I’m not even mad at @comics_explained…

There are posts going around saying that Comics Explained, one of the biggest comic book YouTubers, has explicitly stated he won’t cover the Rippaverse. And I want to start by saying this — nobody is obligated to cover us. I actually defended him in the past when another YouTuber was upset at him for not covering the comics he wanted covered, because one of the cringiest things on the internet is individual creators trying to dictate what others do with their platforms.

Anytime I’ve mentioned people not covering the Rippaverse, it’s to prove a point. And this proves that point. This is how the Rippaverse is handled by the broader comic book space — with exclusion.

But let’s be clear about something. Most people in this space have no idea what my actual positions are. They probably know I’m not a leftist. They probably know I’m cordial with creators they don’t like. They might remember that back when I was primarily doing YouTube, I’d occasionally point to social messaging in modern comics or call out tokenization. Somehow they skipped over all the positive reviews. Those are my great sins — being a comic book fan who had opinions about comic books.

Comics Explained has covered books by creators who are politically outspoken. He’s had no problem covering those books. And to be fair, he primarily covers the mainstream, so covering the Rippaverse would be a pivot. I want to be respectful because I genuinely don’t think this is about one single person. This is about a culture — a culture where acknowledging the Rippaverse is treated as a risk, where giving us a fair shake could get you attacked by the very audience you’ve cultivated. I understand that. I’m not mad at the individual. I’m pointing out the system.

We’ve sold several hundred thousand books across multiple titles from multiple creative teams. Whether you like us or not, we are one of — if not the — biggest independent new publishers of the last five years. The only way certain corners talk about us is to delegitimize us, to say everything we produce is the worst thing ever, despite having varying titles from varying creators with varying styles.

And this is why I’ve never understood when people say the Rippaverse is irrelevant because certain corners of the internet don’t talk about us. What corners? Reddit forums that ban you for speaking positively about us? Comic shops that refuse to carry our books because we aren’t distributed by the two major distributors? Social media pockets where mentioning us is taboo because people will attack you for daring to give us a fair shot? That’s not irrelevance — that’s exclusion. There’s a difference.

The mainstream isn’t a meritocracy. It’s a club. We were never going to be invited in. That’s why we built our own thing in the first place.