Monday, July 30, 2018

Vox Popoli: The name is Arkhaven (On affecting the culture - comics - yes, comics!)


As I've pointed out before, the Right has no idea how to cooperate or play follow-the-leader:

I'm in Chuck's comics circle online. I really feel like ALL OF US trying to do our Right Wing comics need to band together to form our own "Marvel" because it's EXTREMELY hard to make comics without having any name. Here's my AltRight web comic.

The alternative to Marvel and DC has already been created. We are well into the process of building the necessary infrastructure at Arkhaven. While we're getting excellent support from both comics fans as well as culture warriors, and while we're building key strategic relationships with a variety of partners, we still have relatively little support from a) the conservative media, b) the social media stars, or c) the aforementioned comics circle.

Now, just to be clear, that's absolutely fine. I'm not complaining about it. We never counted on it. We have always been of the Gideon mindset;
it's better to have 300 warriors at your back than 10,000 counter-signaling moderates.

There are a number of obstacles to what this gentleman wants to accomplish. First, the attention-seekers can't stand for anyone else to be the leader, no matter who it is. See: Comicsgate. Second, right-wingers are individualists who tend to focus on maximizing their personal situation at the expense of building institutions and organizations capable of supporting them. See: Milo Inc's abortive attempt to create a publishing house. Third, moderates will not accept radical leadership for fear of rejection by the Left whose approval they still seek. See: Diversity & Comics and many indy authors.

Imagine where we would be if all those indy authors and social media stars and Baen authors had been willing to work out mutually beneficial deals with Castalia House. We'd already be in a much stronger position to defend the interests of everyone on the Right. Instead, it's just more dog-eat-dog competition in a negative-sum game as Amazon methodically drains the pool of available ebook money. It will almost certainly be the same thing in comics, with one or two big winners and everyone else scrambling for the scraps. Again, not complaining, merely observing and analyzing.

Now, there are those who have recognized the situation, bought into the vision, and gotten on board. As for the others, a few will do great on their own, although they will fail to build any lasting institutions, and the rest will muddle along in obscurity. And while not everyone will acknowledge it now, eventually it will become obvious that the right-wing alternative was born on the very first day of the Alt-Hero campaign.