August 17, 2001

Although I received a lot of email on the 'Crook' piece last week, I was flabbergasted and highly impressed that not one person wrote me in angry indignation!!!

My Gawd, there is hope for us Yahoo's!!!

I was convinced I'd get a few hot letters demanding an apology for having the audacity to call us names! Or worse, have some Yahoo come forth, from somewhere, and give us the old 'alternative words' list, which some around these parts feel is a must in protecting our delicate natures.

I'm so fucking proud of you folks!!! Damn, it makes me all teary eyed, it does!!

So now that we faced up to our darker side and realized that, yeah... okay, so we don't rob banks, embezzle money from our work place, steal cars, kidnap little children, or hang our private parts out 13th story windows when school lets out!! We just happen to sell and buy Garage Kits, and hey!!! Lightning didn't come flying through the window and ZOT! us as we sat at our computers!

We can file our love for this hobby up there with pirating software, using Napster, renting video's and making ourselves a copy for later viewing and a variety of other non-earth shattering, abet slightly unethical, vices. In other words, we can now get ourselves up in the morning, look ourselves dead in the eye while we shave, have a cup of coffee and get our tired asses off to another day's work cycle... and life marches on.

The column made me think, and hopefully sparked some electrons in that foggy, dusty ole' brain matter on your side of the screen, and maybe we all realized something about ourselves.

So I'll take this opportunity to continue this discussion, and look at something I was sent the week before last.

Two very close and dear friends of mine came up with this logo banner and kindly asked all those who have a Web Site, if they could display this logo proudly...

To be honest with myself, as a buyer of Garage Kits, many of which are unlicensed works, leads to one unavoidable conclusion... I apparently don't fully "...SUPPORT CREATORS AND THEIR PRODUCTS". If I did, I wouldn't have any unlicensed kits in my collection! Nor would I allow myself to display, advertise or even mention these same unlicensed kits on my website! But I do... therefore, I'm locked in.

So even though I detest people who take an in-production kit, buy one, illegally recast it and turn around and sell those castings for less money than the original producer, because of that inclusion of the second line, posting this banner on my site would make me downright hypocritical. And I really, really fucking despise hypocrites!!

And since I don't plan on changing my buying habits any time soon, then I'm either left with designing my own anti-recasting banner or forget the whole thing.

Truth be told, I'm actually leaning toward the forgetting side. I mean, let's face it folks! We ain't gonna stop the recasters! As long as this hobby deals with unlicensed merchandise, we're never going to win! And let's face reality... this hobby isn't EVER going to become 100% above board and honest and ONLY do original characters and designs! This IS the Garage Kit Hobby and all that that implies!

It doesn't mean we can't try to fight them as we find them! Hell no! You see an illegal recast on eBay and can get the word to the original producers, he/she can more than likely get it kicked off! You spot illegal recasts on a dealer's table, almost every modeling show I know of, if you bring it to the attention of the show promoters, will take appropriate action! So by all means, we can try to stop it when we run across it.

But rest assure! We'll never lick it completely! And I don't think putting a banner on my site is going to effect the situation either way.

Seeing the banner on a Producers site gives me a slightly warm feeling. Saw this other version just today...

Think we could rethink that line?!

Til next week...

Happy Modeling - Buc       Email   Archives