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I can't remember if I posted this here, or somewhere else, (the thread is ancient, really) but here's the deal with Sal.
source: observant & exish-friend
Roommates blew up, right? Art was rapid and high-quality enough for a comic at the its conception that it really made its rounds. This continues until about after that last (quite good) sex scene. The Patreon wave happens where every artist has to decide whether they're
- using Patreon as a simultaneous posting platform, as an alternate means of support
- deciding to "not" paywall their art by coming up with alternate means of delivery, delayed or otherwise with Patreon. Just barely tolerable, we all can name people who did/do it.
- Paywall the hell out of their content
Sal chose a combination of the middle and last option. His stuff still releases to the public, on a very delayed timer, and the nicer pinups are watermarked with ads to his Patreon to hell, you'd think the pictures were infected with an adware. I don't think he does this anymore, but he used to even blur the edges to where it doesn't even matter that it was "released." See pic attached. Anyway, that's most of the logistics worked out. He obviously makes bank and a livable wage, if you do the math on his Patreon numbers. That alone could float him. I don't remember if his slave streams are included in the Patreon tier, or if you're paying for a chance for a commission. It's probably that. So, I mean, think of this logically.
Earn a very livable monthly wage from Patreon + add in people paying FOR THE CHANCE TO PAY AGAIN for a sketch or something of slightly higher quality (read: very very very cost-efficient ways for artists to make money, also promotes good art practices, so it's a win-win) + His Twitch Stream
That's right, he's got a Twitch stream too! And it's fairly scheduled, so there's more explanations for his time. I haven't really been in his stream except for a few times, and it's pretty generic Twitch slop, that is, a lot of focus on donations, gaudy layouts, and a webcam as opposed to the broadcast of anything worth anything.
Okay, so that explains somethings, but how about the comic itself? Well, Roommates is, at its core, just fan fiction slop. Sal and Co. (we'll get to this later) have created something they're quite proud of via existing IPs and just throwing on basic character traits. What if the Flaydramon was Italian! And closeted gay! Stunning... Who would care? Well, here's the answer, and I don't mean this to be rude, so don't confuse the bluntness. But the answer is genuinely autistic people and self-proclaimed writing auteurs. The Sparkx green falcon guy who gets a lot of art from him? Autistic. Again, not a diss, but autistic people love to latch onto existing worlds. Fantasies, all that. So, there's a lot of those autistic whales that float him too -- Sal is essentially God to creating more of the Fantasy they love.
The others are the writers. Notice all those offshoot stories? Notice how the story, even though it's solid enough, feels like a truck revving its wheels in mud? Well, for one, it was written by his husband Dreamous. He's a hard-working fella who was working on his PhD at the time. But he's not that good at fan fiction, i.e. this comic. All the side-stories are just written by Sal's friends, who Sal has slowly opened up the stories reign to. Again, who really cares what the various Pokemon and Gian's Yoshi-ex are doing? It's fodder and filler for the actual comic.
As for the actual comic, who actually has any idea of what's going on? The brother has been ambiguously expressing that he's worried for his brother for literal YEARS now. It has been, LITERALLY, years of Gian's brother vaguely threatening Bowser Jr. and expressing he's worried for Gian. Why? Who knows! He's (& Sal's) constantly floaty about it. He keeps mentioning how his family is peculiar, but nothing short of the story changing into some sort of furry-life harvesting for energy scheme would suffice to all this same buildup. It's nonsense garbage, and he's expecting people to read the short stories like some gospel. He's even tried to include it in the comics like an established comic universe. I can't remember what page, but there's a page where there's an asterisk on text and it's in reference to one of the side stories, like it helps with anything. Whatever. He knows everyone except for the hardcore dumb fans are just in it to see some dick.
So, in short:
1. Sal's stretching the content
a) because Patreon is more profitable by FAR
b) because there's no real followup to any of the story, and even though it's created with a plan, it doesn't make it good
c) because the whales are happy to support the bullshit
2. Sal's busy, but not /that/ busy
a) seriously no comic artist is so busy that they finish a single page in months, but can do several other pieces. get real man
b) he is a busier guy, he's not purely riding the money, but he is aware of it. (I didn't go into his personal stuff like moving, surgery, family woes, etc. none of my business.)
c) he's worked on his art style throughout the comic and the current spot isn't very fast at all
3. (CONJECTURE) Sal probably doesn't like the comic that much anymore, honestly.
a) have you looked at the latest page? what the hell is the background? what's with the absurdly detailed mouth shot. (The answer is Sal's into vore, surprise! really. he is.)
b) there is no b. think about this logically, would you want to still be working on this comic?
there's your text wall but this should answer everything ever
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