Quick update on comics, games and this page's future viability

Hi everyone,

I really didn't want to have to make a post like this but unfortunately the time has come that some ground rules need to be placed or any comics I have planned will just have to be cancelled. We've managed to stop a few people trying to circumvent payment processing which is good but there's still some people posting comic updates elsewhere from higher tiers almost directly immediately after I post them here. I've messaged 2 about it and I'm watching 3 others for now. I think I've been fair by not outright banning them but this is a first and final warning, I'll have to ban anyone else I catch without warning.

This immediate "sharing" has resulted in cancellation of higher tier subs of course and now I'm 30% down this month as opposed to last month, right when the aggressive "sharing" started. I don't think people are aware but I lose 20% of monthly earnings to Patreon and Paypal's insane, scamming, currency conversion rates simply by the time it hits my bank account. I then have to give 50% of what remains to tax as this is legally a 2nd source of income in my country so automatically gets taxed at the highest bracket, so I'm down 60% before I even factor in ANY other costs at all. I think people see Patreon numbers and for some weird reason assume every cent goes to creators pockets. NOT EVEN CLOSE LOL!

I've been taking a loss for nearly a year doing this now and I was willing to do so because I saw support growing each month and people being somewhat respectful and waiting at least a month before leaking anything from Duke tier.

Although this was piracy, it benefited me because it got my comics out there for people to see but it also gave me a good month of time to make money for the effort, time and my own money I am putting into these projects. Unfortunately as soon as the sharing became aggressive and so sudden it had a negative effect on the channel and its something that will force me to stop due to financial reasons if the aggressive "speed sharing" continues.

I now see why so many artists leave comics for games because the return on comics is minimal in comparison, you can see for yourself that even the most average games have more support than most of the best comics. I want to give value by keeping comics once the game is released but this is a 2 way street. If I had 1000 supporters I wouldn't care because I'd be making back what I put in anyway, but I'm far from that and far from breaking even so I either need to be given full chance to reach that level of support or I need to just stop comics and make only the game. 

Yes I enjoy making these comics and the game but I cannot pay my rent or buy food with likes and download stats lol. I see games with very average renders and the most boring story lines yet with thousands of supporters after less time than what I've been making comics for, so if I have to choose one or the other, I know which one it will be lol.

If you'd like comics to continue, I'd advise not sharing any comic pages until at least a few weeks after Duke tier has seen those pages, that way whoever is sharing still gets their page clicks from my images, internet likes from their online buddies or whatever benefit it is. At the same time, I am also given time to be compensated for my time, effort and money spent too. You should be able to see from the quality of the pages that I put in 100% effort to every single image, I may do image sequences sometimes but I don't pad page numbers with 6 renders of the exact same scene just from different angles like a lot of others do, I try to make every single page count and have an impact. Each image can take me hours to set up, compose, light, etc and that's not even counting any render time. Keep in mind I'm not just making the few pages a week you see in the comic, I've posted how my folder of renders for the game is over 14GB right now, hundreds of renders, thousands if you count animations, it makes the comics look tiny in comparison and its release is just around the corner.

I'll take a risk this week and revert updates back to normal, if they're shared again EARLIER THAN 3 WEEKS AFTER DUKE TIER RELEASE it'll go back to individual updates to find the culprit again, if that doesn't work I'll just stop wasting my time making comics because even though games get pirated just as quickly, they at least get 10 times the support of comics of equal quality. 

TLDR: Have some patience, that way everyone gets what they want eventually. Keep "sharing" so soon after release and it'll just give me a great excuse to stop comics and work only on the game :)

Cheers,

DA.