Splitting up Books - Thoughts? 5 5

[grapeape]

3 minutes ago, RBerman said:

In most 12-step programs, you're going to have to go cold turkey from the substance that's causing the problem. I volunteer to take it off your hands, lest you be tempted to relapse.

I gotta feeling I wouldn’t get past step 1

[mtlevy1]

Only complete books/stories I have were purchased that way; however, I am trying to put together Sal Buscema Nova 11...help me out?

Also Astonishing Teams 6 Kazar story

Edited September 5, 2020 by mtlevy1

[grapeape]

I’ll keep my eyes open Mark.

[Rick2you2]

30 minutes ago, grapeape said:

There must be a 12 Step Program for us 😂

Why? I like my alcohol, even in a cape. There is also a lot of classic art I don’t like, although, I will pass on Dogs Playing Poker. 

[BuraddoRun]

19 hours ago, Terry E. Gibbs said:

I think it may be different with comic art collectors and comic art collectors.

If I were to label myself, I'd call myself a comic art collector. I'm both. I've enjoyed comics because they have heroic and fun characters, interesting stories, and beautiful artwork. Yes, I collected, and still do collect, comic books, but as I've gotten older I've begun to appreciate the artwork more than I did as a kid. I bought my first piece as a comic fan, but when I got it, I looked it over, admiring the details and work put into it, and appreciated it more as an art fan. Also, comic art isn't the only art I collect. Before getting into comic art, I was buying animation cels, and even recently got into Magic card artwork as well (specifically card proof commissions; I don't have any original paintings). These are all things I was a fan of first, so nostalgia is a big part, but the reason I buy these original works now is because I appreciate the art itself. I like to see and appreciate the details, the work, the vision, that an artist has when he creates.

7 hours ago, ShallowDan said:

In my heart I feel similar to what Rick says above: if there's an argument to be made that comics are art, then I would say that it's the complete story/issue that comes closest to meeting the standard...

You may find it interesting, BurradoRun, but a non-insignificant portion of the Prince Valiant art work that survives is in the form of single panels.  Hal Foster would cut up strips and gift individual panels to fans who wrote him.  I've wondered if anyone has ever tried to tackle reassembling a Valiant strip.

That's kind of how I feel as well. Obviously, a complete issue or story would more accurately be the "complete" work of art, and would be ideal in most situations. But, I don't think it's as bad as some people do to break a work up. For instance, the example you give with Foster and Prince Valiant, is a beautiful example, in my opinion, of breaking up a work. Foster created Prince Valiant. He made it for the world to enjoy, and it was his work, his creation. The world got it as intended, in a published comic strip. But big fans, those who took the time to write to him and express their appreciation, were actually gifted original pieces of the comic they enjoyed. Even though the work itself was compromised, did that make the notion less meaningful or devalue its worth? I'd argue that it meant more to these fans, because the creator himself chose to share his original work with them. To be clear, I would never break up anything I own, which at this point is just single pages anyway. If I were to ever get a compete story (hopefully one day), I would keep it intact, or sell/trade/gift it in its complete form. But I don't fault others for splitting books up. And obviously, I'd buy pages from split books.

7 hours ago, Taylor G said:

Since you asked...

 

Believe it or not, it's a post I read of yours that prompted me to make this topic. It was just a comment you made in the buy/sell part of the forum I think, but it was clear that you aren't a fan of splitting books. It just got me thinking about the "ethics" of our hobby, even though I didn't use that word in the 1st post, and I thought it was a good discussion point. Even though splitting books breaks the finished work, I maintain that the actual finished product, the published work, is what is intended to be complete. No, it isn't an accurate representation of the original work, but it is still the intended work. I wouldn't put it past some artists to have the foreknowledge that their large, unpublished work would look different when published, to the point that they used artistic tricks that they wouldn't dare use if they considered their large pages completed works. So preserving the finished work, the published comic book, is more akin to your film preservation analogy, I think, than the actual art used to make the comic. That said, I DO believe that keeping the original artwork is important and good. I just think it's a bit different.

