It felt phony at the time. Malin needed to kneecap PTP and all allied parties because they were demonstrating that toys/conventions/timely fulfillment were achievable goals that EVS was choosing not to do
No, the Malin-PTP fight started earlier in 2023 when small/medium level comicsgate creators began making noise about moving to Kickstarter, because revenue for CG projects had steadily declined to the point where the majority of creators could not even cover their costs. It was undeniable that the standard CG business model of "grifttube-into-IGG campaign" had been depleted as a means for startup creators getting funding for comics. Ending the failed and ineffectual CG boycott of Kickstarter out of "solidarity to Ya Boi Zack" (despite the fact Zack never showed unity with anyone in kind, left CG, and has since launched crowdfunds on Kickstarter himself) was an easy decision. Malin took to twitter to rail about the "traitors to Comicsgate" who were betraying its core values (boycotting Kickstarter). When other creators like Rich Ayala told the
pendejo to shut the fuck up and stop campaigning to CG customers about how CG creators and calling traitors, Malin decried the conspiracy "to force him to promote their projects on Kickstarter". The Malin cries out in pain as he strikes you.
While all this was happening, Frog was frittering away this time with a number of failed gayops against DA Talks in retaliation for setting off the Hotwife Mandy Crisis, teaming up with JDA and Vito to smear
Kamen America as a "loli comic" which exploded in their face when weebs outside the CG echo chamber got wind of this and lynched them on social media, claiming Sheila Aliens was underage when she uploaded her lewds on funbags dot com, and so on. He was stirred from this to declare Malin as 'always right' and having his unconditional support no matter what. Scores of struggling creators heard this and left, either moving on to the ephemeral #IronAge hashtag or just giving up on trying to make it in the indies.
The Kickstarter issue came to a head in the "CG Knights" backroom run by Patrick Thomas Parnell, which (afaik) served as a sort of commons for CG creators and youtubers because he invited everyone into it (as opposed to Frog's star chamber-esque DM room setup). The shouting match between Parnell and Malin ended with either Malin being kicked from or leaving the room (this is disputed), which the next day was followed by Dale Keowne drunkenly phoning Patrick in a panic and pulling out of the planned
PITT Omnibus (a reprint of Keowne's material that would be handed by PTP), which was quickly scooped up by Frog. Parnell took to Youtube with a
State of CG address (these are always the best) where, now that he was no longer part of the 'inner circle' he could speak freely on some things. It started with PTP going over the specifics of the Pitt Omnibus failure with wetbrain Dale but soon digressed with his sentiments with the state of 'da movement', opining on the worth of branding himself and his business with what is now some other guy's trademark. Especially if the owner is spouting fundamentalist christian talking points he doesn't believe in. Maybe embracing
taqqiya and becoming crypto-CGers so the SJWs can't cancel them is the way to go. "CG is a fan movement, not a corrupt business association", as 'Mr. Biggons' (an OGCGer who had inveigled himself as a wormtongue-like figure to Patrick) put it in a superchat, which PTP took up on and began musing on CG's origins of critics and fans like Meyer and Cummings. Parnell closed on an optimistic and extremely naiive note, describing to Whitney that they'll be finding their place the slums of comicsgate, where true comeradery, loyalty and brotherhood are to be found (lol, lmao).
After a brief reprisal efap, Frog convinced PTP that the
Pitt Omnibus fallout was an ugly coincidence that had nothing to do with him and that instead an anonymous twitter user named 'brunch kiwi master' trolling Dale was responsible. He offered a truce to PTP and invited Parnell back to CG, which due to extenuating concerns Patrick accepted. In the CG Knights room Biggons' idea - that the crisis destroying CG could be fixed with half-assed gatherings at third rate conventions - was gaining traction. The convention was of course a pretext for Biggons' true intentions -getting a bunch of CG microcelebs in one place so they could have a run-of-the-mill BarCon pubcrawl with Biggons and had nothing to do with either sales or building a fanbase. But with 'CG Tampa Bay' on the line and PTP being the face of it, he rejoined the foldl which, as
@Fleetwood points out, was simply a transfer from overt to covert hostility, looking for an opportunity to undermine Parnell.
Said opportunity came in the form of TBCC itself. Many of the most diehard, fervent believers in CG attended, ranging from Kelsey Shannon to Cecil to Graham Nolan, a full convention room. Michael Bancroft flew out all the way from Australia to be there. But the "dungeon" narrative, seized by the still-banned Malin to campaign on the JACK show about the pathetic middle-aged comic book nerds who did mushrooms and gathered in a gay circlejerk among themselves to go hang out at a sex dungeon taking cringe selfies thinking they were 'cool'. Many months of campaigning ensued over the 'dungeoneers', until at long last some of the targets started to complain (in private) about being publicly disparaged as degenerate drug addicts to their customers by the leaders of da movement'. Which, as you may guess, was met with accusations that they were all just thin-skinned snowflakes who couldn't take banter and playful masculine ribbing.
