2311 Yelp.

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Rather than a cute thing about the Patreon shilling I want to talk to the people who have pushed back on it, & there haven’t been many, but they have been pretty vicious about it. Here’s the deal, I’m 45. No wife, no kids, no reasonable chance of ever having either. There’s no retirement plan for self employed artists. No one is going to take care of me if I miraculously live in to old age. I have to make some money now so I can not have to be trying to sling burgers at 60. What savings I do have would be completely wiped out by ONE medical issue. Fifteen years of saving would be gone in one disaster, so I’m gonna make at least the minimal effort to have at least a frail safety net for myself. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for. If you REALLY can’t handle me jokingly reminding people that I have a optional support system, then what the fuck are you doing here in the first place? You don’t like me, or my work? What’s the deal? Who hurt you? It would be one thing if I was writing some IP you’ve loved since childhood, but this is all mine. Anyway, sorry for the lack of ha-has. It’s just annoying & I’m allowed to vent on my own platform.

To end on a positive note, I’m at 909 patrons as of the time of this post, so I think there’s a real chance I could get to 1000 by the end of the year. There’s a chance that my retirement plan might not have to come from Smith & Wesson. Yay!

53 Comments

Personally I’ve quite enjoyed the very slick and not-at-all noticeable Patreon plugs lol. Helluva lot better than lots of other creators, at the very least. I’d rather have self-aware humour than guilt-tripping begging. Also, thanks for being straight-up with your situation and explaining what’s going on. Cheers man.

This art is shared for free. This is a message to the people who don’t understand, if you pay a measly dollar a month to this guy, you get extra stuff. And I mean “Extra”.

While I don’t run a webcomic, I can relate to being single with no chance of ever eloping with a significant other. Some of it has to do with paranoid family values, some of it has to do with ASD, dealing with a society that has shown nothing but contempt, indifference, and ridicule over ASD over the years, a work force that no longer believes in internships, and just bad politics in general.

I don’t blame anyone who is going to look at life more cynically over this. I can understand completely.

I don’t want to overshare, but despite being married with a kid, I can understand the financial hopelessness. I hope my little pittance for making my life a little better can help to do the same for you, mate.

Not sure if the last part of your rant is a suicide joke or a “let’s go rob a liquor store” joke. Either way, you Americans sure know how to party with that 2nd amendment of yours

retirement with a S&W that’s pretty dark but I don’t mind people that ask for money for the content they enjoy, been a patron member for who knows how long and use the picture you made of me for the longest time so thank you and don’t worry about the haters

Nothing quite like having an opportunity to support someone comedically put in front of you and your first thought being “HOW DARE YOU”. These are the same sorts of people who never got spanked in their lives, aren’t they?

I don’t think having been spanked has anything to do with it.

Actually, I think it does have something to do with it. Spanking a child that doesn’t behave and verbally abusing a creator who doesn’t “behave” seem to me so similar in spirit that I would conjecture that people who were spanked are actually more likely to show this kind of behaviour, not less.

You’ve never been spanked, have you?

No, I haven’t. What’s your point?

There is an art and science to the proper application of corporal punishment. It’s only valuable to specific age groups; the child must know that the punishment is for behavior, not for existence; the experience must be surrounded by love (the child knows they are not loved any less for the experience, and that this ends the consequences of this instance of that behavior); punishment must be immediate and consistent (the same punishment for the same behavior every time.)

Sounds no different from how to apply time-outs doesn’t it? It’s just that time-outs don’t work on everyone — especially the very young, just as corporal punishment doesn’t work for everyone. That’s where the art comes in. Parents need to be involved with their kids so they know what kinds of discipline will work best: one child crumbles when you give them a cross look, the other one couldn’t care less but will comply when grounded.

The point of parenting is to create adult citizens who can discipline themselves, obey the laws and be productive members of society. This last summer showed what a crappy job my generation did at accomplishing that.

