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Sept. 22, 2022 - The Delingpod - James Delingpole

01:24:30

Ethan Van Sciver

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	Welcome to the Dellingpod, and I know I always say I'm excited about this week's special guest, but I really am.
	I've got Ethan VanSkroiber, who is a comic book... Hold up there, Mr Dellingpole.
	VanSkyver.
	Oh, you added an H to R. Everybody does that.
	It's not your fault.
	People just see, like, S, C together and they go, there should be an H in there or an R before we move on to the vowel.
	Mate, your name is wrong.
	It should be Ethan Van Scrape.
	Yeah, I blame Ellis Island.
	My Dutch ancestors didn't stand up for themselves at Ellis Island.
	They didn't say no.
	You know, we're from a town called Skiffa, and you guys with your New York accent, you're saying VanSkyver.
	That's, you know, and that's where my people came from.
	So that's the whole thing.
	Dutch, the Dutch are too nice.
	We really need to be more rude.
	Hopefully you've learned something.
	I'm really sorry for getting your name wrong, um, and that's like incredibly unprofessional stuff.
	I just, in my head, I, because I saw it written at the bottom of my screen.
	Ethan VanSkyver.
	That's correct.
	Oh, blimey, my production team's got it wrong.
	Luckily, I can correct it.
	Anyway, you know what a skiver is?
	Do Americans have the same term?
	No.
	No, that's why I can't come to your nation and introduce myself without people going, you look it.
	I can't do that.
	That's the problem.
	Yeah, a skiver is somebody who kind of slaps off work, who doesn't pull his weight.
	I'm sure that's not you.
	Anyway, Ethan, let's start with the thing that I got to know you over first, which was Comicsgate.
	Which must be about a decade ago now.
	And it was my first real taste of the nature of the culture wars.
	That the whole world of comic books had been hijacked by these blue-haired lesbian types.
	You sound like me!
	I love it!
	Nice to meet you, Mr. Dellingpole.
	What a pleasure.
	Wow!
	But I wrote a piece about it for The Spectator, and I'm pretty sure we had a chat, because it would have been remiss of me not to talk to you about it, given that you were the kind of the leading figure in the resistance.
	But yeah, so for those people who never really followed Comics Game, just give me a sort of, in a nutshell, what it was about, what happened.
	So about 10 years ago, and I was working at DC Comics.
	I've been working at Marvel Comics for a long time.
	I was working there happily and safely.
	It was largely a boys club, of course.
	What woman wants to read comics?
	Seriously, what woman has masculine power fantasies?
	Very few.
	They're welcome.
	They're welcome to read them, but there just aren't that many.
	Suddenly, out of the blue, in a very peculiar way, a lot of feminists showed up, almost on cue, almost together, simultaneously, and started talking about how comics were great.
	This is a uniquely American art form here, but They're a little bit bigoted.
	They're a little bit sexist.
	I don't know if you boys have noticed, but these comics are sexist, maybe racist, perhaps homophobic.
	Now, if you'll hire us, large, rotund, blue-haired women, into spots of influence and power, we'll fix this for you.
	And the men of comics, I'm sorry to say, All of them.
	All of them just immediately crumbled and said, well, we don't want to be sexist.
	We don't want to be racist.
	We don't want to be any of these things.
	You're hired.
	Tell us where we're going wrong, you blue-haired cat ladies.
	And they did.
	So these women wormed their way in.
	And I remember having, like, I wasn't aware of the culture war.
	I wasn't aware of what was going on.
	I was just sitting there drawing Green Lantern and Batman and doing my job.
	And I remember listening to other people who were sitting there, and I'd go, this is weird.
	It is weird that There are a lot more women in here lately and they're changing things.
	Isn't that weird?
	And my peers, my male peers would say, uh, Ethan, you're a Republican.
	I know you're, none of them were, but the fact that I was a Republican freaked them all out.
	They couldn't, they really didn't understand.
	Certainly you're a capitalist, right, Ethan?
	You care about money.
	I've got news for you.
	50% of the country, 50% of the world is made up of women.
	And we're only selling to men.
	Imagine if we change comics and open them up to women.
	We're going to double our income.
	Right, Ethan?
	And you care about money.
	You care about that.
	Basically what happened was these women hired more women, and these women came in and started saying, why is Wonder Woman's bikini bottom so short?
	We've got to change that.
	That's sexist.
	She's not an object.
	Wonder Woman isn't here for you men to drool over, to objectify.
	You pigs!
	And they started to redo and change and make all these adjustments and changes.
	And then people who kind of strayed, like really good like Cheesecake.
	You know what Cheesecake is in the UK?
	Like that kind of art style where sexy women, you know, those guys were punished.
	Those guys were dragged out into the middle of the square and virtually flogged for drawing women with pleasant curves and, you know, in various states of undress.
	And comics just gradually became less fun.
	And then when the election came around in 2016, a sea change started to happen.
	Gamergate had already happened.
	This reaction to the very same phenomenon in video games.
	It was starting to happen here.
	People were starting to stand up.
	These activists, these feminists hired activists who came in and they started to make changes.
	How come all of these heroes are white males?
	Surely we should replace them.
	We've got Tony Stark as Iron Man.
	Let's replace him with a black teenage girl.
	Bruce Banner is the Hulk.
	He's full of angst.
	...replace him with a teenage Asian boy who likes being the Hulk!
	He thinks it's awesome!
	The Hulk is rad!
	And then, just over and over again, like, Captain America is now black.
	Over at DC, they were doing... DC's doing something different.
	They're making all of their characters gay and bisexual.
	Retailers stood up at one point, at a Retailer Summit meeting with Marvel, and said, People are going to the Marvel Comics movies, the MCU movies, and they like Captain America.
	They like Thor.
	Thor is now a woman with breast cancer.
	What the hell is going on?
	People come into my shop and they go, I'm interested in these characters.
	Where can I read more about Thor and Iron Man and the Hulk?
	And we don't, you guys aren't producing, you guys are producing products, books about other characters that are not these characters, and I can't sell them.
	And Marvel responded by basically saying, we hear you, we hear what you're saying.
	What you're saying is, you hate women, and you're bigots.
	And then they doubled down, and then Comixgate basically exploded.
	It was just a reaction to The same thing that's happening everywhere, James.
	It's happening in everybody's industry, everybody's hobby, everywhere that people go to have fun, especially places where men go.
	Things that men like.
	They're being invaded by woke activists who ruin them for fun.
	hijack them take over them uh and then laugh at the pain of the people who were previously enjoying uh this hobby uh when they complain so this is what comics gate is all about and uh you know it's uh taking quite a few i'm talking a lot james i apologize i'm a youtuber too so i one thing i do is Feel free to interject.
	Shut me up.
	No, I don't want to.
	I was loving your flow, man.
	You were absolutely brilliant.
	That is the best... I mean, obviously, you're in the position to do so, but that was the best summation of Comix Gate I've ever heard or read.
	It was genius.
	I mean, the thing that really shocks me, I'd love you to list, if you can remember all the characters, all the Marvel and DC characters who've been subverted.
	You know, tell me what they've become, because I mean, I love the idea that they've become...
	Batman is gay, Superman is bisexual, Robin is now homosexual, Wonder Woman is queer, Aqualad is gay, The Flash is non-binary, Green Lantern is pansexual, I could go on and on.
	Just give me a list of all of these characters.
	Basically, there are no heterosexual women in Gotham City.
	Poison Ivy's a lesbian.
	Harley Quinn is a lesbian.
	They're a couple together.
	Catwoman is bisexual.
	On and on and on and on.
	And it's very peculiar.
	Like I said, it's very strange that this is happening because There are gays in the world.
	Perhaps they need to be represented in comics.
	Maybe there should be more than one LGBTQ representative in comics, but less than all of them.
	Now, heterosexuality is a weird thing when you actually see it in comics nowadays.
	When you're reading a DC comic and Superman kisses Wonder Woman, you're like, this doesn't feel right.
	Like, surely I'm about to get yelled at by someone with green hair in a second.
	This doesn't seem fair.
	Did you ever come across Devlin Waugh?
