#hypocrisyofandrewdobson

Let me explain.

First, over the course of three panels, Dobson comes essentially off like he is considering the medium of comics as inferior to the medium of movies. Making it look as if comics are unsuccessful because they cannot rail in the same amount of money than certain flics and calling them at best nothing more but a pitching ground for corporations to create new shallow mass product.

Now I am a bit of a realist and I know that, especially in the world of mainstream American superhero comics, this is kinda the case. Most comic book characters, stories and franchises are owned by multibillion dollar corporations, who either have a direct hand in the creation of the product (via corporate mandate for example) and/or use the likeness of the product to make profit in additional, more valuable revenues than the printed medium. Such as cartoons, merchandise and movies. One example I can think of, to show that it isn’t just an American issue: Yugioh. The card game wouldn’t have come to be if there hadn’t been a manga starring a little boy putting together an ancient Egyptian puzzle, but while the original manga ended way back in March of 2004, the card game makes millions globally still after 25 years and counting.

But that doesn’t change the fact, that comics as a medium still have value. Without the stories told within their pages, we wouldn’t have characters such as Captain America, Superman, the Mask, the Ninja Turtles and so on to begin with. Don’t get me even started on stories that aren’t falling into the American mainstream comic trend, but still succeeded in the printed comic medium partly because of genuine artistic and profound value such as Maus, Barefoot Gen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, TinTin and a shitton of (other) stuff from Europe and Asia.

So when Dobson, who always acted like he is proud to be a cartoonist and that comics are a superior medium to others, suddenly reduces them to just being a “pitch ground for better stuff down the line” at best, I as a fan of the medium and just the art of creating stories in itself, get kinda pissed.

Additionally, the way how he compares movies to be better than comics, is severely flawed.

He brings up the fact, that “Captain America: Civil War” made over one billion dollars at the box office as an example, while pointing out the fact, that most single comic issues barely manage to sell 100.000 copies, while holding up a copypasted “Civil War” issue.

Already, Dobson essentially compares apples with bananas, while also giving both false and incomparable data, that also ignores many aspects to be considered.

For starters: He compares the earnings of both movies and comics with two different values. For movies, he goes by the monetary profit a superhero movie could possibly make, while for the comic issue, he goes by the total number of copies sold.

But here is the thing: Assuming the average selling price of a comic is at 4 dollars for a single 30 page issue, selling 100.000 copies would ring in like 400.000 dollars. And considering that producing one issue likely costs a company less than 20.000 dollars (obvious costs for mass production and distribution not withstanding) they can still make a decent profit this way from ONE issue alone. One issue. Not multiple issues of a long running, but sadly underperforming series. All of that by the way doesn’t even account for the fact, that most single issues at best tell only a quarter of a decent short story nowadays and ignores later “long term” factors, such as reprints of the issue, late term buying of the issue, tradepaperback sells of the issue, the longterm effect and cultural impact the issue may have on the actual series or plot continuity  (such as Amazing Spiderman 122, aka “The Night Gwen Stacy Died”). Don’t get me even started on the fact, that many of these issues get first sold in the US and only over the course of one year or longer may then additionally be sold in other parts of the world, therefore bringing in even more money for the publisher.

Example: The Duck comics by Don Rosa, which earn more than four times more in Europe, than they ever did in America, despite the guy being from California. Finally, a a little add addendum: that example Dobson gives indirectly via the “Civil War” issue? A quick google search revealed, that Civil War issue 1 sold over 300k copies in May of 2006 alone. Sure, not necessarily the best numbers ever for a single issue (as evident by the following list: https://bookriot.com/bestselling-comics-of-all-time/ )but still nothing to be ashamed of.

And yes, I know that we live currently in a time, where comic book sells have dropped significantly for a variety of reasons, one of them being an overall lack of decent stories. But as long as other stuff still manages to run freaking circles around American superheroes (*cough* One Piece *cough*) I wouldn’t say the medium itself is dead. Just a specific branch of it is suffering from a lack of quality and the customers are jumping ship.

