The ones i can think about right now are flash gordon and the phantom, since they arent techincally super heroes but adventurers.

>>29353 The Phantom is absolutely a superhero.

>>29354 Never seemed like one to me, hes at most a pre-batman having adventures in WW2 africa.

>>29355 You just said he was proto Batman. He's also literally wearing tights & wears a domino mask. Hell he's the reason white eyes on superheroes is a thing!

>>29357 I said at most if you insist that adventure comics are capeshit.

>>29358 No. Just The Phantom specifically is.

>>29352 >American comics that are coming out if not for this stipulation, i would've thrown children's funny books at you.

Horror stuff I guess.

>>29376 >>29378

>Could people mind enlightening me of some of the American comics that are coming out that are NOT and have NOTHING to do with capeshit and superheroes? How divorced do you want them to be from capeshit. Genre-wise it's easy. Horror, adventure, and crime are probably the biggest non-cape and non kid oriented genres in American comics. If you are looking for creators who never dabbled in capeshit, it will be tougher. Comics is a smallish industry. Almost any decent writer or artist took some cash from big two at some point. Recently there has been a bit of a drought when it comes to good titles. Orphan and Five Beasts and Mouse Guard are the only titles I keep up with consistently. I check up on Ice Cream Man, Beasts of Burden, and few others every few months too. There is good stuff out if you look for it, but I prefer indie books from around 2010 and earlier. >Could you give me the premise, or even story-time the shorter ones? >What are some that you recommend people read? There are quite a few titles that are pretty good. Some of them are older, other ones more recent: >Scud the Disposable Assassin - comedy comic about future where people can buy robot assassins. They self destruct after target is dead. The protagonist an assassin robot who managed to find a loophole, and he tries to get by as a freelance hitman. >Witch Doctor - Urban fantasy where demonic possessions and supernatural aliments behave a lot like diseases except they target soul instead of the body. The story follows a witch doctor on different cases he treats. He is a part doctor, part supernatural expert. >Ice Cream Man - a horror anthology that follows strange being masquerading as ice cream man. People who cross his path and get ice cream end up with their lives ruined. It's a bit similar to Warau salesman, twilight zone, and Stephen King's Needful Things. >Mouse Guard - Mouse knights's adventures and struggles of defending their little mouse kingdom from threats - mainly predatory animals. >Orphan and Five Beasts - master of an ancient martial art sends his young protege to hunt down his five former students who became corrupt. Rare case of a modern comic with a female protagonist that isn't bad. >Beasts of Burden - story about pets defending their owners from supernatural threats

>>29386 How is mouse knight not Redwall?

>>29390 Mouse Guard is definitely inspired by Redwall. Tone of two books is a bit different, and mouse guard does not equalize size of different animals. Medieval society is mainly made of mice. Weasels or Badgers are to them something alligators or bears are to humans. Birds of Prey, Cats, and Foxes are dragon equivalents more or less. I did not read much Redwall, but cartoon made the world look like medieval or Renaissance England, but with anthropomorphic animals instead of people. Mouse guard leans more into the nature.

>>29404 They made a cartoon? I loved the book series as a kid. And got Brian Jacques to sign about 12 of my books. First editions.

>>29352 Weren't there a lot more comics in the 50's that were non-capeshit, almost the the point of matching the vaunted diversity in topics of manga? Romance comics, true crime, horror, war comics, etc, etc. Until, like everything in the US, (im)moral crusaders had to ruin everyone's fun and had the Comics Code Authority shut down everything but capeshit?

>>29352 You cant go wrong with Serenity, its corny but it'll grow on you.

>>29407 >Weren't there a lot more comics in the 50's that were non-capeshit, almost the the point of matching the vaunted diversity in topics of manga? Pretty much. There were westerns, war comics, horror comics, romance, crime, sports, and drama. There was even an underground scene of smut like Tijuana Bibles. Think hentai doujins but you could get in small trouble with cops back then if found with one that was too obscene. Still not near the vibrancy of manga's industry or perhaps even the Franco-Belgian one. >Until, like everything in the US, (im)moral crusaders had to ruin everyone's fun and had the Comics Code Authority shut down everything but capeshit? That was a big part of what knee-capped comics. Western, military, and horror books were still around into the 70s. What finally killed them were capeshit fanboys who finally got into managerial positions at publishers. They shifted all resources to their favorite capeshit characters, made them with fanboys in mind, and non superhero books were left to wither. At least if people like Darwyn Cooke and Chuck Dixon are to be believed. I am sure that 1970s economic crisis played a large role too. Old EC's horror anthologies are still great, most do not feel dated (not much anyway), and had consistently great artists working on them. The same can't be said about capeshit comics from the same era. It always makes me wonder what could have been if CCA was not a thing or American creators worked to overthrow it like French did to censorship efforts in their country.

