If you're lucky an archive will be here if you have trouble finding it
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC050dLYsBWzHy7LbLrn_e5A/videos
Anyone has any idea about Zack's fanbase? Maybe completely distancing from CG would be disastrous for him? I mean, his work is average at best, I feel like people paying big money for his stuff are ideologically motivated at least to some extent. I could see it for his first project or second because you are still not sure what is happening here, but now? I think that you are either thinking that you are "fighting SJWs" by donating big money to him or he himself has a cult of personality.
Hard to say, he is already taking a slight hit because autists suddenly want to make a big deal of him working with someone that's he been with for 4 years, but I'd say most of the people buying from Zack at this point support him for his personality/work(leaning more towards personality) and not CG ties. It would be interesting if he did officially leave though. CG purists aside, I'm thinking a good amount would take Zack leaving as a sign that CG has completely loss their way and follow him out the door too.
I'll admit, I'm biased towards Zack succeeding. It would annoy me to see one of the few CG creators that's avoiding drama and just putting out books to get screwed over by dramahounds.
I have found the backup channel, but going through old men prattling for hours about how they great they are for a two minute clip is painful. I can listen to those bozos when playing videogames but I don't have the time to search for that clip. I tried searching for livestreams with Zack in my watch history and failed to track the one I wanted down.
The evils of video I guess.
Now, as someone who was following Zack before the milkshake incident, I have supported some or all of his IGG projects (saying which would be a bad idea, right?) I guess I count as his fanbase. And IDGAF about Sashi or tribalistic nonsense and I am considering backing JBGB, but money are getting too tight.
I do not agree with his main thesis, that leftist politics have ruined comics, I think that SJWs are a symptom and not the cause. But despite often confusing cause and effect, Zack is mostly correct and offers good comicbook criticism and business advice in a very commonsense way.
The main problem with Zack, and most SJWs is that they are geeks who know little about politics, yet they lecture people on them. CG is a marxist movement of Conservatives against a big business oligopoly controlled by Leftists. It is a funny shitshow.
The gospel of Zack is:
1) Do good work people want to buy.
2) Hire on merit.
3) Offer good customer service.
4) Listen to criticism and try to get better.
5) Be transparent
In political terms, he argues for ethical anarchocapitalism. 2017 Zack was the equivalent of Bernie, argueing for a reform of the industry. I can live with either.
For the most part he follows that. In my experience, his customer service was ideal and clearly tries to improve*
Even Iron Sights, which is controversial for its art style, is following those principles, he has an aesthetic and wants to use it.
Crowdfunding ensures that he won't go too deep into production for a project people do not like.
He sells based on competence, ideas and likeability. He is not the best, but he is quite good** He channels a bit of Jack Kirby and Rob Liefeld, he has big ideas and enthusiasm and can write fun dialogue. If he was doing a monthly title, he would improve to professional level, since he has a problem understanding
The rest of the clown show around EVS is exactly what the mainstream industry suffers from. EVS is a great artist, but I feel he wants to get big crowdfunders to antagonize his enemies. He is not doing cashgrabs for the money, but for the dopamine hits, which is sad.
And his attitude attracts the worst and more deluded grifters and that leads to the Liam clusterfuck. If the EVS side is a more soviet style model, Liam is turning out to be the equivalent of Pol Pot. And, as the Spanish civil was taught us, soviets hate anarchists more than they hate the fascists...***
* His value proposition is still very weak though and will get far worse. I believe he is aware money are running out but still cannot find a way to reduce costs. At some point he will either understand or admit that this is why the comicbook industry is in a pickle, that there is a huge money, not SJW problem. Seeing the clownshow on CG would make him realize that it is not politics, but the economy and the human condition that destroys the comicbook market. At least this is what I hope
** I feel that the main problem with Zack, who has spent his entire life around the army, is that he expects order in everything. His "OCD" is that need. I think his father was in the army too, and so was he. He needs order to cope and much of his ramblings around the comicbook industry and his bone-headedness comes from this need. Simply put, a world where no new floppies come out every week is a betrayal to his worldview. So is his need to find an enemy (SJWs) and prioritize the targets for his campaign. In his campaign, CG as an organization that includes some people and excludes other is a problem, not a solution
The moment he realizes and accepts he is fighting against a broken system and not an enemy would crush him.
*** I feel that, after writing this essay I am turning into a cow. Oh, well, I am off grazing