Oure wyl desireth folie evere in oon.

7/7/05 07:56 pm

To all webcartoonists on my friends list or reading my livejournal:

Hey guys. How's it going. Take gander over here, if you would - http://www.websnark.com/archives/2005/07/why_im_not_a_go.html

I'm sure you're all familiar with Comics Nation, it's a site with tracker software that lets people know when your comic updates. Originally it was a ratings site, like Buzz or TWC. They added me without asking me, I asked them to take me off, they refused, words were exchanged yeah whatever it's explained in the comments section.

So a week or two ago Randy says 'hey, they put you on their site again', I say 'what.' and email them, asking them to please remove me from their list as I had no wish to affliate with them. It was a polite enough email, professional. They sent me a response almost immediately saying they were looking into it, and then emailed me a bit later and said that it was being removed, along with an apology for it being added in the first place.

Cool. Wow. They got better. There wasn't a hassle, it was nice. I was happy.

And then I see Websnark, see him mention my site's not on there, go to comment and let him know that it's not on there because I asked that it wouldn't be added, and leave it at that, and I see this - http://www.comic-nation.com/forums.php?mode=topic&fid=1&tid=3374

Yeah. Way to go guys.

So let's review shall we? These guys, high school or college I have no idea, started up this website as a ratings site. Instead of advertising the site and letting it grow naturally, they added a shitton of high-traffic webcomics to their site without asking anyone if they wanted to be on there. When I asked them to remove me (I have...a deep loathing for ratings sites, really), they refused, arguing the point with me, telling me I couldn't MAKE them take it off (I forget the actual words used but I believe I still have all the original emails squirreled away on my computer), and then finally saying 'okay okay it's not a ratings site anymore we took it off will you just let us keep your comic there', I told them no. Why? Because they had gone out of their way to treat me as shittily as possible and frankly I didn't want anything to DO with them. I didn't post about this on my website, I didn't post about it on the forums or in the QoW LJ because...I hate drama. I hate webcomic drama bullshit. I hate it so much, and I wanted to avoid it. So I kept my mouth shut.

So after this latest incident, I figured wow, maybe they'd grown up, maybe they were cool now, they took my site off and nicely even, that was cool, and then I see this forum post.

EDIT #4 - Apparently that wasn't the only forum post. Hey look here - http://www.comic-nation.com/forums.php?mode=topic&fid=1&tid=3292 Yeah, they totally care, don't they? Yeah. And in case they pull THAT page down too, here's a printscreen of it: http://www.queenofwands.net/images/notcare.jpg

To quote: "We are past the stage where putting on a nice public face and attempting to gain new users is a high priority, and I'm fairly certain actual laws are totally neutral on the subject, so I think we'll survive having a few angsty artists annoyed at us."

Hey cool. Nice to see I was right - apparently now they feel they don't HAVE to be nice anymore. Isn't this just grand? /END EDIT #4

The only reason these guys wanted the high-profile comics on their website was because it would get them more traffic. More than likely they didn't ask anyone if they wanted to be ON it because they didn't want to hear people say no.

I don't know what they're doing, I don't know what they're up to, I've pretty much ignored all activity from them and hadn't really given them a THOUGHT until Randy told me they added me again, and once that situation was taken care of I promptly forgot about them again, because I figured it was done.

I did NOT expect to read such petty disgusting immature bullshit on their forums.

I'm not really writing all this in an attempt to get everyone to leave the website (although I have to be honest the thought DID cross my mind), but I thought maybe I'd make some of you aware what exactly is going on, as I'm not sure what else they've said about me or what they'll continue to say in the future. However a word of warning - it is...more than apparent that they don't really give a shit about the cartoonists they're linking, or their wishes. To me, it looks like they just want the traffic and the hits. So yeah. That's who you're dealing with here, that's my side of the story, I'm going to go back to ignoring this for the most part, although if you have questions, leave a comment and I'll attempt to answer as promptly as possible (although with me up to my elbows in work, and con next week, there might be a slight delay.

