What gives?

[Ræx]

(Scrubbed)

[elros]

I enjoy frequent, or at least predictable, updates as much as anyone, so I share your frustration. But I also remind myself that, in the end, I'm not paying for this. There have been times I have sworn off this comic, but I always check back in and am pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy it again.
If you want to give it up, your are free to do so. I suggest checking back in a couple of months and see if you like the progress. You may even get sucked back in!

[BaronOfHell]

I don't understand why sharing, but not caring? I thought we generally share out of care.

[Everyl]

Interesting that the thread title is a question, but the OP claims to not be planning to read the answers. Answers as simple as "the artist makes the money he lives on from Christmas merchandise, so it's a priority" and "the artist badly injured his drawing thumb last year, remember?"

[oppyu]

(Scrub the post, scrub the quote)
Eh, dude can write at his own pace. Maybe leaving will be good for you, apparently waiting between strips is a huge burden so you'll be able to find more things to do with your time.

[SlashDash]

I fail to see the problem, just ask to get your money back.
Oh, wait, you're not paying for this are you?

[Cizak]

Nevermind the fact that Rich obviously spent the last few days working on Christmas merchandise and that he has tons of Kickstarter stuff to complete that got delayed due to a severe injury, what you're basically saying here is "This sucks and I'm sharing my opinions but I don't want to hear any opinions disagreeing with me so lalala can't hear you I'm leaving", correct? That seems fair.

Edit: The update schedule has not been "three times a week" in several years. I'm not sure exactly, but I believe it has been "whenever the next strip is finished" for at least four years.

[Roland Itiative]

Personally, I prefer to let the authors of fiction I enjoy take their time coming up with ideas and executing them well, rather than adhering to a strict schedule to the detriment of their work. If that means I'll have to live every other week without a Order of the Stick strip or wait more than five years for the next A Song of Ice and Fire novel, so be it, it's not the end of the world.

Also, I don't know how long ago the strip ceased to have a three-per-week schedule, but it's worth noting that it's come a long ways from its beginning. The story is growing increasingly complex, and so is the art. Writing a coherent storyline with dozens of supporting characters is not as easy as making a gag-a-day strip.

It's not as much a "cult of personality" around the Giant, and more like acknowledging he's a human being, and letting him do his work (which he provides us for free) without the extra stress of constant pressure. In other words, it's the opposite of a cult of personality.

I'm certainly speaking to the walls here, since you said that you aren't coming back, but eh, those are my two copper pieces anyway.

[Trillium]

Such a tremendous loss.

[oppyu]

Are we a cult? I'm not on board with being a cult member, I thought this was a simple congregation!

[Composer99]

Yes, what a shame that Burlew might take time off producing content that gets published online for free in order to do things that actually earn money. And you bet your bottom dollar he shouldn't feel entitled to take some time off around a major holiday, either. Nosiree.

[ChristianSt]

I would certainly love more/faster OotS. But the only person who can change that is the Giant himself. And if he thinks that is the best "schedule" for whatever reason than it is so.

Nobody can really complain that a given free content gets updated fast enough or not. If you can't live with it than you should just drop it (as you have announced to do so)

[Yuki Akuma]

Mr. Burlew both suffers from an unspecified, chronic condition that occasionally renders him bedridden, and has also semi-recently damaged his drawin' hand and only recovered recently. He also actually has to do side projects to earn money, as OoTS does not, in itself, actually earn anything - he gets money from merchandise that has to be designed separately.

Cutting him some slack is the right thing to do.

[factotum]

Are we a cult? I'm not on board with being a cult member, I thought this was a simple congregation!

Speak for yourself, I'm all up for this being a cult--when do we get the cool outfits and the secret handshake? :smallwink:

[KillianHawkeye]

(Scrub the post, scrub the quote)

Okie dokie. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, kthx.

[Nimin]

It's not as much a "cult of personality" around the Giant, and more like acknowledging he's a human being, and letting him do his work (which he provides us for free) without the extra stress of constant pressure. In other words, it's the opposite of a cult of personality.
I think he was referring to certain overzealous fanboys rather than strictly talking about the update schedule here.

[Bovine Colonel]

it isn't fair on the fans

Speak for yourself please.

