#anyway. i have no inclination nor want to copy other cultures nor try and bring out culture specific practices.... i said it before

[abyssalpriest]

like idk why im surprised its because the last spirit i worked with made everything fucking up and even when it "made sense" it only made sense within the fiction and not this plane bc its like. have we not learned at this point he knows what the fuck he's doing, he's big enough to the point he doesnt need to hide who he is, and he got that big by being in touch w and worshiped/worked with by a bunch of different cultures like. anyway

[whois-this]

You're *right* except on unskilled refugees, as those are a money pit who will drain the economy, balkanize our culture and thereby politics, and contribute very little compared to the homegrown canadian at the end of it all. But that's something else

Now, which is more expensive:

A) funding a constantly growing batch of weeds forever, who shall always be low-yield

B) Rooting out the weeds and thereby preventing their spread, saving yourself the long-run maintainence & opportunity costs of keeping a garden full of weeds in place of flowers

*

First gen immigration typically falls into the unskilled part of the value chain. Even when you consider that their children shall eventually produce value, the "startup" costs for teaching a refugee english,   giving them the trudeau gold-plated-toilets subsidizedn housing, welfare and employment supports while they get a job and hold it is not great. Especially when you consider that the return on investment with future children here isn't phenomenal either when a canadian-born is infinitely cheaper

But that doesn't actually talk about the core problem, which is culture/race and has nothing  to do with how it supposedly "changes over time". Increasing a diversity of minorities by default adds additional division (unsurprisingly the same concept, different manifestations of it) in cultural-political preferences, which is then picked up on by parties who use this to split voting by ethnic pandering rather than justice for all.

I've used this example before, but think about how diverse India is and how much violence and hate exists in that society to this date. Or even our own history where a french-canadian minority has caused anglophone feuding for generations. This is not a good thing for canadian stabillity.  Selective immigration with skilled workers, in qualified amounts below canadian demographic trends I am ok with. Mass immigration under the guise of "refugee" as if we're the worlds orphanage and expect to turn a buck off it is ridiculous.  

Second, this marketplace of ideas concept is wishy feel-goods. The truth is that fundamentalist and aggressive ingrouping movements have been very successful in growing, because they create a shared support base that discriminates against those outside the circle. The Naivity of the liberal doctrine is in thinking that the "marketplace" (like all markets) isn't a zero-sum game where discrimination is an economic weapon.   In effect, liberalization/ open borders destroys domestic cohesion and displaces the whole point of the state (discrimination against the other for competitive advatage) onto ethnic-cultural groups who are able to take up the slack

*

Discussing how culture changes is a total red herring, because unlike beliefs you can't change your skin color. Which is the basis for these political fault lines and forever shall be, as the division is constantly aggravated using charges of race-baiting from everyone involved. There's absolutely nothing wrong with taking in value-adding people who do not threaten the cultural-racial balance of Canada, that's my whole point as to why mass immigration is a problem: because it doesn't factor in maintaining a stable balance

Regarding this marketplace, I guess it's kind of funny that nobody believes in the sacred cow of liberalism-uber-ideology anymore. The valid application isn't the market, but instead Herbert Spencer's correct idea of Social Evolution- which has been unfairly maligned by antievolutionary egalitarians who don't believe culture shapes competitiveness, while accepting ironically that culture shapes everything else. Which is why ingrouping is such a big thing, because neither the market nor the cultural realms are ever inclined to be free

*

Skin colour/the underlying component of Race is important because you can't get rid of it and it's a highly visible method of ingrouping. Everyone discriminates against everyone for some reason or other, it just happens that race is big one for this. It's so corrosive that we now have to advocate things like racial equality quotas rather than actual meritocracy, because people get offended by the merest notion of racial favoritism. What IF populations with two copies of the MAOA "warrior" gene are more presupposed to violence (they are), and are resultingly more likely to land in prison? If we were talking about a subgroup of say, only whites with two MAOA, this wouldn't even be a debate. But with racial fault-lines the inherent genetic differentiations of people is now a big issue because of the perception of racial mistreatment. This is just an example, this same concept happens everywhere- the only "solution" now because of racial fault-lines is to try and artificially boost all peoples into the same egalitarian camp. And in so doing, fight our own genetic natures and not grade by efficiency.  Even worse, despite the concept of being "colour-blind" as a supposed alternative, the supporters of anti-racism are so actively focused on race they bring it into higher resolution as an issue. This is such a toxic swamp that I see no good in making it an even bigger part of Canadian political life.

