• Tag Archives art

  • Straight Talk: Stop Stealing Books, Comics, Art or Any Form of Entertainment, Please

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    I am writing this statement on behalf of my fellow writers and artists whose livelihoods depend on the honesty of our readers. This statement is going to be perfectly blunt to ensure crystal clarity in the message.

    And the message is this: Please, stop pirating–also known as downloading illegally–our books, comics, movies, music, audio performances or presentations, art, and anything else that does not belong to you.

    When someone takes something that doesn’t belong to them, it is called stealing. This makes a person a thief. That is what someone who steals is. It does not matter whether the item you took cost pennies or hundreds–even thousands–of dollars to create. In the case of movies, these numbers can run into the millions. The value is irrelevant when it comes to the principle of taking something you didn’t buy and/or did not have permission to use.

    There is a sad and, frankly, pathetic mentality out there that everything on the Internet is free and up for grabs to be consumed however anyone wishes.

    This is not true.

    Yes, there are platforms out there where entertainment work is posted for free in various mediums, but that is where this work is to remain. If a creator posted a piece of art or a photograph to the Internet, you cannot assume you can take it and use it how you see fit. There are rules and there are guidelines and there are permissions to be asked.

    Please, stop stealing our work.

    Downloading pirated movies, TV shows, music, books, comics, art, and anything else illegally is just that: illegal. It is a crime and it is wrong.

    It is even worse when someone takes someone else’s intellectual property and uses it for financial gain. You are profiting off theft. This is also illegal. The excessive amount of fan art in the comic community is a good example of this.

    Please, stop stealing our work.

    Most creators–despite what you might read in the news or see on TV–live paycheck to paycheck just like plenty of other people. We cannot afford to have our readers not pay for our work. If you like our work and want to read it, we thank you, but we ask that you do it ethically and compensate us for the lengthy amount of time and effort and sometimes stress put into various projects.

    If some creators flat out say they are fine with their stuff being pirated, then that’s different and that’s on that particular creator that they are acting ethically to ensure all parties involved with the work are okay with them allowing it to be used and/or consumed for free.

    The Internet does not equal free in the purest sense.

    Please, stop stealing our work.

    Sure, it is understood amongst many creators that many of our readers do not have the means to purchase our material. And while, having lived on the street, I can fully emphasize with that, stealing is stealing. End of story.

    When you steal a piece of entertainment, you are stealing not just the compensation for creating that piece of work, you are stealing a person’s time, which is, like I always say, the most valuable thing any living person has because our lives our finite. You are stealing something that is worth more than any treasure or wealth on the planet. Time is more valuable than diamonds.

    Please, stop stealing our work.

    This is a moral issue.

    It is up to you to decide who you want to be: Someone who is fair and respectful, or someone who steals from others.

    Please, stop stealing our work.

    Thank you.


    📂This entry was posted in Articles 📎and tagged

  • Status Report – 020721

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    status report 020721

    Status Report – 020721:

    I’ve been off my sabbatical since the beginning of January. Since then, I’ve done my best to work at a pace that is more health-ful. It’s one thing to go 1000mph, but it’s also important to know when to ease off the gas. I had my foot to the floor for too long and paid the price, which was burn out. It took about five months to recover to the point where I can go a little harder without compromising my health. I still made art during those months but at a much slower pace.

    Since being off sabbatical, I’ve spent most of my time making comics, namely Fredrikus.

    Episodes 18-20 have aired along with the front cover and first page of Issue 2. Go here to check them out.

    Episode 21 to air shortly.

    If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop me an email by going here.

    This concludes your Status Report for 020721.


    📂This entry was posted in Status Report 📎and tagged

  • Status Report: Final Notes from Sabbatical – 010521

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    status report 010521

    Status Report: Final Notes from Sabbatical – 010521:

    It’s time to draw my sabbatical to a close. It lasted about 5 months, all time spent recovering from burn out.

    I’m feeling much better now and my health has improved.

    During my sabbatical I was still making art albeit at a much slower pace. I learned some things about myself and about how to approach my creative career going forward.

    That said, changes are happening over here in terms of how I approach the art biz and work within it. I made some changes during my sabbatical to test the waters of these new methods and I’m pleased to report I learned a thing or two about how to best go about them.

    Thank you for your patience while I got better. I look forward to entertaining you again.

    This concludes Status Report: Final Notes from Sabbatical – 010521.


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  • Available for Freelance Publishing Work

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    Pen and keyboard

    Available for Freelance Publishing Work:

    This is just a note to say I’m available for freelance publishing work. I’ve seen 170+ projects through to completion and specialize in the areas of book editing, book cover design, and book formatting. I also do illustration work.

    Here is a link to my rates page.

    Here is a link to my art page.

    Feel free to contact me with any questions by going here.

    Thanks. I look forward to working with you.


