Quote Originally Posted by Acacia Paladin View Post
If he can't do the job he should quit.
No.

Quote Originally Posted by Acacia Paladin View Post
I think the first crack in my faith in Burlew and OOTS came when he conveniently discovered the "lost" Christmas ornament featuring Miko while his hand was healing (and I bet he could have thrown it together with his off-hand). I had no problem with Burlew taking the time to have his hand heal properly, but there was certainly no break from the salesmanship to be tolerated.
Bills keep coming whether or not I can draw new comics. It's hopelessly naive to think that a 3-month gap in my ability to earn income would be something I could just absorb. There will never be a break in the salesmanship because there will never be an end to my bills, because we live in a capitalist society where one must earn money to eat. If you want me to stop selling products, install a socialist regime that has a generous attitude toward the cultural arts so I can have my living expenses covered for me.

Quote Originally Posted by Acacia Paladin View Post
What's weird is the die-hard fans coming out to defend the idea of a tortured, starving artist who is giving his work for free for the benefit of humankind from people who expect a masterpiece handed to them for free. OOTS wasn't started with the expectation of being someone's career--it was something Burlew was doing because he had a story to tell and wanted an audience to tell it to.
No, Wrong. Absolutely false. When I created this comic, I had no story, no goal, no nothing. I made this website as an attempt to launch a game design career because I had come in second place in that WOTC contest. I created the comic a few months later because I needed something to give people a reason to come back to the site and see my newest gaming article, so I decided to do a comic strip. I chose to do a gaming comic because I thought it would maximize interest among the people I was looking to draw to my site. I did so specifically toward the goal of having a career away from graphic design; it was always for the purpose of being a job. The story didn't come until later. This idea of a tortured labor of love that you're trying to project onto me is based on literally nothing. Certainly nothing I've ever said publicly. I love my comic, but I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't making money at it. I wouldn't be able to do it, I'd have to spend my time earning money.

Quote Originally Posted by Acacia Paladin View Post
If that wasn't the case, then what was the point of all those reader incentives to vote back in the day? He would have been selling it a buck a page if it was about making a career.
This is a ridiculous misunderstanding of how commerce works. No one would have paid for a comic they never heard of. You have to create value by showing the customer that they like it. It's a free sample, a loss leader. The incentive comics back then were done because moving up those ranking sites put the comic's name in front of other people's eyes. It was a marketing tool. And it was done during the period when I still had a day job to cover my expenses.

In fact, what you don't seem to understand is that the entire free comic is a loss leader. Take away the books and the PDFs and the t-shirts, and I have no legitimate business reason to post the free comic anymore. This is a book publishing business that happens to put out free preview pages every so often.

Quote Originally Posted by Acacia Paladin View Post
The thing is, Burlew is not the only creator of Internet media that does this--other creative minds I've followed have gone from working for the sake of the art to pushing the collection plate with such things as excessive ads and "premium content."
Yes, which should tell you something: that it's very hard to make a living doing art that you give away free on the internet! You treat making money like it's a sin, like we're supposed to be doing it for the love of art. The love of art does not pay my health insurance.

Here's the bottom line: This is a business. It is a business of selling a creative work, but it is still a business. Some people give me money for the work I do; most don't. I did the math once, only 4% of the people who read the comic have ever purchased a single thing from me. The business stays afloat because 1.) some portion of that 4% will buy close to everything I put out, and 2.) every product has the chance of converting some of the 96% into some of the 4%, either because this is the product they've been waiting for or because their life circumstances have changed and now they have money that they didn't have before. But it is only because of that 4% that this whole thing is viable.

Now, if you want to make the argument that I am not doing as much as I could to maximize the health of the business, that's a different story. Would it be better for the long term revenue potential if I was updating more? Of course it would. More updates keeps the comic in people's minds, which keeps them more positive toward it, which influences their purchasing decisions. There is a strong business case for me updating more. You're not making that case, but it's there to be made.

But the thing is, I can't update more. Because see, these PDFs that you're railing about? I did the work for them back in 2013. It took me like 2 days to clean them up and convert them. The reason I haven't been updating the comic is because I've been working on the stories I owe the Kickstarter backers—stories I've owed them for 5 years as of tomorrow.

It's not the products that are keeping me from working on the strip, it's the work that other people have already paid for. And whatever vague unspoken commitment I might have to the readers of the free comic, I have a concrete binding commitment to the Kickstarter backers. I already took their money, and it's long gone. I need to prioritize the work I owe them above everything else. So if I was going to change something about how I manage my time, it wouldn't be to work on the free comic. If I could, I would put the free comic on hiatus for 6 months to finish the Kickstarter work. I can't, not without both infuriating my entire readership and tanking my income...which, again, doesn't exist unless I also put out products during that time. Which slows down the rate of the Kickstarter work even more.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I am essentially in a Catch-22, have been for 5 years, and am muddling through it as best I can, one page at a time. Sorry if that's not good enough, but it's the best I'm capable of. You are free to take it or leave it, but it's probably not changing.

And no. I'm not going to quit. Even if it takes me another 5 years to dig out.