Would a conservative comic company work?

What if a small company tried to be a conservative comic company? Would it work?

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[jp-sxrh]

Michael Jordan once said "Republicans buy sneakers too." And it's incredible the amount of pushback be got for this. He later said it was meant as a joke. But honestly, why would you try to only appeal to half your potential customers and go out of your way to alienate the other half? When businesses make themselves overly political it just seems to limit their pool of potential customers.

[crouchback]

Conservatives are fond of the saying "Get woke, go broke." I think that has it backward - if you've got a crappy story on hand, give it the right (or left) politics and proclaim its ideological correctness to defend an inferior product. If you can't or won't pay for talented creators, find ones that will work cheap and can be sold as "diverse." A deliberately conservative comic company would most likely do the same things - defending crap work as "patriotic" or "daring" and hiring the cheapest writers as long as they're conservative. The simple fact is people want entertainment to be entertaining. If you want people to read your comics, hire good writers and artists and pay accordingly. Setting politics first is just a way of shielding bad product.

[reinoe]

My problem with Dynamite is that they got bluffed by people who were threatening to quit but didn't even work for Dynamite. How can you fold and backdown to that?

[illithidlore]

People underestimate the number of older people who just leave the TV on all day for background noise/company.

Comics can't replicate that because you have to actively buy them and read them.

[vjm]

Kamen America
Conservative, AND Christian. The double sin of the woke comic industry.
Their latest kickstarter happened, and they blew through their prior records and GROWING.
When you give people deep, interesting characters, with good art, fun story, and you don't demean your fanbase....it's incredible how successful you are.

[LibraGamesUnlimited]

Not having watched the whole video yet I would say that the awner to far left comics isn't to have far-right comics in a form of 'counter programming'. I think the real answer is just to do normal comics, the kind of comics that actual readers like and are craving now.

Comics that just tell good stories, with dynamic artwork and compelling characters and no agenda to push.

I think crowdfunding is doing that right now and that is why they're so successful.

[jhoodcomics]

"Just go for entertainment." That's all I ask for in my comics...

[MisogynyMan]

Didn't watch the video yet. But man it would be amazing with just a "normal" comic book company that wasn't full of ideologues.
It doesn't need to be conservative, just...normal.

[Spitzkrieg]

Marvel would be lucky to have Bill Willingham. He's a great guy. Also, a fantasy artist for D&D.

[Gak]

The problem with making a conservative (insert company type here) is conservatives are generally fine with buying from left wing companies while the inverse is generally not true.

[jbbrolic]

It depends on what "conservative" means. If it means stories with traditional American and Western heroism and or/values I'll buy that all day.

If it means 2022 establishment conservative ideology it will fail. There was a poll that showed true believers in that ideology (a mishmash of unpopular economics and social policies that are slightly less outrageous to people who liked how things were 10+ years ago) is less than 10%. Most Republican voters are "lesser of two evil" voters.

[alexjohnson]

I love Bill Willingham. The Elementals, Fables, etc..

[bobisamatar]

Not anymore than a liberal comic can be successful. If you place your bets on appealing to politics before a story that can appeal to people, it's going to be really transparent and people aren't going to like it. The point of comics is to create entertainment, not lecture to either side of the divide.

[sometimesfriendly]

I think the company could find an audience easily enough, the challenge would be surviving the multiple weekly cancellation attempts. They would have to rely on a means of distribution other than comic shops, because once the company finds some success, SJW's (and I know Perch hates the term but I find it convenient shorthand) will pressure the comic stores to remove the brand.

[rickrivers]

I just want a comic publisher that doesn't have an 'us or them' mentality when it comes to politics. Can we just reflect the variety of political leanings in a fair manner? You can write a good comic that explores political issues, but the moment it turns into a 'we're right and they're stupid' it's a turn off for me.

[JuliePascal]

Science Fiction had a group who stated over and over that they only wanted good stories and it didn't matter what an author's politics were. They promoted any author they thought was good. Do you know what happened, Perch? I bet you can guess.

[cosmoissleeping]

I encourage some right winger to invest in a conservative comic company and lose every cent he puts in 😆

[otakubullfrog]

The secret would be for the company to properly prepare itself to weather the storm. They'd need to commit to doing their thing no matter how many hit pieces show up on Bleeding Cool, no matter what anyone on Twitter says, no matter if a few comic shops in San Francisco threaten never to carry their books, etc. Arguing with these types never helps and trying to compromise with them only results in the target audience losing respect, so they have to make sure they just don't engage at all. They'd also need to have redundancy built in to every part of their business so that if they get booted by this bank, or that printer or this web host or whoever else, they could pivot seamlessly.

[Richforce]

Eric July is working make his own without ideology and he's a libertarian (well actually he's closer to an anarcho-capitalist but he's cool).

[penitentialarts]

When a creator makes a public statement along the lines of "I'll never work for Marvel/DC again if they hire X person, " that company should make a note of it and refuse to hire the person making the threat for any future projects. The same goes for creators who go online bitching about the publishers they already work for. Don't hire them for future projects. Make it clear to creators before they are hired that you have specific policies related to social media. That will nip that behavior in the bud.