Twitter: [now] new colourist, again.

[BopEuph]

I have a firm grasp of my language. But I'm not going to repeat this all ad nauseum nor read these long posts because I have plenty other things to do with my Saturday morning. For me, it's back to the practice room!

[thinkslogically]

ardenwolf you contradict yourself throughout your own post by insisting we are all owed something while claiming that the very feeling of debt should be an individual's choice. Ethics are not objective things and your claim that anything can be 'ethically true' is false by nature. It is a subjective claim, nothing more and nothing less.

Whatever you feel you are owed or not owed is fine. Can you at least accept that the arguments you make are mirrored exactly by those who DON'T feel the readership is owed anything?

[LAYF]

No!

Donations = Gifts.

A gift is something you give out of affection, love or other forms of care for a person.
you do not give gifts and expect something in return.

If you donate to red cross and then go down to Africa and find the first child you can and demand said child make you a handbag, you just BOUGHT child work, you never donated anything.
Donation = nothing in return except the satisfaction of helping others.

Add revenue = not paid by us. and even if it was, when we log in and see a page, we gain what the Add owners paid for, so not owing us, or them anything.
Donations = Gifts. No one owe anyone anything.
Kickstarter = yes, someone owe us something here, Evertide, and last word was that we would have that by June.

Tarol does not owe us anything, BUT he is trying to give us something, he is trying, to the point where he went to sleep way to late and is probably over taxed by that still...
He could just have gone: "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I'm back now" and continued. or even "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I have to quit" and all "debt" would be paid even...


You may FEEL entitled to explanations, comics, or a personal call from him saying he is sorry, but you are not, not by law or by the standard definition of the word Donation.

[ardenwolf]

People keep speaking for themselves,and their own personal feelings, and applying them to everyone else and demanding they feel the same, and thinking this is alright. It's not.

Let me use this example, you have a dear friend, he is dating a girl who cheats on him, treats him like shit, and uses him as her own personal checkbook. In exchange he basically gets nothing more than to be seen with her and call her his girl friend. Now he puts up with all of this willingly, and gives completely of his own volition. Tell me, however, you do not believe she owes him more than she is giving. He might disagree with you, make a whole bunch of excuses, and her friends might even agree with her and take her side. But you personally would probably feel your friend is being mistreated and taken advantage of. You would feel he deserves better and she owes him more than she gives him. This is what is being discussed here. Ethical Due. You draw your line, others draw theirs. I personally have not drawn my ethical line yet, I personally am good with things, and willing to wait.

I am just tired of seeing people tell others when and where they can draw their ethical line.

I'm not even speaking for my own feelings of whether I feel Thunt has given my due. But for others I feel are being put down and told are wrong and not allowed or shouldn't feel they do, on a matter which is purely subjective and related to the emotions of the individual. It is a form of social bullying and abuse.

[ardenwolf]

That's the point it is subjective, but you are all making demands on others over this by telling them they are owed nothing, when the entire thing is subjective. Do you not get the point? You have no right to tell anyone when they can and cannot be owed on a subjective issue, which is what this is.

The fact I'm stating is that it is perfectly reasonable to subjectively feel owed for ethical reasons, which makes it an ethical fact by the knowledge that some will feel that way, and reasonably have the right to.

[Archerd]

Guaranteed, no, owed yes. There's a fundamental ethical difference here. He ethically owes everyone for every donation, every cent. He is not legally required, because they are donations, but ethically yes, yes he does, as does every webcomic author in the same situation, or in any other field really. Ethically HE DOES OWE his reader base.

Learn the language you are speaking. Saying he owes his reader base is proper use of language and the word's meaning given the situation. I'm tired of seeing everyone's throat being jumped down, when they get upset when ethical demands are not being met. The only way a balance of altruistic exchange occurs is if both sides do their part to do best by each side, when one takes more than they receive, or do not do everything in their power to do what's right by the other side then they are abusing the good being done for them. This is unethical. It is not required, or needed to do anything for anyone else who does something for you, or helps you of their own accord. Ethically however, if you want to be able to call yourself a good and decent person, then yes you do owe them for what they did. Just because some might be happy with just a "thank you" does not mean, just a thank you, is all that is ethically owed. And yes I said some, speak ever for yourself and not others. Some donate because they want to help him out so he can continue to contribute quality comics, not just because they think he's a swell guy. There is an implied exchange there.

