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Enough is enough
16 years ago
General
Back in June of 2008, I was contacted by Cheetah of The Jab Archives with a proposition: If I would create a CD portfolio, he would put it up for sale in TJA's store. I agreed and by that October I had finished my “Neapolitan” art CD. When I contacted Cheetah and informed him of its completion, he responded simply with, “Cool.” No request to view it was tended, no interest was shown in publishing it, and no apologies were offered for wasting four months of my time and effort. With him unwilling to uphold his end of our deal, I sat on the CD for more than eight months until he contacted me yet again, this time offering me a website on TJA. Unaware that history was poised to repeat itself, I once again naively excepted his offer. Soon thereafter he requested that I send him the CD, once again offering to sale it in TJA's store.
That was four months ago.
In that time, I have complaisantly accepted numerous apologies and excuses as to why the CD has not been put up on the site, and promises that it soon will be. I pride myself on being a patient and understanding man, but I do have limits as to how much bullshit I will tolerate.
Business relationships, like all relationships, are dependent upon mutual benefit to all the parties involved. When I accepted Cheetah's offer and created a website on TJA, I thought it would act as a springboard for my art –broadening my fan base and providing me with a means of making money through the sale of art CD's and the like- and at the same time, Cheetah would benefit from the additional traffic that my fan base would bring with it to his site and the money he would make from his cut of my CD sales. To uphold my end of that arrangement, I embarked on the lengthy undertaking of relabeling all of my 80+ submissions to include a link to my new TJA site, and informed my fans that I would only be posting on Fur Affinity previews and links to the new pictures that I would be uploading to my website –something they were not happy about. Although this was not asked of me, I felt that it was the fair and just thing to do. Unfortunately, though, this partnership has been far from amicable. Despite the enormous, inconvenient, and tedious effort that I have put into creating and maintaining my TJA website, I have seen virtually nothing in return from it. And I'm not done! Now Cheetah has requested that I create three images for an end-of-the-year compilation CD that he wants to put together –one that I'm sure he'll have no problem finding the time to upload to his store. Of course, I wouldn't see any money from that project.
The more I think about it, the more I realize the folly of continuing to expend my time and effort to help someone who refuses to spend even ten minutes helping me. I've had enough. I have decided to leave TJA, and as such, I will soon be updating all of the preview images that I've posted to my gallery here on FA with the full images that were previously exclusive to my website. Furthermore, all of my new artwork will once again be released on Fur Affinity.
That was four months ago.
In that time, I have complaisantly accepted numerous apologies and excuses as to why the CD has not been put up on the site, and promises that it soon will be. I pride myself on being a patient and understanding man, but I do have limits as to how much bullshit I will tolerate.
Business relationships, like all relationships, are dependent upon mutual benefit to all the parties involved. When I accepted Cheetah's offer and created a website on TJA, I thought it would act as a springboard for my art –broadening my fan base and providing me with a means of making money through the sale of art CD's and the like- and at the same time, Cheetah would benefit from the additional traffic that my fan base would bring with it to his site and the money he would make from his cut of my CD sales. To uphold my end of that arrangement, I embarked on the lengthy undertaking of relabeling all of my 80+ submissions to include a link to my new TJA site, and informed my fans that I would only be posting on Fur Affinity previews and links to the new pictures that I would be uploading to my website –something they were not happy about. Although this was not asked of me, I felt that it was the fair and just thing to do. Unfortunately, though, this partnership has been far from amicable. Despite the enormous, inconvenient, and tedious effort that I have put into creating and maintaining my TJA website, I have seen virtually nothing in return from it. And I'm not done! Now Cheetah has requested that I create three images for an end-of-the-year compilation CD that he wants to put together –one that I'm sure he'll have no problem finding the time to upload to his store. Of course, I wouldn't see any money from that project.
The more I think about it, the more I realize the folly of continuing to expend my time and effort to help someone who refuses to spend even ten minutes helping me. I've had enough. I have decided to leave TJA, and as such, I will soon be updating all of the preview images that I've posted to my gallery here on FA with the full images that were previously exclusive to my website. Furthermore, all of my new artwork will once again be released on Fur Affinity.