	Devlin... A comic book character called Devlin Waugh.
	I mean, I used to be massively into 2000 AD.
	That was my comic.
	But I can't remember who it was.
	I'm sure we can Google it while we're chatting.
	Devlin Waugh was this kind of... He was very, very buff.
	But also very, very camp.
	He was a kind of sort of buff, gnoll coward who went around wasting people.
	You know, he was like the clever rebarte, like, you know.
	Yeah, he was good.
	He was good.
	But what was great about him was he was camp and probably, almost certainly gay, but he was the exception rather than the rule.
	Whereas now, if you've got everyone, if everyone is gay, then no one's gay, isn't it?
	It's a bit like that.
	Well, that's why they're bisexual.
	Everyone is bisexual now.
	So they're basically, you know, Green Lantern.
	The original Green Lantern from the 1940s, Alan Scott.
	I was there when this happened.
	They said, hey, Alan Scott, Green Lantern, is gay.
	And I said, you're kidding me.
	Like, since when?
	And this was back in like 2005 or 6.
	And they said, don't worry.
	They actually said this.
	They said, don't worry.
	It's not the main Alan Scott Green Lantern, it's the one from this alternate reality.
	It's Earth 2, Alan Scott Green Lantern.
	So in other words, they were kind of cowardly dipping their toe in to just see what the temperature of the water was.
	Uh, but I mean, you know, now, of course, the main Alan Scott Greenlander is gay.
	Over at Marvel, it's a whole other thing.
	Iceman is gay.
	All these other characters who were never really gay before, that is their one... What is their personality?
	See, you're describing a character with a personality who might be gay.
	Their personality is gay.
	Like, that's... it's like, who is this character?
	They are gay.
	They're gay being gay.
	They're gay, that's who they are.
	And that's the end of the story, by the way.
	The story is they're gay and how are they going to tell their parents?
	They're no longer fighting.
	It's like, they're not... Is everybody going to accept them?
	Spoiler alert!
	Yes, they are!
	Like, everybody's going to embrace them and hug them and be like, oh, it's so great that you're finally yourself.
	That's the story now.
	Every single DC comic is a story about I'm gay.
	I have a boyfriend.
	Are my friends going to accept me?
	Are the Teen Titans going to... Yes, they are.
	They're going to hug you and they're going to tell you you're great.
	Everybody's going to validate you and all of this stuff.
	It's not even interesting.
	Like, it would be more interesting if the story was...
	Robin is gay and his parents are going to kick him out.
	Robin is gay and his boyfriend is going to reveal his secret identity to the world.
	It'd be more interesting if there was some conflict involved.
	But it isn't.
	There's just a message.
	Gay is good.
	Gay is heroic.
	Being gay means you're a superhero now.
	And that's the agenda.
	It's tiresome.
	It could have been done once.
	It's been done over and over and over again.
	OK, now, there was a time in my life, I mean, I've changed very much politically over the years, or ideologically, as regular viewers will testify, but there was a time when I considered myself as a right-wing columnist.
	Where I would have made the case, which I no longer believe, but I would have made the case that the bottom line will always correct these things.
	So when DC and Marvel start losing money hand over fist, when they realise that this trash is not selling, they will have a change of heart and they will restore the original characters to their Heterosexuality and their toxic masculinity because that's what the market demands.
	But that didn't actually happen, did it?
	No, and the reason why is because market forces aren't really affecting Marvel and DC as comic book publishers anymore, and places where stories are the primary thing that you market, because these comic book companies have been purchased by enormous corporate parent organizations.
	So Marvel Comics is owned, all of their characters and the comic book publisher, by Disney.
	And so, you know, also DC Comics, owned by Warner Brothers, which is now Warner Discovery.
	And this is treacherous for a lot of different reasons.
	One, market forces are never going to impose consequences on these companies for producing bad stories, because Papa Disney has all the money in the world, and Papa Disney doesn't really care what Marvel Comics is producing.
	Marvel Comics can just kind of look up a pop at Disney and go, we're producing cheap stories that you can turn into television and movies eventually.
	That's our entire purpose.
	Yeah, we're losing money hand over fist, but think about how inexpensive it is for us to produce stories.
	We're research and development for you.
	And Marvel's just like, or Disney's just like, fine, whatever, that's fine.
	Beyond that, okay, here's the worst part of this.
	First of all, there's something called ESG, where these corporations are being rewarded by, you know, big companies, big, what's it called, what's BlackRock?
	Yeah, exactly, Satan's favourite investment company.
	BlackRock and Vanguard.
	BlackRock and Vanguard are rewarding these companies for basically advocating for radical leftism.
	Disney and Warner Brothers, we actually found one of the Warner Brothers diversity, inclusion and equity reports.
	It is the most insane thing, this colourful brochure, digital brochure that's like Full of pie charts, like this is how many white people we used to have, and this is how many white people we have now, and that, you know, broken down.
	Everybody that they're hiring by race, by gender, by sexual preference, all of the projects that they have lined up that are supposed to espouse diversity, to prove that they're making progress, and all of this is to basically, you know, to get investors to invest in their company based on these ESG benefits.
	And there are also tax benefits as well to being woke for these big corporations.
	Not for these little companies, but for the big corporations.
	So these little publishers are basically saying, another way that we can skirt scrutiny about our profitability as comic book publishers is to just represent the corporation's political agenda.
	So if a corporation has a political agenda, and it does when it's being incentivized in these ways, How can we help to sort of amplify that and represent it?
	Consequently, like, comic books can no longer be art.
	They used to be able to... You'd have guys like Frank Miller who would come in and tell something.
	He'd have a story called, like, Holy Terror Batman, Batman going after terrorists, Muslim terrorists.
	You can't do that in this day and age.
	You can't have anything that's even remotely right-wing because Your comic book company is now representing the political, social aspirations agenda of a big parent corporation.
	It's no longer art, it can only be propaganda.
	And at that point, you know, Comicscape You know, we used to think that we could change them.
	We could, you know, we could tell them where they're going wrong.
	We could impose, you know, financial penalties on them by not buying their comics, by protest.
	You just realize that it's utterly pointless to even try because they're not in it for our money.
	They don't care about our money.
	They're getting our money anyway.
	Even if you don't buy their woke comic books, they're getting your retirement funds invested through them.
	I mean, that's...
	Whether you like it or not, they're getting your money, so it doesn't matter.
	And that's the real shame of it, is that now you know that you're getting corporate product.
	A radical, whether he's right-wing or left, any kind of creative lunatic like Alan Moore or somebody like that can't come in.
	and really express himself fully and tell a story that he's been dying to tell.
	Because first he's got to ask himself if Mickey Mouse is going to be okay with it.
	That's the death of comics.
	That's the death of comic books right there.
	Yeah.
	But my older self, you know, maybe three years ago, would then have continued this article, this imaginary article, where I would have said, yes, but all the dispossessed, all the dispossessed but all the dispossessed, all the dispossessed comic book readers would be yearning to buy, um, Well, no, because again, the market is completely controlled.
	through to the spirit of the earlier comics.
	And therefore independent comic producers would spring up new publishing companies and they would hoover up the market.
	But that hasn't happened either, has it? - Well, no, because again, the market is completely controlled.
	The mainstream comic book market is completely controlled and gate kept by social justice warriors.
	So, you know, I've been canceled.
	When they found out I voted for Trump, they thoroughly did a number on me.
	They called me a Nazi.
	They said I was a white supremacist who dabbles in Hitlerism and all this, you know, typical stuff that they say about their neighbors these days.
	So, I've been cancelled.
	Anything that I wanted to do in comics independently, through the mainstream, through the direct market, I'd be fighting these people, and so would anybody like me.
	They would do everything they could to make it so that I couldn't be on the stands in the same shops as them.
	If a retailer who owns a comic book shop ordered my comics to put them on a shelf, these people would protest him.
	Uh, they would, uh, they would arrive and they'd say, don't you understand you're stocking your shelves with the work of white supremacy, you know, all this stuff.
	So, uh, what we've had to do instead, because that market is definitely there.
	There's also, sadly, there are people who will just walk away from comics.