    📂This entry was posted in Publishing Self-publishing 📎and tagged

  • Secret Project No. 3 Update

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    secret project no. 3

    It’s been decided that I’m dusting off the notebook for Secret Project No. 3. I wrote it a long time ago and now it’s time to turn it into a piece of art for you to enjoy.

    What Secret Project No. 3 is, is my little secret until reveal (however, the details of this project were revealed on the Behind the Scenes tier on Patreon).

    I’m confident you guys are going to dig it when it comes out.

    Onward.


    📂This entry was posted in General Announcements Stuff 📎and tagged

  • Status Report – 070120

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    status report

    Status Report – 070120:

    On this Canada Day, we’re at the desk getting some work done despite having some brain fog. It’s a stat holiday for most folks, but I never take those off because my chosen profession is based on deadlines and each day off further delays those deadlines.

    Which is fine, me working.

    Making art is how I prefer to spend my time anyway. But as for you, if you have today off, go easy, take a breath, and recharge so you’re ready for the remainder of the week.

    This morning, I posted a new chapter of Zomtropolis to Patreon. You can read it–and get caught up–by going here.

    Now back to work.

    This has been your Status Report for 070120.


    📂This entry was posted in Status Report 📎and tagged

  • Status Report – 052820

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    status report 052820

    Status Report – 052820:

    A few things –

    1) The Patreon edition of Fredrikus posted today. The non-Patreon edition posts tomorrow. (The Fredrikus Patreon edition posts a day early.)

    2) As per the pic above, my Instagram has become an art channel so please consider following me there for art posts.

    3) This weekend’s edition of The Canister X Transmission is mostly written and will go out Saturday.

    4) Today will mostly be spent making comics as part of our effort to do One Thing at a Time.

    5) I made spring rolls last night.

    This has been your Status Report for 052820.


    📂This entry was posted in Status Report 📎and tagged

  • On Art and Never Arriving

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Prompted by a chat with artist Sean Simmans last night, I got to thinking that it is impossible to ever fully arrive in the arts field.

    You may be doing poorly or extremely well on the scale of subjective success, but wherever you are is only temporary and never stable.

    Any art form is about finding one’s voice, which is different at 30 than it is at 50 than it is at 70. Your style will constantly change, sometimes–and ideally–for the better, but also sometimes not.

    Unfortunately, we have been sold this packaged idea of what success looks like in the art field, genres ripping apart the industry, and marketing madness brainwashing us into what we’re supposed to think art looks like . . . but it’s never accurate.

    Ultimately, art is living and fluid and is like water, always flowing, not a dam in sight.

    Your work might be polished, but even in a polished state, it’s incomplete because there is always that one thing you could have done better or a little bit smarter.

    Art isn’t prefect. It’s not supposed to be. Then it isn’t art. That’s Sean talking and I agree with him.

    Whatever your craft, where you are is where you are. If the art is made, you’re an artist. And, in that context, you have arrived . . . but our work never will.

    It’s all about the journey.


    📂This entry was posted in Public Journal 📎and tagged

  • An Elaboration of 2020 and a Career Shift

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs
    Comics work
    Part of a print in progress on the drawing board

    An Elaboration of 2020 and a Career Shift.

    After years of putting it off, I’m stepping down from being solely an author. “Solely” being the operative word. The book publishing industry rewarded me in the ways I needed, taught me the things I wanted to learn, and helped me meet the types of people I wanted to meet, both creator and reader alike. And while true that since I’ve been back from being ill, I’ve taken on the mantle of writer/artist instead of just writer, I thought it’d be a fair thing to tell you what the current road map looks like career-wise so I don’t accidentally mislead you.

    This is the general plan:

    2020 is a year of rebuilding hence Project Rebuild. Throughout the course of the year–with the very end of the year being the ideal-but-flexible deadline–I’ll be bringing my book list into the 21st century and will release a new thing or two along the way. And it will take the whole year or potentially more because I have a lot of titles and all this takes time.

    Going forward in 2021, I have a few books that are done that need releasing so those will be tended to as well as finishing off some works-in-progress to wrap them up.

    While the above two are occuring, I’ll be spending most of my time and energy devoted to making comics. Comics are what started me on the publishing path and are a great love of mine. In short, writing books will be a secondary thing compared to the comics.

    All I want to do is finish the last bit of my book publishing life and make comics going forward.

    For Axiom-man fans, don’t worry. Lots of prose adventures coming. I’m referring to my non-superhero work.

