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[greenkoolayd]

Since nobody else has posted it, Comics Alliance interview: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/21/chris-onstad-achewood-hiatus-interview/

" 'Honesty' may not mean much coming from a guy who just took a couple months off with no explanation, but hey, that was honestly all I had to offer."

thats what im taking away from this.

fin

[side_show]

Considering the origin of this board, I wonder why any of us is surprised that Onstad was less than considerate of his fans.

Thanks for the reminder Aug.  Dumbrealla was so long ago that I sort of forget about having intereacted with Onstad back in the day.  My memory is foggy - I seem to recall thinking of him as playing a character on that board.  Still, taking what I learned from all this it's hard not to be gobsmacked by how Onstad fails at the whole "don't be a dick to strangers" and "have some dignity" idioms at this point.  

Entitled whiner?  I think he's the one winning this award.  

[pmcd9]

But it's also kind of weird that we expect anything from the guy other than his work, don't you think? Maybe this is just because I am old and I remember what it was like before the internet. Like, I have never gone out of my way to meet writers whose work I admire. If they are jerks, I don't want to know it. Why spoil the work because you get cross at the person? If you just buy a person's books and read them, and have no other contact, you don't get annoyed because they don't thank you. It doesn't matter that they have less than stellar social skills. Social skills are not what you are buying from them.

Artist have always interacted with their audience, this is not a newfangled internet idea.  It's almost certainly more prevalent in the internet era, but it's not new.  Of course you know this, I'm just saying.  Sometimes they are dickish.  Other times they are gracious.

[side_show]

And he made active choices to do so - Dumbrella was his baby, and even after recognizing it as problematic to his process, he then went on to create Assbar.  He's actively sought out interaction in the very way he apparently disdains.

[pmcd9]

Lest we forget, he also posted for time on this board.

[wombat]

And he made active choices to do so - Dumbrella was his baby, and even after recognizing it as problematic to his process, he then went on to create Assbar.  He's actively sought out interaction in the very way he apparently disdains.

Yeah, but like I said - you kind of have to do this now, whether you like it or not. Especially if your work is primarily on the web.

[pmcd9]

Yeah, but like I said - you kind of have to do this now, whether you like it or not. Especially if your work is primarily on the web.

No, I don't think you do.  This is particularly true if you already have an active fan run messageboard.

[CortJstr]

Like, I have never gone out of my way to meet writers whose work I admire. If they are jerks, I don't want to know it. Why spoil the work because you get cross at the person?

I still kind of wish I'd never bought/read the Calvin & Hobbes 10th Anniversary book. There was neat info in there but it also made me like Waterson less and read some of the strips differently in a way I didn't like.

[side_show]

No, I don't think you do.  This is particularly true if you already have an active fan run messageboard.

Plus, he did uncover some creative ways to intereact with readers through commissioned work for the books, Ray's Place and the blogs where there was some safe distance via the separation of the world he created.

I want to be clear, when I discovered the messageboard activity about my work (via an ego-based self-Googling of my play's title) there was a clear moment of decision in regard to posting to it or not.  There were questions I could have answered and misconceptions I could have cleared up.  Also there were fuckwads I could have put in their place and kind people I could have thanked.  I also understood that this was conversation not intended for my "ears."  I know message boards, I know posters (including me here) enjoy our speculating and dissecting.  Audiences have done that since the beginning of time in one form or another.  IMHO the best art asks questions rather than giving answers.  Who am I to waltz in and shut them up with my easy answers? 

What this boils down to is setting and sticking to healthy boundaries. 

[Nabubrush]

Huh.

[littlefallsmets]

Hey, I know for desperately wanting to find ways to forgive an artist for being weirdly inconsiderate and out-of-touch about things late in the game because I love his or her early work and because I was on what I came in near to the ground floor of the fandom, wombles.

There is a deep feeling of wanting to forgive for the good times and the ways it felt like you were along for the ride of the good times, you almost don't wanna sully those memories by admitting where we are now. I have been there.

But Onstad's lack of consideration, lack of grace, lack of any kind of admission that anyone had anything to do with the positive parts of his success and accusation that the bad parts are everyone else's fault... man, it sucks. It is a shitty way to treat thousands of people who elevated his hobby into a full time job that would be a dream job to millions and The Dream Job to thousands, no matter how inconvinent he has found the other side of that sword.

Dude didn't have Hephaestus crack him on the noggin one day with a magic hammer and then Achewood was standing out there in the sea on the half-shell with a Dark hoss comics deal and Hollywood option rights and thousands of people paying forty dollars a year to look at his cocktail napkins. A lot of True Believers and boosters picked up his hobby-work, fell in love with it and took him there.

If he wants to stop doing Achewood for now or forever, if he HAS to stop doing Achewood now or forever, that's totally between him and his muse if he has one.

But to be so rude and accusatory and ungrateful and blind in the way he handles it, there's no set of artist's rights that forgives that kinda mistreatment.

[Nabubrush]

Are you trying to let off steam? Or is there something that can be done here (by any/all of us) that would provide you with closure? This is an open question from me to anyone who is having a problem with how Onstad wrapped things up, because I'm wondering where this thread is going and to what end.

[pmcd9]

Are you trying to let off steam? Or is there something that can be done here (by any/all of us) that would provide you with closure? This is an open question from me to anyone who is having a problem with how Onstad wrapped things up, because I'm wondering where this thread is going and to what end.

Yes, we are letting off steam.  What would you suggest, we talk about the comic?

[littlefallsmets]

Yes, we are letting off steam.  What would you suggest, we talk about the comic?

I am giving out so many cans lately, the tiny doctor must just be rolling around in imaginary money.

[side_show]

Yes, we are letting off steam.  What would you suggest, we talk about the comic?

It might just be time to turn to fan fic.  We took over the message board he orphaned, why not the comic?