[FujinAkari]

Welcome to Giant in the Playground, where free gourmet ice cream is delivered. Complaining about the rate at which the free ice cream is provided is generally frowned upon.

To be slightly more helpful, if you're tired of coming to the site every day and seeing no comic, why aren't you using the RSS feed which Rich already provides you so you don't have to do that? Seriously man, complaining that a person with -two- handicaps can't work as fast as you'd like?

[Spoomeister]

Another way to look at it is that there have been plenty of updates, just to a different or slightly smaller audience (the gygax mag comics, kick starter reward comics, Xmas inventory pics) and not to the story you want to read.

[orrion]

Happy holidays, OP, and I hope the self-entitlement doesn't ruin them for anyone except you!

By the way, last week? 3 comics.

[Vinyadan]

My friend, to save you from your suffering, allow me to suggest you two most excellent of comics: Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/) and Dresden Codak (http://dresdencodak.com/).

[137beth]

Are we a cult? I'm not on board with being a cult member, I thought this was a simple congregation!

What? You shall be shunned from our cult, effective immediately!

[Shale]

Welcome to Giant in the Playground, where free gourmet ice cream is delivered. Complaining about the rate at which the free ice cream is provided is generally frowned upon.

To be slightly more helpful, if you're tired of coming to the site every day and seeing no comic, why aren't you using the RSS feed which Rich already provides you so you don't have to do that? Seriously man, complaining that a person with -two- handicaps can't work as fast as you'd like?

It is not physically possible for me to agree more strongly with this post.


My friend, to save you from your suffering, allow me to suggest you two most excellent of comics: Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/) and Dresden Codak (http://dresdencodak.com/).

Ooooh, and Power Nap!

[JSSheridan]

I don't understand why sharing, but not caring? I thought we generally share out of care.

Just passive-agressive whining because he knows he's not going to get what he wants.

[Astroturtle]

I won't be hear to read what the rabid fandom has to say. I know when something isn't right. I'm gone.

Five quatloos says he's still hanging around, reading every reply.

[astralmeson]

Speak for yourself, I'm all up for this being a cult--when do we get the cool outfits and the secret handshake? :smallwink:

We already have our shirts. Add a cape, and all that's left to do is make a secret handshake. Any suggestions?

[Spoomeister]

why aren't you using the RSS feed which Rich already provides you so you don't have to do that?

Sample size of one, but I know the RSS feed doesn't work reliably for me. Sometimes it will hiccup and give me a batch of previous comics up to the current one, in a wave; sometimes I get the newest one but delayed by a half a day or more. It's hard for me to tell if it's something with my various devices and RSS readers (still haven't found an RSS reader I like, for Android...) so never really looked into it closely.

[Daywalker1983]

The rule is no discussing of the update schedule, let's leave it at that.

There are other interesting points, though.

Firstly: Just because the strip doesn't cost money, it's not free. The currency of the internet is attention, and the giant aknwolegdes that in his anniversary posting: He created the comic in order to draw attention to the playground, which was supposed to be a means of benefitting from his paltry name recognition. We are not doing the giant a favor just by reading it. The giant earns money from our clicks though the ads, and while that might not be much, there is another point. If, say 10% of all the readers buy his merchandise, then he has a vested interested in having as much readers as possible. We spread the word, we buy the books, we funded the kickstarter.
And since the comic has moved beyond being a draw for the site, it has become advertising for the merchandise. It's a great strip, but it's not like the giant is doing it out of altruism. Even if there was no money involved, he's not doing us a favor. He is a writer, he wants to be read. Even in this day and age, time and attention are finite ressources, of which we are devoting some to the giant. It's, if you want to be complicated about it, a symbiosis.

Secondly: There is a cult of sorts. People quote the giant quoting them in their sigs, the Giant quote thread became a form of stalking, which even the giant himself wanted to be stopped. Some parts of the comic are not up for discussion, implying the giant has made an less than ideal writing decision usually leads to flame wars. I might be exaggerating the last part, but I can definitely see where the OP is coming from...now his tantrum, that's another matter.

Edit for typos...not all of them, I guess...

[geeky_monkey]

I'd prefer a regular update schedule - I'd rather know I was going to get 1 comic a week on the same day than hopefully checking the webpage 4 or 5 times a day. Because I do. Every day. And it's so disapointing when there's not a new strip waiting for me.

