to 2019, when reporter Mikey Sutton claimed that a new "Fantastic Four" movie would open with a transfer of power from the Silver Surfer to female character Frankie Raye, who was previously played by actress Beau Garrett.

Marvel Studios was also reportedly looking to make the female character as powerful as the recently flopped Captain Marvel.

In the 2007 film "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," the title character was played by Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne; neither of whom are women.

Of course, Marvel is not afraid to terraform its characters' race or gender even if they've been around for over 80 years.

In a 2015 reboot, the series replaced the typically blond-haired, white male character named Johnny Storm (previous played by Chris Evans) with actor Michael B. Jordan.

The character was created in 1939.

Marvel Studios did not respond to request for comment.

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'Literally shaming the reader': Batman writer says comic books weren't always woke; now characters are 'professional victims'

'Literally shaming the reader': Batman writer says comic books weren't always woke; now characters are 'professional victims'



Celebrated comic book writer Chuck Dixon argued that while comic books haven't always been woke and progressive, many have turned into the personal point of view of writers who shame readers with the political opinions of the author.

Dixon, who has written for Marvel and DC Comics dating back to the 1980s, has worked on iconic characters such as Batman and the Punisher.

While routinely taking fan questions on his own series called "Ask Chuck Dixon," the writer was asked about the idea that comic books have always been "woke/political." The fan added that he thought the X-Men in particular weren't always politically correct and "definitely NOT woke."

"It’s funny, isn’t it? The thing about wokeism, and political correctness, and all the rest of it is the goalposts are always moving," Dixon replied, according to Bounding into Comics.

Dixon then remarked how X-Men comic book writer Chris Claremont turned the characters into "professional victims" but was still criticized by progressives. Claremont came under fire in 2022 after he gave "inflammatory remarks" at a comic book event.

The writer reportedly referred to slavery in a fictional setting and jokingly corrected himself after referring to the movie "Men in Black," saying, "sorry, Persons in Black."

"I don’t know Chris Claremont’s politics, but I’ll bet you he was pretty much in line with the woke crowd until whatever it was he said or did made them turn on him," Dixon said on the podcast. "When you take the X-Men, the original X-Men, in particular, who I saw as a pack of whiners, and now you make them victims, like professional victims," he continued.

After explaining how he felt characters like Superman aren't inherently political but rather work within reasonably objective truths (such as disliking a greedy landlord), he commented that there isn't an excuse for writers to inject their political agenda and point of view into superheroes.

"Maybe politics are part of a story, but that doesn’t excuse you injecting your agenda, your political agenda, your personal point of view into superhero stories and telling the reader what to think or shaming the reader, or literally shaming the reader," he stated.

He then called it "divisive" when writers dictate political stances through comic book characters' mouths.

"Telling readers that if you don’t agree with my political stance or the political stance that I’ve put in the mouth of Wolverine or Batman, then I don’t want you reading my comics, it’s divisive," Dixon continued. "Comics were never meant to be divisive; they have universal themes. And there are characters you agree with and characters you don’t."

Dixon also described the difference between political injections and characters that have always been inherently political. The Daredevil has "always been the bleeding-heart liberal. [The Punisher] has always been the direct opposite," he explained.

The point to comic books, Dixon added, is to create fiction that the reader can escape into.

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Prolific comics writer explains why woke Marvel despises the Punisher and similar characters: They are 'blue-collar superheroes. They are average guys driven to extremes.'



Legendary comics writer Chuck Dixon recently revealed why Marvel and the woke gatekeepers in the industry's mainstream despise the Punisher and other characters like him: "they hate their fans."

Dixon has worked on hundreds of comics, including Marvel's pre-woke "Punisher" titles and various "Batman" titles for DC Comics. He also recently collaborated with BlazeTV contributor Eric July on his Rippaverse Comics.

Afforded decades' worth of insights into the art and the industry, Dixon fields questions from fans and comics aficionados on his YouTube series, "Ask Chuck Dixon."

