5.42
I say “we” because this comic is nothing without you guys reading, commenting and supporting my work. This is such a huge milestone for the comic, I cannot thank you enough for letting me create this story for you. Also: thank you for your kind comments on the reflection comic, and for letting me get those thoughts off my chest :’] I’m so sorry again for the hiatus and for not being able to let you know what was going on at the time (it would have killed the comic for sure), but thanks to you I never have to be in that situation again.
Now lets finish up this chapter X[____________]
*nb* I’m posting this update on what was previously a different page in order to preserve your comments! Comments posted prior to ~11am 9/17 was in reference to the reflection comic, which is archived here
I’ve been reflecting on the comic a lot this year, what with the book coming out and it being 20 years (!!!) this year since I first started thinking about what eventually became the story.
After all these years of work without much notice outside of the internet, this nomination means a lot to me. Realistically I don’t think I can win, but it’s been quite a journey for me to get to this point, and I wouldn’t want to go down without a fight :] If you’re going to SPX tomorrow, please consider voting for the comic!
Update tomorrow, and the next 2 updates I do will be Meek updates to finish up the chapter. I might be revising my Ch6 schedule too, to start if off a bit earlier. Once MI is over this will be my only updating comic for a while, should be awesome XD
Thank you so much again for reading.
72 Comments
Nearly stolen? This has got to be an awesome story, when and if you’re going to tell it.
Keeping my finger crossed for the Ignatz!
“awesome” lol. I was so depressed I had to make MI to vent it, but thankfully now the problem is solved and I have two webcomics B] When life gives you lemons, etc
You have two webcomics AND an Ignatz! \o/
AND a Costco mozzarella log in the fridge
Conan. What is best in life?
To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women. Also Mozzarella logs from Costco.
Ahh. The Meek as a concept is nearly as old as I am, lol… I think I told you that I remember reading it in high school when I should’ve been doing work (rebel) and in a lot of ways it definitely influenced both my art and my decision to start making my own comics ;0; I’m so glad that it (and you!) survived its hardships, it reminds me that it’s never the end of the world if I have to put my work down for a bit, for any reason. INSPIRES ME TO THE LAST (ᕤ≧ᗜ≦)ᕤ So, thank you for all your hard work!!
Also I am. exceedingly excited. to see Soli again. I have waited my whole adulthood for her return, I’m READY
Wait, the hiatus was just because of legal issues? We thought like, you died, or something.
If you’re feeling under appreciated (and I hope you know how very much appreciated you are!) shortly before you returned, I was reading another artist (Ashley Cope, perhaps?) and talking about how her life might end before her comic did and she basically said that such tragedies were a part of investing in a comic and we had to accept them. The permanent interruption of Meek was one of the very few examples she gave, and it sort of reopened that “dammit” feeling for me.
I really missed Meek and was so incredibly glad when it came back. I hope you keep writing it out. It’s really top tier stuff, and even if you just feel like you’re writing out your own thoughts and feelings, I don’t care: I’m looking at what I very much want to see.
Thanks for taking risks, putting yourself out there, fighting the fight, and giving us an amazing comic.
Haha, I love Ashley, she’s actually part of this stupid story too. Literally nothing but death could keep me from working on this comic, haha… and thank you for continuing to read, it’s as much an investment for you as it is for me, and I’m really grateful you’ve stuck around :]
Congratulations!
The Meek is a part of my life for so long… Wonder how you can finish such a widespread tale in just one year? Hopefully not with the old chestnut: “He woke up and everything was a dream” ;-)
Thanks for pulling through – so many wonderful comics got stranded somewhere along the line. Have a great time. You’ve really earned it!
OMG OMG congratulations!!!
And *wince & sympathy* over the legal stuff, I’m so glad they failed to steal it but …yeah I thought something must have happened to you too, I just assumed health issues.
Oooh, another plus, now I can nag people who stopped reading during the hiatus to start again & point out that you had extremely-not-flaky reasons for stopping :)
Am so happy for you, it’s SO well-deserved, & I hope MI wins one next :D
Also Ranaaaaa <3 <3 I love her so much and her expressions on this paaage omg I just wanna give her a cup of hot chocolate and a listening ear for a bit ;n;
Thank you, lol, I kind of fell back on “health issues” cuz I was super depressed about the whole thing for a while, so it was technically true (I wasn’t able to mention the legal aspect due to a really strict non-defamation clause). It’s very very good to be back at full power!