Time-outs are not a punishment. They are a chance for a child to stop having a tantrum so you can discuss the situation reasonably.

For this to work, the child should be made aware that s/he can leave as soon as s/he ends the tantrum.

You missed at least one. Punishment must be for actual misdeeds. If you punish a kid because their sibling framed them, you aren’t helping either kid. When your punishment is of the physical variety, this is extra especially true.

No, I’m not talking hypotheticals. Most of the multi-child corporal punishment families I’m familiar enough with to say whether or not they had instances of this had instances of this.

I don’t know how other parents handled finding out this happened, but my father simply said, “Oh, sorry.” Considering that was 20 years later, I don’t know what an appropriate response would’ve been, but that felt insufficient. Maybe re-evaluating his life choices might have been a good start, but as far as I could tell, that never happened.

By that logic, absolutely any punishment, or even chastisement ever, would engender more of the same, and therefore, discipline should be abolished as it can literally only make things worse. If spanking encourages anything, it’d be physical violence. But if you’ve only ever been “attacked” with words, and furthermore, if you’ve always gotten away with attacking with words, then naturally, you’re more likely to keep doing it. Whereas a kid who mouthed off and got a whooping has it implanted in the back of his mind that being a mouthy little jerk can eventually earn…consequences. I think spanking can 100% be overused, but I also think it has value as a drastic measure. My brother is an example of that; as a kid, you could take away everything he owns, ban him from doing anything fun or eating junk food for weeks, and he’d STILL not care and make comments and cause trouble. The one thing that stopped him was when my dad got pushed to the edge and tanned his hide from time to time–it didn’t work forever, but FINALLY he would rein in his attitude for several months. As an adult, he continued the same habits; even in BOOT CAMP he barely avoided dishonorable discharge for his behavior, until his unit made it clear that if they all had to run 5 miles in the rain again because of his mouth, they were going to break it. People need to feel like there’s a point where words will get you hurt, if you don’t want them being caustic jerks.

The very fact that your brother continued this behaviour even though he was spanked by your father suggests that it actually did *not* turn him into a decent person, no offense. Of course spanking children will make them change their behaviour in the short term, or at the very least make them hide it better, if possible. What I’m saying is that it does not make them better people as adults. And especially online, there are basically no consequences at all to “mouthing off”. So that lesson is of no use at all.
Also, equating a stern talking to or time-outs, or whatever other measures parents can take, to hitting your child is a bit wild.

Reggie’s correct in that last panel. Now all I can think of is Alex telling Reggie how many women she & Maddie, together, would count as.

Fuck ’em, Jackie. You’re 100% right. They probably don’t like you or your work so they should just go somewhere else. I’m clearly not alone in getting a chuckle in how you segue into the Patreon each time. Also, that dark bit about S&W … fucking gold (but seriously, suicide is never the answer, I just appreciate the dark humor) Thanks for all you do for all of us readers who actually look forward to your work and your blog posts!

For the record, I was aware of that (I have pieced it together reading your… journals? Blurbs? for the last…. I dunno…. Has it been 9 years? Longer? Less? X amount of time), and the only reason I haven’t been giving in Patreon is because I am 32, disabled to the point where I am unlikely to ever work again, and at this point also planning to attempt to make money for my life doing an art ^_^ but I still want to try (plus my parents need a caretaker so… I dunno I am a stubborn/caring wench, I’ll willingly take on that role, and they’ll likely give me a place to live in trade so, hey, extra money I can swing at your patreon! that’s why I say in a little while I might be able to give again)

oh and P.s. if you need more evidence that I’m crazy awkward- that comment I wrote last night? I thought that WAS the new page.

Just saying, in spite of my disabilities people tend to think I’m pretty cool- and I got the page wrong -_-;; You might actually be cool and you don’t even know it ^_^ (I kinda always thought you were cool… I like who you are. It’s very hard for me to think someone is unattractive/uncool when they present themselves like you do ^_^)

hopefully this comment doesn’t come as surprising and you receive genuine praise often

Man’s got a point. Got to start planning for retirement eventually, because you can’t work forever. The odds of Social Security still being around slim with every new spending bill.

