Funnily enough, I did make fun of Seibertron.com several months ago, but that’s not what this is about. What this is about was deleted elsewhere because of lawsuit threatening. No linking for you guys, I’m sorry.
Usually I leave the names off these things so that folks not in on the joke will be more likely to think I’m making fun of funny Internet people in general. But since this whole thing started with a Google vanity search, this more specific approach made me happier.
Six months later:
“HEY YOU WROTE A MEAN COMMENT ABOUT ME!!!”
I bet a guy like that wouldn’t last two comments in /b/.
I want to see that now.
Hell, he’d probably barely last here, and this place is a good bit nicer.
reason he tends to TAKE 6 MONTHS is BECAUSE he has to fight every comment in /b/ – it’s hes favorite pass-time hobby!
Who is this guy?
Seriously, who is this man?
Some guy with a Transformers website? I’m mystified too.
I see a shirt with ‘mistranslated planet name’ and I think _Seibertron._
Not sure who the guy is, but google images says Willis is dead on with the guys appearance.
Seems to me as an afficiado of bearded men that Willis was extremely generous in terms of the gents appearance.
Definitely.
Check out the photo at the top of blog.crave.com/2011/07/18/sitting-down-with-seibertrons-ryan-yzquierdo/.
Ah smut! I meant:
http://blog.crave.com/2011/07/18/sitting-down-with-seibertrons-ryan-yzquierdo/!
(Sigh…)
Is this comic of these Transformer forum infights??
Ryan who? Better go read that Shortpacked again to find out.
Apparently he owns something called Seibertron.com.
Still not ringing a bell for me.
Who cares? The dude is some non-entity who likes showing the world WHY he’s such a non-entity. Pissing David off was probably one of his greatest accomplishments in life. *Shrug*
I was about to say “in five minutes I won’t remember his name,” but I can’t remember his name now. So… yeah.
I take it from this comic that Ryan is ‘a bit’ slow on the uptake.
I don’t get it.
Perhaps you’re Swiss.
I’m Swiss and I do get it.
What I don’t get is why Swiss people generally wouldn’t.
Yeah, that guy seemed pretty upset. Here’s what I caught of it: Some bad deals went down on Seibertron.com about 9ish years ago, people paid for what they wanted but received nothing. Seibertron.com was some manner of middleman for this seller, and people were upset when they didn’t receive what they ordered. Fast forward to 6 months ago when an Allspark member started a thread about the biggest scams in the fandom. This incident is mentioned. Cut to now, Ryan (the owner of Seibertron) Googles his name, finds the thread, and gets really upset. Here’s what that is.
This comic is entirely derived from a thread on the Allspark, to provide context.
Thank you for the explanation. I thought this has something to do with a Shortpacked! strip and thought that the author’s lack of link (and only one comic showing with a tag for the guy) might mean the strip was excised or something.
I’ve always hated Seibertron.com. I used to use 2005world, now I just use Shortpacked.
I mean TFW2005. See, I haven’t used it in so long I forgot the name.
I used to use Transfandom.com… Then it collapsed years ago under it’s own hubris. Now I just float around aimlessly picking up news like a Martian receiving radio signals.
I like Seibertron’s galleries.
I’m always irked when sites redesigg themselves and lose all their old content– either dumping it or making it so all the old links break.
(I think I pushed Willis into fixing the linkbreak on his old LJ posts to this site, in fact… Or was that another site?)
I do not understand the mysterious drama being mocked. I have been…enigmized?
I tend to think the joke of this strip works simply as commentary about googling, net-rage and over-the-top historonic threats that do far more damage to one’s reputation far more than the original “offense,” Don Murphy style.
(See what I did there? That’s slander!)
Somebody didn’t watch “Spider-Man” closely enough. To quote JJJ (and my middle school social studies teacher who taught it to me decades before JJJ): “Slander is spoken. In print, it’s libel.”
Ah see– thanks to my “mistake” I have not admitted to committing libel!
This maybe important in the future, since Don Murphy is a histrionic bitch likely to threaten anyone– legally and physically– who says the least thing about him.
He is a danger to everyone around him.
Reminds me of the drama surrounding content-mill giant Demand Media, owners of eHow. They issued a cease-and-desist order against a blog that makes fun of them, which in turn led to several blogs (and respected sites such as Forbes) making fun of them.
Ryan has always had an ego about him, mention the horrid dealings and he would tend to bring down the full force of his complaining powers, usually dealing out a ban or two depending on the situation.
He screwed up, he knows it, he just doesn’t enjoy people talking about it and reminding him just how badly he screwed up, and of course deals with it like an adult by throwing a tantrum.
Also holy crap in a hat, just realized it has been about 10 years since the whole seibertron store fiasco went down.
