WhatPumpkin, LLC / Homestuck, Inc. : Chuck Tingle, Andrew Hussie and Friends - feat. Rachel Rocklin, Shelby Cragg, and Cohen Edenfield

[Hypodermic Johnny]

At the very least, reclusive and disdainful of his fanbase or not, he should apologize for having nothing to show for the money and take responsibility for what his team is doing with the money if they're even doing anything. Hell, Inafune did when MN9 didn't live up to expectations.

There does seem to be SOMETHING coming out of WP and it doesn't look entirely slapdash, so... ?

 

[Taargus]

It's definitely worth examining the claims of the developers thefting that nearly-million dollars (especially if they were banning people for asking questions) but I think it's a bit of a stretch to include him collaborating with KC who collaborated with Shmorky once.
They're all popular webcomic artists, so the association makes sense. No need to play six degrees of Shmorky

 

[Ted Empty]

At the very least, reclusive and disdainful of his fanbase or not, he should apologize for having nothing to show for the money and take responsibility for what his team is doing with the money if they're even doing anything. Hell, Inafune did when MN9 didn't live up to expectations.

They don't have nothing to show, Hiveswap is coming out, just not as well as it could have.

 

[Xerxes IX]

Release date: January 2017

Also noticed they've made it an episodic game. Probably because they want to be able to release something before everyone who backed the game cries scam.

 

[Ted Empty]

Also noticed they've made it an episodic game. Probably because they want to be able to release something before everyone who backed the game cries scam.

getting fucked as hard as they did i can't say i blame them

 

[Michel]

I think this is the best way to sum it up.

Can you sum it up for me?

 

[D. Sweatshirt]

I'll probably come up with something much more constructive later on in the thread, but I'll say something that other kiwis seem to agree with.

Hussie himself isn't a bad guy. I honestly believe that he just got roped into some shit and couldn't fight back, first because of his somewhat apparently non-confrontational nature, then because the cash was rolling in and life was doing pretty good-- Who wouldn't get comfortable with a shitton of money?

I'm really side-eyeing the people around him. Hussie is an artist and writer before being a businessman and internet figure or w/e, and since his shit was popular, people decided to drag him into a different scene and pander to a demographic who would be all to eager to throw cash at anything that would have [insert specifically labelled characters and criteria here] in it.

Unless I'm proven wrong, I'll grab onto this. I have some hope left.

I want to believe that Hussie's just trying to pander to people who'll pay him more money for merch, but this whole thing seems shady to me. There's a sliver of hope he'll come back to his old ways and write an epilogue to finally give the comic a proper ending without any cringy bullshit attached, but I just don't see it happening.

What's important to remember is that Hussie himself hired these people. Cohen got hired by Hussie straight off of Twitter for his shitposts, which he talks about in this intervew with Gamecrate. Rachel was someone he hired for PR work a few years back. Sure, he might be an artist first and a businessman second, but goddamn has he been making some bad choices in terms of people to work with.

Cohen's also dumb enough to have left his dox up for us to find; it's been part of the first post since day one.

It's definitely worth examining the claims of the developers thefting that nearly-million dollars (especially if they were banning people for asking questions) but I think it's a bit of a stretch to include him collaborating with KC who collaborated with Shmorky once.
They're all popular webcomic artists, so the association makes sense. No need to play six degrees of Shmorky

You do have a point there. I started work on the article shortly before word broke loose of KC quietly dropping Shmorky from his Twitter, so it's probably not relevant info anymore. Still, the way they're handling this just reeks of something shady going on.

There does seem to be SOMETHING coming out of WP and it doesn't look entirely slapdash, so... ?

Also noticed they've made it an episodic game. Probably because they want to be able to release something before everyone who backed the game cries scam.

http://archive.md/ejmqq

I have my doubts it'll be out for a while.


Sorry for the long post, lots of stuff I needed to mention.

 

[Xerxes IX]

want to believe that Hussie's just trying to pander to people who'll pay him more money for merch, but this whole thing seems shady to me. There's a sliver of hope he'll come back to his old ways and write an epilogue to finally give the comic a proper ending without any cringy bullshit attached, but I just don't see it happening.

What's important to remember is that Hussie himself hired these people. Cohen got hired by Hussie straight off of Twitter for his shitposts, which he talks about in this intervew with Gamecrate. Rachel was someone he hired for PR work a few years back. Sure, he might be an artist first and a businessman second, but goddamn has he been making some bad choices in terms of people to work with.

He's been doing it for so long, and it's been entrenched in his social circle, so deciding to excise the SJW cabal from his work would be basically shooting himself in the foot. And judging by the way most people like that operate they'd probably release lots of dirt on him out of spite if he did decide to go back to his old ways.

 

[AnOminous]

He's been doing it for so long, and it's been entrenched in his social circle, so deciding to excise the SJW cabal from his work would be basically shooting himself in the foot. And judging by the way most people like that operate they'd probably release lots of dirt on him out of spite if he did decide to go back to his old ways.

