Omar is loosely based on a few Texans I’ve known.

Thus ends the first week of FTF. So far, so good! Our readership grows each day! No worries, the strip will continue Monday.

It’s been an odd week in Webcomics. Looks like Blind Ferret’s servers shit the bed. Corsetto and Randy have been clinging together for dear life, using a piece of driftwood as a raft, wondering with growing dread what happened to the other passengers. But alas! Of the captain, only a lonely, waterlogged hat drifts by, bobbing as a silent memorial to his bravery. Then a shark eats it.

We do wish them a speedy recovery.

On our camp, FTF wasn’t up a full 3 days before we had our first drama.
Someone shared the link to a message board of some import that deals with firearms topics. After seeing them in our referral logs, I popped in to say hey, like I normally do. As usual, some people liked the comic, some people hated it. That’s normal.

In retrospect, I should have made sure the Uploads directory was locked down. Turns out, anyone could browse ALL of the first 28 strips for the site. One of the users of this message board thought it would be cute to download them all and post them to the board in question.

Hindsight is always 20/20 – I’d had a few beers when I discovered this Wed night, and flipped my shit. I may have posted a board response that had something to do with my dick and the back of the OP’s throat. Stupid move – this is the kind of message board where that only eggs them on.

After some sleep, I came back, apologized for losing my shit, and asked them to take down the strips. This was, of course, met with derision and rage as only the internet can provide. (Apparently I am a “faggot.” So say we all.) Eventually the Admin agreed to do so if I sent in a DMCA. I did, they did, and the board in question decided to flip their shit.

Oh boy. Another witchhunt. Never had THAT happen before.

One of their members decided to impersonate me on /k/, being incredibly inflammatory and posting the comics. (Seriously, anyone who knows me or my previous work would lol at the sentence “I hate hackers and thieves.”) The 4chan mods took one look, shrugged, and said “WE DON’T CARE” before deleting the thread. As time ticks by, I’m begrudgingly realizing that the whole thing is silly as hell, as much as I was infuriated at first. Part of the fault is mine, for not making sure the htaccess file was in place. But as many folks have discovered in the history of stupid shit, leaving your door unlocked is NOT free license for someone to steal your stuff. I was a fool, the user in question was a dick, the earth continues its orbit.

I would like to state, again, to anyone wondering: If you see someone pretending to be me under the name of one of my characters, acting like a fuckhead and trying to start a fight, on a message board, just assume it’s not me. I’m a self-promoter by nature, and always use my real name when I’m pimping my wares. However, I also don’t go to other people’s boards and post links to my site. That’s rude. I pay to advertise, instead, or let my fans do the pimping. Although it hasn’t been a deluge, comments on the strip will require user registration for a little while. No worries. All things must pass.

How was your week?