So what exactly happened and how was it his fault?
From what I remember, and it’s pretty much the same thing that Zek mentioned above. Is that he set up the seibertron store. Several people ordered items, payment was received for said items, and then the items were never sent out. This was back in early 2000′s, cut to 2005-2007(I forget when I stopped going to Seibertron), people still either hadn’t received their items, or never got a refund. Haven’t heard diddly about the issue since then. Though I do remember him(Ryan) saying he had a room filled with seibertron store items still, was never sure if it was stuff he had stock of, or if it was items that were purchased that he just never got around to sorting out and shipping.
Ah. From above I got the impression he just had a forum or something for people to sell things to each other and (people being people) they ripped each other off with Siebertron as the most visible middleman. If he actually sold people stuff and never gave them the goods that’s another matter. Dude kinda sucks.
I know a guy who works at seibertron. He’s a pretty funny dude.
Anyway, I pretty much do not go to TF news sites anymore. Tformers is run by a fucking moron who bans people at the drop of a hat if you do something to annoy him, tfw2005 allowed all those goddamned transphobic jokes during the Drag Strip announcement, and Allspark is just…
There are no words to describe that place.
So I pretty much just say fuck it and absorb TF news from people I know.
Let’s not forget even the tfwiki. They think they’re funny, and sometimes they are – but man alive, they can be downright -dicks- about attempting to help on their articles. Lately all I use their site for is to see what new Generations/Classics figures are coming out (takes some searching but it’s doable), to occasionally read up on some story element I’m curious about – and that’s it.
As a TFWiki user who manages to make contributions to articles without anyone being a dick to me, I must express my curiosity.
As another TFWiki editor who rarely runs into jerks when using TFWiki, I second Andrusi’s request.
The run by morons who ban people for petty reasons part could just as easily describe TFW2005 as the bit about the tasteless comments that were (and still regularly are) left untouched.
I would recommend Bottalk to you, but apparently we’ve got a reputation for… something. I’m never sure what. Banning people who were assholes years ago or something.
Anybody will be a dick anywhere on the internet, it doesn’t matter what forum, and this goes double and extra-double for nerdy fandoms like ours. You’ve just got to accept that to be part of the fandom.
Incidentally I’ve subscribed to the Allspark image thread for a year and a half or so and I find the people to be generally pretty reasonable. And I’ve experienced a bit of dickery on the TFwiki, but as a writer I just take it in stride and work on a better article next time.
Let Mike give him something to sue about.
Like defiling his mother for a nickel.
Google has a cache of what I’m guessing was the thread that prompted the lawsuit threat – post #12 here?
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:sVIu1A-Ut-gJ:www.allspark.com/forums/index.php%3Fshowtopic%3D75187
Aha, good work! On the Internet, nothing ever dies.
Except dignity.
http://instantrimshot.com/index.php?sound=rimshot&play=true
Aw man, that thread reminded me that I never got that art book from 88MPH studios OR the comics I ordered from 3H.
Damn!… That link is 404 now!
Oh well. At least Nickalodeon is making a 26 episode sequel series to Avatar: The Last Airbender. It takes place around 70 years after the first series and the new Avatar (Korra) is a young woman from the southern water tribe and knows Earth, fire, and water and only needs to learn Air from Ang and Katara’s son. She is apparently kind of fierce and impulsive and has a polar bear-dog companion. Apparently the cities now have a 1920′s look and feel because the the earth and fire nations have formed a cosmopolitan republic with widespread technology advances. A violent popular movement opposed to people bending the elements forms the main source of conflict.
And this had to do with the angry bearded man who may or may not be an owner of a website because?
Clever nonsequitor.
BTW, looking forward for that series to be aired in Malaysia. Heck, I’ll be lucky if it aired in Nickelodeon Asia.
Ew, serious discussion of the Avatar world’s future. Why do they seriously want to go down that road when the almost-total extermination of the air benders means the Avatar legacy is almost certainly destined to sputter out in three or four generations tops?
Oh wait, because sequels equals more money and money equals yay.
Well, I guess it would depend on a few factors, namely 1) whether bending is genetic or taught, 2) if genetic or otherwise predisposed, does that include the specific type of bending, and 3) how much tail Aang gets after saving the world.
Though to be honest, the whole process of Avatarization (getting trained) let’s me think it is less genetic and more taught. As long as Aang can set up a strong enough school to keep the lesson of Airbending from going extinct, it would be maintainable.
Firebending was learned by attempting to imitate the dragons. Earthbending was originally learned from badgermoles. Waterbending was learned through study of the moon. It seems safe to say that at the very least, the matter is not entirely genetic.