Preservation efforts now, thankfully, are much stronger, accessible, and feasible than they used to be. Artists or curators can make HQ scans of completed works and duplicate those scans digitally as much as they want, but still sell off the originals. These artists editions that are being made are noble efforts, and it is sad that more complete books aren't available for some artists. Maybe collectors can come together and loan their personal pieces to be scanned, preserved digitally, shared and enjoyed in these collections. I know the video game community is doing a good job with preservation nowadays. Collectors get their hands on prototype editions of games that are different than the finished products, or in some cases not even published, and get the data off their carts downloaded and preserved in ROM format so they can be played and enjoyed by generations to come. They'll literally loan their one-of-a-kind cart out to a person who will carefully download the ROM from it, then get their cart returned to them. You'll always have those collectors that many would call selfish, that want to be the ONLY one to have that game, so they don't share their cart and don't let the ROM get preserved outside their cart. I imagine some comic art collectors are like that as well, but one of the beautiful things about this hobby is that the art we collect already is, generally, widely available in published form. Fine art in general is often photographed and published multiple times over. Preserving the original is important, but natural wear can and does happen, so being able to make "copies" for preservation's sake is good. But we all like, obviously, collecting the originals. That's what art collectors do. Preservationists can preserve in the modern era in more ways that simply holding the original and keeping it safe.

6 hours ago, sfilosa said:

Not going to make a long rant but first and foremost, "we are collectors". We are not buying to conserve the art form...

And that's the rub. Some of us are concerned with preservation, some of us just want to collect, and some do both. But we all, presumably, care enough for the work that we take care of what we obtain. And even those of us who are just collectors can help preservationists, like in the example I gave above with video game ROMs, and still collect what and how we like.

5 hours ago, vodou said:

The good news is that a lot of comic art is not art, it's junk that was banged out by hacks that couldn't get a better job and screwed up by not taking shop class instead and learning a(nother) trade that was unionized. This "art" only has value because: nostalgia. Break 'em up baby!

There's no harm being done here, imo, what's lost is lost...

How do you determine whether an artist is a hack or a visionary? Art has always been subjective, and it's no different with comic books. Just bring up Rob Liefield, for example, and you'll get arguments from both sides. I've no doubt that some artists do just bang out pages without much care because it was their job, but even the most respected artists might do that at times. Then you also have artists that have vision, and express themselves deeply, caring about the work they put out, that many people simply don't like. But there are a few fans out there that have that same vision, who do see and appreciate what a "junk" artist put on paper. Art really is a broad field, and it is one of, if not the most, subjective things on this planet.

3 hours ago, dichotomy said:

Thanks to the OP and all subsequent posters for their nuanced and interesting replies. This is the content I’m here for...

 

Yes, that is something I really enjoy about this forum! I like seeing different opinions and having good discussions about the hobby along with sharing the hobby itself. It doesn't devolve into bickering back and forth, but instead gives us things to consider and new perspectives we haven't seen. I like this place.

3 hours ago, Rick2you2 said:

So while I disagree with the OP, and his sense of “excitement” at the impending destruction of a complete piece of work, moronic is going too far a bridge for me to cross.

Hey, that wasn't me! grapeape said that, though he qualified what he meant in a subsequent post. LOL!

Another thing I want to say about comic collectors VS art collectors, is that comic collectors really have done a lot for the art field as well. If not for the people who loved and cared about these books enough to preserve them in the first place, then comics themselves, and by extension even more so the art used to make them, would have remained a consumable product, and not been preserved or cared about like they are today. It's the same with the films that Taylor G mentioned above. If people like Kevin Brownlow hadn't cared about the art that is a silent and black and white film, that art would have been lost. Consume and move on. That's what people do. But collectors and appreciators keep these things preserved so that new fans in future generations might find something they resonate with. Or we just like to relive the things that we love. You know...nostalgia.

[Messier3499]

It can be a grind, but it's worth it to me: 

 

 

[Will_K]

I won't categorize myself as a COMIC art collector, comic ART collector or knuckle dragger.  I think it's important to note that you can appreciate the artist's work and effort in putting together a story by reading the printed comic.  You were never intended to appreciate that work by only holding the original art in your hands.  That work was never meant to be seen, let alone be framed and hung on a wall.  However holding the art in your hands will give you a greater appreciation for the skill involved.  And sometimes you have to take what you can get.  You can't announce you want to buy a specific story if you know it was broken up.

As I commented in a different topic earlier this year:

* In 2018, ComicLink started auctioning Nick Cardy's 22 pages to Brave & Bold 96 (Batman/Sgt Rock) as separate lots.

