#Comicsgate, Uncle Ethan, Vox Day and Fourteen Words that Say It All

Last night, in two separate YouTube livestreams, #Comicsgate was offered a choice between completely divergent pathways into the future of the movement. One path was apolitical, and the other the pathway that #Comicsgate has often times being accused of taking, a road leading to the much criticised and demonised ‘Alt-right.’

The first pathway is that offered up by Ethan Van Sciver (aka ‘Uncle Ethan), a long-time comic book artist who has recently left DC Comics largely due to political differences between himself, and the Democrat party supporting consensus that predominates within the industry. Uncle Ethan, seeing YouTube as the valuable tool for commerce that it is, has steadily grown his channel by producing anti-SJW content, mostly focussed on pointing out the laughable incompetence of Disney Star Wars. His videos have been funny, and culturally relevant, surfing on a wave of growing discontentment with the far-left ideology that has began to make itself very evident in mainstream entertainment media today.

Uncle Ethan has seen an opportunity, and taken it with the strength of his engaging, welcoming, and dryly humorous personality. It’s hard not to like Uncle Ethan, because he’s an eminently likeable guy, and more than that he is extremely adept at creating a community around himself. Interfacing with the customer directly on YouTube livestreams in a fun and informal way, he is filling a gap in the market that was not being exploited, or catered to by his fellow comic book peers, and his success is very well deserved. But other than community and witty critiques of the Cultural Marxism messaging/programming of mainstream entertainment, what does he have to offer, in terms of comic book product?

Looking at his IndieGoGo campaign (CyberFrog) we can see that Uncle Ethan offers spectacular artwork, and a story about a superhero frog fighting a plague of hornets. Analogous to his own fight against SJW’s in mainstream comics? I think so, but the political messaging is kept in the background, and the blurb to sell the book states, ‘quality, and a lot of fun!’ Looking at the artwork itself, and hearing him talk about the book on his livestreams. I’m taking him completely on his word here, and I am certain that it will be everything that he says that it will be.

Ethan Van Sciver is a very talented artist, and Cyber Frog is his big push to break away from the far-left mainstream. His book will be the best that he can do, and the best that he can do is better than anything you’ll get in the mainstream today, artistically speaking at least, plus, you are guaranteed no far-left silliness if you back the book.

Apart from Cyber Frog, EVS also uses his YouTube platform to publicise the work of his friends, fellow comic book pros who can no longer go along with the far-left ideological consensus of the mainstream comic book industry. The comic books they are offering, and they increase on a weekly basis, are also crowd-funded, and appear, at least so far, to be largely apolitical, and focussed on taking the politics away from comic books, and making them fun, and inclusive for all.

Uncle Ethan and his friends, whilst openly supporting the Republican Party in the US, and President Donald Trump, are not political ideologues. They are not extreme, and certainly not what they are often accused of being by their enemies in the mainstream comic book industry.

Then there is Vox Day, a man who is a little bit different, and by little, I mean a lot, and the path that he opened up for the future of #Comicsgate last night on YouTube, is in stark contrast to what is being offered by Uncle Ethan.

Vox Day, writer, publisher, and a man who identifies as a ‘libertarian nationalist’ is certainly a better fit of the ‘Alt-right’ stereotype often used to demonise Uncle Ethan and the #Comicsgate movement as a whole. Last night, in his own livestream, Vox elucidated on his decision to set up a comic book platform under the ‘ComicsGate’ brand name, a move specifically designed to gain publicity at the expense of Ethan Van Sciver, and the more inclusive movement that he is creating on YouTube and IndieGoGo.

Here’s what Vox has to say about the ongoing drama, and the pathways into the future that have been opened by the two opposing camps.


‘Let the ComicsGatekeepers gnash their teeth all they like. While they have been talking, talking, and talking some more, we have published 22 digital editions and 11 print editions in the last eight months. And based on an author who signed with us last night, it is safe to anticipate that some of the loudest voices raised against us will be publishing with us in less than a year.’

The 'Dark Lord' Vox day.

Vox Day appears to know exactly what he is doing in claiming the name of 'ComicsGate’ as his own. It’s cheeky for sure, but it is a calculated move, designed to steer Comicsgate away from the largely apolitical goals of Ethan Van Sciver, and into more identitarian territory.

Last night, in the two livestreams I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article, two very divergent pathways were revealed.

The first is with Uncle Ethan, a mainstream Republican, who wants to make comic books available for everyone again. The second path is that of Vox Day, an alt-right identitarian who wants to make comic books for a very different group of people.

As I write these words, Uncle Ethan is doing another livestream, with the title ‘Vox Day Aftermath,’ and is discussing Vox Day’s use of the fourteen words.

What are the fourteen words? They are, as follows:

‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’

In these fourteen words we see the stark contrast between Vox Day and Ethan Van Sciver, and the difference in the two pathways that were revealed for #ComicsGate last night.

Uncle Ethan disavows people who use the fourteen words, and in disavowing people who use these words is going directly against everything that his enemies in the far-left mainstream of comics claim him to be.

Ethan Van Sciver is not Alt-Right, is not an identitarian, is not a white nationalist and he never was.

Vox Day is all of those things, and he always was.

Alt-Right, or apolitical, all-inclusive ‘normie?’

These are the two pathways for #Comicsgate to consider, and the choices that will be made shall dictate the future of the movement as a whole. Will #ComicsGate become what the mainstream left always said that it was, or can Uncle Ethan lead it into the middle-ground of apolitical escapist fun, if that is even possible during these deeply divided, politically and culturally incendiary times?

We’ll see.

Choices will be made, and the pathway will be chosen.

Which one shall it be?