- Holy shit, ShinGoji is even more terrible now then previously thought.

I always resented the way he removed the K-Girl section from the site. I understand there was a lot of trolls and drama and creepy furry bullshit around etc. but the way he disavowed all of them always struck me as extremely petty. Through his writings, it's always been clear that he resented how popular they became, how more people were coming to his shitty website for the K-girls then for his awful, awful comic. And he didn't have any hand in creating the overwhelming majority of the K-girls, which I also think pissed him off.

But now it's even worst because now he fancies himself an "artist" when really he's just doing the same awful shit he's been doing for 13 years but now with a layer of totally unearned pretensions. So in short: Fuck that guy. I mean, I've been saying "fuck that guy" since he stirred up shit with the various artists over ownership rights. But, seriously, fuck that guy.

- I will say one thing about Shin though: When he wasn't making his own bullshit (which wasn't often) he was pretty good at keeping other bullshit out.

Ever since deleting the K-girl website, he has essentially destroyed any "official" canon. Before, artists could create what ever terrible characters they wanted under the "k-girl" banner but because it wasn't canon we were more then welcome to ignore that shit. Now because there is no canon, all the rules are gone and the entire K-girl fandom is just a huge, swirling quagmire of 99% terribleness and maybe one or two decent people still doing good work.

- An example of that bullshit? K-BOYS. Holy shit, k-boys. There's a reason Shin never allowed them. (And there's a reason, the one time he did break that rule, everyone agreed that it was terrible and we should never speak of it again.) When 99% of your cast is composed of beautiful female characters, introducing a male character is just inviting Gary Stus and bad Self-Inserts and so on and so forth. Really, just look. Most of the fandom is just that now. It's terrible and, if we still had a boss around to make the rules, that shit would be nuked from orbit.

- And here's a pet peeve: This bullshit of people "buying" the rights to a character. You didn't create the character, you have no right to the character. Just because the original artist doesn't use the character any more, that doesn't mean you can "buy" the character and claim them as you're own.

PRO-TIP: If nobody used the character to begin with, that's probably because they weren't very good. There's a reason like half of the Mothra and Ghidorah girls are now owned by random-ass people who had nothing to do with them in the first place: Because they were terrible, generic, and not very interesting. Half the fucking time I can't even tell the difference between Reina and Mari. Is there anything about those characters that make them interesting? Are they really anything more then just rip-offs of Mina, a lovable character who was and is interesting? And now because those lame characters are owned by psychotic sycophants, half of the K-girl art is just those people pushing their terrible, uninteresting characters that they didn't even create on the rest of the fandom. Which brings me back to my point about how, without a proper governing body to shot down that terrible stuff, this fandom has really started to suffer.

- At the same time, I think a lot of artists are way too strict about character rights and such. For about a year now, I've had a really interesting story idea for the K-girl-verse that was really sexy and funny but I can do anything with it because several of the central characters are off-limits. I certainly understand the original creators not wanting anybody to just do anything they want with their specific creations. As I've previously stated, there's a lot of terrible stuff out there in the fandom. (In particular, I found a lot of the really specific fetishes creepy as fuck. And those artists that only draw stuff relating to that fetish creep me the fuck out.)

I certainly respect the original creator's ability to want to deny that shit. However, I think they should loosen up a little and admit that, in the internet age, nothing really belongs to any one anymore. Fan art is fan art, even when it's of fan created characters. Let's not get crazy.

- And yet another thing: I really hate it when artist totally revamp their style. I won't name names but there was an extremely prolific artist involved in the K-girl fandom. This person had a unique style that was cute and sexy but home-spun and unique. This person was my favorite K-girl artist and, thankfully, left an immense amount of artwork behind.

However, now this person has totally redone their style, completely stripping away everything that made their artwork special and lovable to begin with. Now, every time I see a new piece of work from this person, it just makes me barf because it's so soulless and mechanical and awful. I especially hate it when artist redesign an established character in a way that totally changes everything about them.

I'm going to keep the versions that I love, thank you very much, and just ignore this awful new thing you're trying to pass off as the original. It's pretty much the same way with mainstream superhero comics. When some new awful reboot comes along, we just ignore it, hold fast to the original that we love, and wait for the awfulness to pass. With an artist though, the chance of things ever reverting back to normal is very slim since most artist think their new style is "better" or "more professional" or some such bullshit.

- And what about those artists whose artwork is terrible, whose artwork has always been terrible, whose artwork will never get better and we know this because they've been at it for years and they still suck? Yeah, not making things any better. I politely ask you to go away.

- And, by the way, remember those guys who were trying to reinvent the K-girls as family-friendly or some such bullshit? Ugh. Those guys were awful. I'm so glad they've locked themselves up in a ghetto away from the rest of the fandom so we can safely ignore them. their awful artwork, and ideas.

- So what does that leave us? What K-girl artists haven't abandoned the fandom, haven't totally revamped their style so that there's nothing left to love about them, haven't cater specifically to one creepy fetish, haven't mucked things up by adding terrible new characters or k-boys to the mess, aren't terrible in general, and haven't pissed me off by drastically controlling the right to their made-up fan characters?

Heckfire and JPalo. Maybe Marauder, if I'm feeling generous. Thank you for not making the fandom any more worse and I really wish you would all do more work within it. Thank you for the years of quality artwork you have provided us with. Thank you for reminding me of a time when the K-girls where a thing that made me happy instead of frustrating and irritating me. Thank you thank you thank you a million times.

Maybe some day things won't be terrible again. Probably not. But let's hope. Because for all the awfulness in the fandom, I still love the K-girls.