11/02/2020 - NASSER RABADI - DRAMA & COMICS LIVE CHAT!
This stream starts innocently enough. A solitary Nasser, having some free time, figures he'll get his friend Skinny/Matthew Vealey's crowdfund
Otis Stein #1 up from to 88 backers to the optimistic goal of 100. Otis Stein looks like a credible work, an underground horror comic that has a borderline expressionist art style. The book is funded, the art is complete, the prices are competitively low ($6 minimum) and the crowdfund abstract looks very well put together (since there's no InDemand there's no way you can order should you be interested). It should be very appealing to possible backers,
but Skinny's promotional tours on Fan Advocacy Network, Tim Lim', Comic Book Hut and Lorenzo Sleezestacks' programs have left him at around 88 backers all the same. Nasser thinks something is not right about this, and since he considers Skinny a friend, is holding this impromptu stream to get his crowdfund.
At the start, the stream is almost totally vacant, recreational troll "Mecha McCheese" alone in the chat and more interested in shittalking Donal and Nick Rekeita than the book, which Nasser quickly joins in on. It might have gone like this indefinitely had Skinny himself not joined the show, to sell his comic and express his dissatisfaction with Comicsgate's failures in the past. In factt, hed be happy to get it over that 100 backer count
At around an hour and five minutes in, Nasser is ruminating over "some weirdo named Testefy" who was haranguing to go on his show to "make it less boring". Skinny, playing coy, knows a bit more about all this and starts filling Nasser in about wristband and coozie lore and it was on this very subject that two unexpected guests appear in the chat.
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The topic of unwanted guests is quickly tossed aside as Nasser rolls out the welcome mat for Jon Malin and Frog, much to Skinny's displeasure. In the interest of ending drama, Nasser would be delighted if Frog and Jon Malin joined his show. Normally Frog likes to sneak in to Nasser streams to taunt and torment him outside the watchful eyes of Comicsgate at large, not unlike many other secret proclivities Frog is accused of but he, out of what I'm guessing is friendship and generosity, has decided to include Malin in on this rich source of salt and nectar.
At around 1:21:00, Malin is the first to join, immediately changing the subject to
his victory over Dan Fraga in a recent drawing contest - the judges siding with Malin 5/6 (the viewers voted Dan Fraga the winner at ~96/152), Skinny's campaign is put on the backburner as Malin celebrates by complaining about the biased judges, the dismissive fans and upstart new talent that prevent him from receiving his due. Which as the contest winner, he received anyway, but that's merely a technicality. It's when Malin discusses his commissioning of a championship belt to wear over his shoulder while livestreaming that Frog joins to lend Malin moral support. He also introduces himself to Skinny and asks the audience if they, as as group, can get
Otis Stein #1 up to 100 backers?
Now, unbeknownst to Frog or Malin, they
have met Skinny in the past, here inquiring about pizza parlor shenanigans before getting thrown off for asking TUG about his wife's dickpic collection. Not to mention the golden baptismal of Comicsgate Jesus Ya Boi Zack's seminal work "Jawbreakers" that was uploaded to twitter (Vealey's art recreated here as
Piss Zack by artist M. Dongs). Suffice to say, Skinny is a man who boasts ironclad "Anti-CG" credentials, though deciding to hide his power level in this sudden and unfamiliar environment in what was supposed to be a Nasser shill stream. Frog even goes so far as to back it at the original art tier.
Frog starts warming up his salesman skills as he goes through
Otis Stein' product, mixed with jabs at Nasser's poverty while Nasser fumbles with screen sharing.. Skinny goes through his sales pitch, including side pieces like pins, black light posters and shot glasses, and Frog goes on that on the subject of victory and on the eve of this momentous election, he and Jon Malin want to bring
everyone back in to Comicsgate.
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(Frog's answer "Total apathy")
It's at this point, at about 1:45:00 that the Etsies start to trickle in, first a few and then by the dozen. To give a Cliff's Notes on all this, Etsy Boys were some of the early funders of
Otis Stein as an olive branch, a show of solidarity as well as possibly real interest in the comic. This tenuous relationship was dashed though when "Pink Rage Ape"/Wiggle Wiggle spammed a meme of Mecha McCheese appearing to fellate an endowed shirtless pot-bellied man behind a backyard fence all over Twitter, a regular occurrence with Wiggle discourse. Now, the story behind
why they're fighting is long and not exactly germane to "Comicsgate" discussion, but the end result was Skinny going out to find the customers responsible and forcing them to take a refund, taking a stand that he'll refuse service to customers that behave in such a way. As a group with origins based in "customer advocacy", the idea of a creator running a refund campaign against
them left the Etsy boys confused and, dare I say, more than a little intrigued...
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Discussion then drifts towards something all parties are interested in - Liam. Jon wants to know why Liam hates Nasser more than they hate Nasser. Nasser says he doesn't know, but recounts the various accusations of poaching, sabotage and gatekeeping leveled at Nasser from the Orange Koala. Malin says the idea of Nasser telling him who could go on his show is ridiculous and never happened. But that does sound like something someone under Nasser's thumb would say.
At two hours in, Frog and Malin plea with the audience to back
Otis Stein #1, saying that this comic would reach five figures
minimum if they were with Comicsgate and that they "call upon Anti-Comicsgate to put their money where their mouth is and fund this book". But alas, they can't or worse... they won't. The two Comicsgate Lords press the argument, describing "Anti-Comicsgate" as crabs in a bucket, but Nasser need not share their fate of mutual failure and hatred.
If he would let the Good News of Comicsgate enter his heart once again, if he would declare himself Comicsgate once more, even a wretch like Nasser could be saved.
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Young Rabadi says he doesn't feel that he's part of a group, either anti
or CG. But Frog reassures him that Comicsgate isn't a group. It's a movement, a sentiment, a reaction, a force, and either you are swept within its currents and eddies or you are not. "By that reasoning", Nasser says, "we are all Comicsgate". Frog gleefully agrees and smucklingly invites anyone who hates him or Jon Malin to prove his statements about Anti-CG wrong by supporting Skinny and
Otis Stein. Frog goes so far as to say if Nasser had not left Comicsgate, he'd be making six figures. I remember Nasser leaving under different terms, but this doesn't stop Frog as he calls on Nasser to tell these people who egg him on but keep their wallets closed, these dirtworms, to "fuck off forever", to reject the road of anti-CG penury and to cross into the light.. Who,
other then him and some guys on Kiwi farms, came to Nasser's aid in his moment of need?
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Mecha McCheese, surrounded by multiple factions that mostly hate and despise him, ignores everything going on to take aim at the most worthy target - Charlie's London, arguing that any movement that has Charlie in it does not deserve to exist. Mecha is an individual who doesn't believe in group association, defining himself more anti-Charlie's London than anything approaching "CG" or "Anti-CG".
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Meanwhile Jon Malin gives an impassioned speech about his personal experiences about the poverty of the people working in independent comics and his time in Image Comics. Nobody makes enough to live making independent comics, everyone except the people at the top have to work second jobs. Don't listen to the worms and the crabs who want to keep you in the bucket - there's only way of realizing the dream, and that's through Comicsgate.
And with that we leave with the re-comicsgated Nasser.
in his twitter handle denoting his allegiance to MCTV. Sensing disloyalty, it was around that point where Frog wasn't very receptive to any defense Nasser could muster, even against TUG's usual evidence-free histrionics to make it all about himself. Or to 'correcting the record' when Nasser's edgelord jokes became repeated as facts.