I’m with il biggo, air all the dirty laundry! At least, what won’t cause you any problems legally, of course. Save that for your memoirs when you’re old and gray and ready to dish the dirt on everyone. I’ve been reading it since you started, pretty much and I’ve always enjoyed. The comic confused me in spots (I’m easily confused, tho)but the artwork pulled me back and I had to know what was going on. And remember, science is hard, but drawing a comic is real work.
Yeah, I am not 100% sure I wouldn’t be in trouble, so I’m keeping mum at least where public record is concerned. Feel free to HMU in person at a convention sometime if you want the gory details, would really love to save anyone from having to go through what I did.
Note to self: if I ever save up enough money to go to a con, and am lucky enough to meet shingworks, be sure to hit her up on story of what happened to Meek.
Thanks for perservering. :) Encouraging to see someone that made it through, going to be a tough few years this side of the pond.
Best of luck with the competition.
I have a Master’s degree in applied math. I figured out part way through the degree that academia wasn’t really where I wanted to be–at least, not as a math PhD. All the “mathismo” culture of trying to prove you solved harder problems than the next guy, plus the fact that the way we teach math is very contrary to the way that a human naturally learns math (a thing I really figured out during the master’s program). I realized what I really wanted to do was something with math education. By then, I was married, with a kid, and I felt like another graduate program would be too hard on my family. So I am a programmer. Eventually, when my last child is grown, probably, I’ll get back to the math ed stuff.
What’s the point of this? You might have dodged a bullet by getting bumped from your master’s program, and getting kicked back to this. I’m not trying to say that IS what happened–I’m just trying to give you ammunition in your head if the regret monster comes up and says “yeah but you could be doing SCIIIIIENNNNCEEEEE if that bad thing hadn’t happened”. Even though that MIGHT be true, it’s also quite possible that you would have found out that path wasn’t all you hoped it would be, after all, which is what happened to me. Went through a lot of work, got a degree that I ended up not really needing for the career I ended up with, figured out that what I really wanted to do was something else entirely.
Your work is fantastic, and I hope you are happy with yourself and what you’ve done. Or, if not entirely that way yet, that you are on your way in that direction. It’s a process. Mine’s likely delayed about ten more years :D. I’ll live, probably. It’s cool that you live in a world where you can publish straight to your readers without a publisher gatekeeper. There are a lot of cool things about the world we live in now, and me getting to see your work is one of them. Thank you for giving me so many bright spots in days that were otherwise drudgery.
Yeah, there’s so many ways things could have gone :] I don’t have regrets anymore, but for a while my career (ha) was very touch and go, and I was taking any job I could get my hands on, including some questionable work with shitty people. I say it pretty frequently but I am INCREDIBLY grateful to my readers for supporting me and reading my stuff, I have no idea what else I’d be doing with my time right now otherwise. I love stressing about and crying over and bleeding my life into comics, and hope you continue to enjoy them!
It’s weird to feel proud of something that I had absolutely no hand in, but I’m so, so, so immensely proud of you. I was reading the Meek back in the rough thumbnails, closed LiveJournal stage, and I remember seeing the first color pages in 2008/2009 and absolutely losing my mind. I even made an embarrassingly bad Luca fan video set to TMBG in 2008, when I was 14. It amazes me how much progress you’ve made despite all the obstacles, and how you’ve changed and grown as an artist. Your stuff was fantastic looking ten years ago, so I was surprised by how much you COULD improve.
My biggest hope is that you’ll continue to gain wider and wider recognition, and that after this comic you’ll have the time and motivation (financial, emotional, whatever) to start another phenomenal, unusual, truly original creative project.
…ok luca and TMBG are now forever linked in my head that’s perfect
To think we nearly didn’t get to see your amazing stories! Science might have lost you, but we won big. Thanks for all the great work. <3
Nowhere near SPX, but pulling for you nonetheless. “Break a leg!”
Uh … did the girl lost cat ears in those years? Also, looking forward to seeing her again.
“Thank you for reading.”
No–thank YOU for giving it to the world to read. You’ve done some fine Tolkein-grade world-building here, and I am thoroughly addicted to the story.
