The Problem With Big Two Is Systemic Exploitation
It is almost heretical to say that right-wing circles have good points these days, and on a level you can kind of see way: President Donald J Trump and his antics are the most obvious example of this. However something I’ve noticed about right-wing comics communities is how sometimes, despite being right of center, can sometimes come just close to elude to issues that would almost suggest a systemic issue rather than an individual issue is at play. The note able example is how some of the better quality news rags would talk about issues related to the Whisper Network in comes. There simply cannot be a more obvious case of a systemic issue related to sexual abuse of women in comics.
And yet they will still say that the problem is with individuals in the industry, and not with the systemic issue of abuse in that industry, like it is almost to scandelous to talk about issues related to systemic racism, and other issues. Or in the case of the whisper network. You have a few powerful voices in Comicsgate ( even though most of that community is OK, if you look past the excess machisimo ) that create an environment of not being allowed to contradict anyone’s opinions or statements. It doesn’t matter what slant someone may have at the moment, you should always question that source of undo authority.
To me the Whisper Network highlights a rather extreme issue of undo authority in the hands of a very small amount of people in comics, and that the issue with people like Warren Ellis in not a unique issue to Warren Ellis, but rather that a system in place to silence victims of assault, often perpetuated by the very same people that claim to protect women in the work place. At the very least, the Whisper Network is extremely selective about which women’s voice they listen to. The higher eschelon you are in the comics industry, the more likely people are going to sweep these kinds of issues under the rug.
And yet somehow, I feel like an anarcho-capitalism approach solving the issues of the comics industry is clearly not working in this case. But this ancap approach to trying to fix comics is not allowed to be contradicted, because there is money to be made in perpetuating an environment of fear, and using monetary exchange to put a large amount of wealth into the hands of people that want to pretend to “fix comics” right now, but in the longer term they are The Establishment in comics. You can spin that in a Creator-Owned way if you want ( and I don’t disagree with creator-owned in theory ), but simply being Creator-Owned does not fix problems related to systemic exploitation in other ways.
This is why we need a different and original approach to solving the problem in comics, even if that may involve worker-cooperatives, rather than a singular centralized publisher of comics. In theory, you would think that independent comics would solve this problem. Except there is no controls in how much wealth people are allowed to obtain, whether by honest or dishonest means, such as the issue this one guy in one channel admitted to: tracing over photographs of statue of liberty, and telling those that disagree with them, that they should eat nothing but Ramen for the rest of their life.
But first we need to admit that there is a systemic problem, and not bash people that propose alternative solutions, like creating worker-ownership of the means of production. Not publisher ownership of the means of production, as with the case of large enterprises like the Big Two.