Thanks.

- That angsty artist/author of that "sucky piece of comic shit"

EDIT: Uh, also, if we could keep the comments to just questions please, I don't need any 'atta girls' or 'how dare they's' or 'you sucks' or...whatever. If you've got a question about the subject, then post. Thanks.

EDIT #2 - Con would be the San Diego Comicon, I do not have a table this year and will be happily wandering and checking out panels. If you are a reader and catch this and manage to catch me, yes I'll do sketches - and the likelyhood of my being at the Keenspot panel and cheering (heckling) my coworkers is high.

EDIT #3: ...and for the love of god please don't go hassle the CN guys, I don't really need them getting a flood of how-dare-you's either.

3/14/05 02:31 pm

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Okay.

Y'know, I wrote this as a comment on an entry in ocarina's Livejournal, but I think it can stand alone in mine as well, and I'm making this a public entry. Yes, my first public entry in god only knows how long.

You wanna know what I think about online comics? Here you go - and I may be posting more on this later:

...I still find myself baffled and amused by those that go 'I'M ON KEENSPOT OMG I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U' or 'I'M ON MT SO I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U N I'M HARDCORE INDIE OMGLOL!!!'

...Keenspot is a publisher. Modern Tales is a publisher. They're webhosts. That's all they are. There is no secret society, there is no 'cool kids' club, there is no automatic little flag that you get to carry around and wave at people and go 'ha ha look I'm professional!'

Being on Keenspot doesn't make you a professional, *being* a professional makes you a professional, and if you're still wandering around talking badly about other comics under the pretense that you're better than them because, oh my god, your comic is hosted on a different website than theirs, that makes you the least 'professional' of all.

Saturnalia? Saturnalia decided not to join Keenspot. It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter what the reasons behind it are, they decided not to join. End. Of. Story. The reasons? I don't really care. If they decided they didn't want their webcomic hosted by Keenspot, that's entirely up to them.

Do I automatically raise a flag of 'Keenspot is the greatest and therefore everyone on it is the greatest too tra-la-la'? HELL NO. Just because my comic is being put through a publisher doesn't mean I automatically have to like everything coming out of that publisher - jesus, that's be like...Anne Rice being published by Doubleday, and Leo Leonni (children's author) being published by Doubleday - and all of a sudden Rice has to agree that Leonni is the best in his field, and vice versa for Leonni, regardless of whether they like the author or the author's books or even the genre or not.

Bullshit.

I don't like everything on Keenspot. I've been vocal about expressing my views of Keenspot on the PvP Forums - when Carson Fire decided to go about pulling his archives so people would buy his stuff, there was a HUGE thread about it over there. Did I agree with Fire? No. Do I like his comic? Not particularly, anymore. I think he's got beautiful artwork, and a lot of talent with that, but I think that as a writer he's completely lost where he is with his story, so much that I cannot and am not willing to try and make sense of his story anymore. Did this mean I wanted him to get evicted? HELL NO - having BEEN that route myself, I don't really wish homelessness on *anybody* - I simply didn't agree with his selling methods. All of a sudden, it's a big deal, when it isn't a big deal - I don't care if Carson reads my comic or likes my comic. I care that Carson isn't on the street, but that's about it. No one on his 'side of the fence' as it were could see how it was possible for me to both disagree with his opinion and methods, and still respect him as a human being.

Frankly, I think it's sort of sad how much importance is placed on something as important as a publisher. Because once you get to that publisher - then what? What do you do after that? You've spent so long obsessing over something as simple as where your comic is hosted that once you get there you lose the drive that had you doing comics in the first place.

It goes back to what I've been saying all along - if you're going to do your comic, do your comic for what it is, not where it is. In the long run, that's really more important than anything else.

(edit - removed the link to the journal entry I was commenting on, as not everyone can see it and I hate confusing people with mysterious links. You don't really need to read her entry to get mine at all.)

11/19/03 01:35 pm