Ok, so… I had already written a post for today’s strip, but around 9pm Sunday night I noticed an email that really grabbed my attention.  I won’t say who the email was from, but here is the content of the message:

To Alex,

You have a very nice comic there.  I quite like it.  Well drawn and many of the comics are quite funny.  Well done.  However there a few random comics you have done which are very obviously you saying “I hate Donald Trump”.  Whether you like or hate him does not matter.  You would be better to leave the politics out of your comics and focus on the games, pop culture and everything that makes your comics great.  The politics in a few of your comics is totally not needed and makes people turn away from your comics.  Totally ruins your other good comic webpage.

So overall a good page, just remove the political comics.

Truth be told, I was initially going to ignore it… then send a response email… but then figured that this is important enough to me to warrant having my response be public.

To be perfectly clear, I absolutely appreciate the email and the reader that sent it my way.  Anyone who has ever sent me a message has received a response (if you haven’t you message might have ended up in spam), I really do love getting Corpse Mail.

Now, to address the message itself:

Once upon a time there was a comic strip that I absolutely loved and read religiously.  It happened to be one of the first webcomics I read and was one of the strips that made me dream of having a comic of my own one day.  A few years into my readership, the artist started a second strip in which their political views were made evident.

These political views were different (at the time) from mine.

For some reason, I felt betrayed on a deep personal level.  Here was an artist whose work I loved so much and identified with so closely, how could this person believe different things?  While I never stopped reading both the strips, in some way the experience felt tainted; I let my thin skin detract from my enjoyment of the work.

As time went on however, I got over it.  We live in a diverse world; we live and interact with so many people with so many different ideologies… it’s safe to assume that everyone thinks certain things differently than I.  No one is going to think the same things I do about every topic, so it’d be silly to let the concept of “so-and-so thinks differently than I do” get in the way.

That said, even when I felt that silly initial betrayal, it would never enter my mind to tell the artist what they could, or should, or should not, talk about on their website.  It’s their website, it’s their opinions, it’s their speech.

They have a right to it and they have a right to not be told what to say, no matter if I agree with it or not.

So to the reader who sent the email, I appreciate the message and I want you to know that I take everything readers send me to heart.  No one is forced to read Corpse Run, so I am genuinely ecstatic when folks choose to read my silly strips with their lame artwork.  It makes my day and there is nothing I love more than making this comic; it was something I dreamed of doing as a kid and having the opportunity to make it is a privilege.

While I do try to keep politics to a minimum (and up until this election had basically zero political anything here), please remember that Corpse Run is my comic, and I reserve the right to make strips about any topic.

I don’t want to lose you as a reader, but I understand your decision whatever you happen to choose.  Thank you again for your message.

 

…and now back to the original post!

The rats really got a raw deal in Final Fantasy 9, which is really kind of strange considering that even the other major countries had super diverse populations and theoretically should have been empathetic to other races.

Weird.

Come on, Alexandrians, take back your government!

I started Resident Evil 7 on Friday and while I didn’t play all that long (the first hour or so was hampered by technical issues with RE7 not playing nice with OBS) I am stunned to say that RE7 is somehow blowing my already astronomical expectations out of the water.

It’s just so different from RE4-6.  It’s so fresh.  Don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil 4 will always be one of my favorite games ever… but I do recognize that it started the trend of “action-y” Resident Evils that ultimately gave the world 5 (absolutely terrible) and 6 (fun, but over the top, triple A, action movie wackiness).

RE7 so far features none of the RE characters of old (though that might change) and I can’t remember the last time I felt so vulnerable playing a RE game.  Again, I’ve only played about two hours so far, but they have been a stupendously amazing two hours.

Can’t wait to play more!