If you're saying it's destabilizing for the majority race to grow in number, that does not follow the logic of what I am saying. The question is who holds the balance of power, and that as the white majority declines this is a flashpoint for various other ethnic ingroupings to compete amongst each other- as if the state itself with it's centralization of violence were to collapse: both results end in feuding

Anyways, I'd say it's still basically applicable to whites as well. Suppose we took in thousands upon thousands of unskilled russians: do we want the inevitable eastern mafia that will also come along? Further, do we even need an unskilled slave class in Canada that will be eventually as discontent as today's service-sector types? Recall that immigration sparked the labour crises of the early past century

[ganzeer]

Grant Morrison was impressed. "I've never seen anything like it", he said, peering over a particular piece in my portfolio. An intricate thing, letter-pressed on handmade Indian hemp paper, something you can only really appreciate up close. Morrison seemed to be fixated on it, and it was then that HEAVY METAL's managing editor, Rantz, stepped up to ask me if I'd be interested in doing stuff like that for the magazine – Art pieces they could insert between the comics segments, singular pages of visual communication. Of course I was interested! HEAVY METAL fueled my demented mind in my younger years. If I was going to be given the chance to be part of its revival, and partake in messing with the heads of future generations, then my answer would most certainly be yes.

I was there with Zak Smith, who was showing painted pages from this outrageous Russian prostitution/espionage graphic novel he'd been working on. But my first contact with HEAVY METAL's new regime was actually through Dan Goldman, who himself was in talks with Rantz. "They want to make comics dangerous again" is what Dan told me, and that –as I'm sure you can imagine– was music to my yearning ears.

Now I hadn't read any of the magazine's latest issues, but I suspected with Grant Morrison on board as editor-in-chief that it might be good. I mean, it depends which side of Grant is at work really. You have overtly-optimistic-superhero-fanboy Grant, and you have haunted-by-demons Grant. And you would expect the latter would be the one helming HEAVY METAL magazine, especially –especially– given the times we live in now. To my disappointment, however, it seemed like neither side was at work at all, because Grant Morrison is largely a figurehead at HEAVY METAL, which is all too content to just be using Grant's name. But this I found out later, many months after pitching this cover:

I'd seen that they'd gotten Ron English to do the cover for their relaunch issue, which I saw as a sign most promising. Ron is not only a very skillful street-artist, but everything he creates is charged by a kind of biting satire that is most demonic in its social commentary. Outstanding body of work, really. So between Ron's cover, Dan's "pitch", Morrison's involvement, and well, HEAVY METAL history... I was in. But I never heard back from Rantz about my cover pitch. Not even months later when Grant was looking at other work of mine with some admiration. But he did say he'd like me to provide some pieces for the inside of the magazine, which I was totally happy to do. Meanwhile, Zak's tediously painted espionage comic had them by the balls, and they said they were eager to serialize it in the magazine. Which was perfect, because Zak is exactly the type of person you tap into if you want to make comics dangerous again. If you want to make anything dangerous again.

With a couple of signed copies of the magazine's latest edition under our arms, Zak and I went to get drinks in celebration. But then I went home and read the magazine.

It's really, really, really bad. Awful thing without the slightest hint of substance. I think people really misunderstand what the original HEAVY METAL was. It wasn't just cool-looking mechanicy sci-fi cyborgy things and space titties. I mean, sure it had its fair share of space titties, but that's only taking the magazine for face value. The stories made you stop and think, re-assess your values, and examine the world with new eyes. The reasons the stories did that is that a great many of them were translations of the French comics that first appeared in METAL HURLANT, and HURLANT was a magazine started not by old timers trying to cash in on something’s reputation, but by a couple of daring madmen when wanted to bring some new batshit crazy spunk to comics. 36-year old Moebius, 30-year old Druillet, and 27-year old Dionnet who served as editor-in-chief.