	Reading comic books as a hobby, it's already a niche hobby, but it's an addiction and you can break an addiction.
	You can just say, I don't read comics anymore.
	You can walk away.
	That's the worst thing that can happen.
	But there are some people who still want to read comic books and they just want comics by people who don't hate them.
	Can you imagine that?
	Like actually going to a movie and just being like, the people who made this movie wouldn't hate me as a person because of my politics.
	Can you imagine how wonderful that would be?
	You and I can't relate to that, I don't think.
	I don't think we... it's a fantasy.
	So, how have you got round it?
	So the first thing that I did when I was being canceled, I started a YouTube channel because I realized that I could get my voice out on YouTube.
	I started a channel called Comic Artist Pro Secrets.
	And what I was going to do was I was going to teach people about how to draw comics.
	I was going to teach people about my comics and then talk about the culture war on top of that.
	And using this platform of mine, I was going to be able to stand up for myself and speak to a large audience.
	Stand up for myself, fight back, push back.
	I'm not a Nazi.
	Can you imagine having to say that?
	It's so degrading.
	Even when I think about having to tell people that I'm not a Nazi and I'm not racist, I'm pissed.
	I got into this industry, this low stakes, frivolous industry, Uh, you know, of drawing funny books for people, for pleasure, for fun, and really investing myself in the art form.
	Uh, and the consequence of being unlike the herd in this frivolous industry was having my reputation completely turned upside down.
	Uh, having my life just, uh, they tried to destroy my life.
	It's the same story that you'll hear from anybody who's been cancelled or interacted with social justice warriors.
	It's the same sad tale.
	Nobody feels sorry for you because they're afraid it's going to happen to them next.
	So you have to figure out a way to get around it.
	I got this YouTube channel and then what I did was I talked to somebody who had a million subscribers on YouTube and I said, you're talking about comic books, you're talking about corporate comics.
	Why aren't you making them?
	You have a hundred, you have a million subscribers, literally a million subscribers.
	You could, if you could convince 10% of your audience to buy your comic books, you would outsell Marvel and DC Comics.
	And the guy said, yeah, I don't really want to do that.
	And I went, I do.
	So I started trying to build up my YouTube channel, and I started crowdfunding.
	I started using Indiegogo.
	I thought they seemed to be committed to pushing back against gatekeepers.
	They have that pledge.
	We're against gatekeeping, so that's why we exist.
	Started to use Indiegogo, and I brought back my first comical character from when I was a teenager called Cyberfrog.
	This character, right behind me you can see Cyberfrog all around me.
	Look at that beautiful statue of him.
	Isn't he great?
	And I started to push back, I started to crowdfund Cyberfrog, and my first book, my first Cyberfrog book raised over half a million dollars.
	Wow.
	At a time when people were, like, suffering, I mean, broke.
	And here I am, having just been canceled, you know, subverting, kind of going around, circumventing the gatekeepers, using crowdfunding, using my YouTube channel as a promotion vehicle, and making half a million dollars in my first book.
	Second book raised $1.2 million.
	And absolutely astonishing success.
	Are the people out there?
	Yeah, the people people are out there like the fans are out there.
	They're they're clamoring for Two things.
	One, they want to make a statement.
	They want to be heard.
	They want somebody to actually listen to them when they say, I don't like the culture war.
	I didn't ask for a culture war.
	I didn't ask to have to fight to protect and defend the things that I thought I'd always be able to take for granted.
	I didn't know Batman was going to be kissing men.
	I didn't know that.
	I didn't know that that was going to happen.
	I don't want that.
	And I wish these people would stop.
	I wish women weren't sitting there making sure that all of my beautiful, sexy, cheesecake superhero women were Clothed as though they were in the Taliban.
	I don't want that.
	I would like my characters to be sexy and beautiful.
	I'd like my men to be masculine.
	I want to fight monsters.
	I want violence.
	I want all of the stuff that made comic books Fun.
	I want that back.
	I want you guys out of here.
	So there's that group.
	People want that.
	And then people also just want entertainment that is free, is made by someone who doesn't despise them.
	And I certainly love everyone who has supported Cyberfrog, everyone who supported my company.
	I think about them every day.
	I try to make work that honors them, that respects their intelligence, even though it's about a frog.
	And it's worked.
	Imagine respecting your audience, respecting your customers.
	Simple thing.
	Comicscape.
	Respect the customer in thought, word, and content.
	That's the slogan.
	And it works every time.
	Ethan, that's made me really happy, that story.
	Is there... Are you about to tell me some... Oh, hang on.
	I'm just getting rid of this dog.
	This dog is really annoying me.
	- Cool. - Sorry about that. - Yeah. - Is that wrong?
	You've made me really happy.
	But is there going to be a bit where you're going to tell me that it's now since gone pear-shaped, or is it still going well?
	It's still going.
	It's great.
	This was 2018 that I started my company.
	It's not 2022.
	I've done comics.
	I've done comics for other people.
	I've reprinted all the old Cyberfrog material.
	Cyberfrog so far has generated close to $6 million in four years.
	Uh, which is a lot of fun.
	I mean, it's really great.
	And then the new thing that we've done, uh, is we've made... Look at this!
	We've made action figures!
	Here's Cyberfrog.
	We were able to do this.
	Now, most people don't get to do this in comics.
	You know, indie creators don't get to make action figures of their characters.
	Fully poseable, every bit as good as Hasbro.
	Every bit as good as Mattel.
	Anybody who's making Kenner, who's making action figures, even his toes are articulated.
	Look at the detail that went into this.
	Isn't this great?
	Cyberfrog action figures.
	We did this because we needed to do it.
	I mean, the fact of the matter is we did this because we needed to do it.
	Because if I didn't do this, if I didn't kind of lead by example and show people the possibilities of what could be done, we'd never be able to get around this awful situation that we are in.
	And that is that the culture, the pop culture, It has been permanently taken over by and subverted by radical leftist pirates.
	I would call them actual pirates.
	And unless brave independent creators stand up and do it for themselves, we're going to be stuck in this position forever, James.
	You know, I didn't think I was going to be doing this 10 years ago.
	You know, I really didn't.
	I thought I'd be working at DC Comics drawing Green Lantern until I was 80 years old.
	But that wasn't to be.
	Yeah, but Ethan, you've probably made more money, haven't you, than if you were still... Yes!
	Much more money.
	Much more money.
	I'm way happier now.
	I mean, my peers are suffering.
	Their computer breaks.
	They don't know what to do.
	They have to crowdfund for... some of them have to crowdfund for dinner.
	I mean, it's a sad thing.
	Comics don't pay that well ordinarily.
	Why?
	Because you're working for a corporation.
	You work for hire.
	Nothing you do is anything that you'll ever own.
	You're working on Spider-Man for a corporation that doesn't care about you and will eventually toss you aside.
	Now, me being cancelled at the time was traumatic.
	It was terrible.
	I'm Christian.
	It was awful.
	I thought my life was over when DC Comics called me up and said, you got to go.
	Too much heat.
	You got to go.
	Sorry, we're canceling your contract.
	But me and my wife just knelt down and prayed.
	At the worst time of our life, we just knelt down and we didn't do it very often, we didn't pray together very often, but we prayed together at that point, and we prayed for guidance and strength, and we prayed for a pathway forward.
	And this happens.
	I pray every day since with just joy and gratitude.
	I've been able to buy a big house.
	I have a daughter with autism.
	She's six years old.
	How terrifying that is to get cancelled, to get fired from your job when your child at the time, she was like a year and a half, she was diagnosed with autism.
	What am I going to do?
	You know, it's at that point, like, uh, you know, you do, you have to turn things over to God and then, and, and just, uh, also, uh, strap up your boots and, uh, God will point the way forward.
	And the way forward to me was CyberFrog.
	Frog, fully rely on God, right here, the, uh, acronym.
	Uh, and it's been an absolute, absolute blessing.
	But the best part is also showing other people that they can do it too.
	And that's why they, I think they want to, they don't like me very much.
	I think these SJWs really want to kind of de-platform me, take me down.
	Because it's not just me doing this.
	It's me pointing the way to other people.