* In 2018, HA started auctioning Mike Nasser's 8 page story ("12 Parts") as 8 separate lots in their weekly auctions. 

* In 2017, ComicConnect auctioned Mike Nasser's 30 page story (Hang the Batman ) and Marshall Rogers' related cover as separate lots during a single auction.

Those auctions were noteworthy to me since Nick is my favorite comic artist and Mike is also one of my favorites.

On CAF, I have Nick's complete book (cover and pages) to Teen Titans 13 and complete stories by many artists (varying page count).  And I have other complete stories that aren't on CAF.

And I re-assembled an 8 page Golden age Senorita Rio story by Nick in 5 transactions over only 10 years.  That wasn't my intention.  It's just that by being focused on Nick and not being particularly picky about what art to buy, I lucked into completing the story.  Page 1 was the last page I acquired.

Excluding Felix's art drops, the opportunities to buy a complete story don't come often.  Kudos to @Nexus and his clients for creating those opportunities.  And regardless of who is selling, whenever an opportunity arises, it's usually darn expensive.

As already noted, Hal Foster cut up Prince Valiant strips into panels.  I know Tom Gill cut up some of his Lone Ranger art into panels to sell them.  I asked him why.  He said something like it was being on the leading edge.  Also, there are those Golden age DC pages cut into tiers by various interns, re-assembling full pages can't be easy.

[Bird]

whole issue collecting isn't a real choice. You can only purchase whole issues when they are sold as such or when you put them together yourself. But you cannot choose a story that was meaningful and then go out and buy the art in 99.99% of the cases (either immediately or over time). The true "art form" stories are few and far between and not readily available so a collector would wait years without any buys or even leads on buys. And usually it is a matter of something becoming available and then reacting to it's availability rather than deciding a story is personally meaningful and searching it out. Collecting art is about acquisition AND availability, and not everything is available EVER, much less when you want to buy and when you want all 22 pages.

I myself got to about 17/22 pages on one of The Shade Starman books before giving up hope, Michael Zulli art, the wheat field story. But I cut down on volume overall, not only on that story.

[sfilosa]

Probably throwing gas on a fire, but if anyone looks at most (not all) the complete stories collectors have from the past 20 years, I would say they are INCOMPLETE!!!!

Why are they incomplete?  Because most don't have the word balloon at all. Clearly, when the "story" was told, the words were a very important part of the story. 

Also, I can argue that the coloring process was also meant to be a significant part of the art, yet I don't think many  "completionist" are searching for the color guides.

An ACTUAL comic book is the best representation of what the entire comic book was meant to be/say/convey, etc. Not the "unfinished art" which is what B&W ink art really is (except for B&W comic magazines). 

[Rick2you2]

8 hours ago, sfilosa said:

Probably throwing gas on a fire, but if anyone looks at most (not all) the complete stories collectors have from the past 20 years, I would say they are INCOMPLETE!!!!

Why are they incomplete?  Because most don't have the word balloon at all. Clearly, when the "story" was told, the words were a very important part of the story. 

Also, I can argue that the coloring process was also meant to be a significant part of the art, yet I don't think many  "completionist" are searching for the color guides.

An ACTUAL comic book is the best representation of what the entire comic book was meant to be/say/convey, etc. Not the "unfinished art" which is what B&W ink art really is (except for B&W comic magazines). 

The issue, though, is about splitting up books— making things worse, not getting the best which is available. And let me add that the absence of word balloons is something I hate.

[ESeffinga]

In general, I have pretty mixed feelings on the practice, but that might be because I see the issue from more than one perspective.

On the one hand, I can cringe to see an older work that has managed to remain intact for decades become split up, so many years later. It feels like a shame, because we all know it’ll never be whole again.
 

It’s less physically destructive than say, people who erase pencils from the OA because they find them distracting (it happens) or people gluing on trade dress that isn’t present in the OA, etc. But splitting up a story is taking an action that is VERY close to impossible to undo. And one where the time and resources to pursue often feel futile.

On the other hand, as someone who has collected contemporary original art, as well as being interested in older work for going on 3 decades now, I have seen how that work has largely been distributed from one to the next. 
 

Back when the stuff was cheap, sold by entire stacks and trunk-fulls, and was currently apparent to all it had little serious monetary value (No matter what people would one day realize it’s value to be.)