Thus 1)So long as the knowledge is passed down there will be those who can airbend and
2) There is somewhere a natural airbender that people could learn from. In book 3 chapter 13 Ang mentions that the original airbenders were the sky-bisons. It can be assumed that so long as their are sky-bisons people could learn to airbend anew from them.
In SDCC it was revealed that after the war Ang found a herd of sky-bison, and the species is repopulating. Therefore, all things considered, there’s remarkably little chance of airbending dieing out entirely in this setting right now. If anything it’s just about ready for a proper resurgence.
Platonix, I’m not sure why you don’t think the Avatar world’s future could be explored.
“Ew, serious discussion of the Avatar world’s future. Why do they seriously want to go down that road when the almost-total extermination of the air benders means the Avatar legacy is almost certainly destined to sputter out in three or four generations tops?”
Aang was an air bender, but the Avatar has been reincarnated many times. Aang was the latest reincarnation and through him they were able to talk to the spirits of old ones.
I don’t recall it saying *anywhere* that the Avatar needed to be born an air bender – in fact I think the point was that the Avatar had existed many times over and each had different lives, like a woman who had children in her lifetime or a man who whatever whatever. They always needed to train themselves to be good at bending all four elements – as Aang had to do – but I don’t think there was any statement that they all began as air benders to start with.
Also, the Avatar reincarnations were not ‘descended from’ each other genetically. It wasn’t a family line, it was a particular spirit that reincarnated several times over many different people all over. The ‘Avatar’ legacy was in no danger of sputtering out and might have NOTHING to do with Aang and Katara’s presumable children.
Considering there had been tons and tons of Avatars before Aang in history, and there could be much later as different situations in their world arise, there is nothing in my mind that precludes a prequel or sequel series that explores the world during the time of one of the previous Avatar incarnations or one of the later ones (such as 1000 years later, who knows, maybe at that time the remnants of the Earth Nation are getting uppity and need to be stopped).
Literally, right in the setup, there was nothing saying that avatars were always starting out as air benders… only that Aang was the last air bender of the airbending tribe.
I think he was referring to the fact that the Avatar reincarnates as a member of a different nation in each reincarnation, following a specific order: Water, Earth, Fire, Air. By that logic, if no Airbenders survive three generations after Korra, there’s a question of how the Avatar could be reborn.
Oddly, this is covered by All in the Manual and/or Word of God.
Bending is Genetic. WHAT you bend is cultural/training/temperment/spiritual. As such someone from the fire nation could be raised as an airbender and have it work.
Oh look another person angry about something on the internet. If I had a nickel for every angry person on the net, I could afford almost infinite dates with that bearded guys mom. (Now he can sue me too, in 6 months.)
If you could play that name across 2 triple word scores you’d be in Scrabble Heaven! Is it pronounced “Is Queer D’oh”?
It gives everyone a reason to attend Willis’s next con…to get the back story in private.
Jk.
We just had a lawsuit crop up against us like this a couple weeks ago. We did some remodeling on the house which finished up back in November. Then out of nowhere we get a call from one of the contractors basically saying, “you didn’t pay me, I’m suing you.” I don’t know about you guys, but if I got (allegedly) stiffed $750, I’d make a few phone calls before filing the paperwork in court…
Given that Ryan just had a massive flood in his basement that wrecked all of his MISB and MOC figures as well as boxes from the 80s that had serious sentimental value this seems a little ill-timed. Kick a man when he’s down, Walky.
I’m sure in the future, Walky will politely wait six months before commenting on recent events. And then threaten to sue.
My instructor said “never hit a man while he’s down, kick him it’s easier.”
So, someone said something bad about him and he threatened to sue?
Yeah, sunshine’s a bitch, Ryan Yzquierdo- and with a name like that, you can’t even try to pass it off as a simply mistaken identity. (Or, to put it another way, speech is free, bitch- and I have a feeling you’re gonna be getting a lot of free.)
Isn’t the issue over that an Allspark member stated in a libelous manner that this Ryan guy committed mail fraud?
If anyone actually was being a little bit fair about this, that’s…not unreasonable to get upset about.
Also, isn’t this an issue that is like…10 years old? I know a lot of people were affected by the seibertron store thing and that it was a bad mess that took a long time to clear up. As far as I know (or knew), everyone was paid back that could be found. It took time for sure, maybe too much time, but it was done in earnest.
This whole thing smells of sour grapes. A lot of the posters commenting here who weren’t around for the event in question or for the subsequent fall out, have no right to say nasty things. You’re like children in a school yard yelling “Fight! Fight!”.
Lastly, while Ryan can be a jerk (as we all can) and despite the fact that he screwed up majorly 10 years ago; Walky should be ashamed of himself for dredging up something so old that most current fans have no idea what’s going on.
I’m pretty sure I’m younger than Walky myself, but man you have a lot of growing up to do. I lost whatever respect I had for you over this. It’s quite frankly, embarrassing.