A superhere movie meanwhile is a completely different beast. Ever since “The Avengers” came out in 2012, most superhero movies are 150-250 million dollar behemoths, that get overhyped by advertisement campaigns that are almost equally as expensive and try to trick the audience into believing, that they all are somehow the next big mindblowing thing on the big screen. Plus there hasn’t really been a superhero movie in the last 10+ years, that didn’t release simultaneously worldwide, instead of only coming out in the USA, and then a few months later, in other parts of the world.

So is it any wonder then, if a superhero movie that got advertised like the second coming of a saint, makes 1 billion, when there are already billions of potential customers worldwide all at once when the product launches?

That number btw becomes actually less impressive, once you start to think about how it came to be. Something our blue bear obviously didn’t.

See, on average every movie theater demands like what, 12-14 dollars per movie nowdays?

If we divide the box office of Civil war (1.152 billion btw) with 12 dollars, that makes on average 100 million people worldwide who watched the movie. A bit more than one or two percent of the worlds population. Not to forget, that of the box office success we have to substract such things as production cost of the movie, advertisement, the earnings of the theaters… so suddenly the movie may at best have had only earned one quarter of its box office for Disney as actual profit.

Not to forget, Dobson made that comic in 2018, when superhero movies on average did ring in so much money, because of the hype machine. But now we have 2023 and within the last five years (and especially 2023 itself) we have seen how superhero movies can also utterly fail to make money or even earn just enough to make back the production cost. Birds of Prey, Eternals, Ant Man 3, that Secret Invasion streaming show that still cost over 200 million… Do I need to get on?

Bottom line, Dobson’s indirect jab at comics as the less profitable revenue doesn’t hold that much water really in the real world, where once the hype dies down, comics may actually prove themselves as the more valuable longterm medium. Even if it may just be for the fact, that they end up staying longer relevant in the popcultural subconscious than the current movies, which tend to lose relevance with each new hastily produced and released installment in the franchise.

But where this comic really shines and shows Dobson’s ignorance on a cultural level, is in the last panel. When all off sudden it turns “racial” by claiming that Asian people, unlike “traditional” comic readers (aka white, in Dobbear s eyes therefore instantly racist people), would eat a Marvel character like Amadeus Cho up.

Question Dobson: Why do you assume, they would eat him up? You give no real argument based on anything the character does storywise, that the “target audience” may find admirable. So I can only think, that your reasoning is, because he is ever so slightly east asian coded.

Boy, do we have to unpack not just a can of worms, but a whole package of cans now.

First, the chosen language by saying “eat it up”. When being a writer, you should know that you need at times to choose your words wisely, because of the sheer implications they can carry. And the statement “eat it up” sounds way to close to a negative statement like “suck it up”. Making it come off as if Dobson considers Asian people to be mindless cattle that will consume the grub the House of Mouse will give them without question or any desire for actual quality to it.

Second, it recks of a certain mind set I hate within the American entertainment industry and some of its creators and consumers. That mind set being, that “non-traditional” American cultures supposedly don’t know better than Americans in what is okay for the sake of representation and entertainment or not. It’s a mindset that goes beyond the necessity of e.g. localizing a foreign product to the national market, by e.g. creating a sterilized, corporately mandated and rather unrealistic depiction of another culture within their product, that will fall apart as soon as the people who are supposed to be represented get a proper look at it and realize, how pandering and often times badly researched, if not outright offensive, it is.

Only recently did we see in the world of animation how that can backfire, when Disney released the trailer for “Primos” an upcoming animated show supposedly about a half Latina girl spending her summer vacation with her annoying cousins, people calling it based on the intro (and a leaked pilot) pandering towards a latino audience in a racist manner. And guess what: currently, Disney shelves it and tries to bury its existence like Dobson his old inflation art.

Dobson himself has actually indulged in that sort of shit kinda, back with his infamous Nintendo comic.

Essentially calling the “true”, Nintendo corporation approved depiction of his childhood Nintendo heroes disgraceful, for not falling in line with the late 80s depictions he saw in localized, made in America products such as the DiC cartoons. That and minor homophobia mixed with misogyny by calling Link “girly” for having longer blond hair since Ocarina of Time and blaming fangirls for it.