	Free yourself from these corporations.
	You don't have to sit there and be a part of this.
	You don't have to fight the culture war on that side.
	You can fight the culture war on this side.
	You can enjoy creative freedom.
	You can enjoy The fruits of your labor.
	Imagine that.
	Imagine drawing a comic book and owning it.
	You know, it's like that's what you can do here.
	You can make money.
	You can own your comics.
	And eventually it's not going to happen now because imagine I can't imagine Netflix coming forward with a cyber frog cartoon.
	I mean, it's going to happen eventually.
	It's not going to happen now.
	Not at this point where, you know, the culture war is red hot.
	But it will happen one day.
	You know, it might be my children that benefit from it.
	But the work that we're doing now is work that I think is going to be looked back on historically with favor i'd think i think people i'd like to think james that people are going to look back at this time period and are going to are going to be disgusted by it uh and uh you know i think going to be lacking in christian charity on my part
	but i have to say i find it quite difficult to sympathize with those of your colleagues who are on the bread line because they did not have the moral courage to fight this thing which has destroyed their industry Bye.
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, I'm here, okay?
	I'm here.
	When you guys are finally ready to make that jump, and it's inevitable that you're going to need to, you know, it's like, I'll happily point the way.
	I'll show you how to do what I've done.
	Because ultimately, comics are important.
	I mean, they are.
	It's important that this art form survives.
	I totally get that.
	I could be talking out of my hat here.
	- You look at the, you know, the golden, I mean, look, I could be talking out of my hat here.
	I'm really not an expert on comics, but I know that there was a golden age and a silver age, and I know about Stanley and stuff, but also I understand that comic book characters, superheroes and stuff are archetypes, which both reflect the way the culture sees which both reflect the way the culture sees itself, but also actually shape that culture.
	So if you've got manly men, Doing manly things and women who look attractive rather than say, you know, let themselves go to pot and dyed their hair blue.
	It sends positive signals about how a culture can move forward and, you know, Healthy relationships between men and women and so on.
	And it seems to me that what's happened to the comic book industry was not an organic thing.
	It wasn't a grassroots thing.
	You didn't get all these activists suddenly discovering that they hated Superman and they wanted Batman to be gay and so on.
	This comes from above, doesn't it?
	This comes from Vanguard and Blackrock And ultimately from the person in charge of this stuff, who is Satan.
	Yeah, Satan, definitely.
	I guess.
	I've experienced this stuff on the ground level, and it's perplexing when you're going through it, when you're interacting with these people and you're trying to figure out what it is that they want from you.
	What is it that they want?
	What are they trying to do?
	What is their agenda?
	They're lying all of the time.
	These social justice lawyers are constantly lying about what their objectives are and what they want, what they're hoping for.
	When they told me that they wanted to bring more feminists into the comic book industry because, you know, it would be the right thing for a capitalist organization to do, they were lying.
	Okay?
	And right from the very start, these people are lying and everything that they say and do is dishonest.
	What is their agenda?
	What could it be?
	You know, I mean, that takes a lot of just God, intense scrutiny.
	It really does.
	Why?
	Why do they want this?
	Why do they want to remove these cartoonish, legendary figures of aspiration?
	Why is that important?
	Why do they need to weaken?
	Masculine role models.
	Why do they need to add masculinity to feminine role models?
	What are they doing with that exactly?
	What is the purpose of that?
	Because that is what's going on.
	They're trying to send signals.
	They're trying to weaken, I guess, what they would consider to be the patriarchy and masculinity, and make men more feminine.
	Why?
	And then strengthen the idea, change the idea of what feminine, what womanhood should be, and make it strange, make it more masculine.
	Why?
	Why do we want to see women kicking ass?
	Why is that something that we would want to see?
	Why is that something?
	Why do they think that These characters, these kind of strange characters, these lesbians that don't need no men, who are basically acting like men, why do they think that's something women want to see?
	I don't think it is.
	But all of this stuff, all of this perversion, And I'm not saying being a lesbian is perverted, or I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole, but I'm just saying the culture is being perverted in the sense that it's being changed for the worse.
	And all of this is happening for a reason.
	And why?
	I mean, I would ask you, like you're somebody who studies this a lot, like what do you think the end game of this is exactly?
	Oh, it's what I said.
	It's satanic inversion.
	It's, you know, when you turn men into women and women into men.
	That is, I mean, to understand the wiles of Satan you have to understand that everything is about inversion.
	I mean, you know, I can give you another example.
	Ten years ago I read a book about the environmental movement and I was looking into, you know, how come I really love nature I really care about clean environment and stuff, and yet why do I find these people pushing this stuff?
	Repellent.
	I like animals.
	Why do I hate David Attenborough?
	Why do I think he's evil?
	It doesn't make sense.
	It's that.
	The environmental movement has been taken over by people who absolutely hate nature.
	You know, they can't see a hill, a beautiful hill, maybe with trees on it, without chopping down those trees and putting bat-chomping, bird-slicing eco-crucifixes on it.
	That's just one example.
	We give you loads and loads from all different fields because every creative endeavour, every business endeavour is subject to the same thing.
	For example, the other day I was talking to some friends who are in the insurance industry.
	And they were talking about ESG and stuff and all that sustainability and all the kind of regulations which were burdening their industry, affecting radically their business model, reducing the amount of money they're going to make, reducing their ability to employ people and stuff.
	And this person, I said, well, don't you think this is really like shit?
	Where do you think it's coming from?
	Do you honestly think that out in the streets there are people going, oh, if only the insurance industry was a bit more woke?
	Nobody's saying this stuff.
	It's coming from upstairs.
	But when I put this to this person, they were kind of like...
	They seem to think that it was a sort of coming from the streets, that there was a grassroots movement which was demanding that... No!
	It's not!
	It's coming from the top.
	These people are getting their orders from on high, which is actually, of course, from below.
	That's what's going on, in my view, and I can say this is one question to another.
	I think you get where I'm coming from.
	Yeah.
	It's interesting.
	The satanic inversion is...
	Wow, that's a phrase I hadn't heard before.
	I'm glad I heard it from you.
	I'm going to think about that a little bit.
	Back in the day, I would have explained all this in terms of cultural Marxism.
	And for a lot of the listeners, viewers, readers who haven't moved on from where I was to where I am now, that would still be their default explanation.
	That, you know, there were these Marxists that came over from Frankfurt in the 1930s and they went to Columbia University and the Frankfurt School and They subverted the culture for the left.
	But it's actually bigger than that.
	It's everywhere.
	It's all-encompassing.
	But I'm so happy to hear that your story I can give you examples from any number of industries.
	You probably aren't familiar with Bob Moran.
	Bob Moran was a cartoonist working for the paper where I cut my teeth, the Daily Telegraph, which was the kind of the sort of supposedly broadsheet conservative, supposedly conservative newspaper.
	And Bob was and is the most brilliant cartoonist working in the UK media.
	And he got cancelled because he wasn't willing to drink the Kool-Aid with regards to the vaccines, the whole Covid narrative.
	He wasn't having it.
	So he lost his job.
	And he went independent.
	And like you, he's absolutely thrived.
	If you've got talent and moral courage, there is a way through this.
	There is a way through council culture.
	Yeah, I think so.
	I hope so.
	I hope other people see that as well, because I'll tell you, even if it's, you know, aside from just politics and the culture wars, If we're going to move forward with great new ideas, they're going to come from independent sources.
	They're not going to come from big corporations.
	They're going to come from George Lucases, young George Lucas, young Stan Lee.
	I mean, I look at Stan Lee, and Stan Lee is just such a maverick.
	He worked in comics in the 1950s, and then the political culture of comic books during the Silver Age became so unbearable to him that he wanted to quit.
	And his wife said, uh, you're not happy because you're not representing yourself.
	You're not, you're not doing what you want to do.
	So before you quit comics and go take a job somewhere else, why don't you do one your way?
	And he did.
	He started Marvel Comics.
	He did fantastic for number one.
	And started a whole new revolution in the comic book industry because one man broke away from the corporation and decided to go independent.
	Unfortunately, that's now, inevitably, that's what happens.