Also if you had all donated for the house, and then immediately after getting it he said, "Thank you everyone for the house I really do and sincerely appreciate it. I've decided, however, that I think Goblin's has had a good run now and will be ending the comic immediately." you would all be bold faced liars if you honestly want me to believe you'd all just shrug and be good with that.

The difference is, everyone draws their own line of when they feel taken advantage of or under-appreciated. While no one, reasonable anyway, would argue he's owes his readership better than to take his house then immediately run with it, what's going on here, is people having different opinions on when he owes his readership better.

Everyone is allowed to set their own bar for when they feel they are being ethically ripped off and not given what is ethically owed.

So stop deciding for others, when they have to or can draw that line, and accept that ethically he owes to his reader base, and on an individual level, we are all allowed to decide when we feel we are not getting what's owed.

I personally am fine and accepting of the situation, I am not fine with people telling others when they can and cannot feel they are not being paid their ethical due.

Thunt does ethically owe his reader base, this is a fact. How much he owes or does not owe, is up to individual interpretation. But that he does owe, is fact. So everyone get off your high horses and accept that people have the right to their feelings. You may not think Thunt owes you a thing, ethically or otherwise, but that gives you no right to tell others they cannot feel otherwise or are wrong for doing so. Stop drawing imaginary lines and treating them as fact with anyone not on your side as wrong.

Some feel Thunt owes them, ethically this is true, to what extent is decided on an individual bases, accept it, deal with it, move on, and stop telling others how they can and cannot feel.

I was going to agree with 98% of this, the 2% difference was you using 'fact' that he owes us. Then I decided to look up the actual definition of owe.

owe [oh] Show IPA
verb (used with object), owed, ow┬Àing.
1. to be under obligation to pay or repay: to owe money to the bank; to owe the bank interest on a mortgage.
2. to be in debt to: He says he doesn't owe anybody.
3. to be indebted (to) as the cause or source of: to owe one's fame to good fortune.
4. to have or bear (a feeling or attitude) toward someone or something: to owe gratitude to one's rescuers.
5. Obsolete . to possess; own.

Since 3 and 4 really ought to apply to what's been building up over the better part of the last decade, I'm going to change that and say I agree with 100% of your post.

Personally, I just feel really disrespected at this point. Not so much for the radio silence, but years of promising a deadline and not meeting it. This last one where that radio silence was finally broken, 'will be posted tomorrow' only to find out we're still flying blind half a week later. I am trying my darndest to be patient, and I'm truly hoping that when an explanation is finally given it will make me go "You know what, I completely understand." but at this point, I'm losing faith that will actually happen. (I suspect that it's a legal matter with WotC involving Thunt making profit off of their intellectual property, i.e. selling books. The Loot! section of the page has been down since radio silence began. That would be the kind of thing to make me go "you, totally reasonable.")

I kind of feel like it's going to be the wheel of time all over again, I've bought the E-books because of the dynamic story line, and am concerned that it's never going to end with the original author.

[Archerd]

No!

Donations = Gifts.

A gift is something you give out of affection, love or other forms of care for a person.
you do not give gifts and expect something in return.

If you donate to red cross and then go down to Africa and find the first child you can and demand said child make you a handbag, you just BOUGHT child work, you never donated anything.
Donation = nothing in return except the satisfaction of helping others.

Add revenue = not paid by us. and even if it was, when we log in and see a page, we gain what the Add owners paid for, so not owing us, or them anything.
Donations = Gifts. No one owe anyone anything.
Kickstarter = yes, someone owe us something here, Evertide, and last word was that we would have that by June.

Tarol does not owe us anything, BUT he is trying to give us something, he is trying, to the point where he went to sleep way to late and is probably over taxed by that still...
He could just have gone: "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I'm back now" and continued. or even "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I have to quit" and all "debt" would be paid even...


You may FEEL entitled to explanations, comics, or a personal call from him saying he is sorry, but you are not, not by law or by the standard definition of the word Donation.

Not all of us donated, some of us purchased the E-books (And a big ear plushie)

[LAYF]

And you got them did you not?

If you buy a t-shirt at your local store, you do not come back the next day and say they owe you a pair of socks.

[BopEuph]

Not all of us donated, some of us purchased the E-books (And a big ear plushie)

Did you get your books and plushies? If not, then you're right. You're owed what you specifically paid for, and I'm sure Thunt will agree.

[Skeik]

No!

Donations = Gifts.

A gift is something you give out of affection, love or other forms of care for a person.
you do not give gifts and expect something in return.

If you donate to red cross and then go down to Africa and find the first child you can and demand said child make you a handbag, you just BOUGHT child work, you never donated anything.
Donation = nothing in return except the satisfaction of helping others.

