Also pretend the author doesn't exist so as not to ruin it. And turn on all the ad blocking software. Everyone wins!
No, you can't do this. It's foolish to say that there is no relationship between the consumer and the artist, because there is in every medium. In webcomics it is even moreso; look at all these artists with Twitters and forums and whatever. You have this constant feed of what the author is doing in front of you--every webcomic has a news section. You look at comics where that's nonexistant and you find they aren't popular. Part of the excuse for webcomics being by and large shitty is that you're also getting a look at the creative process or some insight on the joke/storyline or whatever. Besides this, you have to look at authorial intent in anything creative to analyze it as art, which is exactly what Aaron Diaz wants you to do. If you aren't enjoying his comic, he doesn't care about you, and to enjoy it you have to analyze it and him and his intent.
This is bad because his author/consumer relationship consists of "I PROVIDE, YOU ACCEPT". And if you don't accept, well, HE'S DOING THIS FOR FREE AND NEVER ASKED ANYONE FOR MONEY AND DOESNT EVEN MAKE ANY MONEY. SO YOU BETTER JUST ACCEPT IT. NO CRITICISM. UNDERSTAND? I BET YOU DONT UNDERSTAND BECAUSE YOU CANT UNDERSTAND WHAT I TALK ABOUT. (Except he has asked for money on several occasions: when his basement flooded and ruined the set he was building, when he fell off his bike and hurt his hand, before he moved, after he moved--the list goes on.)
Take a look at these three posts between Aaron and some dude named ysqure3: he's got a ridiculous superiority complex and won't take criticism. (ysqure3 spends most of that thread trying to find ways to make the comic better, not badmouthing it.)
Here's an example of him making that idea pretty blatant again. Aaron Diaz is an honest to god tool.
People seem to have turned on him once he started making shirts. Why? He began to treat the comic like a business rather than fun.
Take a look at this post from when he quit his job, moved across the country, started selling shirts and disappeared. If you actually look at the archives up to that point, he's lying about the speed of his updates. And yeah, he has more comics than shirts--because at that point he had like two shirt designs and a huge archive of comics. That's irrelevant and he dodged it. He's an ass. That's not how you run a fucking business.
And you know, when he finally got it in his head that he couldn't keep up with people--that the more he posted online, the more people would hate him and his comic--
he decided to disband his forum. Only he didn't, because I can still link to it.
And then five posts in he does the same stupid yelly shit he always did. This comes back to author/consumer relationships.
Someone calls him out on it, on acting superior constantly, and he replies with "stop being inferior." Also,
his fans are fucking retarded. That's the post Nor wanted me to link to. Notice immediately Aaron pretty much confirms our worst fears: Kimiko has zero personality and giant breasts who is shy and wants to be a kid and fuck robots. Diaz can't write for shit; if you read Hob and pay attention to what happens, half the story is made up of loose ends that are never resolved and plot points that disappear. He can't lay out a page because he doesn't know about panel layout. He's also really gay for his "unique" views on singularity and transhumanism, but never explains them and prefers to masturbate around them; when confronted about this he simply remarks "I don't think you'd get it." Plus,
he's ugly. No, really:
he's ugly.In short: the author/consumer is indeed a factor you cannot ignore; DC is a shitty comic with about a buttload of problems, and if you try and help him make his comic better he claims you just don't get it, as though his comic is the pinnacle of philosophical and scientific boners. If Aaron Diaz was wiped from the planet and his contributions to humanity were eradicated from existence, nothing of value will have been lost. I'll give you that the art looks good and some of the early comics were neat--back when his panel layout created a confusion that aided his weak jokes, the comic was fine. But the more serious and experimental he got, the worse his comic became. If you disagree with me, on any of this, you're wrong, and I swear to fucking Christ I will fight you over it in real life. And I'll win, because I'll be fighting to kill.