	It becomes a corporation.
	But that kind of brave spirit of just innovation and creation and just taking a chance on yourself We need to foster that, and if not now, when?
	Like, now more than ever, more indie creators need to rise up and just be like, I've got an idea, okay?
	I've had an idea for a while, I just need a few people to believe in me.
	We have the internet.
	We didn't have, Stanley didn't have the internet in 1961, he still did it.
	We have every advantage right now to overcome the messages, the damaging, weird messages, the creepy, Yeah.
	these groomers who are after our children.
	We have every opportunity to overwhelm them with numbers and with each other.
	And I hope other people do join me.
	And if you're a comic book creator, think about finding Comic Skate.
	It's not hard.
	Just look for hashtag Comic Skate on Twitter and, you know, ignore the people who are calling us a racist hate group, which is the other thing.
	These people, they use the worst, most punitive.
	Like they use terms that are going to result in, you know, Your utter destruction if they're proven to be true.
	Traitor.
	Insurrectionist.
	Hate group.
	You know, all of these things.
	Crazy.
	But find Comicsgate on Twitter.
	Find us.
	Join us.
	You're going to find a happy community full of creative people and fans, people who like comics, who have embraced this opportunity to create comic books, unhindered, on their own terms.
	Fantastic.
	Hand in hand with inversion goes projection.
	So if you look on the internet, you'll probably find that actually if you look up Comicsgate, the top searches, the first page will be dominated by stories which completely misrepresent Comicsgate and make you, guys like you, the bad guys.
	Because I've seen this with quite a lot of these Why would we be that?
	Why would we be that?
	I just want to ask these people, like, they say ComicSkate is a harassment campaign against women and trans.
	Where's the money in that?
	Why would we do that?
	I mean, it's like a ridiculous thing.
	When you hear it, it's meant to just make people immediately dismiss us and walk away, but just one second's worth of thought.
	Why would that be who we are, exactly?
	If we're here to make comics and make money and enjoy ourselves, why would we be in the business of bothering people?
	It's very strange.
	When we're the ones being chased around and called names and stuff.
	But you sound like an innocent broad, Ethan, because actually, look, it's not about the truth.
	It's always about the narrative.
	And the moment you start saying things like, look, why would I do this?
	I'm a nice guy.
	Or I'm not a Nazi.
	No, that's not what I'm saying.
	I'm not saying, why would I do this?
	I'm saying to people who are investigating Comix Skate and run across this propaganda, I would say, ask yourself that question.
	Why would they be that thing?
	This sounds crazy.
	Does Darth Vader really exist in the world?
	Is there absolute evil in the form of a comic book, independent comic book movement, a comic book club, that they would go around and torment?
	They could just come out and say they're conservatives, most of them.
	They vote differently than us and we don't want to support them.
	And that at least would be honest.
	At least that would be honestly confronting your real true objections with Comicsgate.
	Instead, they have to make up these radically crazy ideas.
	Same thing that happened with Gamergate when There were people who were like GamerGators who were on the roof with scoped rifles and they're trying to assassinate us as we're going home.
	These people are crazy.
	They're legitimately crazy.
	The people who oppose ComixGate, who oppose GamerGate, are legitimately crazy people who should be dismissed.
	But they've mastered the internet.
	They've mastered social media and the narrative, you know.
	But tell me, am I being overly optimistic here?
	Hasn't there been, isn't there a new guy at Warners who's leading a backlash against this stuff?
	David's Ad Love, alright!
	I don't know if he's...
	So far, Goody, I mean, I got to say he's really, they despise him.
	These leftists absolutely despise him.
	He seems just like a normal guy to me.
	He seems like somebody I would see at church.
	He just came in and he's basically ignored all of the poison.
	He's like, okay, look, I've run Discovery for this many years.
	I've run the Oprah Network.
	I know he's interesting.
	He's like, I know what people want.
	And I basically, he created Shark Week.
	He knows how to get somebody to sit on the couch and watch TV for hours at a time.
	The gu...
	Right, the guy knows what he's doing.
	So it's like, and he knows the difference between men and women, like he's sitting there saying, women, he's very interesting, he's like, women tend to want lean back television, where you just sit back and you're not, you're just letting the home makeover content wash over you, where men lean forward, and they're, you know, watching scripted TV that has a plot, and you know, all this stuff.
	That's a very basic but very profound difference between men and women that he's identified.
	A very smart guy.
	But he came and he inherited Warner Brothers in the merger.
	He's now Warner Discovery and he has gone through with an axe and fired They used to have job titles called Diversity Commissar, you know, Vice President of Inclusion.
	They used to have these made-up jobs over at Warner Brothers.
	He's fired all of them!
	He's fired all these people!
	He hasn't replaced them!
	My daughter!
	Can you have a little bit of a joke?
	Sorry.
	Mount the door on my useless offspring.
	We're not opening it.
	Where were we?
	People really tell me off for this, but I can't help it.
	I've got a life as well, besides Poltercust.
	It's true.
	How many kids do you have?
	I've got three.
	Uh, three?
	Okay, me too.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And of course, the one in the house was watching TV when, you know, there was somebody knocking urgently on the door, and it was just like, what am I supposed to do?
	Anyway, yes.
	Hopefully it was Shark Week that they were watching by David Zaslav.
	Yeah, well, maybe.
	Maybe.
	Yeah.
	I hope so.
	Because this guy, I mean, he's basically just gone through and he's fired everybody with these made-up jobs.
	And there were people with jobs like Vice President of Inclusion over there.
	What is that?
	What is Vice President of Inclusion?
	These are SJWs who worked their way in and had jobs made for them so that the company would be safe from other SJWs.
	He fired them all.
	And they said to him, you need to be more diverse.
	And he said, I'm going to hire, in my new position here, I'm going to hire the best people for the job.
	And he hired all white men.
	Seven white men as his executives.
	13 white men reporting to them.
	Fired Annie, Ann, what's her name?
	Fired an executive at Warner Brothers whose name is Ann, whose name I can't remember right now.
	Fired her, didn't replace her.
	And people are outraged.
	And he just said, I'm going to hire the best people for the job.
	He mostly probably just hired his friends, who happen to be white.
	He doesn't really care.
	And people are really worried about him.
	Now, as long as he's making these decisions, he has canceled projects.
	He canceled Batgirl, featuring Barbara Gordon, who is now Latino or Latina.
	Whatever.
	Canceled that.
	$90 million.
	He took a tax break by canceling it.
	Uh, he cancelled the new Woke Batman animated series.
	Cancelled that.
	And he's just taking an axe to all of these money-losing projects that they were doing.
	Now, is he doing it because he's anti-SJW?
	I don't know.
	But I guess it doesn't matter because the end result is he's making really good choices for the company.
	He's not considering these forced diversity positions.
	He's just kind of going, what's going to be best?
	Who are these people who are qualified?
	And let me get them.
	Let me put them in roles where we can be successful.
	And let's move forward with the projects that are going to make money and cancel the ones that aren't.
	I like him.
	I like David Zaslav.
	So, how high up the food chain is he?
	He's the holiest of holies at Warner Discovery.
	He's the king at Warner Discovery.
	The CEO.
	The President.
	He's the big guy.
	So he's the equivalent of, say, well, like 50 years ago.
	He is Walt Disney.
	I mean, that level of seniority.
	Yeah.
	Well, I mean, like Roy Disney, maybe.
	Was Walt Disney there day-to-day?
	I don't know if he ever was.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	Yeah, he's the CEO of Warner Discovery, and he's the guy who's making all the decisions.
	He's had a hell of a resume with Discovery, with the women's programming, with the non-scripted TV, shows about baking cakes.
	He's done a great job.
	He knows how to make money.
	Is he going to be good at this?
	I don't really know, but I just like the idea that he says, you know what, diversity, not important to me.
	What's important is hiring the best people.
	I like that.
	Hiring the best people for the job.
	And which is the... Fascinating guy.
	Who are the characters that Warner own?
	Is that DC or Marvel?
	DC.
	DC.
	The other thing he's doing is he's, I believe, DC Comics is a publishing company.
