Almost Didn’t Have Time To Comment On This Before It Flamed Out
Someday, childroons, you will be able to tell your great-grandkids¹ that you were there for the approximately 20 hours that a bunch of people hated Jake Parker for ruining Inktober. It was never a thing, but everybody’s nerves are on edge from the everything, so I’ve got a bit of sympathy for the flash-fire that spread throughout comics soshmeed when some folks got trademark nastygrams from an overzealous lawyer.
But man, I am a bit surprised at how the whole thing went from zero to pitchforks and torches, without a pause for Hey, Jake, I got this stupid thing from somebody says they’re your lawyer, is this for real? Parker has clarified what’s going on and it’s about what I expected, but the standard Rule Zero Of The Internet applies: don’t read the comments.
I get that people who got C&D’d by lawyers are mad, and Parker appears to be making an effort to make things right with them. But the number of people in the comments (godsdammit why did I read the comments?) willfully misreading what Parker is saying, ascribing motives based on theoretical evil future behavior, and disregarding what people who actually know how trademarks work so they they can be VERY!!! MAD!!!!! is … sadly, it’s about what you’d expect it to be.
Deep breaths, everybody. Jake Parker isn’t the antichrist. You can still do all the stuff you were doing so long as you don’t try to make it look like you’re doing something “Official”. Lawyers gonna lawyer, shit’s getting resolved, and unless you were on the receiving end of a lawyer letter, your energy is better spent on developing your craft than online ire².
And if it so happens that Parker is lulling us into a false sense of calm before a tremendous heel turn, you’ll have my apologies and my best efforts to smuggle in all the flaming barbed wire-wrapped folding chairs necessary to take him down. Deal? Deal.
Spam of the day:
Hey, I know this up coming time is going to be slammed with the holidays, but are you missing potential customers?
My business selling flaming barbed wire-wrapped folding chairs is distinctly short on customers. Send all you got my way, please.
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¹ Just kidding! The Earth will be a husk inimical to human habitation before then.
² Seriously, about two hours into the event, I saw somebody on Twitter advocating for a class action lawsuit to overturn Parker’s trademark and that’s … that’s not how any of this works.
I was intensely reminded of the people that would contact Webcomics Weekly or Comic Lab wanting to know how to negotiate Hollywood licensing rights for the comic they hadn’t created yet, or the people that would show up for a con panel on Kickstarter wanting to know how to turn on the Magic Money Machine but who didn’t have a project or audience.
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