I think I managed to avoid making it look like anyone is farting underwater.
These are things that concern me.
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Hey wow! A lot of new traffic this week!
If this is your first time here, welcome, enjoy your stay, try not to break anything, please enjoy this comic, the youtube channel, check out our facebook group and have a good time.

I’m glad to have you here, whether you’ve been here for years, or you’ve just found your way in.

If I can keep this level of traffic up, I can justify more pages per week, so there’s incentive to share me around
/subtlety
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Warning: Rant based on current events you’ve probably already read about incoming.

If you’re at all invested in VFX or any kind of design work, you’ve no doubt seen some of the green facebook avatars around, or perhaps you’ve read about the VFX team behind Life of Pi going bankrupt after production finished, while the movie goes on to gross into the billions.

The issue is clear; VFX staff are expected to work for peanuts, and then utterly neglected on the back end. In many cases jobs are offered as ‘internships’ where you’ll be expected to work without pay, simply for something to show on your resume. I’ve even come across that ask for an initial investment, they literally ask you to pay in order to do their work! This ‘you should feel privileged to work here’ attitude culminated at the Oscars the other night, when Bill Westenhofer was cut off as he tried to draw attention to the unfortunate Rhythm & Hues Studios who did the CGI for Life of Pi. He later gave an interview in which he was able to speak his piece, but the message sent, was if you’re in Visual Effects, don’t expect any job security.

I could write pages and pages of this, but I’m not a Journalist, I’m a digital artist. I can only relate how this effects people in my position.

My career has taken a beating over the years.
Short, underpaid contracts, gaps in between work that guarantee by the time you get the next project, you’ve had to spend any savings you had on living expenses, and that’s just when the work is there. Often, I’ve taken work in other areas, I don’t have a life savings account to fall back on in tough times, and I’ve never been too proud to do jobs outside my preferred field. That said, most of the jobs available in my area have a very short life. Everyone is on a contract, meaning no-one is protected by fair work laws, and other corporations are usually bidding to undercut your company, and make you redundant due to a corporate change-over. So the civilian job market isn’t so stable either.
Don’t get me wrong, I love doing this work, and I’ve worked on some cool projects, but it often comes at great personal cost.

If my life must be unstable, then let it be unstable due to work I love, rather than work I hate, but I don’t work for free.

I also don’t normally plug facebook groups, but in this case, it is really important to spread the idea that Digital Artists need to be paid.
I’ll be keeping an eye on groups like this, and hopefully, these kinds of stories will become less frequent.

Hope I didn’t get too ‘current news’ for you.

Here’s to new viewers, and more strips!