>>29352 >Since the retard on /v/ refuses to take any advise, I guess I'll actually follow through on what he can't. Fuck you, nigger. I recommended tons of non-capeshit comics to you, including some relatively modern ones. (And I explained why I would never recommend any actual current comics, since the industry has been destroyed by SJWs, capeshit or no.) And here you post even more in your OP. Go read Jonah Hex, you faggot. Or The Walking Dead. Or Archie. Or Sonic. Or Ninja Turtles. Or GI Joe. Or Transformers. Or Iron Sights. Or Earthworm Jim. Or The Losers. Or I, Frankenstein. Or I, Zombie, or Tales from the Crypt, or From Hell, or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Or tons of others that I mentioned in that thread. Or tons beyond that that I didn't mention, because I can only remember so many off the top of my head, and I listed a fucking lot. Don't come to another board and bitch that I didn't tell you when I fucking did. Everyone else can go and look on /v/ right now and find that Disney thread where we argued about this. How do you manage to type when you can't be bothered to read? Are you mad that I didn't storytime something for you? Because you never asked, and that wouldn't be appropriate for /v/ anyway. Your complaint was that the non-capeshit was too obscure, as if that somehow translated into it not getting made or not getting advertised, even though comics don't get advertised anyway, and then when someone pointed to adaptations as if that was a form of advertising (if anything it's the opposite) I posted a bunch of non-capeshit that got major adaptations. Fuck you, you lying nigger. >Pic related. A big budget Hollywood movie with A-list stars, based on a very successful, very long-running, non-capeshit comic. The movie sucks balls and bombed, but not for WB's lack of advertisement. Now go read Jonah Hex comics, because they're awesome. But you didn't listen the first five times I told you, so you probably won't listen now.

>>29696 >jonah hex >not capeshit >very successful No one would know Jonah Hex if it wasn't for the Batman The Brave & The Bold appearances.

>>29702 NTA but he was a fairly popular character when comics were still a popular medium. There's a reason his comic lasted much longer when a lot of wild west comics got cancelled. He's certainly not successful now, but no American made comic is.

>>29352 The SHIRTLESS BEAR-FIGHTER Robocop Terminator The Thing comics The non-queer Stars Wars comics

>>29711 That was decades ago though.

>>29723 Was still successful at one point and he's well known amongst the niche of people who are into media set in the wild west.

>>29733 45 year old nerds?

>>29736 sure, fair amount of younger people like myself wilde west media though. Jonah Hex is a common recommendation for people looking for non-superhero comics and for people specifically looking for comics set in the wild west.

>>29753 *like myself like wild west media

>>29723 Most normalfags don't even realize comics have continued to be published after the early '90s. That's how long it's been since any comic has been mainstream popular, aside from The Walking Dead. Everything else is from adaptations. Actually, even The Walking Dead is basically just popular with normalfags because of the adaptation. Otherwise, when we talk about "successful" comics for any time since the early '90s, we're talking about "successful as far as comics go." Jonah Hex's original series lasted for nearly 20 years (though got rebranded post-Crisis when they made it into a weird post-apocalyptic thing, which got it cancelled, but still, it lasted a long time), and then there were a variety of good graphic novels though the '90s, and then another long running series through the late-2000s and early-2010s (rebranded halfway through because of New 52, but still really the same series). The point is, he stars in a ton of comics. And even that weird one where he goes to the future isn't really capeshit, despite not being a classic western anymore. The rare times he interacts with the capeshit part of the DCU are not most of his actual stories. In fact, they use him and the fact that he's the only western star that remains popular in comics to have him team up and give guest spotlights to other old western characters like Nighthawk & Cinnamon, or Scalphunter. Jonah Hex is quite successful as far as modern comics go. Of course, that's damning with faint praise.

Highly rate Dreamkeepers and the vast majority of it is free on it's website along with a prequel webcomic.