Third, and that is kinda related to my prior point, the reality of things is, that “Asians” actually did not eat up that sort of thing in the last couple of years. Sure, there is always that thing about a Chinese market. the big movie companies try to pander to and may succeed with some dumb action flics featuring big robots.

But the reality is, that not even people living in a dictatorship will eat up every trash you give to them, just because it comes from Hollywood or is supported by their glorious leadership. Disney tried to create two pandering messes of movies for Chinese people to watch, called Mulan (the live action adaptation) and that Shang Chi movie. And how did they do there? Oh right! The government did not even allow Shang Chi to be released and Mulan was released but supposedly didn’t do so well, considering (COVID not withstanding) it only made 70 million globally!

Don’t get me even started on every human right controversy in relation to the later, starting with filming in China near a concentration camp and ending with the main actress being essentially a Chinese propaganda puppet.

So, if those movies flopped, why would Chinese people for example flock for an Asian Hulk? A hulk that is not even Chinese but Korean.

See, this is another issue that fails with the example: The actual choice of character Dobson name dropped is actually kinda terrible.

For those unaware: Amadeus Cho is a supporting character in the Marvel comics, created in 2005 by American writer Greg Pak and artist Takeshi Miyazawa. The later, despite the name being very east Asian, sounding, actually being from Canada. Now both do have east Asian roots so to speak (Pak  e.g. is the son of an Korean-american man with a Caucasian woman), but they also have grown up within a society that taught them both western social values more so than we would see in east Asian countries. So with the creators already not necessarily having the most real life experience with the average mindset of a Korean citizen, can we really say that their actual creation helps “represent” those people of a foreign, non-american culture?

And that is not even covering stuff like the actual story of the character itself.

See, in the comics, Cho is supposed to be an American-Korean genius (wish fullfillment much, Greg?) and one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe. His parents named him after Amadeus Mozart (a pretty white motherfucker as far as I remember) and he grew up under Methodist beliefs. So basically the “Korean heritage” of the character has already been thrown out of the window. Now I don’t expect the character to act stereotypical Korean, listen to K-pop, declare bulgogi to be his favorite dish or any of that shit. But when you want to sell me the character as being in some way or another connected to his ancestral culture, shouldn’t he engage at least in some “Korean coded” things?

I mean, the character of Anne Boonchuy in Amphibia is a Thai-American who acts more like a 13 year old girl that learns to be less selfish and impulsive over the course of the show and whose “heritage” isn’t thrown at us, the viewer, most of the time. In fact, Anne herself acknowledges that she e.g. can’t really speak thai, despite her own mother being fluent in it and a season 3 episode reveals, that Anne is “begrudgingly” a part of the L.A. thai community. And yet, in connection to the shows story and as part of Anne’s characterization, her heritage is acknowledged and plays a part of who she is. Even if it simply means she knows how to cook certain thai dishes, loves her parents and their customs, helps out in their restaurant, can speak a few words thai and knows the basics of Muay Thai, a form of martial arts (and fighting sport) from Thailand.

Amadeus doesn’t even have Korean parents anymore, because they were killed as part of his tragic hero backstory. Nor has he ever visited an Asian country. Oppps.

To build further up on it, Amadeus becomes for the longest time simply a major supporting character in the Marvel universe for the likes of Hulk and Hercules, two white coded characters. Sure, he plays a major role in the defeat of some cosmic horror level villains (such as Mikaboshi in the Chaos God storyline most people forgot even existed) but it takes a long time for him to become a “A-lister” so to speak.

In fact, according to Wikipedia, it wasn’t till after “Secret Wars” in 2016 (eleven years after the character was created), that Amadeus thanks to a chain of events eventually got his chance to Hulk out. And then they still had to kill Bruce Banner to make Amadeus “stand out” initially (don’t worry, Bruce came back. I mean, characters actually staying dead in comics, so that heroes can learn there are consequences? Preposterous) In fact, Amadeus hasn’t really proven himself as a decent “solo” act. Instead he became a member of the Champions (among Miles Morales, Mrs. Marvel, Vision’s daughter Viv. Nova and Cyclops), essentially creating yet another superhero team for teenaged vigilantes. Despite the fact, Cho himself should be by now in his mid 20s.