(Fowler's responses were deleted after he erased his twitter account months before the leak)
But, given that Frog was mogged out of PTP's DM room by Matthew Fowler, and Shane (before leaving in tow with his master) vowed revenge against Parnell for telling him to 'piss off' in response to his needling that the con was unworthy of beholding the greatness of 'the' Shane Davis, one is left to wonder who's really the thin-skinned ones here. While leaving the CG Knights room achieved the short-term goal of not being abused by Fowler anymore, there was the long-term problem of now Frog, Malin and Davis were on the outside with no means of looking in on the rest of CG's doings. None of this was brought to the public, but there were subtle clues of something happening beneath the surface.
During this time Ethan would put out vague sneedposts,
like this one directed at Dojo Kun Comics (an FBI fraud investigator in his day job) who was shittalking him in the CG Knights room unopposed. Obviously something was up Frog's ass but it was hard for the outside observer to determine what exactly.
"Fuck you,
crimefighter, I drew Green Lantern in 2006! AAAAHHHHHH". Later that evening Frog couldn't restrain himself and pulled up the tweet on a livestream to yell at, cackling that the original tweet calling for CG unity was just a bait post to root out Dojo Kun all along. Because what else could it be? I didn't know what exactly the fuck this was when I saw it, but I was intrigued.
Eventually logs were forked over by a turncoat in Parnell's ranks, dropped during an episode of the JACK show where betrayal by Kelsey took the form of expressing displeasure at him and his friends being publicly slandered and harming their channel and business, and worst of all (to Anna) not wanting to go to Anna's wedding. This was a betrayal of the elite and, through the transference of the parasocial paypig property, a betrayal of each and every one of their fans. A special livestream was held, titled '
MALIN AFTER MIDNIGHT: THE DUNGEONEEER FILES' where the victims reacted to this cruel betrayal led by the evil Patrick Thomas Parnell. Frog publicly offered clemency to all of the misguided people in the CG Knights room except for the leader, PTP.
It was sort of like that scene in Spartacus with the renegade slaves were held by the Roman army; the triumphant general Crassus offering return the rest of the rebels back to their lives as slaves if they'd only turn over their leader. None of the 'dungeoneers' - who, again, only two years ago were the biggest zealots in Comicsgate - accepted the offer, preferring public crucifiction over a life of grovelling for scraps on their knees. Also like Spartacus, actually. I dunno maybe there was an episode of the Sopranos where it played out differently.
Frog glumly declared that in the end there were 'Core CGers' - those who formed the nucleus of the movement whereas everyone else was a transitory element. Malin, Shane Davis, Cecil, Anna and Mandy Summers. It was at this point even the deepest drinkers kool-aid drinkers started waking up after the repeated moral whiplash of being asked to go from 'pearlclutching about Tampa Bay' to 'welcoming Dick, Vito, Ethan Ralph and Rekieta into their mix' to 'pearlclutching over the Soska Sisters' to 'livestreaming with Mint Salad/OF stars'. Even the most entrenched culture war tards realized the battle was lost if such a
weak, fairweather group of people was all CG had left. Even JDA pulled up stakes and started to run for it when he heard that.
Later on Kelsey posted some DMs disproving Frog's representation of private conversations they had, which was used as justification for Frog livestreaming all 518 exported pages of the CG Knights room on Trashcast for transparency purposes. It was largely a dry affair of him reading out the words of people he's mad at in his soy voice, but things picked up when he stumbled on Biggons sperging out against some guy actually named "Nick Gerr" about age of consent laws and he hesitated, not knowing who among his allies who were in there might think the same way. There was an outcry for transparency and the logs were turned over to Sheila Aliens, who published them presumably scrubbing them for dox information, but because she's never read a comic in her life or even really understands what Comicsgate is about (past the gayop part) Sheila didn't consider the mainstream professionals that were in there like Nick Pitarra that are now exposed as a result. Oh well.
Now Graveyard Shift V pulls less money than Johnny Phantasm did.
But hey
@FROG, at least there's no CG creators talking about signing up for Kickstarter anymore.
Or CG creators period for that matter.
I hope it was worth it.
But I wonder if you'll think the same when they start signing up for RippaSend.