    I also need to point out something to my readers that needs to be taken into consideration: I’m still sick. I’m much better than before, but even when I started up again at the end of last August, I was operating at around 65-70% capacity. Going hard at 1000mph has dropped me to about 50% on a good day, 40-45% on every other day. Each day I come to the keyboard, I’m not healthy on multiple levels, but I work anyway because making art and stories is what I do and it’s what helps me survive. All I’m saying is I’m changing things on various levels so I don’t keel over and die one day in the middle of a script or while drawing something. It is also important to point out that my shift to comics isn’t about accommodating for being unwell. It’s about looking ahead to my deathbed when I’m lying there and looking back. I know I’ll regret it if I don’t do comics and since time is the most valuable thing on this earth, I want to spend it doing something I love.

    Thank you.


    📂This entry was posted in Drawing General Announcements Life Writing 📎and tagged

  • Stay Focused Social Media Blocking App and Timex TW5M23300 Watch

    Posted on by A.P. Fuchs

    Stay Focused Social Media Blocking App and Timex TW5M23300 Watch.

    Last week I was off-line except for a couple of tasks that needed doing via the Internet (like administration). To ensure I remained off-line–I’m just as human as the next guy (I think)–I got an app for my computer phone called Stay Focused. This app can block any app on your phone and, in the free version (which I used), can block up to 5 apps at once. You set a schedule by telling it which hours and what days you want certain apps blocked. I applied these to the social media apps on my pocket computer to keep me on lockout. While true I’m in Broadcast Mode in the winter, as part of broadcasting I sometimes need to go into an app like Instagram and post something. The problem is one glance at the feeds can quickly lead to two, then three, and so on, and the next thing you know you’ve fiddled away an afternoon scrolling and scrolling and refreshing and scrolling.

    This picture is a screenshot of the app from the day I went dark. You can see the stat on there says I’ve already tried opening the app 3 times and each time it didn’t work (was running tests). The timer on locking me out of these apps ran for a week. And it worked! Once I knew I was locked out, I didn’t give the apps a second thought.

    Stay Focused APF

    Stay Focused also acts as a master lock, meaning you have these little locks under it (like the apps you’re blocking), but then you can lock Stay Focused itself–but only in 6-hour chunks in the free version–to ensure you don’t unlock your blocked apps. I’m assuming this is for extreme cases where certain people need a double padlock on their phone. To get even more extreme, I’m pretty sure there’s a lock on Stay Focused that forbids you from uninstalling it in an effort to destroy your barriers.

    What was interesting was it kept track of how many times I unlocked my phone to do something, like reply to a text from family. I was disgusted when I saw, at the end of one of the days, I had unlocked the phone around 35 times. I barely used it that day! But numbers don’t lie. I barely used it? That was 35 times in the span of 12 hours (roughly). That’s approximately 4 times an hour. That’s once every 15 minutes. My unlock count steadily dropped as the week wore on and I got busier, but this goes to show how much we’ve integrated pocket computers into our lives.

    The app has other features, like how long you are using any one program and your total phone usage for the day.

    In the end, getting an app like this is highly recommended, especially if you are a phone junkie and recognize you have a problem (dopamine addiction). And, yes, the irony of this kind of post ranting about frequent phone use is not lost on me. I fully recognize a good part of my business is digital and having people on-line looking at or reading my stuff is better for me yet here I am encouraging my readers to go live life in the physical world. Oh well. But my refutation to the irony is this: I’m referring to balance. Is your on-line and off-line lives balanced? Take away sleeping hours, eating, and body maintenance, and see how much time is spent on a screen while you’re awake. The rest is up to you.

    (I know that author J.B. Bennet got on board and locked themselves out of things during working hours each day, so others see the merit in this.)

    I made this video on Friday of last week and aired it yesterday. It gets into what happened during my time off-line. Watch and subscribe. You might relate.

    Lastly, for months I was getting frustrated of having to pull out my phone to check the time. While 9 times out of 10 all it was was checking the time, there was always that one time in there where it became an excuse to futz around on the phone. I couldn’t have that. I needed to be off-line, so I took the plunge and got myself a basic sports watch by Timex. As a kid, I had a couple of their Ironman watches, which I loved. I was aiming for another basic Ironman this time around but it was suggested to me that’s more a watch for a 15-year-old than a man so opted for a different one because I thought that was a valid point (I’m talking purely the aesthetics).

    This is the watch I got, model TW5M23300:

    Timex TW5M23300 Watch APF

    And that was how I kept dark last week.

    Taking a break from the Internet is something I’ve recommended for years for the sake of maintaining all facets of one’s health. I will go off-line again somewhere down the road because 2020 is a stupidly busy work year and sometimes you need to just shut up and get the job done. But that upcoming time off-line won’t be for a while yet. Not until my first holiday of 2020. Until then, I’ll be here, writing to you and making books and art and comics and videos.

    Keep coming back to the blog every day. There’s always something being posted.

    – APF

    Ps. Today, a new chapter of Gigantigator Death Machine aired on Patreon! Please go here to get access to this fun romp of creature horror for just a buck!


    📂This entry was posted in Articles Life Opinion Stuff Web Stuff 📎and tagged