If you’ll indulge me a little, I want to rearrange the order of things on today’s post.

Spam of the day:

um, he book WAS DONE WHEN HE STARTED THE KICKSTARTER, WAS Intended to help _print the damn book_ hello??!???!!!!!!!!!! IT WAS DONE WHEN IT STARTED!!!!! But you’ll believe his bullshit about being stressed causing him to be a YEAR AND A HALF LATE???

YOU. ARE. AN. IDIOT.

I suppose I should start with the acknowledgement that I’m breaking one of the fundamental rules of the internet by reading the comments, but there’s a general exception for reading comments on your own site; indeed, this comment was submitted here to Fleen in re: our most recent post on Something Terrible and held for moderation¹. Its author is using what I believe to be a pseudonym and fake email address, which is always the sign of quality opinions! Let’s address the author’s points one at a time, shall we?

• That sure is a lot of correctly-spelled words, Bill (Can I call you Bill? That’s the name you gave although I doubt it’s yours). Not so much with the spacing, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and syntax, though.
• Regarding the book being done when [the Kickstarter campaign] started, surely somebody as erudite as yourself will acknowledge that pre-press design is a skillset in and of itself, and having images for web done is not the same as just sending things off to press.
• Regarding [Trippe’s] bullshit about being stressed, two things: First, please educate yourself on the concepts of depression and PTSD, which are not the same thing as being stressed. Second, Trippe’s been remarkably honest in social media and in person about the toll that telling his story has had on him. You may, from your comfortable distance, have decided that it’s bullshit, but I’d defy you to talk with the guy in person and come to the same conclusion. Dean’s one of the most open and honest people I’ve ever met.
• Regarding a YEAR AND A HALF LATE???, PDFs meeting the lower tiers of Kickstarter pledges were promised in April of 2014, physical hardcopies in June of 2014². Certainly they’re late, but your all-caps exaggeration does not do your argument any favors.
• Regarding YOU. ARE. AN. IDIOT., it’s entirely possible (have you been talking to my family?), but what about this particular project has you so het up (as my grandmother used to say)? Dissatisfied backer? Trippe’s already made the offer to refund you, which granted means that you lost out on the massive interest you would have earned on your pledge amount over the course of a year. Tell ya what, Bill, I’ll make good on that twelve cents you lost out on. Worried for my financial well-being because I got scammed? That’s adorable, thanks for your concern.
• Not specific to anything you wrote, but are you familiar with Kickstarter? Almost nothing fulfills on time. That’s practically built into the site’s DNA.

It’s interesting, though, that you’re so concerned about getting THE TRUTH!!!!!!one!!!! about evil, evil Dean Trippe and stupid, stupid Gary Tyrrell out there, speaking boldly against our obvious corruption and collusion. You’ve had many opportunities to do so since January of 2014³ when I started writing about the campaign.

But you dropped in a drive-by comment from with a fake name and fake email, leading me to believe you aren’t a regular reader as they tend to be reasonable people who aren’t afraid to sign their own names to their opinions. I’m talking about something that I like and you have come into my metaphorical home to tell me Trippe’s full of shit and I’m an idiot — thanks so much for your obvious righteousness, but it was an unnecessary effort.

Much like the last 600 or so words I’ve spent on this response; I trust that we’ve both gotten this out of our systems and can go find other people who are wrong on the internet to confront?

• Speaking of book Kickstarts, Steve Hamaker has just launched one to print volume one of Plox, and it would be really cool if he could spend GenCon weekend (where he’ll be tabling with Scott Kurtz & co at the Toonhound Studios table) not worrying about if it was gonna fund or not.

  Hamaker’s one of the low-key maestros of modern [web]comics, a colorist that makes even the best work better, and he doesn’t get enough attention for his own creations. Back it now, and if you see him in Indianapolis be sure to let him know that if he doesn’t have the book to you by the last day of March 2016, Bill up above is gonna have a fit at him how much you enjoy his work.

• In other news, Los Angeles Resident Dave Kellett has announced the latest contributor to his Tales of the Drive project:
  

  So! That makes 4 super fun DRIVE short stories written/drawn by @ZachWeiner @drhastings @dmeconis and @jonrosenberg!

  That would be Zach Weinersmith, Christopher Hastings, Dylan Meconis, and Jon Rosenberg (okay, that last one was a little obvious). Judging from Twitter traffic ‘tother night, Rosenberg’s still in the writing stage, and LARDK hasn’t said when he’s going to start posting story pages yet. Maybe a nice little back-to-school celebration? A whole story up as a Thanksgiving present? Come on, LARDK, give us something to mark on our calendars and pine away in anticipation for!

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¹ Typically, this happens for tripping keyword lists, having excessive links in the body of the message, or being from unfamiliar IP addresses.

² Which, between you and me, was optimistic in the extreme; closing the campaign in February, if everything went perfectly, means that hardcover books before September of 2104 would be just barely possible.

³ Is that where you got the year and a half from?