Add revenue = not paid by us. and even if it was, when we log in and see a page, we gain what the Add owners paid for, so not owing us, or them anything.
Donations = Gifts. No one owe anyone anything.
Kickstarter = yes, someone owe us something here, Evertide, and last word was that we would have that by June.

Tarol does not owe us anything, BUT he is trying to give us something, he is trying, to the point where he went to sleep way to late and is probably over taxed by that still...
He could just have gone: "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I'm back now" and continued. or even "Sorry for the time I was gone, private stuff, I have to quit" and all "debt" would be paid even...


You may FEEL entitled to explanations, comics, or a personal call from him saying he is sorry, but you are not, not by law or by the standard definition of the word Donation.

Donating to the Red Cross and expecting impoverished children in Africa to give you something isn't even close to this situation. When you give money to the Red Cross you expect the Red Cross to continue operating and helping people. The expectation is on the organization you donated to. A more apt metaphor would be the Red Cross having a heavily advertised donation drive for a hurricane and then deciding to shut down the next day. I'm sure that the thousands (possibly millions) of people who donate blood and money to the Red Cross would be very upset and demand some kind of explanation.

The largest donation drive to date even came with the promise of finishing TF11. As far as I know it's been 2.5 years and it's still not done. THunt might not legally owe donators or readers anything, but ethically if I were him I would feel pretty crappy if I just stopped the comic right here with no word about what happened.

[Krulle]

And since that time, all donations are on hold, and blocked.
So, everyone who donated got >two years of comics.

Draw your own conclusions from that for yourself.



Edit: the drive was nearly three years ago: http://www.goblinscomic.org/tempts-fate ... -my-house/

[thinkslogically]

Of course I get the point, and for what it's worth I'm not making demands on anyone for how they should or shouldn't feel. Everyone can feel however the hell they want to feel, but IMO, the people who feel they're owed something are being just as vociferous as the ones who don't. That's what generally happens in arguments where neither side is willing to bend.

My main issue with this (endless) argument is that it's at best pointless (Thunt isn't here) and at worst just cutting of your own nose to spite your face. If Thunt does come by and check out the forum, which part of calling him unprofessional and immoral do you think is likely to make him want to go back to work faster? A little compassion often goes a long way towards 'not being a dick'.

For everyone saying 'if it was me I'd do XX'. That's great, but you've got no idea that it's true, since none of us have any idea what's going on. Perhaps waiting until we have that information is more appropriate, no?

[MakesNoSense]

Well, the good part about all of this? - Thunt has really connected very passionately with a number of people with his art.

It does not matter if a person represents one view or another, the fact that such heated emotions have arisen from a sabbatical (enforced or by choice) is a testament to what Thunt has created.

I have followed the forum infrequently as a guest, and moreso of late to hear news of when the comic might return (if it can, in fact, return). I have been intrigued by the wide variety of commentary and opinions posted by fans of the comic, and everyone here really should feel a certain kinship knowing that this comic has brought you together.

My personal belief is as follows:

Thunt does not owe (morally or otherwise) anybody anything with regards to his comic. Which is quite different from failing to meet the expectations of those who read his comic. Please understand the semantics of the situation, when your friend says "I am going to climb Mount Everest." it means they will make the attempt. It does not guarantee success. If they do not manage to reach the summit, you should not be taking it as a personal insult, or a failure of a moral obligation to you. The only failure which can possibly exist, is to the climber. If you decided to help support the climber when they were tackling smaller or easier mountains, even if you bought them all of their equipment to climb Mount Everest, it is still not a failure in an obligation to you.

What changes from person to person, is the expectations. If you supplied that climber, and after flying in, they looked at Everest in person and immediately decided not even to attempt - most people would feel (for lack of a better term) "cheated". Because they feel that there was not at least a "reasonable effort" given. In this case, a "reasonable effort" is what they imagine they could do with that person's experience, skills and tools. Imagine being the key word - it is not you doing the climbing, remember?

This does not mean that people should not feel upset, they have every right to feel upset. You can feel anything you want to feel, you are all big boys and girls. But Thunt only owes you his best effort, and it is unreasonable to believe that he offers anything but his best effort.

His whole life seems to revolve around this comic, including his attempts to be as transparent as possible to his fanbase. You do not put yourself in that situation if you feel that you are giving anything less than your full effort.

