It’s a frustrating, yet exciting, time to be part of the counter-culture. While all the big conglomerates seem stacked against us, there are a few bright spots. Recently, #comicsgate shone a spotlight on how unhappy fans are with Marvel, D.C. Comics, and other major players in the industry. The constant meddling and messing with well-loved superheroes and characters to mold them into feminist fantasies has worn very thin with the fans who are crying out for better material. But the criticism has fallen on the deaf ears of industry titans who prefer to attack their consumers instead. The problem has left hundreds of thousands of comics fans with very little of the entertainment they prefer. Vox Day, game designer, political philosopher, and founder of Castalia House, saw the need for real diversity in comics and answered the call with a crowdfunded project called AltHero.
Vox Day is the author of the philosophy bestseller SJWs Always Double Down. AltHero raised a staggering $25,000 four hours after going live on a crowdfunding site. A few short days later the campaign had exceeded its goal by almost 600 percent with $122,000 in donations. PJ Media reached out to Vox Day to find out more about his overnight hit.
“I was astonished, actually. I knew that people were angry about the way social justice warriors have destroyed traditional superheroes, but I didn’t realize just how eager they were for an alternative,” he said. “Of course, the way the SJWs on Twitter completely freaked out over Rebel and the existence of the project didn’t exactly hurt.”
Rebel has become the stand-out hero of the upcoming series and she seems to resonate the most with fans. She is beautifully drawn in the classic superhero style but seems to always be losing part of her costume.
Credit/ Alt★Hero, Castalia House Publishing
“Being a good Southern girl, Rebel made her own costume, and the straps are supposed to be tied. However, considering how often they seem to come undone, she is giving some serious thought to having someone design her a more practical outfit,” Day explained. The stars and bars are an unmistakable tweak to the SJWs who get triggered at the very thought of a Confederate flag (remember this lunatic?). Obviously, Day isn’t shrinking away from politics in these stories.
“The idea that there can be politics-free comics when everything from going to the ladies room to playing video games has been politicized is utterly absurd,” he quipped. “It would be like ignoring the existence of Nazis during World War II or of Soviets during the Cold War,” he argued. “The problem with Marvel and DC is not so much that they have injected politics into comics, but that they ruthlessly sacrifice the stories and even the traditional superheroes on the altar of their social justice agenda.”
Day is one of the godfathers of the much-maligned Alt-Right. But those who try to call him a white nationalist or supremacist fail miserably because he is only part white, claiming Native American and Mexican heritage and speaking out vocally against any form of racial supremacism.
“Progressivism has failed. Multiculturalism has failed. But conservatism has failed too; it has failed to conserve anything. The nationalist Alternative Right is inevitable since it is the only political philosophy that is in line with history, science, and observable reality. This terrifies the Left, so they are resorting to their usual tactics of crying racist and crying Nazi in order to prevent people from discovering the truth for themselves,” says Day.
“Never believe what SJWs say about someone. As a brilliant and dashing political philosopher has written, SJWs always lie. The truth is that I am a Christian who is committed to the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes me or anyone else. I am also an American Indian and a committed Western civilizationist,” he said. “I do consider myself to be Alternative Right, in the sense laid out in the Sixteen Points of the Alternative Right, now translated into 27 languages. I have nothing to do with the Fake Nazi Clown Right that the media has attempted set up as their Alt-Right strawman,” he said alluding to Richard Spencer’s torch-carrying crew that behaves like mentally stunted larpers. “And I don’t believe in ‘white supremacy’ any more than I believe in ‘white privilege,’ ‘equality,’ ‘diversity,’ or ‘leprechauns.'”
Our conversation turned to #gamergate and the SJW influence in gaming that was largely suppressed. “SJWs never stop. But their efforts are now sporadic and individual rather than concentrated and abetted by the game journalists. This is a battle that will continue, but they were unable to set the new social justice standards that they wanted. We are still free to design and develop whatever we want without outside pressure on the content, and that’s the important thing.”
The end of September brings us Banned Books Week, when librarians love to pretend like books are being banned all over America. As a publisher, Day has expertise on the subject of blacklisting. “No one is really banning published books, although the librarians of America are a little-known social justice filter that limits the literature made available to those readers who still frequent public libraries,” said Day. “What is more significant is the way the predominantly female editors in the publishing industry now simply don’t want to publish books by straight white men that will appeal to boys. If you want to know why boys aren’t reading, that’s definitely one of the reasons. These days, all the princesses know kung-fu and none of them need rescuing. Male heroes need not apply.” Day hopes to change that with Castalia House. “We’ve published John C. Wright’s magical Moth & Cobweb series, which will appeal to teenage fans of C.S. Lewis. He’s up to Book 6 now, working on Book 7.”
Some comics fans are hoping that Alt-Hero will give them the answer they’ve been waiting for, like alt-tech developer and Alt-Hero patron Larry Diffey, creator of the alternative crowdfunding site QuickFund.
A tech platform shouldn't be a political exercise. It should be an exercise in competent service.#AltTech #FinTech #Innovate
— QuickFund (@QuickFundCrowd) October 18, 2017
“Alt-Hero will do for comics what Castalia House is already doing for science fiction. I’m looking forward to seeing story lines where I don’t have to slog through political agendas. The artistry also looks outstanding,” said Diffey.
Credit: Alt★Hero, Castalia House
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