Hind-site is always 20/20, but in essence the entire sequential art collecting community was largely born out of page-at-a-time gifting, sales by artists when they finally started getting their art back, and those dealers that obtained it in (ahem) other ways. Hell, it’s only recently that contemporary artists have managed to sell the idea of keeping their work complete. I think many would agree Felix has been a pioneer in this just in the last few years. I’ve seen other sellers trying it. Think about that for a sec. Felix is a pioneer. It’s 2020.

Prior to that, the VAST majority of modern art page sales have been individually. That goes for 70s-today. Or if one was lucky to turn up at the right time for a new art sale, they might be able to string 2-4 pages from a sequence together in a single buy. 
 

The dealers did buy up whole books and collections, but were able to spread the work around, keep people interested, get it into more hands. They grew the hobby bit by bit. Many of them taking big $ risks for their time to do so.

I would argue the ability to sell those single pages enabled the hobby to grow. Allowed many a young (and old) person to get interested in original art. And kept many artists financially afloat, as finding someone to buy every page of a single book would both vastly limit their sales base, and income. The price of admission would choke the very hobby of buyers we would believe it is trying to “save” the art for.
 

And piecemeal sales probably saved a lot of the art at a time when the previous decades were just shredding the stuff, chucking the stuff in a dumpster, using it as coasters, and tossing it into a warehouse until they felt the need to dig a piece out and cut it up to reuse some part of it. 

Dealers sell single pages for essentially the same reason. Not to mention the economics of it. Especially in the early days of OA collecting. Selling someone on a $100 page in the 80s, much less the 90s was WAYYY more likely, than talking them into a book. Most books sold complete tended to be because it was deemed less desirable, couldn’t be easily sold for premium per-page prices, and more often than not, buyers demanded buying in bulk discount prices. So selling complete was taking a financial “loss” on the part of the seller. It truncated the reach of the artist, and dissuaded a lot of would-be collectors from getting involved.

Was this breaking up of a book a sort of cultural pillaging? Taking a whole thing, and making it into bits? Sure, there is an argument to be made there. But just as compelling, IMO is that a LOT of comic art is so serialized anyway, taking a page from say, an issue of X-Men is kind of like taking a drop of water out of the ocean. That story as a work of art, if you are going to call it that, is so huge and massive, you could argue that because one has a “complete” issue, they own a different sized segment of that story.  Is a single page less artistically relevant, than having a complete issue of a 5 or 12 issue story? By my way of thinking, it is still just a snippet chosen by a different natural break in the telling. 22 pages gathered together in a book, vs what begins and stops at the beginning of the page. Both are “complete” representations of a form of comics. 
 

Now if someone starts cutting out panels and physically altering the OA, that is messed up. But splitting up the pages? It’s not always ideal, but what in this world often is?

I see it as the culture of the hobby. It was largely born out of those single page sales. I don’t see the continuation of it as moronic, just a natural state of existence that keeps the hobby vital and expanding. Who among us would have entered the hobby by buying a complete book, first time out of the gate? How big would this hobby be with that massive gateway to walk through. Especially in 2020?
 

If anything is moronic, it would be the idea of telling anyone else how to be a collector of something. Futile at best, offensive at worst. People collect for many different reasons and at many different levels.  All collectors in every hobby come in shades of gray. Not as black/white boxes on a check list. Even the “check list” collectors.  
 

There are certain things I personally would and have hated to see broken up. Since I’m picking on X-Men, I remember thinking was a shame it was when X-Men 1 was split up. It hung together so long. But then I remember the joy of collectors as pages started to pop up around the country and world. And at the same time, I’d hope the whole world would rise up with me and join me in beating Gene about the ears, if he ever decided to beak up the silent GI Joe book. As an art form, some things just really do belong together. 
But as someone else already pointed out in the thread, not everything in comic art is “Art”, or memorable to everyone. The vast majority of it is the byproduct of a consumable. The real art is the comic. Which is made available to all via mass printing. The great equalizer. 

Comic art collectors may want to put a big A in front of the art in our hobby, but very little of it transcends in that way. The rest of us should just have fun and enjoy the work as best we can. And not go around calling each other by undeserved and pointless derogatory names.

Thats just my opinion.

Edited September 6, 2020 by ESeffinga

[zhamlau]

I felt the same way when selfish people broke up the Water Lillies series by Monet.

