This is an actual fight we get in every time something irritates his nasal mucous membrane. I've tried to tell him that Jehovah and I are kind of on the outs, and that I probably can't act as a conduit for holy favor. You know what I mean? I'm not really what you'd call sanctified. The contents of my bookmarks alone will keep me from those golden shores.
I've been trying to come to terms with the idea that there are people who think we have it in us to try and destroy not just a single webcomic, which is absolutely true, but gaming webcomics in their entirety. I've cooked it down to a couple interpretations.
1. People Are Stupid
You might have heard this one before. There's really not much to add to it. If you resent being called stupid, something I can understand myself, then all I ask is that you not act like such a Goddamn idiot all the time.
2. Things Really Have Gotten Out Of Hand
Which is to say, we are steeped in treachery and malfeasance and so even the idea of one independent comic taking a sword to their contemporaries via highly inconvenient legal machinations not only seems viable, but does in fact verify everything we secretly believe about the "way it works." This is the one I prefer. Not because it's better, necessarily. I don't want those comments to resemble the world I live in. But I think they're probably accurate.
The reality is that we have real legal problems that occupy the largest chambers of my mind.
The official line I am supposed to tell you when I refer to these legal problems is that "these matters are currently under litigation and I am not able to discuss them at this time." Suffice it to say that it has dominated my life from time to time over the last five years. Let me also say that the conflict itself has implanted in me a deep resentment of the procedure of legal recourse. There are comics that will threaten other artists with legal action, that's true. But none of them reside on this webserver.
It's possible that I should have used a bold tag or maybe some italics on "threaten" in the sentence before last, just to cement how illusory such prickwaving is. For example, let's say that there is a young man out there who loves your work and finds you to be an inspiration, and so when he begins making his comics they look a good deal like your own. This is bound to happen, and eventually he will molt and slough you off, but immediately here comes the fist pounding. This is a true story, and I did my best to intercede in it, but it was ridiculous in its entirety. Or our own case, here, where someone was making forum avatars that looked like somebody else's thing, and so that other guy sends us a mail about how he's had to close down several sites in the past and wouldn't it be terrible if the same thing happened to us. Prickwaving. They've never brought a case to trial, it's possible they've never even retained a lawyer, so they're not aware the kind of money such a thing would take. They're relying on the payload of pure terror inherent in such a threat, and the promise of annihilation has (historically) been an excellent motivator.
(CW)TB out.
good god! we have paid in full!