Willis is not calling Ryan out for the past screwup nor did he dredge up something from ten years ago; Willis is mocking him for his CURRENT actions attempting to -listen carefully now- get people on the internet to stop saying mean things about him. Via threats of lawsuits.
Aside from the fact that he’s apparently trying to improve his public image via threatening people, it’s a well-proven truism that trying to censor people on the internet is one of the surest ways to ensure that everyone on the internet hears the things you want to cover up. 100x more so if you’re aggressive and forceful about it. (The internet is an entity that takes censoring *really* personally.) So lawyering up to censor someone is among the most stupid things one could do on the internet, entirely aside from the PR epic fail. All of which sounds pretty mockable to me -entirely aside from anything that may or may not have happened ten years previously.
Someone linked to a cache of the thread he threatened a lawsuit over. The post that probably triggered the threat wasn’t libelous. Facts are an absolute defense against libel & slander claims and the poster laid out the facts explicitly. (And other people replied confirming those facts along with the stating they still haven’t gotten a refund or their merchandise.) It’s highly, highly unlikely Ryan would prevail in any actual lawsuit over any of the posts in that thread.
He screwed up in the past, whether he made a decent attempt to right the wrong is at best questionable. Threatening to sue people who post about their experience in detail gives the impression that Ryan knows he did something wrong/illegal as alleged, not that he’s just angry that people are saying libelous things about him. The correct response would have been to post to the thread and explain things from his point of view, to counter the posts made with his own facts. Threatening to sue (but not actually suing, the poster actually gave their real name too, so Ryan could have gone after them easily instead of threatening the site the post was made on) just tells the world you’re a guilty jerk trying to hide evidence of your wrongdoings. Which just triggers a Striesand effect and makes things worse for you.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can’t sue people for slander/libel when it’s actually true.
That’s assuming it’s all true, including the bit about moving to evade mail fraud charges, which stands out to me as one of those things that the poster is unlikely to have personal knowledge of rather than hearing of & passing on as rumor.
i was thinking this was about Celine Dion the guy in the comic looks just like him out of drag *now for the lawyers to call*
And the Streisand Effect wins the day once again.
Am I seeing things, or the only one to see things, or do Ethan and Ken look a lot alike in the fifth panel?
You mean Zangief?
Also: Please include the last panel as a throwaway gag in some unrelated strip six months from now.
F*** YEAH! SEACONS!
…that is all.
Hilarious, you should make this guy a reoccurring character!
I have no idea about this specific character.
However, some general info about getting ripped off.
Assuming you paid by credit card (which you should do assuming it is more than a few bucks), start your credit company’s process for disputing a claim. You need to call them to get the specific details, but basically
1) Send the seller a letter (works better if you have a fax or physical address). DON’T do this over the phone.
2) Wait around a month
3) Send a letter to your credit card company detailing the circumstances and the letter you previously sent to the seller.
4) Wait around 2 months, talk to your credit card company on the phone
5) Get a refund
Step 5 usually includes the seller being hit with a surcharge, getting the transaction reversed, which screws up his credit score. If enough people complain, the seller is going to find it very difficult to process credit card orders.
Just FYI.
Oh man… I think Ryan still owes me money for my posters… Yay Seibertron store!
Yes, many of us never got our orders, or refunds. He kept making promises and excuses to discourage us from filing complaints with paypal. He said he had the comics and posters, but couldn’t afford to ship them, then he was going to sell them at conventions and issue refunds, then he needed a new car…
I let it go a long time ago, as I’m sure most everyone else did, but if he’s gonna be a bitch about it, then he needs to be bitch-slapped with the truth until he grows some humility, accepts what he did for what it was, and moves on.
FYI, Willis was bitch enough to post this and equally bitch enough to hang up on Ryan when he tried calling him to talk man to man. Well, man to shortpackage anyway.
Hi Ryan.
“bitch enough” as in he posted a hilarious strip? Too bad Ryan wasn’t “bitch enough” to pay me and others back for his “store” all those years ago.
Excellent strip Willis, it displays exactly how Ryan acts in a very hilarious manner. Well done.
Ryan’s biggest problem is he has a tendency to panic, which makes him hard to work with and talking to the man is virtually pointless on things like this. He’s way too self righteous. I don’t care how much he hates Allspark at this point, the fact he’s threatening to sue anyone over something like this completely kills my opinion of him. And I used to think he was half reasonable too…
Heh, knowing the backstory, this was actually funny as heck. (especially the 6 months later part). Thumbs up! (Though I bet he’s gonna sue you for this).
IT’S GEOFF’S FROM SHOCKER TOYS TWIN BROTHER!!
Dammit Willis! This is what happens when you wantonly pull drama tags!