Squidi 'reboots'
 

I won't lie. I haven't enjoyed working on this site for months. I've hated it more and more each day, and it has affected my work and my interest in my work. This is probably not a surprise, and while I've been this close to giving up multiple times, it always keeps going. What little pride I still have left in my work keeps it going. Today's "Dead Sean Day" isn't really a cop out comic like it seems. There needed to be something that punctuated the change between comics. I can't just switch comics in one day without explanation. I couldn't think of anything better than mocking the filler of other webcomics, though I still think the skeleton came out kinda cute anyway. But there is another message in that comic.

I'm rebooting. Not just the comic, but my attitude and my dedication. Today really is "Dead Sean Day". I've hit rock bottom, and it's time to build myself up again from scratch. A new day. A new lease on life. A new Squidi.
_________________________________________

-Sean Howard, of squidi.net fame

Apparently, "The Starship Destiny" wasn't exactly what sean had in mind. Seems the penny arcade issue forced sean over the edge, and to finally concede, or retreat in certain areas. (His site was nearly completly revamped in the content aspect)

But he seems to be back with a renewed attitude. Hopefully, his innteruption of TSD via a new webcomic centered more around his AMD world, will help to restore Squidi's pride, and create a bridge of peace between him and webcomic readers.

That said, methinks the gent takes himself a weeee bit too seriously, although I understand his view on his art being used without permission...

If this is a sore topic here, I apologize in advance. I've always been confused as to Brian and Sean's relationship. Mutual enimies on unfriendly terms? or intelectual rivalry, like in the comic book world where no actual animosity is held between opposing parties? I dunno.

Brian doesn't seem to mind him much, judging by when Squidi made a username and came here to bitch about people bitching about his bitching... Although, Brian didn't find his claims to be that... worthwhile, either. Squidi ended up being banned and we all went on with our lives.

I wouldn't say it's a sore topic, but it's one we had... I'll see if I can find the topic so you can see how things went.

Edit: Search function wouldn't bring it up, so I'll just give a brief synopsis. Someone started a topic about the thing going down with PA and stuff... people generally agreed that Squidi was going to far, regardless of whether his art was being stolen. Squidi came on and tried to defend himself, Brian said his stuff being stolen wasn't that big of a deal, as that whole 8-bit comics had appeared in other places with other people's names on them, others agreed, yada yada... squidi gets banned without any real bad words going between them, at least on the thread, one or two more people have their say, thread dies due to lack of people commenting.

It was a while back (as it's being too old to find with search would hint at), so I'm probably forgetting some stuff... but meh.


Also: AMD was better than this spaceship crap anyway. Although, I'll admit I didn't read much of the spaceship crap before I gave up and stopped reading after AMD finished.

I am here to drop what others could not find!

http://www.nuklearforums.com/showthread.php?t=743

Yeah, it's the infamous Squidi thread. It's a good refernce to show how self-centered he is. Just please don't post in it, it's long dead, and I'm just showing it for reference's sake.

huh
 

I'm afriad I don't know enough of copyright law to form a solid opinion on this. I mean, stealing is stealing. But the only thing you can do is request 'do not use my images' and be done. That's part of the whole internet thing... being anonymous prevents quite a few law suits I would imagine.

But also isn't his comic popular enough that he wouldn't have to worry about people thinking his art belonged to someone else? If someone cared enough, they'd find out the origonal source right?

Well, anyway, he does seem to whine a lot. A bit of a masocist it would appear... Seems to somehow enjoy the drama he's enveloped himself in... and the ensuing angst. Hopefully he's gotten over that, even if he still feels he's in the right.

I like his comic though... although it isn't really THAT funny... He needs to work more with the plotline, cuase I think the storytelling is his strong suite...

I'm glad personally that Sean is making a turn around, comic-wise and personality-wise. I loved A Modest Destiny, but I could tell as time went on, it just didn't seem to have the same spirit it had before.

As for all of the copyright things, I don't agree with him on how he's handled some things, I mean, he has a right to protect his stuff, but I'm not sure if he's confronted the problems in the best ways possible all the time.

BUT, if I have interperited correctly, I think something is wrong with Sean's hands and he can only function internet-wise and creatively on the computer using the voice-recognition system, which would make making each and every one of those pixel-people MUCH harder, I would imagine.
If that is true, then I can understand him making a big deal about people stealing them (I still don't agree with some of his methods, though) since he had to work twice as hard just to get good-looking sprites for his fan-base, I would be kind of peeved too if they were stolen from me... (it's like if an awesome artist, who draws an awesome picture every day lost a good picture, they wouldn't mind as much as somebody who had worked soooo hard and sooo long making a picture of the same quality they made. (or somebody with a sort of disability overcoming it to make something.)

If I'm wrong about something being wrong with his hands, please inform me. ^^;; I read this (it's attached) and I don't know what else to think than something is wrong with his hands, I haven't heard anything else on the matter... (or was is just some joke and I'm too naive to figure it out on my own? ^^;; )

Brian banned him because of the obnoxious attitude he displayed as a poster back on the TWC forums -- Brian didn't want him coming here and treating y'all like that. Other than that I really don't think Brian thinks about him much at all.

My only problem with Sean is that any time I have seen him interacting with people online, he has always treated people like they were beneath him and worthy of only his contempt. The only exception were those who were appeasing his ego. When he brought that attitude to an area where I could control whether or not he inflicted himself on my readers, I took action. I don't hate him, though he seems confused on that fact, I just didn't want him treating you guys that way.

I'm sorry to hear he's hit "rock bottom", but if he rebounds as a decent person then it'll have been worth it. I think part of his problem stemmed from him being utterly unprepared to be an artist who displayed work online. You can't make your work available for free, across the world, 24 hours a day, and expect to keep a Disney-like stranglehold on distribution. The stress between having no control over distribution clearly took its toll as a few kids thoughtlessly used his work. What Sean failed to realize is that PA, PvP, 8BT, etc. have had the same things happen to them--and more--many hundreds of times. I tried telling him it's part of the "industry" and if he couldn't deal with that, he'd have to quit. Perhaps he finally figured that out. Hopefully he'll be able to reconcile his will to control distribution with the fact that, when you're online, you can't control distribution. It hasn't hurt PA, 8BT, MT, PvP, etc., Sean, it ain't gonna kill you.

This is a great way to make a living, so I'd hate to see someone who could be successful give up entirely.

Yeah that was a joke. He has full use of his hands.

Really? I wasn't sure because it didn't seem like a joke at the time... and I was thinking that maybe he got in an accedent or something... oh well. Forget everything I said then. ^^;

Is it even possible to draw without hands, even with some voice thing on the computer? For one I would think that would cost a large ammount of money, and then even if it does exist it would take a very long time for him to do anything even near spriting.