What some people seem to overlook, is that failure is measured by the person climbing the mountain. It is entirely possible that Thunt feels he has failed in one sense or another (which is garbage for what its worth - the fact that he has brought so many people so passionately together is a great achievement, not a failure). But, it is not for any of us to say that he is still owing anybody anything.

Understand, Thunt does not say "I have invested hours, days, months and years of training, practicing and finally creating this art which is extremely appreciated by the public. I buy materials and pay expenses so that they can read it without fear of monetary investment, and all so that they can evaluate the comic first! I am not like the comic books in the stores, forcing you to buy the comic first and hoping you enjoy the art later. But some of these fans, maybe even most of these fans, they just take without giving back! Those fans who never contributed owe me!"

Anyone who thinks Thunt owes them a single thing, should really get on to those fans who have not invested money into Goblins, right? I mean... fair is fair... right?

Okay, so I can be a little snarky in my writing, but hopefully you understand the point I am trying to make. What we are talking about is managing our OWN expectations. If you expect Thunt to do something, for whatever your reasons, you open yourself up to the possibility that what you consider "Thunts best effort" and what Thunt's real and honest "best effort" may not be the same thing. As such, your own expectations may not be met, and that lack will obviously cause you to feel frustration (if not anger or resentment). But it in no way means that Thunt owes you anything, legally or ethically. It just means you have expectations which are beyond someone else's ability to meet, and blaming them for the height of your expectations may not always be of the highest ethics.

In conclusion, I hope Thunt is doing well, although based on his twitter feed and the hints we see and hear, it certainly does not sound like it. If he should ever read this, I hope he understands that there are many people out there who appreciate the comic for what it has given, not for what it should continue to give. That we know you are climbing your own Mount Everest, and we will be cheering you on to reach the peak. But if you cannot get there, to also know that you have already exceeded our expectations and in our eyes, you cannot fail because you have already succeeded.

[ardenwolf]

"You may FEEL entitled to explanations, comics, or a personal call from him saying he is sorry, but you are not, not by law or by the standard definition of the word Donation."

I'm talking the word owed here, not donation or entitlement.

No one here is entitled to any information what so ever.

What I am arguing against is people cherry picking ONE of the word "owed"'s many definitions and meanings and blanketly applying that single definition and telling everyone else which is using in their context using/meaning one of the other definitions and being told they are wrong and cannot feel this way.

No one is entitled to a thing, I never argued that. They are, however, owed better.

[ardenwolf]

And since that time, all donations are on hold, and blocked.
So, everyone who donated got >two years of comics.

Draw your own conclusions from that for yourself.



Edit: the drive was nearly three years ago: http://www.goblinscomic.org/tempts-fate ... -my-house/

Ahhh so he has stopped donations, this is good. It is the ethically right thing to do. I'm glad to hear he recognizes this.

And once again, I must emphasize, I personally do not feel owed anything, I've gotten more than I've contributed, if anything, net wise, I owe Thunt. I'm not arguing what I personally feel owed here. I'm arguing against people being attacked for their proper use of language and feelings they are entitled to.

I'm also not arguing for anyone saying they feel owed and then going on to attack and demean Thunt either. I certainly do not mean to do so. Even if the by the very nature of what this argument is about, by insinuation sort of argues against some of Thunts action. The actual emphasis here is not on Thunt, but the attacks on others for specific statements which are neither wrong nor unacceptable.

[thinkslogically]

Please stop saying decisions are ethically 'right' as if it's a fact. It's condescending and is only an expression of personal opinion.

@Makesnosense: Welcome to the forums

[CooksACarrot]

ardenwolf, I'm not going to dispute the substance of your argument. Whatever my opinion, I don't think I would add substantially to the discourse.

However, I would like to raise a semantic issue. It may seem small to some, but it is, I feel, important.
You repeatedly talk about 'ethics'. Ethics are a code of conduct freely chosen and adhered to by an individual. When a Doctor swears the Hippocratic Oath, they are freely choosing to adhere to its ethical principles. The same for other professionals who agree to a defined set of principles (not that they all follow them). The point is that the impetus comes from the individual out.

Morality, which I think is what you are talking about, is imposed from something outside. Morality is based on societies' principles and expectations. When someone does not meet expectations you and others set on them in their conduct, they are failing morally.

When they fail to meet their own expectations, or fail to live up to a defined code that they have freely chosen to adhere to, then they are failing ethically.

I do not believe that there is a defined Webcomic's Code of Conduct that Thunt has freely acknowledged his adherence to. I am not disputing that Thunt may have failed his own expectations, but what you are talking about is your expectations, and the expectations of others, imposed from the outside, so failing morally.