Go to, man, go to. I certainly don’t begrudge you hawking yourself.

I believe he is hawking his Art and not Himself. And while some art Does require blood, sweat, and tears, the odds of cutting oneself on a cintique are very slim. …. I have poked myself in the eye with a stylus from a bamboo, so there are identifiable physical dangers, as an artist. I think Jackie is better than that.

I’d be more concerned with Carpal and other wrist injuries then accidental stylus+eye encounters

im going to say there is nothing wrong with haveing a patreon i dont even mind haveing stuff come up on patreon earlier (as long as non patreon get it as well)

its just i personally dislike the idea of subscribeing .. id rather give you a lump sum

Well, Patreon does do yearly things now, so you can give 12$ and then be a patron for the year. I just like the regular amount each moth so I don’t have to try and budget a year in advance. I never even bothered to set it up because of that,

Maybe set up a Kofi or Paypal or even Bitcoin wallet where people can just directly give you cash? Just a thought, in the chance that more people are in the same boat as this gentleman.

What about subscribestar?

He doesn’t usually explicitly plug it. I almost missed it a couple of updates before this one where he at least mentioned it was a thing.

I don’t know much about subscribestar other than its terms of service make it sound kind of like an early Patreon that may have actually learned some of the lessons sent towards Patreon, rather than having dodged them like Patreon clearly did. It’s too late for me to make financial decisions, but I may be signing up tomorrow.

To be clear, I’m talking about in addition to the Patreon I signed up with something like 2019 or so, because if subscribestar is a viable alternative to Patreon, then I like having options, so I may as well reward the one who showed me that I have them. I’m not sure who else uses t, but I subscribe to enough Patreons, probably someone else on my list if it is a viable option.

I don’t like Patreon since they take what I consider an unreasonably large chunk of the donation AND they keep messing around with how things work. But that’s why I donate to him through his Paypal. He did kindly offer to email me the Patreon rewards when I told him I was switching to straight Paypal, but as long as the comic continues that’s reward enough for me.

Whereas I don’t like Paypal because they have been arbitrarily shutting down some people’s accounts without explanation. And I find it convenient for my donation to be monthly/automatic; otherwise I’ll forget because of attention deficit.

Yes, attantion deficit is a bitch, but it’s possible to work around it.

I’ve run websites since 1993. Someone is always going to complain about any attempt to make money, no matter how benign. People like to complain. I don’t mind giving you my dollar. I pay for things I enjoy a lot less than this.

I got a bit annoyed at one project that shilled for Patreon support before releasing a single frame of comic (and IIRC wasn’t ever going to be publicly available), but I certainly don’t begrudge you my pittance of a contribution, especially given the steady stream of rewards in return.

So presumably that project got less money. It’s up to the creator to decide whether the risks of giving something away free are worth it.

I would not give money for something without at least some evidence that what I’m buying is worth it. That’s the problem with buying ebooks; it’s hard to browse.

Especially hard with ebokks on math. Even knowing the author is an expert, it’s hard to know wHether the book is pitched at an appropriate level for me. A book on black hole dynamics, for example, could be anything from a popular analogy-driven text (too simplistic) to a detailed of exposition of stochastic tensor analysis(too deep).

And a peek at the able of contents or the first twenty pages isn’t enough to judge this.

There should be a tie-in between a physical bookstore and an ebookstore so you can browse in the first, then go to the cash register and buy the latter.

For the amount of the Patreon I pay for this comic site, I get far more back than the cost. for me it was worth it.

Hey Jackie,

You go right ahead, man. You do you, and let the haters hate. I hope it spurs more people to check you out, and your platform grow from the experience!

So you are cheating Jackie.
If Jackie is also getting more than he puts in to the deal, then he is cheating you.
If both of you are cheating each other, then the deal is fair.