On an episode of the show last month, he read a letter from a fan that said, "Chuck, I have been a fan of the Punisher since I was a kid, I've always wanted to ask: Do they hate the Punisher because he doesn't fit into their vision? Or do they hate him because of the idea and the fans liking the idea that refutes most of their 'heroes don't kill' argument?," reported Bounding into Comics.

To the questioner's point, there has been a concerted campaign in recent years to snuff out the Punisher — or at the very least chase away undesirables among his fan base.

In a 2017 Gizmodo piece entitled "There's Never Going to Be a 'Right Time' for The Punisher TV Series," Charles Pulliam-Moore wrote, "[I]t’s impossible not to see how he’s also a celebration of the kind of gun culture that makes actual mass shootings possible," warning that to "make the Punisher the star of his own TV show is to valorize his character."

Newsweek's associate editor Jon Jackson wrote in 2021, "Marvel has a popularity problem with one of its B-list characters: the Punisher, aka Frank Castle, a troubled ex-Marine turned vigilante who metes out lethal justice to the corrupt and criminal ('The people I kill need killing'). Right now he's too popular with the wrong people."

Jackson stressed that the "wrong people" could be found "among the MAGA hats, Don't Tread on Me Flags and Trump 2024 banners."

Jon Bernthal, the actor who played the character on Netflix's "The Punisher," canceled in 2019, suggested that the rightists amongst the character's following "are misguided, lost, and afraid. They have nothing to do with what Frank stands for or is about."

Gerry Conway, one of the character's co-creators, told Newsweek, "I could definitely see it might be time for him to step back for a bit. Not because there's anything necessarily wrong with the character, but given where we are right now in our society."

Conway, a leftist, previously attempted to take the Punisher skull symbol "back from the right," claiming "[The skull] should be a symbol for Black Lives Matter," reported the Guardian.

Conway was reportedly apoplectic that police should use the symbol, claiming their usage had left the character "completely defiled."

Marvel, similarly antipathetic to the Punisher's un-woke fans, has finally put the nail in his coffin.

In what might be the final Punisher series, woke Marvel writers transmogrified the titular character into something pathetic and intentionally unlikable, ditching the skull for a devilish Asian insignia and his guns for swords.

Screen Rant reported that in the finale, he ends up in the custody of the Avengers. After long punishing the criminal underworld following his wife's murder, Frank Castle ends up in a confrontation with his undead wife who chastises him for killing "in her name." Afterward, an all-but-gelded Punisher essentially kills himself.

Responding last month to the question about why the Punisher is so hated, Dixon dismissed the suggestion that Frank Castle was exceptional in that he kills bad guys, noting that "we see other comic book heroes, superheroes who kill. It's hard to believe Captain America didn't kill a lot of Nazis. ... To single out Frank Castle because he kills people — you know, if that’s their argument it’s an inaccurate one."

The real reason Marvel and leftist critics don't like the Punisher, suggested Dixon, is who his fans are.

Dixon suggested that the anger over the Punisher's popularity with the "wrong people" parallels blue-collar Americans' embrace of the character Archie Bunker in the 1970s sitcom "All in the Family" — a character the writer Norman Lear intended for audiences to hate and whose ultimate fans he meant to lampoon.

Similarly, when Marvel went woke, Dixon said those running the show were "just embarrassed about everything about the Punisher, particularly his audience. They didn't like the Punisher and they didn't like the people who liked the Punisher."

"Most comic book characters are either brainiacs, mutants, scientists, you know, whatever. There's very few superheroes that have blue-collar origins," continued Dixon. "Frank Castle and Guy Gardner are blue-collar superheroes. They are average guys driven to extremes. And a lot of readers respond to that because a lot of readers aren’t brainiacs, mutants, or scientists. They’re driving a truck, or stocking shelves, or, you know, working for a paycheck."

"People respond to these characters because ... they have blue-collar origins. When they’re written correctly, they say stuff and do stuff that other comic book characters won't," said Dixon.

Dixon said the final straw for the Marvel bigwigs and liberal critics was when American police and soldiers began wearing and/or displaying the Punisher symbol.

