Hey, let’s talk piracy!

AnimeVice published a pretty poorly written defense of scanlations, tying into a larger discussion of Nick Simmons jacking art from Bleach. It has some fairly huge issues, including some outright factual inaccuracies, but boiled down? It’s crap.

I don’t want to spend this point by point rebutting Remmell’s essay, but I will say that hinging a pro-scans piece on Viz’s “butchery” of Gosho Ayama’s Case Closed is an incredibly bad decision when the changes were requested by Gosho Ayama and the Japanese licensors. It is the real story, since the author wanted the changes. Your mom’s pound cake is your mom’s pound cake, no matter the recipe she chooses to use.

The biggest problem with the essay is the idea of justifying scanlations, and through that, piracy. That’s stupid. Here’s the truth: you can’t justify scanlations. Justifying an act requires proof that the act is necessary. You can justify a war, you can justify violence, you can justify sleeping in and missing some school. The thing is, you can’t justify scanlations. The original creator that you’re such a fan of gets no recompense from you reading scans online. No money, nothing. In exchange for that nothing, you get to read that creator’s book for free. In the end of things, that’s what happens. You aren’t supporting, you aren’t helping, you’re just leeching.

Let’s keep it all the way real. I have a Demonoid account, just like everybody else. Sometimes I hear about a movie and I want to watch it, but Netflix has nothing. Well, look at that: Fatal Fury the Anime is on Youtube. When an album I’m looking forward to leaks a week early, I download it, listen to it, and then decide whether or not I’m buying it off Amazon’s MP3 store. I follow several mp3 blogs to keep up on new singles, freestyles, and mixtapes.

In fact, real life example: I wanted to listen to A Tribe Called Quest’s Midnight Marauders the other day. It’s one of my favorite albums, I was having a crap day, I figured it’d be a pick-me-up. I found out my mp3s were screwed up. They were skipping, some didn’t play, blah blah blah. This morning I remember that the songs were broken, delete the ones I had, and downloaded the album. I threw them into iTunes, synced my iPod, and got on my bike to go to work.

Now, I’ve owned a copy of Midnight Marauders for years. Several- from cassette to CD to CD after that other CD broke. I could justify it by saying that I’ve paid for the album before, so why should I pay for it again? But- no. It’s on Amazon for ten dollars. I’ve got ten bucks, I love the group, it’s one of my top five favorite albums, and there’s nothing stopping me from downloading the album from a legal venue, except for the fact that I valued my own convenience over the rights of the dudes who made the music.

Make no mistake: this is, legally speaking, piracy. I can’t defend it, I can’t justify it– under the letter of the law, I’m a music pirate. If I got my card pulled over it, what am I gonna say? “I did it because I want to purchase content, not format?”

(The content vs format debate is a valid one, but completely secondary to what happened and why it happened. I downloaded that album because I wanted to not pay for it.)

I did it because I wanted it and it was convenient. This morning, I prized myself over someone else. Nothing more, nothing less. Trying to justify that kind of thing is dumb. If you did it, you did it. At least be real enough to say, “Yeah, I did that. That sucks, huh?”

Scanlations aren’t how you stand up for Authentic Manga or creator’s rights or whatever. Scanlations are how you read books for free. You aren’t fighting the power. You aren’t sending a message to the companies. You’re reading for free. If you care that much, then the only thing you should be doing is purchasing the original tankobon from Japan and reading it yourself. That way, everyone involved gets paid, you get your authentic manga, and we’re all happy.

Pretending that scanlations are something you can justify, or something that is morally correct in any way, shape or form, is a joke. You want it, you read it. That’s what it is, that’s how it works. Be grown up enough to admit it, rather than trying to justify it.

“Be aware and be honest,” is what I’m trying to say here.

Pardon the crass commercialism, but if you’ve been thinking about picking up Matt Fraction’s run on Invincible Iron Man, Amazon’s got a surprise deal for you. Marvel’s releasing an Invincible Iron Man Omnibus collecting the first 19 issues of Matt Fraction’s run. While it was originally supposed to come out in early April, it looks like it’s gonna ship early next week. They tell me mine’ll arrive 03/10/10.

This is a good deal because a) it’s 40 bucks retail, b) 26 bucks on Amazon, and c) a steal at that price. This will also get you more or less caught up to Fraction’s run on Invincible Iron Man, too. There is one arc between the omnibus and being caught up: the five issue “Stark Disassembled.”

So, yeah, if you’re addicted to hardcovers (holla) or you’ve been wanting to see what’s up with Iron Man before the movie drops– it’s a good deal.

I don’t think anyone reported on it when it happened, but DC pulled several subtext-laden quotes from Milestone Forever #1. They said that the quotes weren’t covered under fair use and they didn’t want to get sued. However, rather than informing McDuffie of this at the time and giving him a chance to alter the quotes or create new ones, they waited until the book was at the printers. That’s shady, but okay, maybe they really would’ve gotten sued.

Milestone Forever #2 comes out later today, and whoops, it happened there, too. Click through for the quotes. Read them? Okay, now look at this one again:

“Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while.”
—Neil Gaiman

Whoa! Neil Gaiman! That’s a good one, right? The thing is, it’s from The Sandman #75… a book wholly owned by (wait for it) DC Comics.

So! Let’s recap. DC Comics pull quotes from Milestone Forever #1 and #2 because they didn’t want to get sued. They wait until the book is at the printers to let the writer (and owner of the work) know, preventing any changes from being made. At least one of the quotes they pulled was from a property that they own completely, it being a legacy character and created pre-Vertigo. It’s the latest in a long line of shady, but legal, moves they’ve made regarding McDuffie and Milestone, and possibly the last, considering that McDuffie has no announced DC work coming up.