	I was just doing a live stream where I had some SJWs who were making fun of me.
	They said, you've been saying that Warner Brothers is going to divest itself of DC Comics for two years now and they're still there.
	When are they, oh great sage Ethan VanSkyver, when are they going to do it?
	You keep saying they're going to do it.
	And Warner Discovery has a sucking chest wound to deal with, and DC Publishing, the little publishing company, is essentially an infected hangnail.
	They will get to it, but they've got to deal with the sucking chest wound first.
	So they just laid off a thousand people in marketing.
	He's going through, he's cutting people's jobs and trying to make a real change over there.
	Meanwhile, Warner Bros.
	DC, they're in discussions with this fellow named Todd McFarlane, who is an independent creator from the image days, back in the early 90s, who went on to become an action figure tycoon.
	He still publishes a comic book called Spawn.
	And I believe, this is my belief, They're talking to him because he's going to be publishing DC Comics.
	So they're going to actually license all the comic books over to this guy.
	So that they don't have to take a loss.
	Todd is somebody who can make anything sell.
	He's already making all of the DC Comics toys for them.
	He already has the licenses for that.
	Once again, I will be proven correct.
	Once again.
	Hashtag Aliens.
	Presumably, he hasn't been long enough in place for any of his projects to do really well and prove him right.
	Right.
	I mean, he's been there since April, I believe.
	So, you know, he's just starting to make changes.
	And most of the changes involve cutting.
	You know, chopping things down, getting rid of things.
	He hasn't really implemented his new policy.
	What he's trying to do is he's trying to find his own Kevin Feige, who was the mastermind over at Disney MCU, the Marvel Comics Universe.
	He's trying to find somebody who can make movies and make a cohesive entertainment universe out of the superheroes, the DC Comics superheroes, the way Kevin Feige was able to.
	And he hasn't really had any luck finding that individual yet.
	I'd say I'm right here.
	No, I'm just kidding.
	Basically, his job is to get the DCEU on track, get the DC movies to make sense, and it shouldn't be that hard.
	He's just got to cancel a lot of stuff first, I would say.
	Right.
	I'm amazed that In this terrible modern culture, it's even possible to sack diversity hires.
	I would have thought they've got permanent tenure.
	As soon as you're a person of colour, or a person of lesbianism, or a person of transgenderism, that's it.
	You're made for life.
	You're unsacrificed.
	You're in for life.
	But apparently not.
	He didn't get the memo.
	He didn't get that memo.
	That's what's astonishing about him.
	I mean, look him up.
	Look up David Zaslav.
	Z-A-S-L-A-V.
	And just type in the Google Zaslav and then diversity.
	And then just read the articles.
	They are full-fledged.
	They are panicking over this guy.
	Because he just doesn't care.
	Uh, you know, and so inevitably, like, he just doesn't see why diversity is something that is our strength when the company's $152 billion in debt.
	Why is that our strength again?
	Uh, let's just, uh, maybe making money is our strength.
	That's what we should be focused on and not focused on.
	I didn't know that!
	$152 billion?
	Well, that was when they were with AT&T.
	Actually, AT&T's combined debt with Warner was $152 billion.
	I don't know where they're at now, Warner Discovery, but the company is deeply in debt, yes.
	Billions, tens of billions of dollars.
	Whereas Disney's doing very well, isn't it?
	Isn't their Disney Channel, like, hasn't it eclipsed Netflix?
	They're doing great.
	Everybody's looking at the Disney Channel.
	The idea that AT&T had was for HBO Max to become competition, to become as big as the Disney Plus streaming service, which has overtaken, thanks to Star Wars and any number of other things that they're putting out, has overtaken Netflix.
	Yeah, I believe so.
	But HBO Max didn't work out that way.
	It's a shame.
	Right, yes, because, I mean, a lot of my favourite American TV shows are from HBO.
	Yes, on HBO, yeah.
	I was looking forward to The Many Saints of Newark, the Sopranos movie, and people didn't like it.
	I liked it, but people didn't like it.
	Oh, did you?
	I thought it was alright.
	Yeah.
	It was alright.
	There's a little bit of a thing where it's like, hey, we're doing a Happy Days reunion and it's been ten years since the cast has been putting the show out and then they come together again for ten years, like ten years later, and there's a sense of Goofiness about it, like, I don't know, it doesn't really work.
	And David Chase might have had the same problem, the writer of The Sopranos, in that show.
	It's just like, this is The Sopranos Show, everyone!
	Here it is, it's back!
	And there was a little bit of artificiality about it, but I still enjoyed it.
	I thought it was pretty good.
	Was that the one where they used anti-aging technology to make old actors?
	Or am I thinking of a different one?
	No, that was the Irishman on Netflix.
	Oh, that's right.
	I hated that.
	That was about the Jimmy Hoffa, yeah.
	That was so shit.
	Do you not think?
	I liked it.
	I like everything.
	I'm a big mob movie fan.
	So I was like, Scorsese's working with Pacino, De Niro, and Pesci, and it's about Jimmy Hoffa.
	I'm in.
	And yes, there's going to be some silliness, the de-aging stuff.
	It doesn't work when you make Robert De Niro, who is like 85,000 years old, give him a young face and then ask him to kick someone on the ground like a young man would, like a bully.
	It looks really weird.
	Have you seen the author on Paramount Plus?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Do you like that?
	It's great.
	Isn't it?
	Well, I mean, it was a lot of fun, but on the other hand, it's like, wow, this producer, what a hero he is.
	How come I've never heard of him?
	He's been everywhere, hanging out with the Mob, he witnessed the Columbo hit, like all of this.
	Sure, I've never heard of him though, so interesting.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It's fun.
	I think, given that he executive produced the project and it was based on his memories, clearly it's going to be slightly partial.
	But I just thought, as a way into that era of late 60s Hollywood movie making, and the whole, even if half of it is true, the story of the making of The Godfather is a pretty good story, isn't it?
	Yeah, it's a lot of fun.
	It really was a lot.
	I enjoyed every minute of it.
	And I rolled my eyes a couple of times when I'm like, yeah, this guy just, you can tell he's writing his own story.
	But yeah, it was great.
	Tell me, have you been watching the Rings of Power?
	No.
	No.
	Oh, please say yes.
	No, I mean, look, I'm not a masochist.
	Have you watched it?
	Yes, I have.
	I have, Ethan, I have.
	And how do you feel about it?
	Well, because it's kind of my job.
	I mean, I'm clinging by my fingernails to my last job in the mainstream media.
	Once a fortnight, I write a TV column For the spectator.
	And even though, actually, to be honest, I despise TV and I despise movies, I think it's all part of a, you know, the brainwashing machine.
	The entertainment industry is part of the axis of evil.
	But given that, that is so, yeah, I still do watch TV and movies and I'm...
	Apart from, you know, partly from masochism, partly from professional duty, but partly from a sort of curiosity about the way that our culture is being subverted.
	And I really love the Peter Jackson series.
	I don't know about you.
	Were you into that?
	I love that.
	Yeah, Peter Jackson's like a hero of mine.
	Well, until he shat on the legacy.
	I like Peter Jackson's...
	I didn't... You're overstating that.
	The Hobbit wasn't that bad.
	Oh, come on.
	It was like... It was the Jar Jar Binks.
	It was like...
	It was no Meet the Feebles, but I mean, it was okay.
	I liked it.
	I had a good time with it.
	The Hobbit.
	I mean, it's much better than this.
	You know, you're sitting there talking about The Rings of Power and you want me to feel bad about The Hobbit.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, but it's been going downhill since The Fellowship of the Ring.
	So, okay.
	So, I've been watching... I've watched three episodes so far and it's just...
	Going back to that point earlier about how mythic archetypes are used to kind of teach us how to behave, how to shape our culture, you know, from the Odyssey onwards.
	Well, yeah, that has been the function of literature, to teach us how to How to be better people, how to work together to a better world, I suppose.
	Tolkien, clearly, when he was writing The Lord of the Rings, knew all about that.
	Which is why... You don't get... You don't get... He didn't send Arwen to go and put the ring in Mount Doom.