This is why Internet fandoms are utter cancer and you should as soon invite tumors into your brain as Internet fans into your life.

 

[Forever Sunrise]

This is why Internet fandoms are utter cancer and you should as soon invite tumors into your brain as Internet fans into your life.

I have never wanted the ability to give more than one 'agree' rating on this forum more than at this very moment.

 

[Ted Empty]

Can you sum it up for me?

what do you want a quick rundown

 

[Michel]

what do you want a quick rundown

Yeah I'm not reading all that.

 

[Lurkette]

holy shit dante basco? from what i've seen he's a chill dude. talks to his fans a lot on tumblr (or at least used to, been awhile.) i wonder what went on that he quietly dropped everything? he doesn't seem like the kind of person to just back out...

i heard that toby made undertale as practice for hiveswap/to raise more funds. is this true? i hadn't heard that until recently and the game came out what, a year and a half ago? and i was pretty entrenched in the fandom so i'd be surprised if i had missed that little factoid initially.

 

[Ineedahero]

The reason kc green knows shmorky is because they are both web artists and they are/were both goons, and more specifically beloved by the various shitposting forums there.

some mediocre webcomic.
Think of it as if after making Evangelion (Problem Sleuth), Gainax made fucking teletubies.

Wait, I assume by this you are saying that problem sleuth is amazing, are you also saying it's crazy? Should I read it if I'm super bored? Keeping in mind that the amount of people in this thread who are or were apparently big homestuck fans is making me suicidal.

see: the mental breakdown of the Pictures For Sad Children guy

Anywhere I can go for a summary of this? I love a good mental breakdown.

 

[RADICALGOBLIN]

Wait, I assume by this you are saying that problem sleuth is amazing, are you also saying it's crazy? Should I read it if I'm super bored? Keeping in mind that the amount of people in this thread who are or were apparently big homestuck fans is making me suicidal.

Anywhere I can go for a summary of this? I love a good mental breakdown.

I mean that it was a really good project that was followed up by a shitty project

 

[Hypodermic Johnny]

Anywhere I can go for a summary of this? I love a good mental breakdown.

I don't know if it's on the internet anywhere anymore, I know he's taken down his own site and comics, but the story goes that there was a point people were contacting the Pictures For Sad Children artist about them not getting the books they ordered from him, he then proceeds to go to a party, have some kind of depressing realization and turns out a bunch of increasingly worrisome updates, goes radio silent, then outs a bunch of other webcomic artists as being clinically depressed (Kate Beaton and the like), and basically goes on this long nihilistic textwall rant about how he was only pretending to be depressed to get money out of people and that he apparently burned all the unsold books.

It was one of the first real public webcomic artist shitshows - not counting that one dude who apparently was driven crazy by SJWs. It also never really had a conclusion. He never updated his site after that rant, and eventually it just went down.

 

[A Random]

Wait, I assume by this you are saying that problem sleuth is amazing, are you also saying it's crazy? Should I read it if I'm super bored? Keeping in mind that the amount of people in this thread who are or were apparently big homestuck fans is making me suicidal.

Problem Sleuth at least was fun about its crazy and not that far up its own head. And had a fat guy punching things in the snout, marrying a game piece, turning into Batman, going on the Oregon Trail, and later getting out of the game to find his dead wife and son in the afterlife.

Also time paradoxes meant that at one point there were three of the fat guy running around, which ended up being a big fat guy, a fat guy, and a zombie fat guy.

 

[D. Sweatshirt]

A little earlier in the thread, it was mentioned that WhatPumpkin used to be much more trigger-happy about shutting down fanmade projects and merchandise. While it seems they've stopped doing that for the time being, it looks like over the past few days, people have been masquerading as WhatPumpkin's legal team and sending fake copyright claims to a few recent fan projects, most notably the Overseer Project. Cohen himself had to stop by to explain that these claims were from a fake account and had nothing to do with WP directly. Considering they say almost nothing to their fanbase other than announcing project delays and shilling merch, it's an interesting turn of events, to say the least.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

What about the official MSPA forums sudden disappearance?
https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/4e0ud8/mspa_forums_gone_forever/
It would be easy to say "and nothing of value was lost" but users would host their own fan work in the threads (and no, not all of it was cancer), some of which were year-spanning webcomics of their own. It's just a bit heartbreaking seeing genuine labours of love and actual discussion vanish into thin air like that.

 

[D. Sweatshirt]

What about the official MSPA forums sudden disappearance?
https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/4e0ud8/mspa_forums_gone_forever/
It would be easy to say "and nothing of value was lost" but users would host their own fan work in the threads (and no, not all of it was cancer), some of which were year-spanning webcomics of their own. It's just a bit heartbreaking seeing genuine labours of love and actual discussion vanish into thin air like that.

I remember that happening. Really sad times.

EDIT:
While I'm at it, here's an update on Dante Basco: apparently he's working on a prequel for Hook with someone else taking his place as Rufioh.

Not surprised he's falling back to older ideas in order to try to make a quick buck.