Level 6: #51
Good news, good news!
To start, the dispute has finally been settled, thanks to the tireless efforts of my attorney, Mr. Augustus Golden. If it wasn’t for Mr. Golden’s patience and expertise, the comic would still be down, so please take a moment and thank him for some fantastic work.
If you’d like to read the full details of the dispute, I’ve posted them here.
As a followup bit of good news: several boxes showed up on my doorstep yesterday. When I opened them, what do you think I saw?
It gives me an idea for a trap in my next dungeon. I shall call it the Box O’ Monsters. (Knights of the Ruined Table, if you’re reading this: pretend you didn’t hear that.)
We will begin shipping out the Rusty plushes as soon as possible to all the Kickstarter backers. Once we get through that, I’ll put up a store so anyone else who wants can get one of their own.
Thanks again for all your patience during the last few, crazy weeks.
Thank you, Augustus Golden!! Rockin’ name, btw.
It’s good you’re back, man.
I’m glad that legal kerfluffle is over, and that WotC didn’t have to stomp you flat just to be seen doing something about their copyrights.
Let’s all have a grateful moment of silence for the fact that this comic didn’t start out chronicling the adventures of a githyanki, an illithid and a kuo-toa in Greyhawk City. And then let’s all have a mournful moment of silence for the sheer level of idiocy of our current intellectual copyright laws. The only complimentary thing I can say about them is that they’re better than they were in the days Gary left TSR.
But still, Hasbro chose to continue the “glorious” traditions of TSR.
Oh, and Games Workshop joined the initiative… May we already treat it as a Zombie outbreak, please? :]
TSR?
Okay children, google is right over there, type in “TSR Gary Gygax” and be ready to get edumakated.
Huzzah for Augustus Golden! Glad everything is working out.
So, by my count, not counting the Critical Missives (But counting the title pages, since all but the first are actually comics), this is strip #197. Can we be expecting anything special in a few weeks for the Big 2-0-0?
Pity about the Lamia retcon, but that’s not a big deal. Great work on Mr.Golden’s part.
Isn’t reality warping too mainstream for these hipsters? I mean, even pirates are doing it.
Now all we need is a new fan nickname for the snakey lady, in order for it to be introduced into canon like the old Nick That Shall Not Be Named was.
Oh no. 🙁 It sounds like the name I came up for our … lamia… friend made some of the trouble worse. Sorry, Mike!
And thanks Mr. Golden for all your help!
Y’know, lawyers who defend against these headdesk-inducing IP claims need a bit more recognition. And Augustus Golden sounds like a good name for an adventurer…. Perhaps Rusty & Co might run into some legislative issues in a future storyline and get help from a certain paper-pushing Paladin?…
Wow… Thank you indeed, Mr Golden! And damn, that’s a cute bunch o’ monsters. 😀
I’m just puzzled by how you got singled out by this when there’s all these other gaming parody comics out there?
Or was it the plushies? I don’t know if the other comics offer plushies… 🙂
I bet it was the plushies. They must’ve felt threatened by something that adorable.
Bullies don’t go after big targets that can defend themselves, and taking down one of the more popular comics would be bad PR.
Huzzah! Huzzah for Augustus Golden!
I still maintain that what you have in that there box is a Want! of plush Rust Monsters.
P.S. How do you solve this problem? With Lamia!
[apologies to Sound of Music nuns]
Good thing that was a cardboard box!
And that our dear friend in this particular comic did not use the Python on the plushies, so they started to, “Eat cardboard” instead. . . .
Now I’m not usually much of a fan of lawyers, but on this occasion, I’ll keep the T-Rex in her paddock. Level up and +1 charisma bonus for Mr Golden. Just watch out for the aurumvorax.
Looks like everyone was right about the source of the trouble. Is this the only way WOTC can make money since they threw their flagship product down the toilet with 4th edition? Where did I put that scroll of tsunami? I’ll show them why it’s a bad idea to live on the coast!
I thought WotC’s flagship product was Magic: the Gathering?
But yeah, it sucks that this all had to go down the way it did. Three cheers for Mr. Augustus Golden, fighting the good fight on behalf of Rusty and Co.
Is saving the comic from death by litigation worth a Gnome Prize? Because if it’s not, it totally should be.
A Gnome-Prize seemed kind of petty for what he did. I’m working on something better, but it will be a while until it’s done.
This isn’t the only place to have strange unexplained ‘hiccups’. Goblins was down too for a while.
Just goes to show what happens when a Toymaker takes over a franchise.
I don’t think that was WOTC — their host seemed to have troubles and take a lot of non-fantasy webcomics down too.