Not to ask for any details that might get you in trouble, but what advice might you have for other creatives to help them avoid the pitfalls that you had to deal with?
Also, love your comics! You have such a gorgeous and expressive style, and the writing is beautiful. Thank you for sharing them with us!
Get a lawyer before signing contracts, and unfortunately the issue in my case was that the contract draft I approved was changed (without my approval) from the final that was sent. I didn’t even think that someone would do that to me, and that one tiny change was enough to almost ruin my life. So, also always review your contracts line by line in case of someone doing something shady to you :\ I got out of my problem after 3 years of finagling but some other artists in my same situation weren’t so lucky.
Good advice. Glad to see that you have come out of that on top.
The REAL question is, where can I vote for The Adventures of Legschilla????
in your heart
Interesting read! I never imagined a comic could be so personal, what with the crowd-pleasing demands of most (print) comics, but, thanks to it being a webcomic, you’re entirely free to express yourself & the result is pretty engrossing, happily! Now I know saying your comic is amazing is a bit like saying you’re amazing! By the way: your comic is amazing!
I can even say I have extra appreciation for The Meek thanks to this special page. Please let it stay in the archives.
So, someone intended to legally steal The Meek away from you, huh? What a nasty little creep…
I think… It’s rare to find people (whether they are artists or not) who are so open and honest about who they are and where their inspiration comes from. Can’t really predict life, and although it sounds like you’ve been through quite a bit, you really are putting out quality material now. So…I can only guess all that struggle worked in your favor in the end.
Kind of inspirational.
Thank you for sharing this update.
I want to say that when I saw your first few comics, I knew that here we had something special. And for what it’s worth, my opinion was echoed by other people, pros who had a lot of experience with webcomics. Which is why I was thrilled that you survived and came back after such a long hiatus. It’s a testimony to your strength and ability that you came back.
There’s so much I could say, but let’s boil it down to this: I’m glad you came back, I sympathize both with the hell you went through, and the awkward position you are in with people wanting to know more, AND I wish you all the best. Without putting any burden of expectations on you, I wish you recognition, acclamation, success.
I really want to see where this goes. Good luck.
That is a really impressive story. I definitely admire how you came through two really rough situations and turned them into something positive, using your own creativity and work drive. I don’t imagine that many people could accomplish that (nor the art you’re creating – both visual and story).
I don’t remember when I first ran across The Meek, but I remember having it sit in my newsfeed for at least a year before it came back to life. I was really happy, and I’m happy to have TWO works of yours to follow. I look forward to the future updates, and love that you share tidbits of your life and thoughts on each comic page with each update.
I wish you all the best! Thank you for The Meek!
Welp, for some reason I’m crying now. THANKS
I’m a bit shy to comment too often, but remember that I first started reading this when you were a couple pages into chapter 2. Even when the hiatus hit, I still kept the comic in my bookmarks to re-read and hold out hope for a new update. And I think I maybe screamed when I finally clicked my bookmark out of habit and saw that you were able to come back and continue? I definitely told all of my friends, I was so excited.
I love this comic a lot and I can really see how much love and effort you put into it. You pulled through some really rough times and that’s incredible. Your dedication and resilience is really inspiring.
Dang. You are a story in and of yourself.
I’m glad you make these amazing comics and I have mad appreciation for your writing skills as well as your artwork. If I were at SPX I’d definitely vote for you over all the other comics I read.
Congrats on the nomination, that’s great news! :D It’s gotta feel good finally getting that kind of recognition. (Of course your readers have always known how outstanding The Meek is!)
I’ve been here since page 1, I can’t remember who was like “Hey, go read this new comic!” it might have been Spike over at Templar, AZ…but I was instantly hooked by the fantastic art style and the colors! (And chapter 2 made sure I’d continue checking for updates and re-reading the archive through even the deepest and darkest of hiatuses…)
Thank you for all the hard work you’ve put– and continue to put –into this amazing comic.