If I may quote from a poet in the early 90s, “Haters gonna hate.” They’re gonna hate no matter how awesome your content is and how humerous and gentle the suggestions to support said content are. In fact, they may hate because of said things.

Haters going to hate, trolls going to be trolls, they can all eat shit and die, IMHO….
Your comic is the high point of my day, My life is better for finding this comic. Not in a oh my god you saved my life, more of a, yup, there are good things on the internet and its monday so I have at least one smile coming to me this morning. Sometimes that is more important. I am a patron, although I had to stop my payments for a few months, drama in my life. You keep reminding people that they should chip in for this quality product you provide! Your service is appreciated and I am thankful I found your comic!

Long time read first time commenter. You know what? FUCK those people. This made me sign up to support you, and a few other web comics I follow. Keep being awesome and creating awesome and don’t let the vocal minority bring you down!

“kill the smaller group”?

Well,…as you’ve shown us, Nin-Jo, you’re [very] good at hiding.
Take Reggie by the hand, + go hide in an alcove, or somewhere, + wait while the big-goblin-types march off past the horizon. :)

“so I can not have to be trying to sling burgers at 60.”

Hey! I’m over 60 and have been slinging burgers for over 20 years. Sure, it’s not always optimal, and I started at the top of my profession (i.e. dead-end job), but it’s not been a bad life. I’m currently living debt-free in my own home and have a small savings. It could be worse.

And we make the best burgers in the county. We have an award to prove it!

A part of the internet is so obsessed with it being a source of “free” stuff that they are actively offended by the notion of paying for anything, unless they are buying physical items. I remember when Patreon was new and YouTubers of the time were just getting blasted if they started using it; they loved the content 5 minutes ago, but now it’s all about shekels. It’s the same mentality of people who suddenly hate a band for getting a record deal–same music, but now it’s made for “the man” and paid for “by sheep” so the band is now “sellouts”, because god forbid they want to be able to quit their dead-end jobs, make money off their art, and live a decent life, not to mention tour more and give fans the opportunity to see them live, all around the world. Hilariously, these same people often are the loudest to complain about the content–how DARE you make a political joke they disagree with in the content you give them FOR FREE!

I am not an online content creator of any sort, except verbose comments, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned watching them, it’s how hard it is to balance listening to your viewers/readers/whatever, but not TOO much. Even big ones like Jacksepticeye have said they nearly quit, due to a feeling of “Does anyone really care?” because of the negative comments and criticism. Nothing wrong with criticism, you don’t want to be a typical Hollywood celebrity and think you are above critique and your farts smell like roses, but you also can’t possibly please everyone and you don’t want to screw up the…fundamental appeal of your work to try and get more views (like when video game series go all casual and mixed-genre, so more people find it playable but fewer people find it awesome and promote it, leading to their temporary boost in sales making a u-turn as new “fans” really weren’t fans and old fans feel betrayed).


A part of the internet is so obsessed with it being a source of “free” stuff that they are actively offended by the notion of paying for anything

I always love reading about how some aggrieved consumer has spent his precious social capital (and clicks!) on some site which now dares to want to get paid, etc etc.


how hard it is to balance listening to your viewers/readers/whatever, but not TOO much

The best example of this I have seen was one where the webcomic was free but the patrons also got cheesecake drawings (at multiple patronage levels). Can’t remember the name offhand — though I think I’ve linked to it in some comment here — but as I recall it made about 3x-4x Jackie per month. Not bad.

I know Sam and Fuzzy and Grrl Power both have a model like that (I think sam and fuzzy is more risque and grrl power is nudes). It’s not too uncommon.

Rule #1 Never split the party!

Rule #2 NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY

Rule #3 — is to never split the party.

Infinitives however are fair game …

I can’t tell what the punchline to the joke is here. Is he saying they are dangerous and smart or is Reggie making a fat joke? Possibly both?

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