	I mean, she wasn't even a character until she got sort of bigged up by... You know, got given a horse and got given a cameo where she drowned some orcs and some dark riders in that river.
	I think that was in the book, was it?
	But...
	You know, the female characters are very much in the background.
	And now, it's as if, what's he called, the guy who owns Amazon, Bezos.
	It's as if Bezos is on a mission to correct ...to correct Tolkien and show that actually he got it wrong.
	That actually Galadriel was the real... ...was the real warrior hero.
	And all the men are complete sort of cucks who are just like... ...you must have treated them... That was Game of Thrones too!
	Yeah, well, absolutely.
	The Game of Thrones show was the same way.
	I couldn't watch it.
	I stopped watching it because I enjoyed the first four seasons and then I started to, I was like, wait a second, you're pulling one over on me.
	All of the men are cowards, or they're cuckolds, or they're monsters, they're rapists, or they literally have no penises.
	And all the women, all the young ladies are heroes going through their own heroic journey.
	They're worshipped by everyone.
	They're the queen of the dragons.
	I was like, hey, wait a second, I'm starting to sense a pattern here, an agenda.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Girlbosses.
	I do hate it when...
	People who should really be understanding this stuff and fighting the cause for justice and truth and honesty and so on, by which I mean creatives, authors and so on, instead cuck out and surrender to the enemy.
	And clearly George R. R. Martin is part of the problem.
	He's not a bro, is he?
	He ain't Tolkien.
	He's got all this kind of woke stuff creeping into him.
	I feel bad for him because I think his creative heart has got to be thoroughly broken right now, regardless of what his politics are.
	He sat around being fat.
	I completely relate to that.
	I understand.
	He didn't get his book done, his last book or whatever it was.
	HBO caught up to everything he did and then said, are you going to give us the... No?
	Then we're going to write it for you.
	And ended his story and ended it poorly in a way that everybody hates and now What's he supposed to do?
	Write the last book?
	Like, I mean... God, the idea is just... Like, for me, as just another creative person, like, the idea of, like, me getting three issues of Cyberfrog, three Cyberfrog books done, and then they're waiting on the fourth one, and I don't get it done in time, so they just write the ending for me and ruin it.
	I mean, it's just crushing.
	I can't imagine what that's like.
	I would sit there and stress-eat, too.
	I understand you, George R.R.
	Martin.
	God bless you.
	Poor guy.
	I'll tell you what it's probably not.
	Girlboss stuff.
	Knock it off.
	Like women just kicking ass everywhere and men being pieces of garbage.
	I just don't know.
	Who wants this?
	Who's looking for this?
	What kind of guys?
	I mean, I guess it's just these sweet guzzling... I don't understand how you can watch that and not be offended by it.
	Silly.
	It's true.
	I sit watching these programs with my wife, and probably you're right, I'm leaning forward and she's sitting back.
	I mean, I think that does characterize how men and women watch TV.
	No, it's what they watch.
	It's not what they're... It's... Like, women prefer the kind of television that lets them lean back.
	You know, I would say if women are watching Game of Thrones, like, they're engaged in it.
	They're leaning forward.
	Okay.
	I mean, it's just men and women are just completely different animals.
	They're just... They're different.
	Women are... This is why women ruin everything that men like.
	You want to know why?
	There was a scientific study about this.
	Lego did it.
	Lego toys.
	They were sitting there, they were trying to figure out why boys are buying, why?
	Why would boys buy Legos and girls don't?
	I don't really understand.
	And they were trying to figure out how they could get girls to buy Lego toys.
	So they did a study, 1,200 children and their parents, 600 boys, 600 girls, and they put them in a room with Legos, Lego figures, all kinds of different Lego figures and bricks.
	And what they learned by watching and observing these children, boys and girls, And I have no reason to believe that this doesn't carry through into adulthood, is that boys and girls play in a different way.
	Boys, when they pick up a Batman figurine, a Lego Batman figurine, the qualities, the personality, everything they know about Batman becomes them.
	See what I'm saying?
	They become Batman.
	A little boy is holding a Batman figurine and he becomes Batman the Dark Knight.
	Uh, and that's important.
	So men are able to sort of, uh, take fantasy and then just make it a part of themselves.
	Uh, women, on the other hand, would take Batman and Batman would become them.
	They project themselves onto the figurine.
	Uh, and so that's the one thing they learned.
	That's why Barbie is so... What is Barbie's personality?
	Who is Barbie?
	We know who He-Man is.
	We know who Skeletor is.
	We know who, you know, all these guys.
	Who's Barbie?
	Barbie is whoever the little girl is that's playing with Barbie.
	Barbie is a blank slate.
	Barbie is a cipher.
	So you've got women who project themselves.
	Women are such narcissists, just as a sex, that they project whoever they are onto everything.
	So now, that's what they do as children.
	Do you think they change that as adults?
	Look at female literature that's popular.
	Look at stuff that women like.
	Look at Twilight.
	Who is Belle in Twilight?
	Can you tell me if you've seen Twilight?
	Bella, whatever her name is.
	She is a cypher.
	She is blank.
	She's not particularly beautiful.
	She is the heroine, but she's there for the reader, the female reader, to protect herself onto.
	I am, this is happening to me.
	I'm relating to this character.
	This is all, you know, the vampire boys all love me.
	Same thing with, you know, what's that movie with the, or the book with the Fifty Shades of Grey?
	Same thing, all these female protagonists are blank slates.
	For women to project themselves onto.
	So now you've got women coming in and writing.
	Imagine this chemical problem here.
	This is why it all isn't working.
	You've got feminists who come in and say, I'm going to write Batman.
	I'm going to write Plastic Man.
	I'm going to write Superman.
	They write themselves into these characters.
	So you've got a woman, a feminist, writing Superman and writing her own personal quirks.
	He's drinking coffee and he's petting his cat.
	That's what they do when they get a hold of these characters.
	They just become big muscular versions of themselves.
	And then that poison is turned around and fed the boys.
	Do you understand?
	And the boys react, little boys, men, They take what's on the page and they want to project it onto themselves and what they're getting is second-generation wacko feminist and her personality and That's what's happening right now.
	That's the circular poison of soy.
	The circle of soy that's going on.
	Women writing themselves into male characters, men reading those male characters and adopting feminine qualities.
	That's basically the heart of the conspiracy, I am determined.
	And it's all because of this research that Lego did, understanding the difference in how women and men fantasize.
	Very simple.
	How they play.
	Diametrically opposed.
	Completely different.
	They're not the same at all.
	And from there, you can extrapolate the cause of... It's just, it's going to continue to feed itself like a cycle.
	Yeah, it is worrying.
	I mean, I've noticed that when you look at the names of the scriptwriters for each episode of Lord of the Rings, oh sorry, Rings of Power and whatever the new Game of Thrones offshoot is, it's normally women, isn't it?
	And I'm kind of thinking, you know, I don't write it off just because a woman's written it, because I mean, you know, there are some really good women writers.
	Jane Goldman, who did a lot of the Mark Miller movie adaptations, I think she's pretty good.
	In fact, great.
	But I kind of think, hang on, this is about violence and, well, more violence, and I suppose we could do intrigue, but this is basically boys' adventure stuff, with a bit of girly stuff thrown in.
	Are you sure that this shouldn't be written by a man?
	Am I being sexist here, or do you think I'm onto something?
	Well, like I said, there are some women who do really well by playing on boys' turf.
	They just have to respect the fact that this is boys' turf.
	We've seen that in comics, like other great Louise Simonson and the Senti, just great female writers from the 1970s and 80s, who were able to do well because they realized This is a boy's ball club here, and I gotta think like a boy to write this stuff.
	Women, I mean, you'll notice, like, when women write these characters, they're all powerful.
	I mean, like, all the good guy characters, the characters that they want to represent themselves, that are, you know, That are representative in some way of their aspirations are incredibly powerful and everyone loves them.
	You know, Arwen will be a kick-ass girl boss who can slice through like eight orcs at a time and she's just a... She'll just kick utter ass and then when she's done, you know, everybody likes her.
	You know, it's like, that'll be the other thing.
