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A - Occasionally being late with a strip

0 (0%)

B - Getting unreasonably personal with almost every critique or mention

13 (100%)

Total Members Voted: 13

Voting closed: October 01, 2004, 07:54:25 pm

[Chris Onstad]

O is doing himself a disservice by publishing erratically.  

It's not like I publish "erratically" (I miss a day now and again, just like your average employee) on purpose. I try to write an excellent, non-clichéd, honest piece each day. It's usually six-panel Sunday size. Also, I write thousands of words a week in the character blogs, and try to keep it all chronologically and qualitatively synched. I also produce dozens of pages of new material for print-only projects, produce paintings, conduct interviews, develop products, and manage packing and shipping of thousands of items a month. In my estimation my bar is set very high and when my daily strip doesn't reach it, I don't publish the black-eyed fetus. You're quite aware that this isn't "Mutts." I'm not going to spoon crap out just to meet a self-imposed deadline. I'd rather you and the other readers saw good work rather than Oliver Twist crying on an animated .gif of a gristmill. Most of the best, working "professional" cartoonists publish only one thing once a week. I could publish that way, and if you don't send me fifty dollars, I will. FIFTY DOLLARS FOR CHRIS ONSTAD IN 10/2004.

O's attitude toward his readers bewilders me sometimes.

I worry that the aggressively defensive standpoint of some of the fans on this board is contributing to a notion that I don't appreciate having readers, and that in fact I personally despise them. Not so. It IS annoying when the moderator of the unofficial Achewood messageboard can't help himself from taking out his own frustrations on another artist, but what can you do (where can we vote on his poems?). Call him Salieri if you want, but I think that would be tacky and presumptuous. Don't go down that road, people. ($50, please. chris@paypal.com)    

Again, I ask you Chris, what the hell do you expect?  People comment about works of art and about public figures.  Some people are dicks and make uninformed, rude or obnoxious comments.  Either get over it or block all our IP addresses, Pat.

I expect fifty dollars dammit

Again, you will notice that I have not been any weirder or touchier than the average poster in the last couple days. I'm not demanding anything. I've had fun watching this "social art in progress." Wasn't it Christo who threw a rock at a guy and then sold that activity to a rich person? If it's on the screen, it's part of the show, and we all bring different brushes to the brouhaha.  

fiftydollars2chris@achewood.concept

[sally]

First of all, no one is personally attacking Chris Onstad.  I don't know where you're getting that.

right here:

I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.  The easily-markable line this crosses is when you go from talking about an artist's work (fair game for any sort of criticism) to personal remarks about the artist himself.  Why, dude?  Why would you go there?  Why do you do it so damn often?

FJ, FJ, surely you're aware that comic strips don't write themselves.  Someone writes them.  If my mechanic fucks up my car, I don't blame the car.

[jough]

And that's an attack... how?

[jough]

It IS annoying when the moderator of the unofficial Achewood messageboard can't help himself from taking out his own frustrations on another artist

You play the victim well, Chris.  It doesn't seem to me that anyone is taking out their frustrations on you.  

If you really have a hard time with your work being criticised, that is a difficult situation for any artist.  It goes with the territory of posting your work on the internet or other public fora.  

I know it's frustrating as hell when you work hard on something that you think is good work and then see that your "public" is less-than-enthusiastic about it.  You can't really do anything about that.  All you can do is the best that you can and hope that people like it too. I think you do that.  If Achewood tried to please everyone it'd be Ziggy.  Not that I'm about to slag off on Ziggy.

But just because someone doesn't gush over how brilliant EVERY strip is doesn't mean that they don't like the BODY of work as a whole.  Everyone who posts here regularly has supported your work in one way or another over the past three years.  

Sheesh, for the sake of fuck, this meta-bitching isn't helping anything.

[Chris Onstad]

You play the victim well, Chris.  It doesn't seem to me that anyone is taking out their frustrations on you.

You play the friendly amnesiac well, Jough!

Three cool cats,
Three cool cats
Are coming up in a beat up car,
THEY GLARE IN FRIENDSHIP AS THEY HAND YOU A CANDY BAR
Talking on about how sharp they are.
Three cool cats.

