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!

Speaking of Legal prickwaving I have a funny story that I forgot to share with you guys. You might remember a while back I mentioned that there was an issue between me and a local radio program called the BJ Shea show. You can read all my posts from that day right here if you'd like. Essentially one of the companies doing PR for Child's Play set up an interview with this guy and then forgot to tell me about it until it was too late. I called up and apologized but the guy was a real jerk to me.Then he said a bunch of bullshit about me on his show and eventually I called up and we yelled at each other, which I thought was super fun. Kara said you could hear me screaming like three rooms away "YOU'RE NOT EVEN DRIVE TIME!"

I figured the entire thing was over until later that night when I was sitting at home and my phone rang. It turns out it was the station manager for 100.7 the BUZZ and he was pissed. He asked me if I had ever heard of slander or defamation of character. I honest to God started laughing at him at this point, I mean obviously he had no idea who I was. So I ask him if he's talking about the stuff I said about BJ on my website (I implied that he was ugly) and he says yes. He tells me it needs to come down immediately or else the next call I got would be from his lawyers. I reminded him that on air BJ said that I was a woman and a lazy fleece wearing hippy who played too much Xbox. His response was that there is a fine line there and BJ knows how to walk it. He told me that our readers (that's you guys) were not only flooding the station with hate mail but you were actually CC'ing their advertisers as well. He told me he was getting twenty new emails every couple of minutes. HAHA, you guys are awesome. So Once I stopped laughing again I explained that he should have his lawyers contact us because I wasn't taking it down. He got pretty flustered and I explained the post would come down on Monday regardless just because that's the way our site works. He was not pleased with having to wait all weekend but his bluff had been called and there really wasn't anything he could do.

I'm pretty sure he told BJ not to mention us anymore because we actually listened to his show on Monday and he just talked about poker and boobs. Honestly BJ, I have nothing against you. In fact I hope one day you can realize your dream of marrying Tom Leykis and having his children. Oh and tell your secretary JJ, no hard feelings.

Gabe out