[vodou]

5 hours ago, ESeffinga said:

Prior to that, the VAST majority of modern art page sales have been individually. That goes for 70s-today.

A lot of Jack Kirby books were sold complete, including cover, by Jack Kirby. It was the "fans" after that moment in time that "ruined" the thing by splitting them up for break value. Actually, here's something that might make some have to reconsider either one or the other circumstance that follows: there are many critics of the 1980s Private Equity and Leveraged Buyout (LBO) boom. The criticism -broadly- is so strong that the phrase "private equity" has a very negative conotation among most (at least in my experience) folks that otherwise have little to no professional knowledge, experience, or background in the finance sector of the economy. It could be argued that private equity is a Wall Street boogeyman.

So - How much or not is buying "the whole" for notably less than "the break value" and then subsequently "unlocking that value" by breaking the thing up by peeling off the underperforming assets (keep the cover and splash, dump the talking heads panel pages) negatively descriptive of one thing (big business) but not another (complete stories/books)?

Another question - how many would be offended, as in truly, and how many more would still chase anyway...Page 3 (so not the splash!) of this, if original and broken:

https://www.nationalarchivesstore.org/products/u-s-constitution-full-size-4-page-reproduction

[RBerman]

One could ask the same about a mountain. Isn't it better to leave the silver/copper/gold intact inside? As Doctor Manhattan said, would the Martian landscape be improved by an oil pipeline? There's always this tension between competing purposes for the same limited/unique resource. Different people value things differently, and we have multiple competing systems to manage this situation: richest man wins, first man wins, peer pressure, legislation, etc.

The main objection to 80s corporate raiders was not the sentimental value of the companies they dismantled, but the jobs that were lost, and the incompetence of the new owners (Marvel endured this repeatedly) at understanding the business of the company they had purchased so that it could be nurtured for long term returns. It's the difference between buying a hog to slaughter or to breed.

In the case of a comic book, "slaughtering" is breaking the pages to sell. But I'm not sure there's a "breed" option, only a "sequester" option.

[Rick2you2]

3 hours ago, vodou said:

A lot of Jack Kirby books were sold complete, including cover, by Jack Kirby. It was the "fans" after that moment in time that "ruined" the thing by splitting them up for break value. Actually, here's something that might make some have to reconsider either one or the other circumstance that follows: there are many critics of the 1980s Private Equity and Leveraged Buyout (LBO) boom. The criticism -broadly- is so strong that the phrase "private equity" has a very negative conotation among most (at least in my experience) folks that otherwise have little to no professional knowledge, experience, or background in the finance sector of the economy. It could be argued that private equity is a Wall Street boogeyman.

So - How much or not is buying "the whole" for notably less than "the break value" and then subsequently "unlocking that value" by breaking the thing up by peeling off the underperforming assets (keep the cover and splash, dump the talking heads panel pages) negatively descriptive of one thing (big business) but not another (complete stories/books)?

Another question - how many would be offended, as in truly, and how many more would still chase anyway...Page 3 (so not the splash!) of this, if original and broken:

https://www.nationalarchivesstore.org/products/u-s-constitution-full-size-4-page-reproduction

A business transaction is not art (although some may suggest it is an art form). How many beautiful pieces of jewelry, or antiquities, have been melted down for their gold and gemstones? How many archeological sites have been ruined by grave robbers? Business is business; success does not make it right.
 

Leveraged buyouts are a different matter. While “ unlocking value”, they have often left the remaining company with too much debt, no cushion, and an eventual Chapter 11 or 7 Bankruptcy filing. Sometimes, the damage doesn’t show up for years, but from what I have read, it generally seems to do just that.

[vodou]

2 hours ago, RBerman said:

But I'm not sure there's a "breed" option

Sure there is. If you've ever seen the face of somebody presented with a complete book/story share for the first time by the owner...it's pure awe. Hard to believe that's not breeding a very different type of appreciation in that person's mind.

But really, my point with the previous post was to challenge people not to knee-jerk on things "in the moment" but perhaps form a cogent line in the sand, one that can be logically defended internally and externally described and defended too. It's the dialectic way

What does it mean for the one to be "ok" (or not) and another, at least facially similar, to be "ok" (or not)? Same or different? Why? Why not? Etc.................................

