I'm really sorry to hear that, hon :(

**hugs**

-- A <3

The party most responsible for the comic's demise is unwilling to take any responsibility for his actions, aside from saying, "I already said I'm sorry." He's been lying to people about his role within NAoAaB and claiming to be only an illustrator with no role in the project outside of drawing. The truth is that he was actively involved in the promotion, a co-creator and designer for the MySpace page, and a co-writer able to make editorial decisions, without my approval.

When he left six hours before a deadline, after he agreed that he would stay on board in spite of personal issues, it was disruptive enough. He placed me in a position where I could not be forthright about why the series was not moving as planned to confused fans, in order to abide by his wishes to not be associated with the series. I was under the impression that his values and goals had changed, and I didn't want to hurt him. Removing his surname on the sites for Loki and I to be able to get copyright clearance, was not only an incredibly arduous task, it was extremely demoralizing to me as a former collaborator and friend.

When we finished re-running the "Lost Episodes" mini-series, Loki and I had a rather horrendous shock when we realized that our former collaborator made a cuts in the scripts (based on the suggestions of people who by his own admission were not VL Staff.) These editorial decisions eliminated the subtle plot hinge of Ace not realizing the truth about Deb's fate. That missing element pretty much rendered the majority of the scripts (that he made a special trip to Rice to help us co-write) unusable. Without his plans on how he planned to resolve this gap or, his collaborative skills to help us move the story along, we were completely fucked. We had no guidance or idea, on where to go from that point, and he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with the project, so there was no way we could continue the series. The "P,S! Scottish Play" incident was freaking nothing compared to this train wreck.

The final straw came recently after I published the, "Get Lost" mini-series. A week after its initial publication, my former collaborator sent an email, one month after we came to a mutual agreement on the series, (in fact the first email he had sent me since that time.) He basically accused me of making, "pretty underhanded to make judgemental remarks about me and -------, behind our backs, AND THEN publish them to the internet," by means of the "Get Lost" mini-series.

The statement was insulting and downright idiotic for several reasons. The fictional characters in question were one Ace's gods and a female by the name of Yoko not -------. Anything that I had said in the comic or "behind his back" had been said to his face before, and I made sure to say it again in my emailed reply, just in case he forgot.

If was being so-non-transparent and underhanded, why would I have put the comic online and publicly, where he could see it? That's seems like a retarded way to be sneaky to me. To make matters worse, he said, "Either way, I don't think it's wise to burn bridges like this. Bad idea." I am guessing that was a threat regarding the copyright settlement we reached. Rather than jumping more hoops and continuing to lie about his role in the project and be the scapegoat for the mess he made, I said "fuck it" and pulled the series offline. If this was a veiled-threat for a "defamation of character" lawsuit, I say bring it on. I kept all of our correspondences, and contracts. There is plenty of evidence verifying his collaboration as co-writer, lead promoter and other things I am not at liberty to discuss. I will not release any of this info outside of court.

The law is on my side. I am telling the truth about his role in the NAoAaB project (even if I do admit to lying on his behalf to "protect" his "reputation".) Neither one of us has money to waste on the personal details of our life being dragged out in a court.

I do welcome him to post his side of the story in public, but as I am done dealing with his behavior privately. I don't owe him anything anymore, and outside of a huge public apology with an appropriate form of restitution, I am done with this bullshit. My life is too stressful.

Coming up... happy post.