However, that's my problem not The Giant's so I should just learn to control myself better.

[RabidEel]

We already have our shirts. Add a cape, and all that's left to do is make a secret handshake. Any suggestions?

Borrow one from the Drow signs shirt?

[Spoomeister]

My friend, to save you from your suffering, allow me to suggest you two most excellent of comics: Lackadaisy (http://www.lackadaisycats.com/) and Dresden Codak (http://dresdencodak.com/).

LOL. Just followed those links and got the joke. Well done. :smallbiggrin:

[Jay R]

Speak for yourself, I'm all up for this being a cult--when do we get the cool outfits and the secret handshake? :smallwink:

We already have our shirts. Add a cape, and all that's left to do is make a secret handshake. Any suggestions?
The cult leaders already have the shirts, capes, wrist communicators and secret handshake. If you don't have yours yet, you're one of the mindless zealot minions.

Don't worry. Go blindly about your "real" life for the time being. You'll get your orders when the right moment for action occurs.

[Dragonmuncher]

Shrug. It's a pretty common question in the webcomics world, "What does the artist owe his fans?"

The answer is, essentially, "nothing... but the fans don't owe anything, either."

The way you get and keep an audience is with consistent updates. I was a diehard fan of OotS since... the Starmetal sidequest, I believe. Pretty active in the forums, too.

Now, I still love OotS, but I only check it daily because it's in the list of tabs that I open as a group. Usually no update, but ah well. No real skin off my back. And the quality is good enough that it doesn't bother me too much.

Compare that to, say, Megatokyo, another strip I used to love. But it also had tons of delays, and I made the decision that it just wasn't worth keeping up with. One of these days I may go back and do an archive binge... or maybe not.


Anyway. OotS is awesome, and if the delays bother you, just come back once a month or so.

[Bulldog Psion]

Okay, now people aren't going to like this. There seems to be something of a 'cult of personality' around Mr. Burlew where he can do no wrong and I am very likely throwing a 6 year old account on the bonfire but I just can't take it anymore.

Where once was a release three times a week without fail, it has become once a week. If we're lucky. The story has slowed to a painful crawl and it isn't fair on the fans. I'm sick of coming to this site every day and finding no new comic, no end to an already painfully drawn-out story arch.

I won't be hear to read what the rabid fandom has to say. I know when something isn't right. I'm gone.

Six year account with the rank of Pixie? I'm not sure if you've been active enough to particularly worry about "throwing it in the bonfire."

Secondly, it seems to me that the people who get so upset over the rate at which comics come out are the real cultists, who are hung up enough on it for nerdrage.

Thirdly, it usually helps to have several forms of entertainment, so that you can switch between them. Especially in the case of a webcomic. It must be pretty boring to sit there waiting for a new one to be put up. May I recommend reading books, playing video games, learning a new language, or napping as just a few possibilities for filling the hours between updates?

[Roland Itiative]

Firstly: Just because the strip doesn't cost money, it's not free. The currency of the internet is attention, and the giant aknwolegdes that in his anniversary posting: He created the comic in order to draw attention to the playground, which was supposed to be a means of benefitting from his paltry name recognition. We are not doing the giant a favor just by reading it. The giant earns money from our clicks though the ads, and while that might not be much, there is another point. If, say 10% of all the readers buy his merchandise, then he has a vested interested in having as much readers as possible. We spread the word, we buy the books, we funded the kickstarter.
And since the comic has moved beyond being a draw for the site, it has become advertising for the merchandise. It's a great strip, but it's not like the giant is doing it out of altruism. Even if there was no money involved, he's not doing us a favor. He is a writer, he wants to be read. Even in this day and age, time and attention are finite ressources, of which we are devoting some to the giant. It's, if you want to be complicated about it, a symbiosis.
No one said the Giant gains nothing from the comic itself, he definitely does. It still doesn't cost nothing to us, the readers. If anything, it's a win-win scenario (with the "win", for the Giant, being significantly less than he gets with other forms of income, even if they're derived from the attention he got from the free webcomic).


Secondly: There is a cult of sorts. People quote the giant quoting them in their sigs, the Giant quote thread became a form of stalking, which even the giant himself wanted to be stopped. Some parts of the comic are not up for discussion, implying the giant has made an less than ideal writing decision usually leads to flame wars. I might be exaggerating the last part, but I can definitely see where the OP is coming from...now his tantrum, that's another matter.