Now look, I do not want to shit talk the character. Partly because I haven’t read everything he was in myself and partly because in the few things I did see him in (both pre- and post Hulk) he was okay. He is a decent hero and person, who tries to do good, even if he screws up here and there. That is something I can admire in a character in general. But he is not a good “representation” of another culture, because his complexion and minor physical features aside, he is NOT embodying even minor values or traditions of that foreign culture. He is simply a Korean-American (or technically Canadian), who falls more on the American side of things.

So essentially, Dobson who virtue signaled on multiple occasions how bad it is when companies he didn’t like tried to speak on behalf of other cultures, would have no problem at all to ask for Asian people to swallow this obviously “Made in American” product. The “Made in America” line actually working both on a metaphorical and a storytelling level, cause trying to google what “east Asian coded” heroes in the Marvel Universe actually come from an Asian country instead of being simply born on American soil, is pretty damn small.

After 20 minutes I only found Shang Chi, as he was born in China, and that character was created as part of kung-fu exploitation in the 70s by white dudes.

Yaiks

However, none of that tops the next two points that really sell Dobson to me as an American centralistic racist. Or at least a twat who doesn’t understand how through bad wording he comes of as ignorant of other people’s cultures.

The way he generalizes Asian people in his statement, while also ignoring the actual accomplishments in the creation of entertainment in multiple Asian countries.

If you’ve read closely what I typed, you may have seen that I used the term Asian at times in tandem with the term “east Asian” to e.g. describe Amadeus Cho.

And that had a very deliberate reason. While I was not a fan of geography in school, even I know that Asia as a continent is not “nationally” as homogenous as let’s say Australia or North America. In fact, Asia is the biggest continent on the planet, hosts more than half of earth’s population and consists of at least 47 internationally acknowledged states.

States such as Turkey, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, North- and South Korea, Egypt, Israel, Iraq, Iran and so on.

Now what all these states have in common, is that they have their own unique historical, social and “racial” culture and background. Heck, religiously speaking, Asia is the cradle of the world.

As such, Dobson stating that a “Korean coded” character such as Amadeus Cho (who is only Korean on the most surface level and would technically just be a legacy character of yet another white person) would be an immediate hulk smash hit with all these different people of different backgrounds…. Yeah, it sounds like condescending, colonization inspired shit, a smooth brain would come up with.

To Dobson “Asia”, at least based on that comic, is only defined as the “yellow skinned” people from the far east, who like rice, noodles, spicy food and give us anime, Godzilla, fireworks, buddhism and communism. It does not include anyone from the middle east or of more European ancestry. And if you are even remotely familiar about history, you would also know that Japanese, Koreans and Chinese all around do not e.g. like to be thrown into a pot with the others for a variety of reasons. Many of them political.

Or to sum it up even shorter: Dobson insinuated that a very shallow, “east Asian” coded American comic character would be an immediate hit with more than 47 different countries, ignoring that not all of them share the same background despite being part of the “same” landmass. And in doing so, he simultaneously generalized and denounced entire groups of people based on their racial and cultural background, which in as far as I am aware of, is considered racist.

But the “racism” is supposedly justified, because “representation” matters, it would be giving the middle finger to “traditional” comic fans and those nations and their culture are underrepresented globally.

Which is baloney.

Don’t get me wrong, I myself think that representation does matter. But the world does not necessarily rely on the good old US-Ayy only to give it to us.

Cause a lot of the Asian nations I brought up here? They have their own entertainment industry and stories, which again, get ignored by Dobson to make a dumb and false point.

I mean, manga is currently dominating the international comic market, all while Japan has also a booming animation industry and some of the most iconic heroes in modern popculture with the likes of Son Goku, Kamen Rider, Super Sentai etc.