>>30039 The creator used to come to 8/co/ before the first shut down.

>>30040 How the fuck did I miss that? Anything interesting happen or nah?

>>30041 Used to post previews, some art, links and random posts here and there.

>>30039 >Dreamkeepers I keep forgetting this was a thing, and I don't know why.

>>32494 Its one of those old web comics thats been around for a while but never gain any actually noticeable traction outside a small fan base.

>>29352 - Beasts of Burden, already mentione in thread - Black Is The Color (2013) Julia Gfrörer USA, bleak tale of an abandoned sailor and mermaids - Chew, 2009 to 2016, solving crimes by tasting history of food - Fante Bukowski, 2020 noah van sciver bukowski USA, story of a loser - Finder, Carla Speed McNeil, USA, 2007, weird - Laid Waste (2016) Julia Gfrörer USA, bleak life in the Middle Ages - Sweet Tooth by Jeff Lemire, 2010 post-apocalyptic, animal-human hybrids https://boards.fireden.net/co/thread/123410581/ Canada, US - Usagi Yojimbo, by American Stan Sakai

>>32768 and if you allow published in the USA but by a non-American, then Sweet Paprika by Mirka Andolfo, 2021. The nSFW variant Hot Paprika only available in Italy.

>>29696 >disney thread What?

>>32769 >The nSFW variant Hot Paprika only available in Italy. ITALIANS!!!!!!

>>32769 >Sweet Tooth Yeah, I loved The Last of Us, But With Animals for quite awhile until Lemire showed his true SJW colors. That abrupt ending was awful.

I like the Dwarves, Elves, etc. albums. They're incredibly wordy so if you're not a reader, you might not enjoy them, but the art is great and the stories are top-notch. If I had the money I'd buy them all.

>>32778 Sì? I have acquired a nice scanner and might get to upload some comic books if you want me to

Just got through bingeing Animosity, Animosity: The Rise, and Animosity: Evolution. They were surprisingly good, although there were two issues with heavy feminist "women are the only ones who suffer!" themes. >https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Animosity The tl;dr is that some event causes all animals to become sapient and able to communicate on an equal level with humans. Shit falls apart while old scores are settled and Man and Animal try to come to terms or fight it out for supremacy, depending on the area. A bloodhound named Sandor is trying to get his human girl to her brother in San Francisco, but they keep running into obstacles. It's pretty good art and writing, all in all. This is spoiler territory, so read the original series before rolling over. The weirdest thing about the whole series? There's a fucking MINOTAUR for three issues and NO ONE comments on it. Seriously, he's only got three or four lines. There are no other fantasy creatures at all, but one of the "Kings of Texas" just happens to be a humanoid bull.

>>30039 >"It would be extremely painful."

>>33034 Some lonely farmer fucked his cows?

>>32777 The interaction the OP referred to in his spoilered section was in a Disney games thread on /v/. But anyone at the time could just check the thread on a catalog and see he was bullshitting. I assume it's archived now, so they probably still can, but I don't bother with archives so I don't know.

>>33039 >Some lonely farmer fucked his cows? In Evolution, there's a definite undercurrent of "If only my penis fit your furry canine vagina" between the main male character and the female wolf-hybrid. It's played off as more soulmate than sexual, and nothing comes of it, but it's a little icky. It's kind of horrifying, now that I think about it. The reason we rightfully hate bestiality and its practitioners isn't just because it's deviant, but because the animals are victims who can't give consent and are therefore victims of rape. If the animals were all of a sudden saying shit like "Hell YES I'd tap that!" then the Zoophiles would be on cloud nine. "She gave consent! She's my wife!"

>>33058 A human penis can easily fit in a wolf dog mutts cookie.

>>33058 >the animals are victims who can't give consent and are therefore victims of rape That's the retarded modern interpretation. We hate bestiality because it's unnatural and degenerate. Read Leviticus Chapter 18 verse 23 and Chapter 20 verse 15

>>33118 Shoo, shoo christfag.

>>33058 The animals consent never even crossed my mind when considering why beastiality is wrong.