About the quote thread, specifically, I see it as a very useful way to find the official answer to some frequent questions regarding the comic (and thus avoid the same questions being brought up again and again), since there is no built-in search function on the forums.

[The Succubus]

Welcome to Giant in the Playground, where free gourmet ice cream is delivered. Complaining about the rate at which the free ice cream is provided is generally frowned upon.

Elegantly put, except now I want ice cream.

[FujinAkari]

The giant earns money from our clicks though the ads,

What ads? The Giant has no ads outside of the forum, he doesn't earn a single red cent from a visit to the comic itselfd.


If, say 10% of all the readers buy his merchandise, then he has a vested interested in having as much readers as possible. We spread the word, we buy the books, we funded the kickstarter.

This doesn't seem to be addressing the point you claim it is. None of this makes the comic any less free. We may buy things from Rich, but that in no way makes him indebted to us anymore than the girl at Taco Bell is indebted to you for buying a taco. We gave him money in exchange for a thing, not for any ongoing requirement on his part for ours.


Even if there was no money involved, he's not doing us a favor. He is a writer, he wants to be read.

Uh... no. A writer is not in service of his audience, she is in service to herself. Writers tell stories they want to read, and, while they use audience response to gauge how effectively their story is being told and grow as a writer, their goal is not simply to please the audience. Rich has stated as much, numerous times.


Secondly: There is a cult of sorts. People quote the giant quoting them in their sigs, the Giant quote thread became a form of stalking, which even the giant himself wanted to be stopped.

This seems to be a deliberate deformation of the truth. The Giant put in some guidelines, but he didn't want the thread stopped. Notice how it isn't locked? There you go.

Also, I have never seen anyone quoting the giant in their sig outside of this site, which seems the bare minimum requirement for it to constitute a "cult." That people acknowledge and respect Rich on his own site is the norm, just like I imagine there are a lot of people respect J. K. Rowling on Harry Potter fansites.


Some parts of the comic are not up for discussion, implying the giant has made an less than ideal writing decision usually leads to flame wars.

The opposite is true, mediocre writing that says nothing about everything is the only type of writing that cannot lead to flame wars. Writing which makes bold points and creates dynamic and polarizing characters is what will incite strong opinions. That Rich delivers the more profound type is most certainly not a mistake.

[Amphiox]

As a general rule, I would say that a consumer's right to complain about the availability of a product, and the producer's obligation to ensure that availability....


.... is linearly proportionate to how much the consumer pays for that product.

[Lazy Horse]

I think it’s easy to lose sight of what Rich has been doing here. A single comic creator, artist and writer, continuing a narrative for ten years is an accomplishment that very few people come close to achieving.

I can think of Dave Sim, Erik Larson and Stan Sakai; there are others that I’m not aware of and can’t name, but I hope we all agree that whatever parameters we may use, that it is still a very short list.

Even just keeping a gag-a-day webcomic updating for this long, the only one that comes to mind is Penny Arcade.

This may sound overly dramatic, but Rich can write his own rules now.
Comics are always late. Deadline problems always occur. I hate it. I hate waiting three months to go down to my comic shop and there only being one issue of Savage Dragon in my pull list.
But the creator hates it too. Rich knows what he wants to accomplish. He didn’t get this far without having goals in mind. He obviously cares about his work.

It’s a really, really good story.
And it’s totally free.

...and it’s also not for everyone.

[Dodom]

I don't think the fact that it's free is even relevant to this. I used to buy a monthly humour magasine. It wasn't free, it was over 5$ an issue! I eventually quit reading it because they switched their focus on celebrities, but that's irrelevant. The thing is, even when one does pay for literature, that it takes a while to produce is a given.

[CoffeeIncluded]

Also don't forget that yesterday was Thanksgiving, and Rich is American. I'm sure he spent the while day with family gorging on tofurkey, and wasn't thinking about the comic. Which frankly I wouldn't expect him to.

[137beth]

Borrow one from the Drow signs shirt?

Bah! Then it would be too easy for non-cult members to figure it out just by looking at our shirts:smalltongue:

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff: Discussion of the update schedule or lack thereof is an Inappropriate Topic on this forum.