Stacia's page

say you win $5 million dollars in the lottery and decide you want to donate to $100k to a local church. You'll be hard-pressed to find a church willing to accept lottory (ie, gambling) winnings as part of a donation. Why? Because they've taken a moral stance against gambling. This is no different.

The lottery comparison doesn't apply here. The CCF already took donations from Gygax himself. They obviously don't mind taking money that has been earned via the sale and development of gaming products, so there is no real difference between accepting Gygax's money and accepting money raised at Gen Con in Gygax's memory.

The email response from CCF makes it sound as though they claim Gen Con wanted CCF to endorse the con, when they (to our knowledge) did no such thing.

I just thought I'd mention a couple things: Burlew's illness is not "just-disclosed". In the beginning strips were "random" but still pretty regular. In the summer of 2005, delays got more frequent, and if we did get an explanation it was that Rich was sick. At some point after that (I'm terrible with timelines, but it was over a year ago, I'm sure) the strip was late and we were told that Burlew passed out after a gaming session but was fine. Since then he's mentioned a chronic illness at least twice, once after the aforementioned incident, and again in his July 7th notice.

When delays started there was usually no notice about it, not even a placeholder "comic is delayed" graphic or anything. In 2005 people who ordered books had months-long delays due to printer problems, and the online strip was delayed without explanation. In 2006 we were told there were delays because of a heavy con schedule. In 2007 we're now told it's his health.

Has it been his health all along? I guess it doesn't matter. It's not that I'm not sympathetic, I just don't know why it took so long for an update like the one we got on July 7. You can keep readership informed while not revealing personal details. There are other moderators on GitP who could be called on to post a note of explanation or post Erfworld if Rich can't.

Mainly though, I'm just slightly amused that most of the arguments here seem to embrace the notion that a promise without an exchange of money can be broken with no consequences. That's pretty cynical, you have to admit.