Grant Morrison is 57. Kevin Eastman, publisher & editor of HEAVY METAL, is 55. Rantz, I don't know much about but I would put him at 49.

Now listen, I'm no ageist. It's okay to be old. But its also okay to acknowledge that you lose much of your drive the older you get, typically speaking anyway. I know this because 36-year old me is nowhere nearly as fearless as 28-year old me. And I've only got 4 years before I hit 40 and my brain chemistry is altered yet again. And if we're going to be honest, the comic book industry suffers from many of the same ailments dominating our political sphere. Namely: the preeminence of old white men sitting around big meeting tables, devising ways to preserve the status quo while counting their exploitation money.

Morrison is a super-nice guy and a very fine storyteller, but he is finest when he's genuinely motivated, and I don't think he's been genuinely motivated for a very long time. And he has clearly been comfortable serving as a scribe-by-assignment for the better part of his career. The comic book industry as it stands today has served Morrison too well for him to want to rattle any cages. Eastman is a genuine rebel, but he hasn't created a single new thing since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1983. There was Tundra Publishing, the noble experiment that it was in the 90′s, when Eastman was connected to that generation’s rebels: Alan Moore, Bill Sienkiewicz, Eddie Campbell, Dave McKean, Mike Allred, et al. Today however, age and wealth will keep Eastman way too insulated from tapping into the radical rumble occurring on the fringes of culture required to make comics dangerous again.

The new METAL HURLANT will not be born out of a business investment. It will not be born out of the purchase of a brand-name. And it certainly won't be born by attaching Grant Morrison's name to said brand-name. It'll only be born when a bunch of outcast artists and storytellers band together and decide that it's time to fuck shit up.

Yes, reading that issue of HEAVY METAL was sad and painful. What was even more painful was getting the "brief" from Rantz for the illustration soon thereafter: Something "valentines-themed". For an issue they were releasing in February.

Valentines-themed.

To add insult to injury, I was offered something like less than a hundred dollars. Here's the thing: I am okay doing work for absolutely no money at all if I feel the work is important and necessary. The short story I wrote for the forthcoming anthology from Temple University Press, for example, I did for no money. But the anthology's theme("Who Will Speak for America?") was relevant and inspiring. Valentine's, on the other hand, does not strike me as a burning necessity. Now I'm all for subversiveness. I know if I really wanted to, I could’ve sneaked in something worthwhile between the lines. But you have to ask yourself: if this job wasn't requested of me, is it the sort of thing that I might be inclined to do anyway?

If the answer is a firm no, then there's no fooling yourself. And there's definitely no need to do it if you aren't being fairly compensated for your time. Especially when they're throwing big money at the wrong people.

Evidently, when it was time to put the issue out, someone came up with the sensible conclusion that "valentine's themed" does not really scream attitude, so they called it the "sex special".

Yeah. Space titties.

Zak's comic was nowhere to be found in that issue, and he has yet to be contacted about it again, which sounds super-weird to me because they seemed all over it when I was there. And Zak is a respectable artist, operating quite successfully in the gallery circuits of the art world. He's collaborated with China Miéville for fuck's sake, and he's a former porn star! To have someone like that be interested in comics is a blessing for the comicbook industry, because you know he's bound to bring something new to the scene. I'm not saying that it’s a guarantee of good work, but the fact that it will surely be different from the material conjured up by Suburban Comicbook Guy is most certainly a plus. I do not for the life of me understand how this person could have a graphic novel in the works and not have publishers clamoring at his feet to get it into their catalogues. It's really absurd.

It's probably for the better though, because this incarnation of HEAVY METAL will not have any influence on comics or culture at large. Space titties will not make comics any better, nor will realistic sword and sorcery paintings, nor will a Sex Special issue. No matter whose name you slap on the cover.

Frankly speaking, it is a bullet that I'm very glad I dodged. Because I'm already making comics dangerous again, but I'm doing it my way.

Ganzeer Denver, CO September 2017