Mike Baron, Eisner-winning creator of Flash and Batman/Punisher, lost crowdfunding platforms after The Daily Cost—a leftist site—accused his graphic novel Private American of racism without reading it. Kickstarter deplatformed him via AI, while Indiegogo shadow-banned him; Crowdfunder reinstated him only after direct contact. Baron’s Comicscape collective, including Billy Tucci and Graham Nolan, now seeks alternatives amid industry-wide censorship. He blames Marvel/DC’s politically driven editors for killing sales, contrasts his Thin Blue Line’s law enforcement praise with critics like Cosmo Kramer’s dismissal, and fights back via "Mike Barron vs. the Scum of the Earth" legal fund. The episode reveals how ideological purity tests now dictate storytelling, silencing creators who dare address border crises or fentanyl trafficking—topics once mainstream. [Automatically generated summary]
So speaking of truth, one of the things we've been covering a lot on the show is the cancellation of writers and a lot of this, and not just writers, artists in general, because a lot of this never gets into the mainstream press.
It never gets to any place where you might see it.
And it's important because people are being purged and they don't have any place to go if we don't help them, if we don't publicize them, and if you guys don't get behind them.
Mike Barron is a longtime comic book author.
He has won the Eisner Award twice.
He's written on everything you've heard of, Flash and Star Wars, and I think Batman Punisher.
Great stuff.
And he's really good, by the way, too.
And he's got a story going on right now that I really want you to hear about.
Mike, it is great to see you.
Thanks for coming on.
Thank you for having me.
So let's just talk right now.
I want to get to more about what's happening in the comic book industry in general.
I should call it the graphic novel industry, whatever it is.
But tell me exactly what's happening to you right now.
We launched a book.
We crowdfund our books like many other people in the comic industry.
And my latest book is called Private American.
And it came about because I asked myself what Punisher would be doing if I were writing him today.
And it seemed obvious to me that he'd be on the southern border trying to deal with human traffickers, the flow of fentanyl and terrorists entering the country.
10 or 20 years ago, this idea would not be controversial.
But in this day and age, it trips all sorts of leftist triggers.
And out of nowhere, the Daily Cost, which is a far-left hate site, did an article on me written by a woman who's never read anything I've written.
And it was headlined, Mike Barron releases another racist AF comic book.
And then she called her Myrmidons and minions to all contact Kickstarter and tell them to get my book off their platform to demonetize me, even while she has her own book being funded on Kickstarter.
And she succeeded.
Kickstarter kicked us off.
Wow, they did.
They actually shut you down.
That's right.
And is there an appeal process for that when that happens?
Well, it's one of those things where you're dealing with an artificial intelligence.
My friend Chris, who runs my campaigns, has appealed to them numerous times to say, what's the appeal process?
Can I speak to a rational human being?
But there is no rational human being available.
On the other hand, Crowdfunder, which also defunded us, he was able to speak to their head, and he seems like a reasonable man.
And there's a chance we'll be reinstated on Crowdfunder.
Right now, we're still in demand on Indiegogo, but like many of my friends' campaigns, we're shadow banned, which means that if you go to Indiegogo and look for Private American by Mike Barron, you won't find it.
The only way you can find it is by using our direct link, which is theprivateamerican.com.
Wow.
So is there any, aside from those three sites, I've never done this.
Is there any other place for you to go where you can raise money?
We are looking for other sites and we're considering doing our own, as a number of people in similar situations are doing.
All my friends are shadow banned as well.
And these are some of the major artists in the comic industry, people like Billy Tucci and Graham Nolan.
And the reason is that they're all part of a group called Comicscape, which is perceived as a hate group, but it's really just a collection of comic professionals who are fed up with the regular industry and are trying to do their stuff on their own.
It's a loose association, and anybody can call themselves Comicscape, but the core group, there's no racists in there.
I know them all.
There are a lot of people of color in there from all over the world.
It's just one of those absurd charges that leftists come up with that have no basis.
It's the only they flip it out no matter what you how you disagree with them.
You're a racist.
So we're talking to Mike Barron, a very talented comic book author who's worked on Flash and Star Wars and is trying to bring out this new private American.
So is there some reason that you guys can't get together and make your own crowdfunding site?
This is not something I know anything about.
Is it very difficult to create a site that does that?
We're trying to find that out right now.
