This art takes me back. Ack was a relatively big name in the mid 2000s into like 2010ish until they. Basically shot their own business in the head after doing a bunch of really shady unethical stuff. Ran drawntobondage successfully for years exactly how patreon works today, except with even less oversight. I remember when they let the site just rot fire months while stringing members along for months with almost no content, or literally none. Or only pieces from guest artists like DrGraevling. Then finally after like over a year of taking people's money for no content when called out for acting insanely badly when asked about the state of the site announced to their grammar that they were opening a brand new paysite exclusively for m/m content, when that had been an extremely rare part of their content up until that point and that they would no longer take commissions for our involving women characters anymore.

No refunds, not any real apologies, just "pay me on this new site for content that you definitely did not sign up for" and then firesidedem predictably failed massively, like i remember hearing it had like 5% of drawntobondages subs because they were infinitely more well known for pinups and comics involving women and futas than men. I also vacuum with me. Remember them making multiple blog posts incredulous about this fact and just like of refusing to accept it.

They then just kind of faded into History, and most people i know who followed them at the time either thought they retired or that they were no longer worth following. Like they still have a presence online, bit it's nowhere near the big deal they were

I don't know if the artist has calmed down or gone back on that at this point, but I do know that it's a shame. They went from one of the more prominent internet artists at the time for this particular style to basically a nobody who almost no one had ever heard of or knew existed, and those that did were often just sad that they were no longer producing content that they were interested in.

Great example of how you need to know your audience, respect them, and not treat them as disposable money printers. And that "closing your site in favor of a tiny portion of your base and then being really mad that your income takes a nosedive because of it" is not a winning play. Ack s a genuinely super talented artist, it's just a shame they kind of fell into obscurity

Last edited on 07 August 2022, 23:52.

Base +6, ghosts141 +8, NimmieRp +6, cgh +9

@Paradoxicalthird - yeah I remember the whole saga. I was never a payer (I discovered them when they were already on the downswing of making excuses and producing very little actual content), because I thought it was shady as hell how they were constantly making excuses for why they weren't doing the job that people paid them to do. Like, I understand people's priorities and interests change, and that life happens, but they weren't just some rando on the internet, they were being paid subscriptions to produce content. If you don't want to make certain types of content, then stop taking commissions and subscriptions for it, and stop making promises about what you're going to make when you're clearly not making it.

And then after endless months of excuses and silence the whole sudden change to gay crap was just like... what the actual hell? There was ZERO market for it at the time, and your current paying audience has less than no interest in it. They made their name on comics like Shades of Desire and Strange Acquaintances, and then acted offended when people told them to stop making gay crap nobody wanted to see and go back to what they had signed up for. Then of course after they had driven off almost all of their actual subscribers they tried a really weak attempt to go back and acted offended when nobody cared because they didn't believe them anymore.

I would have gladly paid for Shades Of Desire 3 or the actual full Strange Acquaintances 2, but no way in hell was I paying for male on male crap and absolutely no way I was paying anything until they had produced the full comic (and they never even started SoD 3 or finished SA 2 despite promises).

Such a shame, honestly one of the most talented artists ever. I still got Shades Of Desire 2 on my wank archive :P

Last edited on 11 August 2022, 05:59.

Base +9, cgh +9