The original Thundarr the Barbarian cartoon debuted in 1980, part of ABC's Saturday morning lineup that fall. In retrospect, it's timing was very strange. It largely pre-dates two of the pop culture trends of the '80s: post-apocalypses and sword and sorcery fantasies. Mad Max: The Road Warrior came out in 1981 and the first Conan movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger debuted in 1982. Obviously both genres did exist prior to that, but that a network cartoon was preceeding a cultural zeitgeist of sorts instead of following well behind one was decidedly unusual.

Needless to say, it was one of the most unique shows on television at the time, certainly the most unique cartoon. The opening narration starts by explaining how civilization was totally destroyed, and new creatures evolved to live in the ruins. Yes, the basic story structure tended to be fairly straight-forward good-versus-evil fights, but it was always over the backdrop of the still-recognizable detritus of then-modern civilization. And except for a few very learned individuals (notably the female protagonist, Ariel) everyone was completely clueless as to the origins or even purposes of these now-ancient relics. A simple pocket watch might be seen as mystical talisman, or a shrine might be built up around a data processing center. (These types of ideas got more wide-spread/popular attention in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome a few years later.)

It would only be years later that I learned about the show's creators. It was conceived of and headed by Steve Gerber, with the original character designs by Alex Toth. Jack Kirby provided most of the villains' designs, and scripts were written by the likes of Marty Pasko, Roy Thomas, Mark Evanier, and Buzz Dixon to name a few. Boatloads of talent at the helm and, despite working for what was ostensibly a kids show, they never talked down to their audience.

Now, does any of that background matter when it comes to the new Thundarr the Barbarian comic book by Jason Aaron and Kewber Baal? No. The first issue lays out the basic background (I haven't checked directly, but it's nearly if not completely identical to the opening narration from the show) before dropping readers into the story. And like the show, there's sufficient exposition to give readers the gist of what's going on immediately, while filling in details as Thundarr comes into the picture and requires additional context. We start off with humans being subjucated and auctioned off as slaves to the various clans of lizard- and ape- and rat-peoples. The story then leads the heroes to fight the Council of Wizards to stop their larger plans.

Aaron does a good job of throwing readers right into the story, but catching them up with any necessary history/context as it moves along. There's a good mix of action and exposition to keep things moving. And Baal does a good job communicating how exactly the action moves along. I'll also make note in particular that he draws a pretty good Ookla, which is one of those characters that seems like he ought to be easy enough because of his visual simplicity but, in fact, is really hard to get just right.

What struck me, as a fan of the show as a kid and having studied it more conscientiously as an adult, is how much of the show's lore is packed into the comic. There's the opening narration, as I noted earlier, but the majority of the cast are characters that appeared in show at some point. Including Sabian and a winged monster he conjured -- who only appeared in the show's opening credits and not anywhere in any episode. They also go to offering a more detailed backstory for the protagonists -- which is only hinted at in the show itself -- and manage to logically weave in the various elements of the story that had been known. Clearly, both creators are fans of the show and have done more than their fair share of homework to honor what other fans liked four decades ago.

There is some element of nostalgia being peddled here, without a doubt. However, the story thus far is done well enough that it can stand on its own for any readers who've never heard of Thundarr before. The TV show was well-received in its day but only lasted two seasons, and never won any awards. It was fun but offered viewers more to think about than just simple high-adventure excitement. I think the comic very much continues in that same vein. It's solidly entertaining in its own right, but offers more than a simple run at nostalgia. Worth a read if you have any interest in a post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery adventure, and DEFINITELY worth a read if you were a fan of the show back in the day!

The first four issues are out now from Dynamite Entertainment, and #5 is scheduled to be released on June 17.

I was speaking with a comics creator this past weekend who had only "discovered" Jack Kirby a couple years ago. He said he was certainly aware of Jack's work for years, but it only really "clicked" (his word) for him a year or two ago. Perhaps not so coincidentally, he'd only been drawing comics for about five years, so his appreciation might well come from getting a more visceral understanding of the comics creation process, whereas previously, he may have been stuck on the overt aesthetics.

We ended up chatting a while, and I threw out a few bits that he hadn't really been aware of. Like that Jack was writing and drawing comics professionally at age 20, doing rip-offs for the Lincoln Syndicate. And that he worked most of his career out of his home. And that he was in his 40s when started Fantastic Four and in his 50s during its peak period.