"'Cops are wearing the symbol, ewww! Our soldiers are wearing the symbol, boo!'" Dixon said, mocking the thinking at Marvel. "'We're going to take the Punisher, and we're going to mangle him and we're going to destroy him. We're going to do what no other entertainment company ever has done. We are going to ... tear it to the ground.' And that's what they did."

"Any other lofty reason they give is B.S.," emphasized Dixon. "The main reason they wanted to get rid of the Punisher is because they hated the Punisher and they hate you for liking it. It's that simple."

Ethan Van Sciver, an American comics artist who worked as an artist on numerous DC Comics and Marvel titles, appears to have reached a similar conclusion.

Sciver noted on Twitter, "It's not so much that Marvel Comics hates The Punisher. They were happy to cash in on merchandise, media, apparel and comics featuring him for decades. They hate YOU. And they hate that you love The Punisher. So this is for you, Conservative comics fan, with a big Go F*** Yourself from Disney."

Ask Chuck Dixon #152 Why Marvel hates the Punisher and hates you. And life in the Rippaverse!youtu.be

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Why Did Superhero Movies Get So Bad?

The Marvel Cinematic Universe and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

BlazeTV contributor Eric July clears nearly $1 million in preorders inside 24 hours for his latest graphic novel, proving once again readers want good stories, not bad ideology, from their comics



BlazeTV contributor Eric July put it all on the line and launched an independent comic book company in 2022, sure that he was not the only "comic book lifer" exhausted by the leftist agitprop and infantilizing regurgitate churned out by woke publishers like Marvel and DC Comics.

That risk paid off big-time last year.

July's Rippaverse Comics released "Isom #1" in 2022, telling the tale of Avery Silman, a valorous Texas rancher who resumes his duties in Cincinnatian fashion after it becomes clear his city once again needs the costumed hero Isom's help.

The book, which received rave reviews on League of Comic Geeks, raised over $3.7 million dollars in a preorder where the stated goal was $100,000, evidencing a significant appetite for compelling content unencumbered by woke innocence-signaling — for books where story comes first.

The Dallas-based podcaster, musician, and author is back with a second comic.

\u201cThe Pre-Order Campaign for ISOM #2 is now LIVE! And check out the FIRST official project from Rippaverse Studios - the ISOM #2 Animated Trailer! #Rippaverse #Isom #Isom2 #comicbooks\n\nhttps://t.co/Plp6D3XC8V\u201d
— Rippaverse Comics (@Rippaverse Comics) 1686578445

Within 24 hours of preorders for "Isom #2" going live, July raised over $863,000 (247% over the set sales goal), proving last year's success was not a flash in the pan but rather an actionable market signal.

In fact, the excitement over the second installment in the series was enough to strain the Rippaverse website to the point of temporarily breaking.

July told TheBlaze that the website went down Monday following an unprecedented deluge of preorders and activity. While he stressed the crash was "unacceptable" and is working to bolster his comic universe's burgeoning infrastructure, July admitted it was nevertheless a "great problem to have."

While there was no guarantee ahead of the company's launch last year that there would be such overwhelming interest, July was convinced from the start he was staring down a "perfect storm."

After all, as a self-professed "comic book lifer" with a customer-centric perspective on the trade, July understood precisely how the comic book industry was "destroying itself."

The big publishers appeared willing to alienate readers who once turned to comics as a form of escapism and excitement — those who sought archetypal characters and transcendent stories that stood the test of time, free from faddish jargon and propaganda.

Oftentimes, where ideology wasn't the leading character, readers still had to contend with demoralizing stories in dead worlds populated by recycled characters.

DC Comics published a comic book in 2021 with a storyline where the Robin character comes out as bisexual after another male character asks him out on a date.

According to the New York Post, Marvel modeled an evil character after former President Donald Trump.

The multibillion-dollar company later hired identitarian leftist Ta-Nehisi Coates to transmogrify Dr. Jordan Peterson's ideas and put them in the mouth of the fictional Nazi villain Red Skull.

Marvel also saw fit to introduce to its bloated fictional universe a pair of affected heroes named "Snowflake" and "Safespace"; the former a "non-binary" character who identifies as a dehumanized plurality.