[slink]

Well, my 2 cents and all, but I just got used to the regime at which Achewood is created. And with the blogs, which I think are a touch that no other comic has, (and wouldnt' work so well in ones without such strongly developed characters that can work solo so well) it gives amounts of output that I am perfectly happy with.

OK, so some days the strip isn't as good as others... Bummer. It happens. What ae you going to do about it? Complain? I pretty much have given up on commenting on strips if they don't do much for me. Doesn't mean I necessarily post if it does...

So anyway. I think it's cool if you're around here Onstad. I just wish everyone would chill out a bit!

[Silverberg]

People on this forum are too grumpy.

Oh, and hello.

[Pedro Picasso]

People on this forum are too grumpy.

Oh, and hello.

I maintain that people outside this forum are not grumpy enough!

Hello, Silverberg.  Welcome to our message board.  Make yourself comfortable and stick around.  We generally have a pretty good time here.

[slink]

I will address the issue of whether it's a job or not. It is.
It's Onstad's means of employment as far as we can tell, so it is.
If I get signed and start selling records, then that is my job. I'm going to have to accept the fact that a bunch of people are going to be saying stuff about what I'm doing. I'm not doing music so people can tell me it's good. I'm not even really doing it to entertain other people, though that is part of it. I just want to is all. But I am going to have to deal with it if lots and lots of people have access to my work and can critique any way they want.

Whether I go and read comments on forums about it, I don't yet know. Whether I get involved with people's thoughts about it, again I don't know, though I plan not to. I'd rather it remained as is, and that I remained anonymous. But that's me...

Anyway... What was the big deal all about anyway?

[Bobby Isosceles]

B - Typical jough critiqueposts seem to run the gamut between OK and something like:

Gee, today's strip isn't so great.  I guess Onstad was too busy beating his wife to come up with a decent punchline!

Well, in jough's defense, maybe she needed to be told twice.

[sailor]

Years ago, i met Isaac Brock of Modest penis in a bar. The first thing I said to this dude who is pretty much my musical hero was something alongs the lines of "dude, last nights show was pretty lame, but it seems y'all pulled the shit off really well tonight..."  Later i felt that was a kinda of stupid thing to say, and the only reason i said it, even though it was how i felt, was that i didn't wanna be all dorky and starry eyed and shit.

So, Onstad, i'm just gonna say welcome back to message board land, hope you enjoyed the vacation, and, no, message baords are still the same as they've always been and you do the best comic ever. thanks.

[AugustWest]

Sailor, you get a gold star.

[ferocious j]

jough does not seem to understand my point at all.  Can someone else help me with this?  The rub of it is essentially as follows:

ACCEPTABLE:

Dude, today's strip was not so great.  I'm not positive Roast Beef would really do something like that; it didn't seem true to the character.

A DICK-ASS THING TO SAY:
Dude, today's strip was not so great.  Maybe Onstad was too busy hitting the bottle or cheating his merchandise customers again!

Once again I have highlit the questionable portion in helpful italics.  The issue re-stated is that it seems like jough likes to take a decidedly personal, artist-attacking cant to his more critical posts a statistically-significant portion of the time, and it pretty much sucks.  I suppose I could take it easy and assume he's joking, but that shit isn't  really all that funny.

I don't really have a problem discussing the strip itself, and I like the discussions you guys have -- why else would I keep coming here? -- but I'm tired, tired, tired of jough's "Onstad shit in my sandbox and I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE WAH WAH WAH here are some personal insults now" attitude.

[jough]

It is official: FJ has no sense of humour whatsoever.

Do you just read Achewood for the articles?

[ferocious j]

It is possible but highly unlikely that I have a poorly-developed sense of humor.

More likely, you really suck at joking around when it comes to strip/creator commentary.  A look at your posts from the beginning suggest to me that you have issues with Onstad for some poorly-defined reason and like to take it out on him here on the internet.

If I receive proof that I'm the only one who has ever had this thought cross his mind since this board's inception, I'll shut up about it forevermore (maybe), but I doubt this will be the case.