This YouTube video by Clownfish TV reports on the outstanding success indie comics, while reviewing the state of mainstream comic publishers’ woes. For many years, Twitter has had too much influence on mainstream entertainment, and Corporate America for that matter. Twitter amplifies the complaints of far left agitators, comics publishers and Hollywood listen to them, and regular audiences reject the products that result.
Meanwhile, independent comics creators are thriving thanks to online crowdfunding. The video reports the sales of BRZRKR, an indie comic series involving Keanu Reeves and funded through Kickstarter. Crowdfunding used to be scoffed at, supposedly the route taken by creators who couldn’t make it in the mainstream. But now the mainstream industry is selling only a fraction of copies sold by indies and manga.
Online crowdfunding also has the advantage of direct-to-consumer sales. The pandemic caused comics retailers to shut down. One company, Diamond Distributing, had a monopoly on shipping books from Marvel and DC to those stores. When Diamond shut down during the pandemic, the big publishers had to scramble to find alternatives.
This is another example of the massive paradigm shift in society. It started in 2015, give or take a year, when established institutions started losing clout. Liberal vs Conservative politics gave way to Populist vs Globalist positions; trust in the media crumbled while independent bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters rose up; corporate run entertainment split from serving its audience; and cryptocurrency gradually grew until its current explosion. We’re moving from a centralized “mass society” clumped around cities and big organizations, to a decentralized “network society” enabled by the Internet.
