• peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, it came out of left field, but it’s an Indy webcomic. It’s his singular expression and ip. Why should the audience a) feel so entitled to react in such an invasive and insensitive way, b) react with anger instead of empathy? It’s just childish.

    • lime!@feddit.nu
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      2 days ago

      it was far more than an indie comic at the time, it rivalled penny arcade for readership. there was a convention and everything.

      reading the preceding and following ten pages is insane tonal whiplash because the comic didn’t tell coherent stories and it wasn’t about to start just because there was a horrible, traumatic event written into it. also, there was no indication from tim at the time that it was connected to real-world events. that came later.

      none of which, of course, is an excuse. however, the reaction to the comic was typical of fans at the time, and tim’s reaction to the fans was more of the same. it passed into memehood not because of any connection to the artist’s internal turmoil, but because of the very visible turmoil of the webcomic ripping itself apart from inside in an attempt to reestablish normalcy. it was crazy to witness.

    • LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      Yeah ultimately we don’t know how people are processing their grief, which he clearly was, and even if we don’t like something or have critiques, the vitriol he received was wildly disproportionate to what he did. At worst it was “in poor taste” but even that is a stretch if you ask me