>>29352 "Do a Powerbomb" is probably the best American non-cape comic from 2022. I decided to try it after saw a lot of different people praise it. Especially after that praise transcended the usual ideological divides. The comic is about a girl who enters a wrestling tournament ran by a powerful necromancer from another dimension, so she can get him to resurrect her mother. It manages to have a hothead female lead and a male secondary protagonist past his prime without falling into the typical traps modern stories with setups like that tend to. It's very well written. Book draws on Greek tragedies and quirks of American wrestling. It mashes elements of both of these together and somehow manages to make them work flawlessly. Art is loose and works very well for action and panels from afar with a large scope. It does not look that great for character close-ups, but these are very frequent in "Do a Powerbomb."

>>33144 Not a fan of the art. It's like if I drew a comic. Perspective is a fuck in that first page alone & it's just very sketchy overall. Standards are so low in the comic book industry.

>>33118 >We hate bestiality because it's unnatural and degenerate. I felt that went without saying.

>>33141 >The animals consent never even crossed my mind when considering why beastiality is wrong. Unfortunately, I had watched an exposé on a zoophile podcaster recently and I'm afraid it colored my language a smidge. The good news is that he died from cancer. The bad news is that his partner is still out there, somewhere. >>33075 >A human penis can easily fit in a wolf dog mutts cookie. mfw

>>29352 Something Is Killing the Children >Premise: Think John Wick meets The Witcher Kill Six Billion Demons >Premise: The Elder Scrolls, and Dark Souls meets Kung-Fu films. Both are very good reads. WARNING: Both of these comics contain homosexuality/lesbianism and some transsexualism. So if you are tired or easily triggered by these themes don't bother reading them. HOWEVER, these things are only briefly mentioned through dialogue and not depicted through the art and doesn't really affect the story or characters in a meaningful way, so I still recommend reading them.

>>34253 Gays in media is so overdone at this point that it's not controversial anymore unless it's a children's cartoon. What's annoying is shoving trannies into anything. It's a minority of a minority. Unless it's something dealing directly with demons, it doesn't work in a horror setting. It's just forced.

>>33150 Why is an animal outliving its rapist bad news?

>>34255 Not even gays or trannies, its always lesbians, gay men are a background character at best

>>34258 Gay men in comics or animation are pretty rare yeah. It's always lesbians but trannies or other such gender nonsense aren't uncommon. I'd say it's the fault of women but most comic writers are still men.

>>34259 Lesbians still outnumbered trannies

>>34260 Yes I agree.

>>34255 >Gays in media is so overdone at this point that it's not controversial anymore Only just a few months ago people were pissing themselves in anger over the gay male couple in The Last of US TV show.

>>34268 No people were annoyed the showrunners intentionally made the gay relationship more explicit to "gross out straight dudes" with a gay sex scene.

>>34273 The showrunners expanded on a lot of the story that wasn't show in the game. I recently watched another stream / play through of the game and the game is pretty bare bones on story compared to the show. They were right to show Bill's story, and it wasn't to gross people out. It was for the reason of telling a complete story. The game only hinted at Bill being gay, the show would be failing in its job if it also only hinted at Bill being gay instead of showing us, just as it showed us more about all of the characters from the game.

>>34274 Yes, a medium that is only about telling stories has more narrative material in it than a more complex medium that is designed to be played by the audience rather than for the audience. Bill's story was not well served by the inclusion of a sex scene. Indeed, sex scenes typically are completely unable to advance narrative since they do not involve appreciable dialogue, at most displaying through body language what appear to be the underlying traits of the characters involved. A director could include internal monologues from the characters involved, though in that case we only really need a single shot to "set the scene" and it might even be better to not have that shot in the sequence if the context of those internal monologues would change with the revelation they occurred during a moment of intimacy. The scene you mention does none of these things. While the characters talk, they could have had the same conversation outside of bed clothed. In fact, if Bill's partner had said the same things then retired to a nearby bedroom, disrobing as he goes only to have Bill follow suit moments later it would have been a much more powerful scene (Yes, he wants him to stay "a few more days") rather than it more seeming that socially awkward Bill is getting taken advantage of. Additionally, an entry in a different medium cannot have "showed us more about all of the characters from the game" since the characters in the game were, by the nature of the medium, partially expressions of the individual players' traits. Your belief that a sex scene was needed to "show" that Bill is gay, and that not doing so would be a "failing", reveals your complete inability to correctly interpret narrative themes which makes your condescending diatribe especially moronic; what matters is that Bill fell in love after an extended period of interminable loneliness and it made him feel, amongst other things, vulnerable. He could have fallen in love with a woman, an alien from Mars, basically any sentient being and the story would not be intrinsically changed, likewise if he mentioned that last time long ago was with a woman it would not have changed anything. You appear to be a leftist, and thus I imagine this plea will fall on deaf ears, but please examine your thought processes and critically ask yourself if the things you assume to be true are in fact actually based on objective truth and logic. In closing, Sage for not talking about Comics & Cartoons on /co/ and reported for making me have to watch this faggoty schlock to point out the fallacies of your assumptions.