I can’t wait for my Rusty Plush!!!!
I love the insane logic the Hipster uses on how he used the artifact on itself to make him able to use the artifact on itself and then a third time to let it hook up to an amplifier. Willing suspension of disbelief.
I agree with the first poster that Augustus Golden is pretty much the best lawyer name ever. Except maybe Bob Loblaw.
Sounds like a character from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Played by Alan Cumming. 🙂
(Explanation for those who haven’t watched “The Good Wife”: Cumming plays a lawyer named Eli Gold in that show.)
And now we know why decapitation didn’t work against Miss Vamp.
I am very happy to hear the work of Augustus Golden was so sucessful. Also, WotC sounds like they were reasonable in the end. The footer they wanted you to add sounded fine to me. I will have to check out the monster pages to see what the changes are there. And I am looking forwards to my plushie when it arrives 🙂
If it’s not too much trouble, could you post a list of which strips were altered? I’d saved copies of the first five chapters (for my personal collection) before the site went down, and I’m just curious to see what the changes were.
(And before anyone asks, no, I don’t think I’d better send out copies of the original versions. Since they’re Mike’s IP I would need his permission to distribute them, but if he gave permission it might be seen as skirting the terms of his agreement. Sorry.)
I didn’t keep track, sorry. Most of the changes are just a word here and there, anyway.
For the record: I’m perfectly okay with other people redistributing my work online as long as they aren’t profiting from it or removing the “rustyandco.com” link in the bottom. People posting strips they like in other forums is one of the main ways people find me!
That’s how I found you, and I have posted strips elsewhere in turn.
I thought that Y. T. was a Lamia when I first saw her, so the change allows me to say ‘Aha! I knew it all along!’
Heck, maybe you should start referring to the Pathfinder RPG instead of D&D….
Congratulation MIke and good going Mr. Golden.
Oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed… o_0
It seems blindingly obvious to me that there should be a character in the offing: a golden dragon named Augustus who’s a har-splitting specialist in the law of property. Good work, Counsellor Golden, and a few huzzahs as well.
Sigh…. the Wizards really do hate their customers, don’t they? Still, good to see you’ve managed to come to an agreement, and not had to sacrifice too much. A pity, though – Yuan-Tiffany was an awesome name for a character…
Stay Ponyboy, Golden. Err ….yeah. Although I was also initially miffed at the “Big,Bad Corporation” hard-balling the “Little Guy”, I think it’s worth remembering that The Wizards have been (TOO) generous in the past and got their collective ass bit (HARD!). To call them a Corporate Steam Roller and a House of Cards in almost the same breath is a tad unfair. And there is this: without their I.P. we would be reading the Adventures of a cockroach, a steamer trunk and a symmetrical gob of goo ( still be pretty good, though ).
I don’t actually blame Hasbro much. My slap at the IP laws is in part because – if I understand it correctly – failure to assert proprietary rights is regarded as ceding them. Hasbro is trapped into unnecessary expenses spent on frivolous legal actions – or they lose their exclusive right to their own IP. For once I’m NOT blaming Hasbro. Which is fair, because I’ve made them the bad guy on some of my OTHER gripes… as who here has not?
As a Magic player, I don’t see any problem calling WotC a House of Cards.
Poor monsters? Clearly she’s never seen the amount of gold these guys can carry!
Ah, but what she’s alluding to is the poverty inflicted on them by their changes of nature, causing them to mindlessly abandon their gold.
Once they turn back into their old monstrous selves, she’ll probably kill them all.
He’ll see something new, all right…just not for very long.
“You’re pouring sourcery into the world and other things are coming with it! Others have given them a pathway but you’ve given them an avenue!”
cue the space pirates pumping the python full of phazon
so now that it does work on its self if you tried to use it on its self it wouldn’t work on its self anymore?
But it is in its nature not to work on itself anymore when it is used on itself, therefore it would not- not work on itself anymore after it is used on itself.
no it is in its nature to work on its self, so if you tried to use it on its self it wouldn’t work
We went over that in the comic already. That was solved by using it on itself
Glad to see you back.
Good to hear everything worked out! Big props to Mr. Golden for defying the negative stereotypes of his occupation and keeping this great comic running.
Thing with lawyers is 90% of them give the rest a bad name.
I would also like to thank Mr. Golden as well as WOTC for being reasonable and willing to negotiate.
And thanks to Mike for not giving up.
Oh yeah, I came up with a character who was like a Demigod of theoretically impossible things, and that worked a bit like this! After a while, I realized I had created the perfect handwave character! Anything that shouldn’t be able to happen, I could blame it on him!
-RU =)