Ouch
Warning: there are things in today’s post that will likely make you go Ohhhh, ick.
- Updating the Rich Burlew Does Not Like Broken Glass story, a whole bunch of words and one photo that cuts straight to the heart of the matter; Burlew reports that his right hand will remain in a cast for another month or so, then get to see what kind of functionality his thumb has. Add in rehab and physical therapy, it could be a while before Order of the Stick sees updates, and longer still before his remaining Kickstarter rewards get produced.
While this page is surely of the opinion that delays in fulfilling KS promises does nothing but damage the credibility of those who use the service, we also recognize that Extraordinary Circumstances will sometimes occur, and this surely qualifies. Also, I am strongly considering a Kickstarter of my own to raise the funds to buy chain mail oyster-shucking gloves for all my favorite creators¹.
- Speaking of painful and Kickstarter: that US$1.00 pledged of US$200,000 goal (presuming it isn’t canceled sometime in the next 44 days) is painfully sarcastic and gonna leave a mark. Then again, the chief hook of the campaign in question is to convince starting-out cartoonists and comickers that they should pay US$60 for the privilege of submitting a single page to a comics anthology which means that it’s official: the vanity press model has decided to make a simultaneous run at both comics and Kickstarter.
- Speaking of painful: some folks (cough, cough, Dave Kellett) find JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion to be a painful read, but these folks are wrong. Wrong and bad and wrong some more. For those that stand in opposition to the unbelievers, Aaron Diaz² has been threatening for the past week or so to do one painting per chapter of The Silmarillion, and the first of them dropped today.
Future installments will be presented at Diaz’s Tumblr under the heading of Silmarillion Project, and here’s hoping that perhaps Diaz kicks in multiple paintings for some of the longer chapters so as not to short-change them³. Somewhere, somebody in Middle Earth Enterprises gets to decide who does the annual calendars and such around Tolkien’s works, and I think Diaz could easily spend the next half-decade illustrating scenes from The Silmarillion without feeling a lack of inspiration.
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¹ I know of at least one top-tier creator with an insurance policy on his hands; this is looking less like paranoia and more like prudent planning every day.
² The Latin Art-Throb.
³ For example, Of Thingol and Melian, the fourth chapter of Quenta Silmarillion is only a page and a half in my copy of the first American edition, but the Akallabêth is more than twenty pages and yes, I am a gigantic nerd.
You’d be less forgiving of the delays if you knew how little we got even before the incident; exactly one digital PDF, one of the monster-miniature PDFs. The amount of work placed on Rich’s plate as a result of the Kickstarter has caused both rewards and comic to suffer, and now this.
By Morgan Wick on 10.01.12 8:47 pm
I’ve managed to read the Silmarillion a couple of times, but I wouldn’t call it a great story, and it’s kind of disappointing when the great mythic heroes of LOTR turn out to be useless (yes, I am looking at your, Beren) or homicidal maniacs (and you, Turin).
By maarvarq on 10.02.12 10:30 am
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