	Like, everybody always affirms these characters.
	Everybody loves them.
	They're wonderful.
	They're so powerful.
	They're so great.
	And that's why you should like them.
	And men have just historically written characters that are more complicated because they're more like, you know, they sit there and if they're going to write themselves into a character, they write their flaws into them, into these new characters.
	Like, Peter Parker is relatable.
	To everyone, not because of the color of his skin, but because, you know, look, he makes mistakes.
	He's got problems.
	He's got power, and that power means that he's got responsibility, but he's got other, like, responsibilities that have nothing to do with his power.
	He's got his old aunt at home.
	He's got to make a living, you know, and it's like he's got to do all of these things while fighting crime, and, you know, everybody can relate to Peter Parker.
	Just because of what's in his heart.
	He always tries to make the best choices, but he doesn't always.
	And historically, when he makes poor choices, he's punished for them.
	That's great!
	Everybody can relate to that.
	Everybody understands that.
	You let somebody who doesn't understand that, you let... I keep saying SJW, but that just encompasses the whole phenomenon.
	Silly boys, feminists, everybody.
	You let these people write these characters, And they only, since all they want, the reason why they are where they are is just a power grab.
	Everything that they want is power and control.
	That's what they write.
	That's what a hero is to them.
	Somebody who is all-powerful and can, you know, can control everything and is in control at all times and is loved by everybody.
	And there's nothing there.
	There's no nourishment from that.
	There's nothing to be gained from anything that they're writing.
	To them, character is the color of your skin or your gender.
	Yes.
	That's why they keep doing this, a substitution for stories.
	But what we need is we need Spider-Man to be black so that more people can relate to him.
	And meanwhile it was never about the color of his skin.
	Black people love Peter Parker because they understand what it is to have those kinds of problems.
	Everybody understands that.
	That's why it works and they're breaking it.
	These people are just breaking these great toys, these great characters.
	Just breaking them.
	I still recommend... Do you have any masochistic streaks within you?
	Because I... To watch things that are by SJWs?
	I just think you should sit down... What do you think I should watch?
	Watch the first 10 minutes of Rings of Power, because then what you'll see is Galadriel, who's leading a military expedition to wipe out Morgoth, And she goes to the ends of the earth and they scale this massive ice wall and find a kind of an old ruin which looks a bit like the ruin of where the dwarfs live in Lord of the Rings, you know, that one.
	Low, an ice troll appears.
	And the ice troll is a bit like the thing in Harry Potter, which is a bit like the thing in any number of fantasy movies you've seen.
	And all the men are really shit.
	They're just not up to it.
	But Galadriel, she just sort of swishes her spear or sword or something around and just like, yeah!
	And you're going, yes, queen!
	You're going, who is this humorless cow?
	Why am I supposed to emotionally invest in this person, this thing?
	Like, it actually makes you angry that she's not afraid.
	You know what I mean?
	Like, imagine just a human moment of fear, so that people could be let into her, so that when she does beat the ice troll, or whatever it is, It seemed like something that was difficult for her and an actual accomplishment.
	They don't understand.
	These people do not understand.
	And it's common.
	It's in the comics.
	It's in their movies.
	They don't understand that.
	They really don't get it.
	They think if they can just show fearlessness and people just effortlessly accomplishing difficult tasks, that you're going to like them for that.
	And you don't like them for that.
	You end up hating them for that.
	Do you think that Alien has a lot to answer for?
	Wasn't Ripley the first female character in popular culture that really did this shit?
	Well, I mean, there's Princess Leia, too.
	I mean, even though she, uh... Look, she took charge.
	She was tough.
	But she was also flawed.
	And, uh...
	She was vulnerable, you know.
	You could tell that, like, her toughness was a facade and just underneath it was a heart that was, you know, you could break her heart, you could hurt her feelings, you know, all of that stuff.
	And she, this was all fake.
	Princess Leia was a complex and believable character for who she was.
	And I guess I have to go back and watch Alien again.
	But it seemed to me that Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's character Ripley, was driven to having to survive out of desperation.
	I don't think that she would have been the first person on the ship to utterly kick the alien's ass.
	It's just that everyone else was dead.
	Right.
	You know, and this was it.
	So she was fighting for her survival, not because she was a great warrior who just kicked ass and everybody loved her and everybody approved of her all the time.
	She was desperate, and I think people could relate to that too.
	That's been a while since I've watched Alien.
	That's a scary movie, man.
	That's a terrifying film.
	I was just thinking that this has happened during our lifetimes, from our youth, we've witnessed it happening.
	So there was Alien and Star Wars, and then there was, I don't know whether you ever came across it, I didn't like it, my brother did, there was a series called Tank Girl by Jamie Hewlett.
	Did you ever want to see that?
	I never watched it, I just remember the DC comic book.
	That's what I mean, yeah, it wasn't a TV thing, I don't think it was ever adapted.
	It was about this, you know, she was a girl who had a tank, and there was a kangaroo, and she had sort of short hair, she was like a man.
	And I remember this phase when my brother and I went through fancying girls who looked like boys.
	And it was that- that for me was the beginning of this massive decline that we've experienced now.
	We should have read The Ruins and seen this was an assault on our culture.
	And I hold the people- I hold people like Jamie Hewlett responsible for that.
	And also, Neil Gaiman.
	Neil Gaiman's- he's a- he's really pushed the woke agenda as well, hasn't he?
	Yeah, he sure has.
	I don't... that's a shame what's happened to him.
	Like, he is... I don't know, man.
	Just for somebody like him who should be standing up for creative freedom, he isn't.
	I mean, he is part of the Vichy comic book movement right now.
	The comic book industry.
	We're completely taken over by... I would call them fascists.
	And he is collaborating with them and supporting them.
	And, you know, you find out... you really find out who has Who has actual morals and ethics in a time like this?
	I mean, I would like to think that if the comic book industry were overrun with far-right wing, can you imagine this, far-right wing radicals who were pushing out my liberal friends, I would like to think that I would stand up for them and say, nope, we need them here, and you have no right to stop them from their point of view, they need to be able to say what they want to say.
	But no, these people have all revealed themselves to be collaborators of authoritarianism.
	All of them.
	I don't see anyone standing up against this.
	None of them.
	They're all perfectly willing to mount the lying, gaslit bromides of the agenda here, the regime, the Biden regime.
	Everyone around them is all saying the same things, and not one of them has the strength of character.
	It's so sad.
	I really thought that, like, I really thought they would.
	I guess you're asking too much of people to actually be the heroes that they write about.
	But they aren't.
	That's true.
	No, they're just not.
	Yeah, I think that's probably a good way to end.
	Ethan, where can people find your stuff, read your stuff?
	Tell us all.
	Please, if you enjoyed listening to this, there's plenty more nonsense like this coming out of my face on Comic Artist Pro Secrets on YouTube.
	Comic Artist Pro Secrets, or just look up Ethan Van Sciver.
	You'll find me pretty quickly.
	I would love it if you would subscribe to my channel.
	I would definitely appreciate it.
	And look up Cyberfrog on Indiegogo.
	Just Google Cyberfrog, one word, Indiegogo.
	And if you wouldn't mind, Supporting my comic book.
	I'd love to send you one.
	And I'd love you to read it and just see what we're doing.
	Cyberfrog, even though he's a frog, it's what's in here that counts.
	I think he represents everyone.
	Even though his skin is green and he is not even human.
	That is part of the point.
	He is a character that you'll be able to relate to, so I hope you'll give me a chance.
	And I thank you, James.
	Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.
	Oh, Ethan, the pleasure was all mine.
	You are absolutely brilliant.
	I love you.
	I think you're just a brilliant advocate for the things you advocate for.
	And I'm so happy.
	I'm so happy that you're winning.
	It's really good.
	I mean, there aren't many good news stories in these dark times.
	Obviously, God has been doing his job and working for you, looking after his own.
	So, well done.
	Thank you, I appreciate it.
	My beloved viewers and listeners, you can support me, and I hope you will, on Locals, on Subscribestar, on Patreon and on Substack.
	And, yeah, thank you very much for your support.
	Until next time, bye-bye.

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