P.S.: I’m starting to think “Accidentally sold the rights to the comic” is some sort of webcomics rite of passage; Everybody seems to have one of those stories. Even Mike and Jerry accidentally signed away rights to Penny-Arcade back in the day…
I don’t know many stories where writing, as well as art, is on such a high level. Your content keep amaze me all the time, and when Mare Internum started being released as well, I wasn’t expecting to get involved into it (bcs I don’t really liked sci-fi), but I really did. You provide amazing quality, dear author, both art, characters, relations, dialogues, sory and world. Keep this up and cheers from Poland! ;)
Oh, so it was an actual legal fight that kept you silent? Dang.
If you had already mentioned that before I’m sorry I missed it and I won’t try to pry what it was, but just know that I’m really glad you’re back.
This comic is one of my all time favorite and most important comics in my life so never give up your brilliant art! :)
I don’t remember when did I start reading your comics, but I remember that when hiatus came up I never actually stopped checking on this story. I liked the way you charecters are not perfect, that they are different people with their quirks and faults, but none are actually evil, just people.
I love that you have so many storylines and that they’re connected to each other. I really like Soli and Pinter! I hope I’ll see Soli again soon :D
I also can imaging the kind of “processing shit” you’re talking about. The flood of confusing things seems to never dry out! Like, why do I work for mininum wage after finishing one of the best universities in the country? Who is actually at war and against whom? Who bombed the city where one of my cousins lived? Why does he still come back sometimes and doesn’t just stay with us? How scary is it to cross the border between two almost warring countries? Why do some people think they know everything about two different countries across the ocean? Why can’t at least something be black and white for a change?
I can’t draw stories that I come up with while thinking about stuff – I just can’t draw, I don’t enjoy the process, it’s driving me mad. I can write stories though, and even if only a couple of people read them, I can still feel some relief when they do.
I hope that working on these two comics gives you enough. I’m thankful for this comics and sorry that I can’t spend some money on it (yet). I imagine it sometimes can feel like you’re not doing enough or well enough to be called a great and really interesting artist, but I believe that you are, and I’m not the only one. I’m really thankful for not giving up when the legal troubles came up. Thank you for staying with us and for sharing your story. Thanks to you and your friends and to whoever is responsible for making this all happen!
(Afaik, thanksgiving is in November? Nvm though, every day is a good day to say “thank you”, and you can re-read it in november if you want to хЪ )
Hell yeah!!!! Congrats on winning!!!!
Your work is so awesome, special, unique and just wonderful, its about time you received “official” recognition. It is a very well deserved award. Thank you for making the Meek and MI, and thank you for being an inspiration.
Der-shing,
I’ve been reading your comic for pretty much as long as you’ve been making it, and as long as I can remember reading webcomics. It’s one of the very few I still keep up on, and I cannot express how proud I am as a reader to have been a part of The Meek’s journey, from the development of your beautiful art and skill, through the hard times and patient waiting while you soldiered through your personal and proffessional struggles, and finally now, with The Meek as alive as ever and winning an award that you deserve as much as anyone else out there.
You have accomplished more than most could even dream of, and I’m so proud on your behalf, for the work that you’ve done, and for the work you can now do going forward. I’m immeasurably looking forward to the story ahead, and where you’ll go from here!
Thank you, Der-shing. You’re amazing.
Congratulations! So well deserved. Keep it coming!
Sooo … is the receiving of belts some local custom we will get explained or is it some English custom everyone would already know about except me?
I think it’s related to this: http://wiki.shingworks.com/Blooding.
Looking back at older pages, it seems like some people (including Mr. blue eyes here) have black belts. I’m not sure what that represents.
Less traditional folks don’t always adhere to tribal dress code/ standards~
Looking back, Suda wears a white belt. And the wiki says men who wear white belts too long risk getting cast out. Ruh-roh!
Also, congratulation to the award! I’m not surprised you won it.
Grats on winning! You definitely deserve it!
congrats on the win! you definitely deserve it! :D
Congratulations on the well-deserved recognition.
I remember reading your comic because a friend on the avatarspirit.net forum rec’d it to me. I think this was the third webcomic I got into (after reading The Phoenix Requiem and Penelope’s Far Out Mantic) when I started getting into webcomics. Lmao I remember I was in high school and sheltered so she had to assure me the nudity in this comic wasn’t gratuitous hahaha. I believe I started reading when you were updating Soli’s story and then after the hiatus, I randomly checked The Meek years later and saw you were back with Pinter’s face. I think I even wrote “it’s alive!!” on tumblr lol good times.