Will you be making this portfolio CD for sale yourself, perchance?
Yes, I will have it available for purchase soon, as a physical CD or as a download.
Any idea what you might be asking for price yet? Just curious so I know what to save.
You're right to call him out on this. People wouldnt mess other people around so much if they thought they would get named and shamed. Good on you!
Jim
But then again I don't know how much you nagged him about it, I know I need some nagging to help me remember stuff.
He is after all the only person running TJA, and individuals aren't infallible.
And he hasn't made any demands on my part as a member of TJA. Only asked if I wanted to chip in with some artwork to help keep the site running. Which I find fair considering my stuff is hosted there for free. No demands have been made.
He also suggested that I could make a CD if I wanted, I've thought about. But I ultimately haven't decided on it yet, but I like that I have been given the option.
Anyway I haven't lost anything from joining TJA, and in my eyes you seem to be overreacting.
Of course you haven't lost anything from joining TJA, you haven't done anything. You still continue to post your art on both FA and Hentai Foundry (and possibly other sites,) and use TJA as nothing more than yet another mirror gallery for your artwork. When you've uprooted your fan base to move to a new site and spent months working on a project that then gets left to gather dust for a year; then you'll be in a position to say whether or not I'm overreacting.
But if it was that important to you, then why didn't you do something about it? I'm not saying that Jim isn't without fault in this matter, but if you can't be bothered to do something about it. Why not confront Jim about your concerns, about not getting your CD on sale at the TJA store. I mean you've had plenty of time to do it.
So in my eyes you are still just overreacting
I hope one day you get a job, work your ass off for several weeks, and when you go to pick up your check they refuse to give it to you. And then after you've thrown your cussing fit, I hope someone replies to you, "Hey, no one forced you to work here." Because maybe then you'll get it through your thick skull as to why this is truly a thing to get irate about. It's the same damned thing! Cheetah and I entered an agreement where if I made an art CD he would sell it. Well, I made the CD...
Why didn't a say something about it? I talked to him a dozen times about my CD and all I ever got was excuses, apologies, and broken promises that it would be up soon. Don't you fucking sit there and say, "but if you can't be bothered to do something about it..." I did everything I was supposed to do! It's not that some of the blame falls on Cheetah, ALL of the god damned blame falls on Cheetah! He asked for the CD. I made the CD. I gave him the CD. He sat on it! End of fucking story!
Now, since being at TJA is gaining me absolutely nothing but more work, why the fuck should I stay there?
And yeah, I can truly see that furry smut is serious business, and must be treated as such :)
and I see no reason whatsoever not to have your stuff posted on more than one site. Simply because it will get more exposure, than from just being on one site.
I have tried working my ass of for several weeks and being refused payment. I just continued to complain and I eventually got my money. and they actually did say something in the line of "no one forced you to work here". The employer even tried to make me feel bad about it, by threatening to fire some of the other workers.
Atlest your work isn't lost, you still have your portfolio. So you can still sell it yourself, cutting out the middleman.
And if drawing is such a chore, why do you do it? it's not you where forced to do anything for TJA. Sound more like you forced the "work" on yourself.
But yeah, not really like you have any reason to stay.
Much like Zeroseven I don't know the specifics - all I know is all I've heard from Cheetah is good stuff about you; he's been stoked about you, your art and your portfolio. He was totally enthused about having you as part of the site and was really appreciative of your efforts whenever he brought you up when we talked. I know he was hoping to get your stuff sorted out and send you what he owed. But obviously, saying this to other people and not getting a chance to get stuff sorted out online lead to this whole situation. I think more communication both ways might've been helpful; I'm really puzzled that he wasn't more talkative to you.. really.. as i said, whenever you were brought up he'd usually have plenty of good things to say. Again, like Zeroseven, I haven't really lost anything from being on TJA... the portfolios are time consuming yeah but Cheetah's always held up his end of the bargain as far as I recall (only once did I not get full speedy funds from my CD sales, but only because there was some crap going on in his life and he did ask first - I was reimbursed later without a problem).
Was nice seeing you on the site while you were there, sorry to see you go. I'd say more but decisions have already been made. Umh. Sorry you got shafted.