>>34275 >>34275 The "sex scene" had no sex. It showed them in bed briefly kissing and that's it. You were definitely one of those people angry that you were made to see the story of two men falling in love. Your interpretation of Bill as a character is almost completely wrong. People online are so stupid when it comes to anything concerning sex or sexuality. He's an aggressive antisocial prepper, who survived the apocalypse through sheer ingenuity. His sexuality is important because not only does it flip the trope but it also places an emphasis on just how dire the situation is, the world's human population has been culled, there are next to no gay men. Bill was closeted, and had never been in love, and had never been with a man. Frank is his last chance. Lonely, yes. Vulnerable, no. And that's the exact reason why it's important to show the process of them falling in love because Frank is the source of Bill's vulnerability. That's usually the purpose of any form of intimacy within a story. Bill could not have fallen in love with a woman or an alien because Bill is gay. You all refuse to believe that gay people are actually gay. Their relationship provided the impetus for Bill to meet Tess and Joel. Thus it was completely appropriate and important to show us Bill's story, instead of just having us (as players or viewers) find Frank or both, Bill and Frank, dead with next to no explanation.

>>34274 It didn't need to be shown. They literally admit they show the sex scene explicitly to gross out straight men. This isn't rhetoric.

>>34280 Mind sharing the article or tweet of the showrunners or writers saying the scene was "to gross out straight men". I genuinely can't find anything talking about it. And why do you all keep calling it a sex scene? There was no sex. Did you all cover your eyes while watching or fast forwarded past the scene? They literally kiss and that's it.

>>34281 https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/last-of-us-episode-3-nick-offerman-b2272921.html https://www.unilad.com/film-and-tv/the-last-of-us-director-tricked-audiences-into-watching-gay-romance-382456-20230201

>>34281 >>34282 https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/31/the-last-of-us-director-tricking-viewers-into-watching-gay-love-story/

>>34282 >>34283 These links say nothing about grossing out straight men. The director said he wanted to "trick" the audience into watching a gay love story. It wasn't much of a trick for anyone paying attention and for anyone who had played the game, or even anyone who appreciates methodical story telling. The rest of what the director said lines up with what I typed earlier about Bill and Frank. I hate when people lie. But thanks for the links anyway.

>>34278 >>34284 Gay romance it's simply gross and aesthetically disgusting, nobody wants to see that, that's probably a untold reason of why pretty much every non-straight character is a lesbian, even in hardcore woke shit

>>34285 Or why fujos have to lie and make yaoi essentially lesbians with cocks.

>>34257 ayylmao

>>34259 It's still the fault of women because when they get into positions of control, as low as assistant editor, they start making sure that only members of their cult ever advance in the industry again. Hell, they don't even need to be part of the industry. They just accuse people of vague nothings and have those people destroyed. >>34284 "Trick." Exactly. People don't like being tricked. That's what they're mad about. He set out to trick them and nobody wants that.

>>34289 Now that's true. Nepotism is really bad in the entertainment industry in general but in particular the animation side always has mostly women getting their friends hired. Sometimes straight from school or just association through sites like tumblr.

A thing that really makes manga better than western comics its their niches, you can find even the most absurdly specific topic meanwhile most western stuff its all about superheroes, zombies and horror, one of Batman's creators say that in a interview.

>>34297 True. Even indie comics have to rely on what sells. Which is superheroes or horror. Even existing properties don't sell if IDW is anything to go by.

>>34298 The Comics Code crippling most genres that weren't superheroes resulted in superheroes being the dominant genre for long enough that nobody who wants something other than superheroes turns to comics for it, so even when those comics are made, the people who would want them aren't looking to comics for them. It's a vicious cycle. Of course, though I don't have the numbers to back this up, I bet webcomics are a whole 'nother ball game, and there are probably some that make mad bank without anyone here even being aware of them, just from assorted autists paying on Patreon or whatever. Also, if it's porn, then I bet this goes double.

