lifmcs wrote:While I agree with a number of your criticisms (and praises) I wanted to highlight this bit as perhaps inappropriate for a public forum. We are not privy to the full circumstances under which you gave MCtek temporary reign over your characters. Lacking that context, this statement will most likely lead nowhere productive. If you feel ... perturbed about how your characters specifically were (un)used, maybe have that out in a private exchange?
Here I am sounding all haughty like I moderate this place :police: (for want of more smiley options). Really I just hate conflict of all sorts, and comments that stray too far from constructive criticism make my innards perform unpleasant acrobatics.
Comic feedback on the forums has always been a difficult thing to balance, and both readers and artists use the forums and react to praise and criticism in many different ways.
On one hand, it is nice to hear nothing but praise and adoration in response to hard work, and nobody can accuse MC Tek of NOT working hard on his comics. He puts a lot of passion into every page and truly wishes to develop every character. I know I've been guilty of feeling upset and/or disappointed when I post what I feel was some of my better issues, only for nobody to respond at all to those issues. It made me go "obviously they didn't like it enough to comment on it or discuss it", but while that may not be the case, it's easy for your mind to play tricks on you like that.
On the OTHER hand, constructive criticism is an ESSENTIAL part of feedback, and I really, really encourage it for my stories. One of my art teachers once said that one piece of criticism is worth a hundred pieces of praise. Nobody's comic is perfect; all of us have problems in minor and major areas, ranging from art to plot to character writing.
Some of us just plain cannot translate the ideas in our heads, that make sense, to a comic page wholly intact. Sacrifices have to be made, unexpected changes may occur, and often real life gets in the way and some of us may be too proud to accept help or take a break to get our priorities in order. We love doing what we do.
More on topic, I won't state my "professional" opinion on whether Akonkid should've written Tek in private to bring up that particular case of criticism, but I understand his point and his frustration. I've lent my character Hypnotica to someone for a story that got started but never even posted here and I know how upsetting it is to watch your creation, that you do love and care about, be generously offered to someone else, expecting them to treat them with respect and to make the most of that gift, only to watch it squandered and/or misused.
That said, that's something that I feel is more emotional on a creator's side, and I agree, probably should've been sorted out prior to the post or at the very least reworded. Tek's got a lot of stories on his plate, a lot of big plans. For better or worse, his current stories with his current ideas and his current characters were "holding him back". While I may be one of those that wasn't ready to let go of the old stories and ideas in favor of new ones, that's no MY choice to make.
I think the sooner everyone can just accept a few abrupt endings as what they are, like them for what they are in the manner in which they were made, and move on, we can enjoy the sure-to-be-great stories Tek has on the horizon. It's always hard moving onto bigger, better things when you're still entrenched in stories, characters, and ideas from the past. I loved all those ideas too, and I did want more too, but oh well. C'est la vie. Let's give Tek some credit that he has something so good it'll make these petty complaints about past comics quickly get forgotten. From the teasers I've seen, it sure looks that way.