2981 Chew Toy.

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Well, clearly you guys are passionate about webcomics. Some of you have shaky reading comprehension too, but I also misread things from time to time so a little grace is probably in order. I saw a lot of familiar titles that have fallen away over time. Many of you read some of the same comics I did in the before times. Years before I started Between Failures I read a short lived comic that took place in a Gamestop. The character designs had gigantic ears. It was very accurate to the corporate culture of Gamestop, which is extremely toxic. Since I was working for them at the time it felt very relevant to me. I’ve never been able to recall the name, or find any trace of it online. That sort of strip was dime a dozen in those days so people always suggest other comics, like CAD, or Penny Arcade. Unfortunately I think it’s simply lost forever. There are a few comics like that. I actually spoke to one creator on Drunk Duck for a while who made a comic that I think is now lost. I can see it in my head, but can’t remember his name, the comic’s name, or much of anything other than I know I have a button he sold at one point somewhere in my junk. Sometimes things are just gone forever and pass out of living memory. When I’m gone the only memory of these comics may go with me. Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that the loss of everything to time is something that I think about a lot. Impermanence is probably my greatest fear in some sense. I’ve been that way since I was old enough to form memory and it has been the great torment of my life.

A few of you asked for specifics about my problems with other creators and their works. I wrote out an explanation, but when I got to the end I felt like it would somehow be uses against me regardless of what I had said. So you’ll just have to deal with not knowing exactly why my problems are. I will say this much about David Willis though: I think he is a bully, and I don’t much care for how he treats the Transformers franchise as if he owns it.

This is only tangentially related to that, but I didn’t have any extra money for many years until the Patreon took off a little bit. When I was in retail I got to enjoy my hobby of collecting Transformers even though I wasn’t making a lot of money. I had to give it up for a very long time and that was just one of the many sacrifices I made in pursuit of making Between Failures. Eventually I got to a point where I could start collecting again with careful budgeting. Just by chance I happened to get back in at the perfect time to enjoy the toys from the Netflix trilogy. The writing of the show was abysmal and got worse over time, but the figures were exquisite. Such artistry on display. Plus the packaging art was a joy to behold. Since everyone was locked up for covid I built up a little money to keep things going well into the Legacy era and Studio Series. I forget the exact order of the line names, but they did all the G1 hits. I have definitive versions of many characters, so I never need to buy them ever again, unless a new version comes along that really knocks it out of the park. Plus the popularity of the Bayverse characters gives me breaks to save up a little between waves now, which is good. I don’t usually talk about collecting since I always feel like I’m not supposed to ever feel happy about things. People often react negatively when I express any kind of joy so I tend to hold back, especially here. The fact of the matter is that my patrons make these simple pleasures possible for me though, and I really appreciate it. I trained to be a sculptor and never made use of that learning, but I love looking at it. Holding the finely crafted work of another human in my hand is one of my greatest pleasures. I don’t have a lot left over after my expenses, but it’s enough to indulge in this hobby. So to those of you who are patrons I genuinely thank you. Not that I don’t appreciate people who can’t be patrons mind you. I certainly understand not having extra money, but paying me to make this comic for you is the clearest expression of success I have. It’s why I never think about site numbers and stuff anymore. You guys like my story enough to keep it, and me, alive. It would probably be more sensible to appreciate having health insurance, but it’s never as much fun as giant robots…

I’ve collected a lot of things over my life. Star Wars figures were a huge thing for me in the 90s. I got back into them with the Black Series for a while but the sequel trilogy functionally killed Star Wars toys for the better part of a decade. I got some dribs and drabs for a bit, but now I generally only pick up deep discount figures. I Got into Marvel Legends at one point before the MCU was huge. I still pick up comic inspired ones from time to time. Or Marvel VS Capcom stuff. Street Fighter has had a resurgence recently and the figures have been reasonably priced or clearanced quite a few times. Obviously I got into Lego in a big way for a long time. Especially with he Minecraft sets. You could get piles of them on clearance at the end of a production run for a while. I’ve been mostly out of Lego for some time now. Although I did dip in for Animal Crossing and the minifig sets if they were creative. I’ve done a fair bit of MOTU stuff. Especially Origins since it crossed over with the WWE. I’m basically out of it apart from the little bit of Origins stuff they do now.

Anyway I guess none of that is all that important. I will say that I am curious about what sort of hobbies you all have. I have some idea because of the discord, but the comic commenters and the discord crowd don’t cross over very much anymore. Warhammer, guns, Magic The Gathering, video games and TTRPGs seem to be the main Discord hobbies. That’s not unexpected considering my subject matter. Anyway, whatever, I should just let you go. I hope Wednesday finds you well. I’ll see you on Friday with more page and whatever else spills out of my head. Until then, till all are one.