Polska Brain Jelly

I started using Comic Book Creator to layout the comics for ScreenCap Comics (in fact, the “How It Should Have Happened” segment was all done using CBC), however I have since switched to Comic Life because it’s quite a bit more flexible.  Comic Life has it’s own problems, and I’m looking at some other software at this point to see if that will fit the bill, but I digress.  I wanted to do some slight editing of some of the HISHH comics, but had done an OS reinstall since I had used it last and didn’t have it installed.  After digging through archived email for a half an hour to find my product key, I slap in www.mycomicbookcreator.com (the site I originally got the software from) into my browser’s address bar and what comes up?  What comes up is a page saying that now I can use MashOn for everything I once did in Comic Book Creator, but for free!  Except edit comics that I have already created.  With software that I paid for.  Software that I cannot download from their site any longer, because they don’t offer it.  I try www.planetwidegames.com (the publisher for CBC) and it sends me to mashon.com.  Great, I now have paid for software that I can’t use because I can’t download it from the people that I gave the money to.

It’s not like this software is old.  I ordered it just a little over a year ago (April 2008 to be exact).  I have no idea what posesses a company to dump the customers that have given them money like this, but it’s crap like this that probably makes people a little gun-shy when purchasing software from smaller publishers.  When I buy software from Adobe, Microsoft or Sun, I’m fairly certain that those companies aren’t going to up and dump their product a year later for something that’s online and advertisement based.  I could also understand if the company just didn’t make it and had to close its doors.  But that’s not the case, they are still running and offering what I paid fifty bucks for now for free online a year later.

On top of that, if I actually do happen to find the software, if I remember correctly there is also activation that has to happen with their servers online.  I’m less than confident that those activation servers are still online (which is a model that game companies are going to which has bitten me in the ass as well with Hellgate:London; it’s a model that I and others are not happy with). So basically, I paid fifty bucks to rent software for a little over a year.  The least they could have done was buy me flowers and candy before they screwed me like that.

Just an update to say that, yes I’m working on screencapcomics and the modelling, and that no, there isn’t really anything to report.

Just got back from vacation and I’m caught up on all the stuff that I missed for the last week. I’m ready to get back to screencapcomics.com and the modelling project. Wheeeeee!

Yeah, I’m still giddy with excitement on this project. It’s consuming me. I’m about half way through the first (thick) book I have, and I’m forcing myself to read it before I delve into the program itself so I will have a good understanding of how SketchUp works and where I need to go to find more info if I get stuck. I also need desperately to get back to making content for screencapcomics.com and that’s going to be a priority starting in about two weeks. Oh, the anguish of waiting!

Woohoo, my books finally came in. I’m digging into them now, and took a break to grab a drink and write this. I’m so giddy, hehehe.