China has a prominent -if propaganda driven- movie industry.

India has Bollywood and delivers some of the most ridiculous but awesome musical movies on the planet.

Russia had authors such as Tolstoy and movie directors, that redefined the “art” of filmmaking.

Korea had a few years ago one of the biggest streaming hits with Squid Game, while also earning an Oscar for a movie titled Dobs- I mean “Parasite”.

Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Turkey… even nations that have not entertainment living up to “western standards” still produce stuff in some way or form to entertain the masses and their people. Just google up the character Kara Murat aka the avenger of Anatolia.

And don’t get me even started on the sheer ton of mythology, stories and history each of their cultures have provided the world with. Journey to the West? Baba Yaga, the entirety of the Gilgamesh epos...

The thing about this comic is, that Dobson is not necessarily entirely wrong. There are people who believe that artistic growth is more or less developing in a progressive line, kinda artificially. Which based on my own experience, is not really the case. At least I have seen artists, writers and such, who, if allowed to grow in a more “organic” manner, will eventually manage to create stuff and tell stories with a more unique flavor than they did before. The “key” however to do so is to also think at least partly outside the box and being “genuine” with what you want to create. Case in point for me: Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels.

While I did enjoy a lot of Pratchett’s early novels in the Discworld cycle, I will admit that it wasn’t really until “Mort” and “MacBest” that I think Pratchett started to move away from simply “spoofing” the common tropes in fantasy fiction while telling a story and that it was around that time, he really started to flesh the Discworld out in the manner that many people came to love, while also giving flavor to it with his unique sense of humor. And Moving Pictures in that regard was the true definitive turning point, as from there on we “left” the classical fantasy tropes in favor of a fantasy world more akin to a 19th century fantasy world, entering the industrial revolution and everything that it included. But Pratchett, in order to reach that point in his career as a writer, and in regard of his Discworld mythology, had to start somewhere with novels the like of “The Light Fantastic” and “Colours of Magic” and had to "progressively" improve at least to some degree before reaching the point he could organically breach out.

Which brings me to the following: Dobson claiming that there is no “linear progression” at times is kinda wrong. Particularly when you are familiar with long running manga series such as One Piece or certain webcomics. From a technical aspect, there is “progress” so to speak. Look at One Piece and how chapters are drawn e.g. back during the East Blue or Alabasta Cycle and compare the linework e.g. with how things escalate in the Wano arc. Oda obviously became more comfortable fleshing out panels even more than before.

Drum vs Wano...

Another example: Compare THIS early strip of a certain internet webcomic…

With how it looks nowadays

Yeah, I know sinfest is utter garbage made by a demagogue WAY WORSE than Dobson (honestly, fuck Ishida with a broken bottle), but technically speaking, he “evolved”.

Next, let me just say that I find the assumption of Dobson that “most” people think artistic growth is “only” an artificial linear process, kinda insulting. Mostly because I think that most of us are aware that it is rather a mixture of “organic” growth and linear progress, rather than one extreme or the other. But obviously, Dobson must claim this is the “truth” about most people, cause otherwise, his take isn’t “unique” anymore and he isn’t special. Special for making a whimsical, romanticized and “creative” statement about artistic growth being more like a tree. Free to grow and beautiful to look at. Something we must nurture and care for.

Yeah, about that, in regard of the last line that reads, and I quote: Everyone is different and everyone grows at different speed. Through loving care and constant nurturing, you’ll always improve.

I think we all know Dobson well enough, that what he really is saying is the following:

I am different than others and I grow at my own pace. Please, I will improve if you give me likes and pay for my stuff instead of giving me mean criticism I can not stand. Now let me just phrase it in a manner that sounds like I say something compassionate that can apply to every person, hiding my own insecurities and selfish wishes.

In that regard, let me show you the beauty of Dobson’s artistic growth as of present day.

Okay, snark put aside at least partly, I do agree that yes, people are different and as artists can grow at different speed. Often times other factors, such as personal life experiences, exposure to stuff outside their certain comfort zones or even just having the right tools to work with, can affect a lot the artistic growth of a person.