Anyway, so glad you decided to persevere and continue with this comic and your life. Many thanks!
Congratulations! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Grats! It’s something you have deserved a long time already.
Congrats!
I haven’t posted in a while but I just wanted to say congratulations on your win! You run a great comic and while I’m always excited to see it update I am happy to say I’s given me much more considering the emotion on the page. I’d also like to say that I’m glad you got your comic back and that you’re able to update again, I have a friend who just finished up a novel and knowing how she feels about her work I can’t imagine what it must be like losing something very close to one’s children at the hands of others.
“Realistically I don’t think I can win”
I call bullshit. This is one of the best comics on the Internet.
Haha, nice to see in retrospect XD A publisher with much more experience than I told me my chances were extremely low/ non-existent, but I guess I showed ’em.
What’s going on with his left arm in the third panel? He’s clearly holding the bowl in the fifth, but before that… Am I looking at it wrong, again?
It appears to me that he’s carrying two bowls…
I remember coming to your comic through my masters degree… I don’t really know how i came to it but it was an incredible discovery which found it’s place happily next to Goblins!, The locked maze (pity for it’s disappearance) and the order of the stick amongst others.
What i do know is that as webcomics have come and gone in my attention span, ever since about 2009 i have been regularly typing “meekcomic” into my browser. Some comics i forget and come back to, especially the ones on hiatus or the ones with irregular updates (powernap is a prime contender in this), the meek was not amongst these. So many comics i have left forgotten as time has passed and i have either lost interest or matured (i wouldn’t have thought that i’d get bored by xkcd…) but i have always been coming back to “the meek”.
I couldn’t tell you exactly why, good storytelling? characterisation? drawings? colours? …. I’m not sure
I’m glad that you passed the legal problems that caused the hiatus and that you’re in a happier place thanks to these comics (amongst many other things). I’m glad that you’re still here to tell this story and that you’re getting the deserved recognition for it all!
Congratulations!
My sincere (if slightly late) congrats to Miss Der-Shing. May your comics ever draw praise.
w00t! Congrats on the award! Wanted to go the whole “well, even if you don’t win, your comic still rocks!” route, back when things were uncertain, but that would’ve been lame.
But now…you won, so…no more “Realistically I don’t think I can win” talk!
You *did* win.
It’s so weird though?? after 10 years of being invisible it is strange to think that this comic has some legitimacy now, haha XD Thank you very much for your kind words!
Congratulations! With extra exclamation marks!!!
I feel a selfish sort of pride by proxy that TM won (against a hell of a competition) even though my grand contribution to this enterprise has thus far been limited to obsessive rereading, a TvTropes page and the occasional tremendously witty comment. Is that… is that wrong?
lol, no, it is extremely right. And THANK YOU for the Tv Tropes page, I go back and check it periodically because I don’t know a lot about tropes, and am always impressed that there’s always some random thing that fits XD
Remember finding this via Legschilla on DA (of all places) years ago.
Beyond being a joy to read and look at; I appreciate this comic above all else because it always seemed to ooze a lot of ‘personal touch/experiences’ when it came to setting, character, story etc.
It never really felt overtly trapped by specific genre fiction and tropes, and always came across as someone who just made up a world and filled it with the things they wanted to see.
I really, really like that such a personal creation can continue to exist.
Cheers!
Thank you Dew! I know it’s frustrating to read works coming out of one person, very slowly, but I also enjoy the 1:1 interaction of me to you without a bunch of dilution steps in between. Thank you so much for reading!
aah Rana’s so lovely but I especially like how you draw her in profile
I like to think our god-father here has a bag of freshly-cooked kettle potato chips in his arms.
Congratulations on your Ignatz!
I’ve been reading this comic for years, since chapter one went up on this site and it is truly and inspiring piece of art and storytelling. You deserve the award and recognition so, so much.
I remember during the Hiatus there were times when I was worried the comic might never continue, but I would always see people in the community checking in and showing their support for you and that gave me hope. I’m glad we can have an impact as fans. I didn’t care how long it took, I knew I would keep sitting on this feed, waiting for something to happen. I’m so glad things worked out for you.
Shing, your work is beautiful and fantastic and I think by continuation so are you! All the best!
John from SF.