None of what I said was revelatory, really. It was new to him, certainly, but that Jack lived next door to Joe Simon is an interesting anecdote but hardly changes how you view his work on Captain America Comics. How old Jack was when he worked on any given comic isn't really a huge deal, other than perhaps how it may have come before or after some other book he worked on.

But, at the same time, there's a better sense of the whole picture.

"Wait, Jack wasn't some crazy kid throwing wild ideas out when he created Galactus -- he was 50!"

"Wait, Jack didn't go into an office every day?"

"Wait, that would explain how Jack drew 8-10-12 hours a day, but still managed time for his wife and kids!"

And what all that does is put your own work in perspective. Jack worked on comics for nearly a quarter century before he started getting to the stuff that he's best known for; maybe the five years you've been working isn't so bad after all. Sure, Jack had a tremendous output, but he didn't have to leave the house for 10-11 hours a day just to earn a living. That difference is bound to impact your output!

Comparing your work/your success/your fame/whatever against anyone else's is something of a fool's game in the first place. After all, you're not them and have a different set of talents and goals and circumstances than they do/did. But if you want to make any sort of comparisons, even if it's for superficial purposes, it helps to have some context so you know what exactly you're comparing yourself against!

Back in January, I talked a bit about how I had set up an old laptop to act as a media server, hosting whatever music, movies, and TV that I threw on it. I was willing/able to do that, in part, because I had an old laptop lying around anyway. I've had it for three or four years, and I would occasionally pull it out to try to get it up and running again but generally with only partial success. However, I did finally seem to get it to a relatively stable state last fall.

It still doesn't work 100% though. The wifi in it is spotty at best, so I need to keep it hard-wired to my router to ensure a continuous connection. There's also something going on where any browser that you open will suddenly and randomly crash for no reason that I can see in the logs. Other programs can be hit or miss whether or not they're impacted. I set up Plex to serve up all my media files locally because Jellyfin -- a platform that seems better aligned with why I wanted to set up a media server to begin with -- would keep crashing.

But it occurs to me that I can host digital comics from the same device. Plex does not handle books or comic books, but I did learn there are similar platforms out there that cater to comics. I have hundreds (thousands?) of digital comics sitting on my laptop hard drive, and it would be great to have ready access to them from any device.

My first attempts were Komga and Kavita, based on some reviews I'd seen. Komga installs but won't open, while Kavita simply wouldn't even finish the installation process. (To be clear, I am NOT citing these as failures of the programs. As I said, the old laptop I was using for this purpose was already not fully functional with a minimal amount of stuff on it, so I'm in no way blaming the developers who made them; it's just something wonky with my computer. I did get YAC Library up and running, but it seems to require a separate app installed on whichever device you're using; you're unable to run it through a browser or otherwise directly connecting to the server. Also I'm not sure if it's pulling in the meta data correctly. That's not critical, but it is an annoyance.

My next experiment will be LANraragi. It does seem more focused on manga, but we'll see how it does with US style trades and floppies. Of course, that's assuming it installs in the first place, and that it doesn't crash a lot in the second.

I'll also try looking at ComicBase. I used to use them just to catalog my physical collection, but a cursory read suggests I can connect digital editions of the books directly to that as well. There is a much higher cost factor involved here, but if I can get it to work across a home network, it would solve two problems as I've been without a comics catalog for far too long.

Of course, much of this would be a moot point if I had boatloads of extra cash that I could just throw at this, instead of using an old laptop that doesn't 100% work properly and having to test out different options. Of course, if I had that kind of money, I'd probably just hire someone to do all this for me; maybe integrate all the elements I want together into a single platform. 🫤 In the meantime, though, I'd love to hear any thoughts, experiences, or commentary anyone out there might have on what's worked or not worked for you!

It's Memorial Day here in the US, where we honor all of the soliders that have fallen in battle by taking the day off and grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. Today's Frazz sums up my thoughts on the holiday, so I'm just going to leave it here...

Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...