So please just use the right word.

Now back to your regularly scheduled irritation.

[Skeik]

And since that time, all donations are on hold, and blocked.
So, everyone who donated got >two years of comics.

Draw your own conclusions from that for yourself.



Edit: the drive was nearly three years ago: http://www.goblinscomic.org/tempts-fate ... -my-house/

If I'm not mistaken, putting donations on hold is a relatively recent thing. And that still doesn't make up for the fact that a donation drive was held specifically for Tempts Fate. The comic would've probably gone on regardless, with Thunt still making money from regular donations, advertisements and merchandise without the donation drive being there. So no, he doesn't "owe" us anything I guess, however he did continually promise to finish Tempts Fate.

I'm not here to argue that Thunt is immoral or anything. I love his work and I've been reading for years. However it just doesn't make sense for him to continually make promises to the readers and then not fulfill them. I don't feel entitled to any details of his personal life and I don't think anyone else does either. If he had just come back and announced that he need some time, that would likely cause much less of a disturbance. Instead we get this big lead up to a blog and then radio silence again, that almost feels engineered to make fans upset.

Thunts deadlines and expectations are entirely self imposed. I don't think I'm alone when I say I will keep reading regardless of what he does. It would just be a lot less frustrating if he managed how he made promises better.

[ardenwolf]

ardenwolf, I'm not going to dispute the substance of your argument. Whatever my opinion, I don't think I would add substantially to the discourse.

However, I would like to raise a semantic issue. It may seem small to some, but it is, I feel, important.
You repeatedly talk about 'ethics'. Ethics are a code of conduct freely chosen and adhered to by an individual. When a Doctor swears the Hippocratic Oath, they are freely choosing to adhere to its ethical principles. The same for other professionals who agree to a defined set of principles (not that they all follow them). The point is that the impetus comes from the individual out.

Morality, which I think is what you are talking about, is imposed from something outside. Morality is based on societies' principles and expectations. When someone does not meet expectations you and others set on them in their conduct, they are failing morally.

When they fail to meet their own expectations, or fail to live up to a defined code that they have freely chosen to adhere to, then they are failing ethically.

I do not believe that there is a defined Webcomic's Code of Conduct that Thunt has freely acknowledged his adherence to. I am not disputing that Thunt may have failed his own expectations, but what you are talking about is your expectations, and the expectations of others, imposed from the outside, so failing morally.

So please just use the right word.

Now back to your regularly scheduled irritation.

You may be right... not completely sure. My main argument really is anyway, that people are not using the word "owed" incorrectly, and should not be attacked for it, or told they are wrong, because someone else does not personally feel owed anything. If I've used the word "ethically" wrongly I apologize and am willing to accept such. Would be wrong of me to chastise others for jumping down the throats of others for using a word correctly, while myself not being willing to accept the same.

[nikohl]

What I find funny is that you seem to have a problem with how other people define things, so you're yelling at them about it. Do you not see the irony in saying "stop telling people who don't think the same as you that they're wrong! That's so wrong!"

You're being kind of hypocritical. On top of all the other Thunt-bashing and whinging thinly disguised as 'disgruntled support'

But, meh. I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't do. I am only here to tell you you sound funny.

[Gryphonic]

If he had just come back and announced that he need some time, that would likely cause much less of a disturbance. Instead we get this big lead up to a blog and then radio silence again, that almost feels engineered to make fans upset.

That is one thing I can agree on. After the initial period of rising hysteria, the forums had grown fairly calm again about the unexpected hiatus. Until now. I understand THunt wants to explain the circumstances to us, whether for his own sake or ours I'm not sure and don't really care so long as he feels better afterward. But abortive communication has just stirred things up again, and I wish for everyone's sake it hadn't happened until the blog post itself appears.

RE: Tempts Fate 11, THunt posted as many pages as he promised he would for the drive. He was encouraged and wanted to do more, but those were optional on his part. I suppose that makes "finished Tempts Fate 11" rather semantic; I personally would rather have had a finished short story than an unfinished longer one, but repeating misinformation has made the mods cranky during the past month.

Already said more than I meant to; not touching Ardenwolf's argument; back to the other subforums for a while. Hopefully.

[quintuss]

@Skeik: By now i feel it's pretty obvious, that Thunt has had some kind of breakdown and that he is struggling to regain some form of normality and that he wants to go back to work.

What probably happened is that he felt pressure to give an explanation about what happened and that he tried to early so he "relapsed" and is currently not able to write that post.

His problem is partly selfmade in the sense that he always seems to try very hard to make everyone happy and that is never a good thing.
Partly this fanbase poses a problem too because a lot of people here seem to fail to realize that this is a webcomic site that should have limited importance for their life.
Instead of acting accordingly everything gets judged by pretty harsh standards and as you can see just here (bloated ongoing ethics discussion seemingly out of nowhere), people seem to go to great lengths to make everything very important... just my 2 cents.

Edit: Maybe Thunt would be better off being a dick sometimes without feeling guilty about it. It's very healthy you know.

[RedwoodElf]

Cmon guys, just chill and listen to some soothing music or something...

Like Eddie Murphy or Three Weird Sisters or something...

[ardenwolf]

What I find funny is that you seem to have a problem with how other people define things, so you're yelling at them about it. Do you not see the irony in saying "stop telling people who don't think the same as you that they're wrong! That's so wrong!"

You're being kind of hypocritical. On top of all the other Thunt-bashing and whinging thinly disguised as 'disgruntled support'

But, meh. I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't do. I am only here to tell you you sound funny.

Cept that's not what I'm doing, I'm telling them, they are telling people they are wrong using one definition of owed while ignoring/not realizing it's not the definition being used. All the definitions are proper uses of the word. Attacking someone for using one definition, because you'd rather stick with one of the other meanings they do not intend is not a matter of thinking differently than the other person, it's arguing passed each other while discussing completely different things with both sides getting mad at each other because they're both too thick to realize that they are both just viewing the same word and misunderstanding each others context. It's not a matter of opinion, and it's not subjective, that "owed" is being used properly, but in different context, using different definitions of the word from each other.

I just want people to stop talking cross purposes on this issue and move passed it, and to stop seeing people feeling they need to clarify they don't feel "owed" by one definition, when clearly they feel "owed" by the other, every time they want to discuss their being upset over what's going on. It's getting silly. If you feel "owed" by any definition of the word say it. And if someone uses the word, make sure you know which meaning of it they mean before deciding they are wrong.

[PaintsTurtles]

All right, I've been watching this go back and forth for a while now, and I think we've got myriad opinions and a lot of people feeling personally invested in this to the point where we're all getting far too worked up over this.

Here's what I see ardenwolf saying: "People have the right to feel that they should be given an explanation." That's pretty much it. Most of the examples and counter-examples have ventured far into the land of hyperbole and bad analogies, so it probably helps to keep things grounded with concrete language. I'm not going to compare the comic to anything else, because webcomics are a fundamentally different (historically speaking) way of doing business. Trying to compare it to something tangible like a pair of pants is a poor analogy at best because the natures of the two things are different at a basic level.

However, I would modify the argument a bit: "People have the right to believe that it is proper to either receive an update or cease promising updates at a given time without following through." Realistically speaking, I don't think that's a very controversial statement, mainly because it's simply acknowledging that people should be allowed to have feelings about how the issue is handled. You don't have to agree, but it's also worth noting that just because you feel differently, it's another thing to tell someone that they can't feel any other way either.

The issue of what "owed" means is at best a distraction, and I really don't want to wade into that, but I'll say this much: Both of the extreme positions on the issue come across as incomplete in my mind. Saying that there is no sense of obligation, even in the loosest sense, ignores the innate relationship between a content producer and content consumers. If there was no sense of obligation, authors and artists wouldn't beat themselves up over meeting deadlines and the like. However, the other extreme is equally lacking, in my opinion. If the comic were to end immediately, a great number of people would be disappointed, but there's nothing to be done but move on. There is nothing forcing the comic to continue, just as there is nothing forcing anyone to continue reading it, but that doesn't mean that there is no sense of obligation or no idea of an exchange (art for views) involved in the production. There is very much a transaction going on, but in a much more nebulous sense, which appears to be why there has been so much made of an otherwise tangential issue.

Now, I think perhaps people's tempers have run a bit high and the tendency to create camps and paint others as worse than they are has started to creep in. I really haven't seen anyone in here make an argument in bad faith and I don't think any of you are acting maliciously. Please keep this in mind when engaging each other! If you need to step away from the argument and post elsewhere for a bit, or even just stop altogether with the knowledge that disagreements are possible without thinking the other person is insensitive or a terrible human being, it might be beneficial. Can we agree, as a starting point in building some common ground, that people have the right to their own feelings about what is clearly a difficult issue, regardless of whether you personally agree with them?