A new petition created by Shon. B in the United States on Avaaz targets popular YouTube commentator and comic book critic Diversity & Comics. The petition is quite short and somewhat confusing.

It reads:

Diversity & Comics, #comicsgate, alt.right Nazis, Richard C. Meyers, & EVS: Get Woke Or Get #$%ed, #Comicsgate

Then on the section about why the petition is important it reads:

Please sign your name to let the alt.right goons of Diversity & Comics and #comicsgate know that their hate, toxicity, and white‐nationalist agenda is not wanted in the comic book industry or anywhere else. Stand, say their names, and chase them out of the shadows just like we have with Richard C. Meyers and Ethan Von Sciver.

The petition currently has 36 signers as of this writing.

Diversity & Comics even jokingly encouraged people to sign so they could get to 100.

The petition appears to be in response to the recent Blacklist created by Twitter user @YellowFlashGuy. However, Ethan Van Sciver was pretty clear in disavowing the blacklist:

Van Sciver has also been accused of being a Nazi before. He has adamantly denied these claims on several occasions.

In fact, Van Sciver and Diversity Comics promoted a new trend where they would start buying comics they enjoyed called #MoveTheNeedle.

Diversity & Comics explained the initiative on his YouTube channel.

Van Sciver created a compilation video of everyone who was posting comics they bought and enjoyed.

And it’s not just Van Sciver and Diversity & Comics. Other pros got in on the action including Black Northcott and Sean Gordon Murphy. Although Murphy didn’t specifically use #MoveTheNeedle his message echoed the sentiments of Van Sciver and Diversity & Comics.

But what might have been even more impressive is the fans who tweeted out the books they bought thanks to recommendations from Diversity & Comics.

The list of people buying comics based off Diversity & Comics and others recommendations just goes on an on.

However, some people were still not happy about #MoveTheNeedle.

What do you think about this petition? To me it looks like just more baseless accusations without any evidence. It looks like an attempt to smear successful people.

I really like this #MoveTheNeedle campaign. There are so many good comic book stories out there right now that need some love. As you probably noticed Sean Gordon Murphy’s Batman: White Knight was on there. It’s definitely one of the books I pull every month. I’m surprised there weren’t more Thanos books. Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw have been crushing it since they took over the series, but Jeff Lemire and Mike Deodato’s previous run was just as good! It’s definitely one I would add to the list.

Have you participated in #MoveTheNeedle? What do you think about the campaign?

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    John F. Trent
    John F. Trent
    Founder and Editor-in-Chief

    John is the Editor-in-Chief here at Bounding Into Comics. He is a massive Washington Capitals fan, lover of history, and likes to dabble in economics and philosophy.