Kleefeld on Comics: On the Latest Kickstarter Payment Processor BS
https://ift.tt/L6dgXAJ

Kleefeld on Comics: Weeaboos Are People Too
https://ift.tt/VoIHmxf

Kleefeld on Comics: Thomas Nast's Ignorant Vote
https://ift.tt/bYDyCqN

Kleefeld on Comics: RIP Dark Horse Comics
https://ift.tt/4XlVicB

Kleefeld on Comics: Charging into the Future like There's No Tomorrow!
https://ift.tt/ZkPV13c

I try to be a forward-thinking guy. I try to look out down the road to see what's coming, so that I have a better chance to zig and zag as needed. I'm by no means a futurist, though; I'm nowhere near adept enough at predicting sociological behaviors or extrapolating wide-spread trends based on current technologies. I have my moments of insight, but they're not as frequent as I'd like. I was forecasting wide-spread cloud computing years before the term was commonly known and saw "video blogging" coming a few years before YouTube was founded. I had a "win" yesterday by predicting Embracer Group would close all their Things From Another World locations before they announced they were planning to do just that. But I was also completely side-swiped by social media when that came on the scene; I had no inkling anything like that was coming.

On the plus side, I think even the most prescient futurists aren't exactly batting 1000 either! 😊

But guys like Marshall McLuhan and Alvin Toffler (both of whom I've referenced on this blog before) were able to see some of the broad strokes coming down the pipe. McLuhan didn't know what the internet was but he saw a vast communications network that reduced our entire planet to the equivalent of a single community: a "global village." And that's the type of thing I try (in my decidedly unprofessional and seriously inadequate way) to do. I try to look at the information of today and figure out not only what's going to happen tomorrow, but also in the next several years.

At some level, many people do that. Whether you're planning a wedding or booking gigs for your band or saving up to buy a house, that's all about looking toward the future by extrapolating as much as you can from what you know right now.

How all that relates to comics is, of course, the question of what's going to happen to comics as a whole? Where is the industry headed? What will overall sales look like? What technologies will enhance production and distribution of digital comics? What properties will become "hot" and garner population attention? Those are the questions a lot of folks in comicdom are asking.

The problem, obviously, is that we're all speculating. We don't know the future, so we all have to guess. And we're all making these guesses with incomplete data. Sales numbers are often a big blind spot for us. Retailers know their own numbers, but not for the industry at large or any of their direct competitors. Publishers know their own numbers, but not specific retailers or other publishers. Creators don't provide their financial information (notably, income from making comics) to anyone. Bloggers like myself don't know any of that. So any predictions any of us make are based on less than ideal information.

That's where a lot of arguments come from. A retailer can say, "Listen: I make X amount of money selling just Marvel comics and I'm doing fine. I don't see what the deal is about DC distributing separately." While the next retailer might say, "I've seen a decline in sales because of COVID, and many have switched to digital." And yet another retailer might say, "New people are coming into the store because of comics they read online." Those three retailers are going to see the future of comics differently, based on the information they have that is biasing their view.

I use "bias" deliberately. I don't mean to suggest that they're actively altering their opinions to fit what they're seeing in their respective stores, but the information at their disposal will push their thoughts and ideas in a certain direction. I'm very cognizant that my constant work in web development focuses my attention toward online behaviors over print, and colors my outlook.

But it's not just a single factor like that impacting my thought process. I pay more attention to independent creators than the larger publishers any more. I got hooked on comics in the early 1980s. I went to college for design. I went to graduate school for an MBA. I have an 8-to-5 job in a beige cubicle. (Or, at least, it was in a beige cubicle up until the pandemic!) I've done freelance work. I am familiar with printing processes from previous jobs, but my knowledge there is primarily based on technologies from 25 years ago. I don't drink. I got a divorce after ten years of marriage, and eventually married someone else and moved to a different state. I have a dog. My favorite color is green.

All of that, regardless of how irrelevant it seems to comics, has some measure of impact on how I think about the medium. The same holds for everyone else. Their first car. The parent that abandoned them at age 7. The house that burned down across the street a week ago. The childhood friend who they hadn't talked to in 30 years committing suicide after a long struggle with PTSD that originated with their military service. The Spelling Bee their cousin won in fifth grade.

All of those things, many of which you're probably not aware of, have an impact. Which is to say: take EVERYTHING with a grain of salt. I'm certainly going to talk and act in what seems to be my best interests, and that's one of the reasons I'm bullish on webcomics in general. If you see/hear someone else speaking with a contrary point of view, there's almost certainly a reason for that.