I even agree, that “loving care and nurturing” (or in other words, positive feedback and support, at times, even financially) can help. But where I draw the line is at “constant nurturing”, because that feels like to Dobson, the only way he or other artists can ever improve is only through praise and nothing more. No. No Dobson, you also need to at least tolerate at times “criticism” and negative feedback. And I don’t mean stuff like “kill yourself, faggot”, I mean when someone tells an artist for example that certain technical aspects of his work, such as linework, positions, storytelling etc. need genuinely to be worked on. Because guess what? Getting your mistakes pointed out, doesn’t necessarily need to be something negative. It can also be something positive, if it genuinely helps you learn from those mistakes and improve your work.

Not that Dobson ever learnt how to deal with “criticism” in a positive manner anyway, as evident by journal posts as followed...

And this piece of “artwork”

Comic with stabbed critics

Not to forget, the person who gives us this “advice” is the same person who did not really live by any of it himself. I mean, Dobson claims that artistic growth is doing best when allowed to grow organically, slowly and steady and that as time goes on, it will also branch out and diverge.

I will say this: Yes, there are content creators who tend to branch out at times also from their “familiar” tone and style, just for the sake of creating art. Gendy Tartakovsky comes to mind, having started off in very cartoonish stuff like Dexter’s Lab and Powerpuff Girls, only to then also give us Samurai Jack, Primal and Unicorn-Warriors Eternal. Not having really betrayed his roots (as evident e.g. also by his involvement with the Hotel Transylvania franchise), but branching out to different degree.

When did Andrew Dobson ever “branch out” or diverge? His original stories such as Formera and Alex the Pirate, which were derivative of humor and pacing issues related to comedic mangas of the late 80s and early 90s as well as newspaper comic strips, were utter failures he abandoned around the late 2000s/early 2010s.

Most of the stuff he ever created was random fanart, and if anything he actually got worse over time. Having perhaps once upon a time created some decent fanart…

And then later providing people more with stuff like that, where he doesn’t even get the original design of the characters right

Even a low effort comic such as SYAC had become lazier and lazier over the years. Mostly because instead of just telling a joke, you had most of the time just Dobbear over the course of four panels stand in a green void and blubber on how he thinks certain artists or fans sucked because of opinions they had.

The most he ever bothered to “branch out” was ironically when he worked for brentalfloss, as the guy forced Dobson essentially to draw more detailed backgrounds at times than he ever did for anything else.

And the deal with Brentalfloss ended by 2012 or even earlier.

The only other noteworthy creations he made in his last years online would be the Adventure Zone comic that no one asked for (essentially turning some podcast into a comic that had severe pacing issues. Something Adventure Zone fans pointed out) and Miraculous Ladybug comics he made, because that shitstain on the magical girl genre became his new favorite.

And the later were just an extension of the dumb, unfunny and meanspirited newspaper level humor he was already famous for when it came to Alex ze Pirate and early SYAC.

Not to forget, he couldn’t even draw the characters remotely close to the show’s style, something he even pointed out himself.

JESUS! She looks like a farting squirrel with mental disorders.

Dobson himself may have hated his younger self and what he drew…

But you just have to look e.g. at his “Inktober” contributions in later years to see, how much within the shortest amount of time he could regress artistically instead of grow.

To clarify: The Dr. Who pic was in his first year of doing inktober. The not on model Gary was on his second, and the Dipper one on his last year of participating in it. And he actively decided out of spite to no longer work with ink the second year forward, because the first time he did it, he felt insulted by people actually paying him positive attention again in years among other things.

Truth be told, Dobson had all the time in the world within the 15+ years he was an online presence. And even with people like me making fun of him and criticizing his work, he still could have done something to improve artistically for the better and grow into a beautiful tree.

Instead he shriveled up to some stinking flora with a lot of pricks and was stomped out by natural forces, leaving me and others behind to further salt the earth on which he grew.

Turning from this...

to this!

With his very last project known as Cabin Rest ending up pretty much like that: