 Earlier today I put up a fairly lengthy article about Emanuel F. Camacho and his history with Haven Publishing, GPX Gaming and Kunicon. What prompted this (and is mentioned in that article) was a situation involving Midwestern convention personality "Samurai Dan" Coglan's experiences as detailed in a fundraising Indiegogo campaign.
I've known about this campaign for a while because my thoughts on the topic are complicated.
I mean, I feel like there are pieces missing from this picture that I'll never be able to put together - like did Dan and Jillian ever give Manny Camacho money? Can we see an image of the bad check? It's just a really, really weird thing when you break it down.
But as I dug in, it was still clear (even with these missing details) that Dan Coglan was likely the victim. Yes, Dan and his wife Jillian did pretty much the complete checklist of what you never do in these situations, but a lack of savvy is a much lesser sin than preying on those without.
As for the Indiegogo campaign itself, whether or not you donate to keep Dan and Jillian afloat is up to you. It feels strange to me as a crowdfunding project, but the Coglans are upfront about what they're using the money for and their situation.
Honestly, while I've met both Dan and Jillian several times, I don't know them that well. I definitely have never met Mr. Camacho. Who you choose to blame for what is up to you, and I'm just trying to lay out the facts as best I can. Camacho has a history in this community which is undeniably shifty - he trades on names and promises that he can't seemingly back up...
...that's why I find it interesting, and that's why I write about it. Did Samurai Dan and Jillian mess up? Yep. But it's not entirely their fault.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
It's been a while since I posted a "random art" image to my blog, so I thought I'd try and get back into the habit. Mostly I just need to get back into the habit of posting things in general - because I've gotten really bad about that.
This particular installment is from tomorrow's page in The Chronicles of Crosarth. I'm a fan of the way it turned out, and thought it might be nice to let people see what the full color version looked like.
So yeah, that's about it.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
I've gotten spoiled in my tenure writing and drawing UnCONventional. On the few times reviews have come in (which since their aren't that many webcomic reviewers out there is fairly infrequent), they've all been glowing. I mean, you have no idea how much love the "I Hate November" storyline alone gets - I'm used to seeing things like, "It is very deep and also rather brilliant, and unexpectedly serious."
Like I said, I've been spoiled.
So when I saw a single click in my "referer" log from a review site, I clicked through... and man, I entered a whole new world. It was the most negative review of my work I've seen in my life. I mean, seriously, this guy hated my comic. Like really, really hated my comic.
Reading his review, some of the criticism is arguably valid. He doesn't like my art choices (although he accuses me of using images from Google Image search, which is obnoxious), and he's right -- I often don't have enough variety in my character's facial expressions.
But then there's... other stuff. For one, the reviewer only read "Chapter Four", and then complained about the Max/Tara breakup:
There's really no buildup or context to this event happening, and I wasn't aware that the characters were in a relationship until it was mentioned only one strip before the arguing started.
Let's think about this. The Max/Tara storyline was a four year arc, and the dude was surprised when he couldn't figure it out reading only the last part of it. I mean, seriously? If you're going to hate on it, fine - but you should at the very least read the whole thing.
It's like reading only the last quarter of a book and wondering why you don't know what's going on.
My other favorite bit was where the reviewer complained that I focused too much on the behind the scenes planning of conventions and not things like cosplay and vending. That's right, a comic which is literally supposed to be about running a convention focuses too much on it. It's like seeing the movie "Major League" and complaining that the film was too much about baseball and not enough about how Charlie Sheen styled his hair.
His hair was in the movie, but that's not what the film was about.
There's lots of other stuff, like how I stopped maintaining the twitter accounts for some of the characters (which is true - but only because they weren't really adding anything, and only a fraction of the readership had even discovered them), but those are the most egregious. I don't mind the parts where the guy says my jokes aren't funny, or that the art isn't up to snuff... humor is subjective, and I've said worse things about the art myself.
But again, if you're going to criticize my storytelling, why the heck wouldn't you, I don't know, read the whole story?
The one thing you'll notice is that I haven't linked the website where this review is published. There are two reasons for this - the first is that I don't want anyone harassing the reviewer. Just because his opinion is wrong doesn't mean he isn't entitled to it. The second reason is simple - his website gets so little traffic, that my linking to it would only help him.
My soapbox is, frankly, significantly larger than his.
The one great thing about this review though is that it gives me a great quote for the back of my next jacket cover: This webcomic is just a bunch of soulless, uninspired nothingness.
Yeah.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 6 ) ]
 "You're my favorite webcomic artist"
"I love your art!"
"That entire storyline was phenomenal"
The quotes above are all real things that people have said to me about my work in the last year. And when they say these things to me, I smile, say thanks... and have no idea how to take it. Fortunately for me (especially since I spend so many cons selling my work), I do know to just smile and say thanks. When I was younger I would probably sit there telling the person my work was actually pretty mediocre.
Why? Because I have never, in the entirety of my life, been able to process a compliment.
It's not that I think what I do is terrible. Far from it - but I'm the kind of person who describes what they do as not bad. I'll be the first to admit the issues in my art (and can go on at length about what I need to improve). I don't think I'm capable of describing my work as "good."
Now I don't want you to think I'm fishing for compliments at this point (or that I'm bragging with the quotes above). Chances are, if you're reading this, you already like my work. I mean, why else would you read my blog? True, you could be hate stalking me -- but then you already dislike me, and whatever I write here doesn't really matter.
In any case, I think this is a problem common with a lot of artists and writers I know. There are artist friends of mine whose work blows me away - but the instant you tell them it's great, they give you a five minute lecture on how terrible it is. And my message to these artists is simple: stop.
You always look at your work by your own standards, and I've always believed that the moment you're satisfied with it is the moment you stagnate. But what that means is that you're focusing on the flaws in your work, and not the good parts. A 90% perfect picture is pretty great, but the artist probably only sees the 10%. Even if you can never see anything but that 10%, when someone tells you they love the 90% -- you have to let them.
Don't deconstruct the remaining bits, just be happy someone enjoys your work. Let them love the bits they see.
Because that's sort of the whole point.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]
 So last night I was happy to release the fourth print collection of my webcomic UnCONventional. It's a little more expensive than the last two collections at $24.99, but this book is about twenty pages longer, so my printing costs are a little higher.
This was UnCONventional's first year of being completely presented in color as well, which is sort of cool.
I've tossed in as much bonus content as I could. True, a lot of it has ended up in my blog, but a lot of UnCONventional's readers don't really bother reading my scrawls of nonsense. So yeah, it'll be new to those people.
This is the earliest I've gotten a book out after a chapter completed, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. I won't have copies of it for sale at Nezumi Con sadly (since an affordable large order would show up several days after the con), but it's available for sale on the website right now and on Amazon.com.
So yeah. You should buy it. Because stuff.
It's neat, trust me.
As I just mentioned, I'll be at Nezumi Con on January 25th in Milwaukee, WI. You should come down if you can. It's a nice little micro-convention that I did last year, and I decided to return. I'm working on adding more cons to my schedule this year, but it takes time to make this stuff happen. Hopefully I'll get to do some new shows this year (and a few closer to home), but we'll see.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
 Community's fifth season even existing is kind of amazing on so many levels. I mean, a low rated sitcom not only got renewed, but it's fired show runner (who had been absent from the fourth season) was rehired. This is the sort of thing that never happens.
But it did.
And it's fantastic.
As I did with season four, I wanted to reserve judgement until we were solidly in the season, but even after only three episodes I think I'm ready to declare Community officially back to its best days. This is the show I fell in love with, this is the show I've been missing. This is the show I kept hoping it would be during the whole fourth season.
I mean to tell you how much I've loved this season so far, I've watched last Thursday's "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics" (a send up of David Fincher films and about 90% of the crime dramas on TV) not once, not twice but six times so far.
You read that right: Six times.
The show may have lost Chevy Chase between seasons, but Jonathan Banks is filling his new role quite nicely. John Oliver is back. Ken Jeong's Chang is actually funny again. Sadly Donald Glover will exit in a few more episodes, but I'm glad we've had him as long as we did.
The show is tight, well scripted, and packed with jokes where I can yet again (as hinted previously) return to my ritual of watching each episode multiple times. This is good stuff.
Now we may not make it to "Six Seasons and a Movie," but with season five I've returned to hoping for that goal again.
And it's almost in reach.
(Also, I've had the Ben Fold's penned "Ass Crack Bandit" song from episode 3 going through my head on a loop practically.)
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
 So most of the midwest is a frozen wasteland. Right now it's negative thirteen degrees Fahrenheit out down here in Indiana, and the updated highs say it will only climb up to a balmy negative eleven. To compound the problems, most of Indiana was hit with eight to twelve inches of snow yesterday, and as I always say, Indiana handles twelve inches of snow the way Wisconsin deals with twenty-four.
This means that most of the state is shut down right now.
And by shut down, I mean literally shut down. I-65 is closed from here in Lafayette all the way to Chicago. Several counties near us have areas without power, and emergency shelters have been set up. Last I checked, the national guard has been mobilized.
Of course, some of us read the weather forecast and were prepared ahead of time.
On Saturday, the day before the snow storm, Crysta and I went out to the grocery store and stocked up on supplies. Normally, we're pretty day to day with our groceries, just because it gives me something to do in the morning (as one of the challenges to working from home for me is feeling like I've actually gotten up - and a morning errand helps with that). We spent yesterday then watching the snow, staying nicely warm inside.
Today we continue that. Crysta, of course, gets to sleep in as Purdue is closed today, meaning she doesn't have to go to work. I, on the other hand, being a telecommuter don't have that privilege. I get to work like it's a normal day.
A normal day we were ready for.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]
I used to do a reflective post every year, but for the last couple things had been pretty stable so I skipped it. That said, I felt like 2013 was eventful enough where I wanted to look back a bit - so let's go through it.
1. I did some new conventions
I branched out in my cons in 2013, trying a nice little con in Milwaukee called Nezumi Con and I was the artist guest of honor at Anomaly Con out in Denver, CO. I had a great time at both, and I seriously recommend anyone check out both of them.
I'll be back at Nezumi Con in a few weeks, so you should come out and stop by. I won't be back at Anomaly Con (I only was able to go since they had me out as a guest), but if you're in Denver it's a great time. Their staff was super awesome, and I was glad for the opportunity to do a show in that region since I rarely do.
2. I launched a new podcast
This summer I started a new podcast with "ProfessorPher" and "Nick Izumi" and it's been going really well. We've done Nerd & Tie every fortnight, and a good number of you have been listening - including those of you who came out for our first live show back in November at Daisho Con. It's been a pleasure working with those two, as they're both exceptionally talented.
If you haven't checked out their live talkshow styled panel, Otaku Tonight, you should at the next con they're doing - Anime Milwaukee. You should also come out the next time we do a live episode of Nerd & Tie, which is likely going to be No Brand Con in April.
3. I did a full year of color comics
I'd done spots of color in UnCONventional over the years, but 2013 was the first year where I did the entire thing in color. It turned out well, and I'm happy with the results. I have big plans for the future of that comic strip, but for now I'm happy with the way things are.
4. I was reminded the Con scene is a darker place than I like to pretend it is
Bad stuff happened this year in the con scene, but bad stuff happens every year. The good news is that now we're finally talking about it (even if some people would prefer we didn't). Stuff is still pretty bad, but at least we know how to fix it now.
And that gives me hope
So yeah, that was my 2013 more or less. I also went to the drive in more often and explored some towns I'd never been to before. All in all, a good year. Here's looking forward to 2014.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
 I sit here on a lovely Yule morning, just a tad reflective. The winter holidays are one of my favorite times of year, and one of the few things that can make me still feel the excitement I used to as a child. There's something about colored lights lighting up the longest nights as we fight backt he darkness that just sort of makes me feel... good. There are lots of things from my childhood that no longer inspire deep nostalgia and joy, but the Holidays are not one of them. They still hit me with full joyous force.
Of course, as much as I love this time of year, it's nothing compared to how much my wife Crysta loves it.
Seriously, she's super into it.
Crysta seriously loves Christmas more than anyone I've ever met.
But as cookies get baked and presents get wrapped, I can't help but worry about other things. There's an uncommonly high level of stress right now on my professional life which is palpable. I don't talk about that stuff online - but trust me, it's not exactly been super happy fun land these last few months. Creatively I'm feeling rushed because I need to push updates to The Chronicles of Crosarth and UnCONventional out the door faster than I'd like. I need to make sure comics don't stop while I travel, but it reduces my work time significantly.
And, y'know, the travel itself is stressful.
But Monday night, weather permitting, we hit the road for my parent's house to spend Christmas with my family. And as we head into a packed house, I still can't help but feel excited.
Because at thirty-three, I still get that same feeling of anticipation going downstairs on Christmas morning.
And I hope that never goes away.
- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]
|
|
|
![Trae Dorn [dot] Com](http://www.trhonline.com/traedornproductionslogo-2025-web.png)