I think my point here is that you, as a consumer of information, need to keep alert of not only what people are saying about the future of comics, but who is saying it and where they're coming from. As much as I like and respect guys like Brian Hibbs and Joe Field, I always keep in mind that these guys are both retailers and have a retailer perspective. Nothing wrong with that, of course! I'm just saying that it's different than a creator or a fan perspective.

But the future is a big question mark for all of us, and our backgrounds and current situations are going to impact our outlooks. Just something to keep in mind the next time you see someone talking up their new digital comics platform or the company press release announcing a "coporate realignment" shortly after laying off a bunch of employees.

Yesterday, Embracer Group dropped a press release to announce "its intention to spin off Fellowship Entertainment on Nasdaq Stockholm." Embracer Group, if you don't know, is the private equity firm that bought Dark Horse back in 2022. It's day-to-day operations were still headed by Dark Horse founder Mike Richardson until early March of this year when he was unceremoniously fired.

So why do we care about this press release?

Let's start simple. This "intention to spin off" basically means that Embracer Group is formally splitting into two different companies: Fellowship Entertainment and Embracer Group. This 'new' Embracer Group will basically continue to act like the old one, focusing on buying up other companies and either making them more profitable (by radically cutting costs -- i.e. laying people off) or turning around to re-sell the company for a profit. Frequently, they try to do both. Fellowship, then, will be more focused on owning/managing a variety of IP franchises. That is, if you want to make a product about some character they own, they're who you will have to pay the licensing fee to. The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit is probably their most well-known propety now (hence the name "Fellowship") but they also own Tomb Raider and other Eidos games, as well as Dark Horse.

According to the press release, Fellowship "will focus on dedicated IP management, aiming to transform franchise ownership into recurring revenue streams across games, film, consumer products, and additional areas." The first key phrase there is "IP management." There is no talk about storytelling or immersive gaming or anything like that anywhere in the announcement. Just IP management. That means that all they want to do is just own the rights to a bunch of properties, and then sit back and let licensing fees roll in while they do jack shit. That's what "recurring revenue streams" are. They don't care who puts out another Tomb Raider game or if there's an ongoing Lara Croft comic book or anything like that; they just want to be able to essentially rent out the character to the highest bidders. They're not the ones who are going to continue publishing The Lord of the Rings books or making another Tomb Raider game; they just go to collect the paychecks.

So why did they buy a comic boook publisher like Dark Horse?

Because Dark Horse is not a comic book publisher. I mean, yes, they do publish comic books and their most popular ones are themselves either licensed (e.g. Star Wars, Stranger Things...) or creator-owned (e.g. Hellboy, Umbrella Academy...) but they own a number of properities themselves including The Mask, Time Cop, and Ghost. They also have some degree of control over other properties they don't own outright; for example, while Mike Mignola still technically owns Hellboy, all of the media properties -- the movies, shows, and video games -- are managed by Dark Horse and they get a slice of the pie just for managing the contract. That's what Embracer Group wanted when they bought the company in 2022; they didn't care about the comics -- they just wanted the IPs.

This is part of why Embracer Group outright closed Things From Another World's online presence last year. It involved actual work on a day-to-day basis. They don't want that. They want to kick their feet up on the desk and let the checks roll in. I expect we'll see the physical stores close before long either -- they're probably only still open because of existing rental contracts for the physical store locations.

Am I saying that we'll stop seeing comic books with a Dark Horse logo on them? Probably not. They're going to do the same thing that Marvel has been doing more slowly over the past several years. The comics will continue, but their actual production will be farmed out to other publishers. I have been pointing this out for nearly a quarter century now, but no one has seemed to catch on -- Marvel stopped being a comic book publisher in 2000 and became a "character licensing company." They realized their worth was in owning Spider-Man and the X-Men, not in publishing Amazing Spider-Man and Uncanny X-Men. We see that more and more now, with an increasing number of publishers putting out comics in Marvel's name: Abrams, Scholastic, IDW, Titan... That's why Disney bought them. Embracer Group is trying to do the same thing with Dark Horse. They don't want to publish comics; they want people to send them money so they can rubber stamp another Mask movie.

I don't know what kind of timeframe Embracer Group is working on, and what other legal or financial factors might be at play, but if you want to mark the official end of Dark Horse as a publisher, this is it. The comics will continue for a while, but the company isn't a publisher any longer.