Glorious_Chairman_Meow: Real talk, we getting an update or nah? I mean im happy to just keep coming back for fire fan art, but this whole update business seems a bit far-fetched at this point.

Rick2tails: EPIC burn! ouch!

picartosux: Jesus, I've felt that stare pierce through my soul. This is perfect.

Asperger_kitten_1337: @picartosux: Quill weave's death stare
Piercing damage: 9001

Makkon: It's always a sight to see how fans treat creators in every fandom

ElstientheFallenKnight: @Makkon: and it's always a sight to see how Creators treat fans in every fandom *Ahem* Microsoft

CaptainLackwit: It's... Really close to two years.

BadReligion:

madmanransom: @Makkon: I feel kind of compelled to side with old Makk here.
I am patient with these things and I do believe at some point an update will arrive.

Skoon: I'm torn at this point.

I am also a content creator and I understand why things can get held up, even for over a year. At the same time, Kaz has been breaking promises a lot with no real public statements as to why.

I'm not sure how to feel about it at this juncture.

Makkon: @Skoon: I cannot and don't pretend to speak for Kaz, but I can give you my opinion. Projects like this do not fall on the lap of a single person, it's possible to be at the mercy of someone else's schedule or real-life occurrences when they are contributing to a project. This is not a professional product, there are no line producers, managers, and there is no schedule. This is a project done for free by people who like to create and want to share it with you.
I personally think that another factor is so called "fan-snark." Creators are usually acutely aware of their own shortcomings and frustrations, the expectations they've set for followers and for themselves, and it eats at them when they can't deliver on that for whatever reason. When someone turns that into a joke at their expense, it can be toxic. It can build up, eat away at you, turn what you're working on into a chore, make you feel sick, take a toll on your mental and emotional health. It stops just being a meme, it can become bullying. Maybe that's not a factor at all here, but it's important to understand that people like Kaz are human beings with limits.

I can't tell you how to feel about this, but if I have any advice going forward it would be to show empathy and be encouraging. Keep being excited, show your appreciation, still be a fan. It is empowering that you can positively influence a creator and make them keep loving what they do, for free, for you. And who knows, encouraging them might even get you updates faster.

madmanransom: @Makkon: Well worded, you beautiful bastard.
Damn.
Well.
Worded.

I do admit to making fansnarks myself, but not because I believe in this "no update" business (to be honest, I just like the memes, I'll shamelessly admit). You have, however, made me rethink my use of these (but Kaz has seemed resilient thusfar, also.)
When people say it and they're serious, that's when I find it toxic.

Tam_Lin: @Makkon: The thing about Kazerad is he's the thickest-skin webcomic author I know. He can take the lazer-focus unfiltered hatred of 4chan and not even flinch. He does not only welcome snark but encourage it; on multiple occassions he has jumped to the defense of those that would speak ill of him. In all the years I've been a fan of this comic I have never seen anything get to him. He's the comic Jesus.
I don't know if you're privy to some insider intel here but so far Kazerad has never communicated anything about snark/hate getting to him. Maybe that's just a tough front he's putting up and him telling people to stop would invite even more hate but so far there has been no indication that we're stepping over some boundaries he doesn't want us to step over.

realbboy: I'm pretty sure he wants to update to come up as much as, if not more than we do.

picartosux: @Tam_Lin: While I mostly agree with you, I'm pretty sure that Makkon was directing his message towards every webcomic creator, not just Kazerad's work. You need to keep in mind that not everyone is as strong-willed as him.

But even then Kaz deserves a break from all this fan-snark and general toxicity, hopefully the purrgatory is ending soon and we can go back on track and forgive him for these mistakes.

Streetwind: While everyone is busy discussing the message this submission is sending, can I just say one thing?

I appreciate so much the huge amount of effort put into drawing each panel with unique poses, postures and expressions that flow into each other in a natural fashion - when all that was needed for a bit of fansnark would have been simple copypasta. Comics as sequential art are far more than just two heads facing each other with various speech bubbles! I feel the art is good enough for a featured masterpiece, even, if the content didn't make it near impossible to feature. ;)

tronn: Kazerad most definitely does deserve all the fan-snark he's brought upon himself though fam.

Raydio: It's probably not even Kaz's fault for the hiatus. As he has said multiple times: he's not the greatest at programming, so he has other people help him with it. This upcoming flash keeps getting brought up on terms like "this rain rendering is taking forever" or "the curser isn't working correctly". This is stuff that other people do and probably not kaz. I think. Idk, I'm just a reader! And could be completely wrong. I'm just tootin for an update soon, since kaz actually seems to be believing it will be coming shortly.

Skoon: @Makkon: I think you might misunderstand my position.

As I said, I am also a content creator. So I understand what that entails. I understand things falling through based on other schedules.

I have also been very supportive of Kaz. I have sent a few messages his way and have come to his defense on more than one occasion.

However, one major flaw in his execution is that whatever is holding this up is not being communicated to the fanbase. If something has gone wrong, we'd like to know.

Toryu-Mau: @Makkon: Agreed. As a meat person, Kaz requires adoration from fellow meat people to motivate progress.

Tam_Lin: @Streetwind: That is very kind of you to say! Now I'm glad I put in the effort, thank you so much for noticing :)

Makkon: @Tam_Lin: You might be right, I don't know Kaz that well and you guys have been in this fandom for much longer than me. I still hold the opinion that just because someone can take it doesn't mean it's an open invitation. Maybe your familiarity affords you some teasing.

@Skoon: I did misunderstand, sorry for the wall of text. It ended up being a brain-dump at everyone in general.

@Toryu-Mau: all meat-kind require sustenance. But also money, probably.

Tam_Lin: @Makkon: Never thought of it this way. I guess I mistook his lack of protest as permission to pick on him. He always struck me as the type who values unbridled honesty over social niceties but I see now that's not a reason to abandon manners altogether. Honest bullying is still bullying after all... I admit I have stepped out of line and apologize for any hurt feelings I might have caused.

Dawoc: The fact that there hasn't been an updated for 1,5 years doesn't really upset me, it's not like I don't have other things to sink my time into. At this point, I think a lot of fans (myself included) just want some semblance of transparency into what's actually keeping it, and if those answers were given, I believe it'd help a lot in calming the "fan-snark" down.

realbboy: @Dawoc: There already is a fair amount of transparency. One of the major things was that one of his collaborator's grandparents took a long time to die, and then after that they flaked out after Kaz manned up and gave them a deadline (Which was 6 months, I think), which forced him to hire a professional artist which he could have done from the start.
I think said background were shared over skype on stream, and Kaz has made the information public (if you stalk him like I do :P (Honestly he does need to do something to inform people outside of random disqus replies and unrecorded streams.)
A more recent issue was the rain rendering and cursor bug, although I think Kobal said he (Kobalstomo is a update programmer who hangs out in picarto stream chat like 16hr/7days) fixed the problem where the cursor blinks by applying Kaz's suggestion (Kaz actually told him to do it on stream) of just drawing it as a sprite and hiding the normal cursor.

There were probably a couple things I forgot, and I missed some streams as well as everything before like 2 months ago.

Dawoc: @realbboy: Fair enough, that makes sense. But yeah, might be a good idea to put stuff like this up on the site somewhere, rather than rely on hearsay. Not everyone hangs out on his streams or on Discord, after all.

PermanentFace: Whether its his fault or not, Kaz has to realize that this disaster of an update has irreversibly impacted the hearts and minds of his readers. I can't even imagine updates being regular things anymore.