Readers and artists have been tired of super heroes since the late 80s, and probably earlier, I've read an interview or two of artist being excited about the prospect of fantasy and science fiction European comics from that time period becoming more popular in the U.S. because they were tired of drawing super heroes. Ofc they never took off and superman still reigns supreme 40 years later. The thing is that we could get more original stories similar to manga if companies like Marvel would throw a tiny fraction of their billions into advertisement and development of those type of comics. But there's no reason to do that when they can just keep pushing the Avengers and people happily buy the comics, merch, games, and movie tickets about those superheroes.

>>34301 >The thing is that we could get more original stories similar to manga if companies like Marvel would throw a tiny fraction of their billions into advertisement and development of those type of comics. Marvel doesn't have billions, Disney does. The Marvel Comics division is nothing. It's also separate from Marvel Studios. Neither Disney nor Marvel advertises comics, either, except for in other Marvel comics, which defeats the point. >But there's no reason to do that when they can just keep pushing the Avengers and people happily buy the comics, merch, games, and movie tickets about those superheroes. Nobody has bought the comics in years, nay, decades. Everything else is based on the comics back from when they sold well, which is when superheroes dominated. Also there are a few forced adaptations of recent propaganda, but both the original propaganda and the forced adaptations of them fail every time. Propaganda is really a whole different beast. You could tell them to make new comics that aren't superheroes, but they'll still be this propaganda, and since they aren't superheroes, they'll sell even less to the couple of whales who contribute the last few thousand sales a "successful" modern comic might get every month. And you won't even like them either, because they'll still be shit modern Marvel comics.

>>34302 >Nobody has bought the comics in years, nay, decades. Hmmm that's not true. Last year North American comic books sales reached 2 billion USD. As far as Marvel comics go they currently amount to 39% of comic book sales in the US. They have money. It really does just come down to someone at the top deciding on if they're going to try to make and then advertise anything original.

>>34303 And manga?

>>34303 You know those charts count manga in comic book sales right?

>>34303 You can actually look up monthly sales charts. They sell fucking nothing. The audience is absolutely minuscule.

>>34304 >>34305 >>34306 Guys I did not check manga. I specifically looked up the numbers for U.S. or western comic sales and U.S. comic book publishers. With comics sales from the rest of the world included the number bumps up to almost 8 billion. If comics sold nothing then we'd have no comic shops. When was the last time any of you have been to a comic shop? The shops in my city are not filled with manga, they are all western comics. Yeah manga is more popular but that doesn't mean people aren't buying western comics.

>>34306 I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Hundreds of thousands of copies, of various titles, are being ordered and sold each month by shops.

>>34310 The top couple sellers might get into the hundreds of thousands, which is still nothing and enough to get a title cancelled when comics were doing well. The dropoff is steep and you see things that "the industry" pretends are big and successful selling a couple thousand. They're trying to stay profitable by jacking up prices and hiring nobodies that will work for less money, but that's a losing long term strategy that is just costing them more and more readers all the time, and the whales are literally dying off, at least the ones that aren't just getting sick of it and walking away. >>34308 I still go to my local comic shop sometimes, because I used to go weekly. I knew the people who work there, including the owner, and I feel bad that they clearly have fewer people there after people like me and others stopped going because new stuff became so shitty. But I'll go in and buy an old collected edition sometimes. More and more of their store has shifted to Funcopops and statues and things like that, because the comics don't fucking sell. I wish the collected editions were doing better there, because I like many of those, but they've shrunken their shelf space dedicated to that, too.

>>34310 Oh yeah I also forgot to mention that the figures that get released don't say how many are sold each month by shops, they say how many are sold each month TO shops. Upon having this pointed out more often, SJW creators even started bragging about it. As people point out that they are horrible to customers, they start pointing out that readers aren't their customers, shops are. They just need to convince shops to buy them even if they don't sell, which they have been attempting to do by convincing shops to order copies of SJW books just to stick it to regular people who don't buy them, or by saying that if you (the shop owner) don't buy them, you're an istophobe. It works to a degree, many copies definitely sit in shops, never sold to a reader. Of course, again it's only a short term strategy, as hurting your points of sale isn't going to be good for your long term sales.