DC Comics is evidently no better.

Superman, a sometimes-homosexual in a deeply unpopular series canceled after 18 issues, has a son who advances climate alarmism.

"Between changing all of these characters and you have this ridiculous kind of push for social justice, insulting the audience and all of that — and I was like, you know what? I am going to be a solution to the problem," July told TheBlaze last year.

In the way of a solution, July did not set out to pen the great anti-woke comic book. If anything, he wanted to write a "non-woke" comic book that anyone could settle into without having to worry about being sold on some grand political project.

"You have a lot of bad American comic book content. It's terrible," July told TheBlaze Tuesday. "People that have been reading comic books like myself forever finally said, 'Hey look, these guys clearly aren't making these books with an audience like myself in mind, so I'm just not gonna buy it.'"

Comic book lovers turned off by the mainstream output "still like comics," said July. "They like American comics."

The appetite is there, but readers won't necessarily be satisfied by foreign content, even if unwoke. Japanese manga, for instance, "doesn't scratch that itch."

Making the search harder is the impenetrability of certain extant fandoms.

"It can be intimidating for a lot of noobies to try to get in on a character they might recognize from a movie," said July.

One of the apparent benefits of a fresh comic universe unspoiled by focus groups and ESG czars, such as that on offer in the Rippaverse, is that prospective readers don't need to have committed entire genealogies to memory or suffered through convoluted multi-film, multi-series backstories and reboots.

"Isom #2," for instance, "is not intergalactic. It's not interplanetary and all that stuff with none of those crazy crossovers. It's none of that. ... It's a street-level story."

The book, written by July, whose writing appears to mine some particulars of his personal story, is illustrated by artist Cliff Richards. In addition to doing pencils for Dark Horse Comics' "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series and the artwork for Del Rey Books' graphic novel "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," Richards has also worked on various DC Comics titles.

The drawings are colored by Gabe Eltaeb, a former DC Comics colorist who quit in 2021 after taking issue with the woke bastardization of the Superman character and saying, "I'm tired of them ruining these characters; they don't have a right to do this."

The Rippaverse will soon be populated by content from Chuck Dixon as well — the prolific writer who worked on Marvel's pre-woke "The Punisher" comics, "Batman" for DC Comics, and hundreds of others.

Beyond the top-tier artwork and stories, July indicated some fans might see the appeal in the company's independence, decentralization, and personal touch.

"I think the day of the mega-corporation is over. It's not to say this is going to go away. What I mean is that you're going to see a lot more successes like ours who keep it relatively small. ... I'm at the warehouse. I'm packing orders. I have a direct line of sight with my audience. That's something you don't get with the likes of Bob Iger."

This direct line of sight goes both ways, enabling customers to see that they're dealing with people who "cherish what it is they're doing and take care of it. The audience picks up on this and the fact we don't despise the audience," said July.

In turn, Rippaverse Comics "recognizes that in order for us to last, we have to give them something that they want."

So far, so good, July indicated — despite the constant stream of vitriol from the left.

"When people found out that a guy that they feel like is ideologically different from them in an industry they feel like they own built his own sandbox, they got very aggravated," he said. "Despite all my hot political takes, I've not had anything ever in my life that got me more backlash. Nothing comes close. Not even comparable."

"I've got called everything that you can think of in the book, but doesn't matter because they can't stop it. That's the reason why we did it the independent way. We're going to continue to be great. We love our customers. They're gonna continue to support it."

Leftists, simultaneously confronted with the books' wide support and rendered incapable of cancelling Rippaverse due to its independence, "know that they can't do that with us, so they can scream into the abyss. We go virtually unimpacted. If there is an impact, they're just galvanizing the truth, incentivizing people to buy more Rippaverse books."

Eric July's Isom 2 Shane Davis Cover Drawing Process youtu.be

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‘House On Fire’ Shows A Dystopia That’s Right Around The Corner

Matt Battaglia's debut graphic novel 'House on Fire' shows us a dystopia that is uncomfortably similar to current-day society.