Were they gonna sue themselves? Is that it? Was Karen Berger gonna run across the hall and whack Dan Didio with a shoe if a quote from The Sandman made it into a comic that isn’t from Vertigo?

Or is someone at DC a petty, childish, scummy, shell of a human being? I don’t know who, nor do I have any ideas, so I’m not dry snitching here. I honestly want to know: who’s dicking around McDuffie? ’cause at this point, beyond of a shadow of a doubt, somebody up there is a firm believer in Industry Rule #4080: comic book people are shady.

I could go on and on and pile insult upon insult, but you know what? This situation should be clear to anyone with half a brain and half a shred of basic human decency. Someone there is prizing beef over money, and someone up there is mighty stupid. End of story.

Some of you have been following the Nick Simmons controversy.  Long story short, Nick Simmons, son of Gene Simmons, drew a manga titled Incarnate for Radical Publishing.  Three issues in, people began noticing that some panels and characters bore a striking resemblance to art in other comics.  Comics like Sandman, Bleach, and even some amateur stuff on Deviantart.

And by ‘striking resemblance,’ I mean, ‘someone owns a lightbox.’

Internet drama ensued, until yesterday Mister Simmons ended it with an apology on Comics Worth Reading.

This was simply meant as an homage to artists I respect, and I definitely want to apologize to any Manga fans or fellow Manga artists who feel I went too far. My inspirations reflect the fact that certain fundamental imagery is common to all Manga. This is the nature of the medium.

I am a big fan of Bleach, as well as other Manga titles. And I am certainly sorry if anyone was offended or upset by what they perceive to be the similarity between my work and the work of artists that I admire and who inspire me.

Well, that settles it, doesn’t it?  Nothing appeases a group of fans like a guy telling them that he’s sorry about how totally wrong they are.

I won’t echo the Comics Worth Reading sentiment about this.  I’ll only note that the guy released the statement ‘through a representative’.  I’m not sure what kind of representative doesn’t realize that this will make things worse.  Maybe Simmons insisted.  It would have been better if he had just hunkered down and waited for people to forget about all of this. 

Well, better for some.  I often enjoy a good internet pile-on, and if he keeps issuing statements like this, the fight could last for a while.

Gina Torres talked to Wired Magazine about the excellent Crisis on Two Earths.  Here’s the quote that went rocketing around the blogosphere.

There aren’t really any skinny bitches in the world of comic books…they’ve got muscle. . . . What I love about superheroes, and Superwoman in particular, is that in that comics world they’re all curvaceous. They’re strong.

I grew up in what must have been the most friendly high school in the world.  I look at Glee, Mean Girls, and Can’t Hardly Wait, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, and almost every other portrayal of high school and it might as well be some kind of costume drama.

Who grows up in schools like this?  In lives like this?  I know there are always a few vocal idiots, but I haven’t noticed a war being declared between ‘skinny’ and ‘curvy’ women, ‘popular’ and ‘unpopular’ women, or really any other kind of women.  At most, the groups are pretty indifferent to each other.  More often, they get along just fine.

And yet every quote, every TV show, every comic, and every movie seems to imply that this war is going on. 

Where are they getting this from?  Is there some secret battleground of which I am unaware?

Sometimes I think that the only reason anyone says stuff like this is they’re trying to sell this fantasy of conflict.  It might make a decent trope in fiction, but in real life, it doesn’t make sense.

I’m taking a couple days break now that BHM is over, so it’ll be a few days before I get back to calling DC stupid and Mark Millar’s Kick-Ass racist. In light of that fact, now’s as good a time as any to remind you who we are and what we do!

4l! turns five years old this month. The anniversary is later in the month, and hopefully we’ll have some cool business going on. Five years, though, dang. If you have anniversary stuff you want us to do, drop a comment down below.

4thletter! is
Gavin: Funny stuff and wrestling
Esther: Batman and Batman
David: Black people and exasperation

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The Family
Blog@Newsarama: Psyche.
Cheryl Lynn: Cheryl likes to send me links that are to either funny animated gifs or are meant to get me writin’ mad. She’s also the maintainer of The Ormes Society.
The Factual Opinion: TFO is the home of Tucker and Nina Stone. Nina’s just looking for somecomic to love while Tucker’s handing out two-fisted reviews. Both are worth reading.
Funnybook Babylon: Chris, Pedro, Joe, Jamaal, and David U bring some tough talk for funnybooks.
Julian Lytle: Creator of Ants and dope artist. Check out his reviews and miscellany on Ignorant Bliss.
Ron Wimberly: Dope artist, creator of Gratuitous Ninja, jet-setting dude who does a whole lot.
Sean Witzke: Sean is the kind of guy who brings up something you’ve seen a million times and completely dismantles it, forcing you to look at it in a new light. You don’t get it, boy. Supervillain isn’t his blog. It’s an operating table. And he’s the surgeon.

If I forgot you… I forgot you. Peace!

-6th Sense’s 4a.m. Instrumental for the theme music
-Guess what movie we’re talking about!
-No, really.
-We talk some about DC’s past animated features, their upcoming live action slate, and how horrible Daredevil was.
-I thought the tangent where I diss Kitty Pryde and Joss Whedon was much longer, particularly considering that I go “Why am I talking about this?” at the end of it, but it was relatively short! Just F-Y-I.
-Catch the movie on Amazon on DVD or Blu-ray.
-See you, space cowboy!

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