[vodou]

1 hour ago, Rick2you2 said:

While “ unlocking value”

Strictly in terms of the relative wealth of the finance players "before" and "after" the LBO - that's all. I'm in no way making the argument that anything else was "enhanced" by the action. Similarly buying a complete book/story and splitting it. Devil's Advocate says the other collectors that now get "a" slice from the pie are enchanced...we can all see that (arguably, anyway) but how about Page 3 of The Constitution? All good too?

[AnkurJ]

I owned the complete prelims to ASM 121 by Gil Kane, but had to sell them around 2008 to pay medical bills. It went to a well known Spider-Man dealer who broke them up and sent them to auction. One of the items I regret selling.

[ESeffinga]

13 hours ago, vodou said:

but how about Page 3 of The Constitution? All good too?

Pffffft. Why stop there? How about the second tablet of the Ten Commandments?!?  To me that is seriously up in getting-silly territory to make a point.

To me it seems the heart of the matter is one of property rights. Some folks take it to further extremes than others. If you had the complete ASM 121 prelims, and wanted to split it up to maximize profits, eh. Some folks will not bat an eyelash, and others will think you the scourge of the hobby. I think if you are a Dealer, you raise less of an eyebrow by and large than if you are a collector.

If you chose to burn those prelims instead... well some folks would just think you were "eccentric", some would hate you. But you'd be within your rights to do so. No law against it. It'd be like buying a house with some kind of cultural history tied to it, but isn't on some historical register somewhere that protects it. Then, either modifying it greatly, or outright knocking it down to build your new vanity home. You are going to catch some ire from the neighbors.

In the end, to me it just gets back to our actions in the hobby speak to who we are, and what we value far more than our words do. And as we've discussed in the past, reputation still means a lot, and word gets around. If someone bought a rare complete book that had a lot of competition for ownership, and then say decided to keep the cover and a page, and split up the rest... next time a complete book comes up for sale from the same dealer, depending on how that dealer feels they may chose not to sell to said individual again.

In the end, it's gray, it's muddy, it's a big whatever works scenario. And there can be a nobility in trying to take the tact of looking at comic art as custodial, rather than a straight ownership. Same can be said for a lot of items tied to pop culture. And yet, not everything survives. Some things are lost, stolen, altered, damaged, lost to accident, kid drew on it, dog chewed it, etc.  For a few there might be an academic woody to be found in the idea of being the guy that preserved the one complete story of OA for Adolescent Radioactive Blackbelt Hamsters, but in the long run, other than as a passing curiosity, who will likely care?

There are some stories that ideally should remain together if at all possible, but in the long run, as with anything of import in comics, you can't predict what will be important before it becomes so. And in the end if collecting art doesn't come down to enjoyment, it's really just another investment. And we have long discussed the idea of collecting art as investment vs the love of the work.

So one side of the gradient is to treat all art as if it is going to be important to the anthropologists of the future, and the other is to treat anything you own however you damn well see fit. And for the vast majority of us, it's that gray in between. Simple answer, do your best and don't be a Donk. If you really love the stuff, treat it with a modicum of respect. Beyond that, your hobby will live and die on your reputation.

 

 

[vodou]

57 minutes ago, ESeffinga said:

Pffffft. Why stop there? How about the second tablet of the Ten Commandments?!?  To me that is seriously up in getting-silly territory to make a point.

As such things are "found" on occasion tucked between the backside of an old painting and the frame backer...it's not an academic point I raised. I think it's a valid question to ask, a call to "think, really think, dammit!", for those that wouldn't have a consistent universal answer for all "split scenarios", that's all. Why is one okay but not the other or vice versa. I put this into the same category and the back 'n forth about whether something "belongs in a museum" or not and the level to which the discussion eventually rises to "there should be a law or something" for Item A (AF15 story, by example, anyone?) but not Item B (any Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew cover). It's all just internet chit-chat though, right?

1 hour ago, ESeffinga said:

I think if you are a Dealer, you raise less of an eyebrow by and large than if you are a collector.

I have a strong position on the subject and it doesn't matter what hat anybody is wearing for me to apply it. However, that is somewhat easier to do as most dealers aren't really "this is my full-time putting food on the table and a roof over my head job" operations. Some collectors have financivized the thing more than others is how I see it. I'm also not trying to change anything, just asking people (again) "to think, dammit!"

1 hour ago, ESeffinga said:

Simple answer, do your best and don't be a Donk.

Yes.