We're looking into that.
And some of my friends have already done that.
The problem, of course, is that nobody can match the reach of Indiegogo or Kickstarter.
Right, right, right.
And what about in terms of the daily costs?
I mean, they are, you are absolutely right.
They are a left-wing hate site.
What can you do about them?
We are looking into legal action.
We have employed an attorney.
Good.
Okay.
Can anybody, you get support for that effort?
Yes, I can.
They haven't defunded us yet.
It's called Mike Barron versus the Scum of the Earth, and it's on GoFundMe.
GoFundMe.com.
You know, I didn't come up with that title.
A friend of mine did, and then Eric July picked it up too.
But I like it.
I like it too.
So, you know, I was a comic book fan when I was a kid.
They were all American.
It was just, you know, Superman basically was the spirit of America.
That's who he was.
What happened?
How did this transformation take place?
How did they take over an entire industry so that there's nowhere for a guy like you to go?
Well, you know how.
50 years ago, the left decided to infiltrate entertainment, politics, the media, and education on the long march.
It's called the long march to take over all these institutions and turn them into leftist hellholes.
And they've succeeded.
I mean, you can see what's going on in public education today.
And what's happened to the comic companies is just bewildering to me.
We used to work with editors who had been writers first, but now they seem to employ people that have no experience telling stories.
Indeed, don't know how to tell stories.
People who have an agenda.
And they're hiring other people who have an agenda to write and illustrate the comics.
The art of entertainment has been lost.
People buy comics to be entertained.
And that's the same reason they go to movies.
And when movies and comics are no longer entertaining, the people won't buy them.
They won't go there.
And the traditional comic industry is in a tailspin right now for many reasons, but that's one of them.
Well, that's what I wanted to ask you.
I mean, they always have that slogan, go woke, go broke.
You know, I'm always a little worried about that because a lot of these places can find money somewhere, even if they're not getting it from their actual product.
Will they go broke?
I mean, will the industry be saved by being destroyed, essentially?
There's talk that both Marvel and DC are on the verge of stopping publishing paper books altogether and may farm their characters out to smaller publishers.
And they've already toyed with this to a certain degree.
I don't know.
I don't know what's going to happen.
It's not just the fact that the content is not appealing.
There's the death of print media.
There's the rise of video games.
We have a whole generation of kids here that never started reading because they started doing video games.
And the fact is that your average $5 Marvel or DC comic can't begin to compare to a good video game in terms of bang for your buck.
Yeah.
But still, I mean, it does seem to me that this audience is sitting there.
Where are the people who say, I want to get that audience?
Are they so afraid?
I mean, do you ever talk to people?
Do you ever talk to people and say, like, you know, why not start a place for us to go?
Why not create a place for us to go?
Or is that something you can't do?
Well, it is something I'm interested in, but we've had a lot of success doing crowdfunding.
My last book, Thin Blue Line, was about two police officers trying to survive the night in a riot-torn city.
And that did very well.
And police started to contact me from all over the country.
Thank you, B, for showing them in a positive light.
We all know they're bad cops.
It's not about bad cops.
The Daily Cause characterizes it as white police officers going into black neighborhoods to kill as many black people as possible.
And the two protagonists don't kill anyone.
Chris got in touch with Cos himself and said, have you read the book?
Chris's Contact00:01:13
And Cos said, well, no.
And Coss said, would you like to read the book?
And Cos said, if I have to.
So Chris made it available as a PDF online.
And that was a month ago.
And as of today, Cos hasn't looked at it.
That's amazing stuff.
I've only got a minute left.
Tell me this.
How do people follow you?
How do they find out what you're doing and where to go so I don't have to, you know, they don't have to come here?
I'm on Twitter at Bloody Red Barron.
I'm on Facebook on the comics and novels of Mike Barron, plus Michael A. Barron.
I'm on Substack as Mike Barron.
I have a website, bloodyredbarron.com.
And if you want to support the book, go to theprivateamerican.com.
You know, these stories just tear me up, and I hear so many of them.
I can't bring everybody on, but what is happening to you is happening to so many people.
And it's just, it's not even the unfairness of it.
It's the fact that people are not getting access to good stuff with good values that actually matters.
It's telling the truth.
Mike, it's great to finally meet you face to face.
We've talked before, but it's really nice to meet you face to face.