21 days of "that thing" (Patreon)

A week of complete mist in my memory (where now I'm having real troubles trying to remember what exactly happened and when), another week of terror and tears, and then a week of numb nothingness (courtesy of Elden Ring). Thousands in Ukraine are dead, Ukrainian cities and towns destroyed; thousands of people in Russia detained, brutalized and tortured, stripped of their basic civil rights. Millions of Ukrainian refugees, and dozens of thousands terrified Russian fleeing the country, too. Supposedly, there's a new, terrible wave of "russophobia" on the rise, gosh darn it! (jokes aside, good luck trying to work in comics right now), but nothing and no one can ever humiliate and degrade me as much and as bad as my own "government" managed to do in just a few days.

But anyway, we're not leaving Russia, at least for now. Instead, this Friday we're going on our annual family trip to Novosibirsk, as if it was a normal life we were still having. And we can only hope that Saint Petersburg, our friends and our dog will still be there when we go back 9 days later.

"Normal" broadcasting on a regular basis will probably resume closer to the end of the month. But first, some housekeeping:

1) State of Patreon and Paypal: Paypal is completely blocked in Russia (just like many other payment systems, too). Patreon allows Payoneer payouts, and I was able to register a Payonneer account through a loophole (even though officially it seems to refuse Russian  registrations at the moment), so in a week or so, well's see what happens with this month's payout (and the next one after that). Patreon itself seems to be sympathetic, but they can't change the fact that with Paypal, Visa and Mastercard blocked, we are going to loose 99% of Russian and Belarusian patrons, and many Russian and Belarusian creators will soon leave the platform. But I am going to have this page active and running for as long as possible, as it seems to be one of the remaining and dwindling avenues for my family's income.

Most frustrating of all, I can't even follow my European friends like Goran, Linnea or Zé on this website anymore, because for some EU regulation reasons Patreon charges my pledges to Europe-based pages separately, and will only accept Paypal or card (while normally, I just get charged from my Patreon balance).

2) Original art packages that I shipped to some of you three weeks ago were finally safely exported from Russia a couple of days ago. I expected shipping to be all kind of fucked for a while, but it's actually not as bad as it was in the first months of Covid. Still, we need to keep the most pessimistic scenario in mind: 2022 could put a kibosh on shipping of my zines and art for a while :/ 

3) Gumroad and selling my physical zines: my store is on pause right now, will all physical items currently unavailable. Gumroad ONLY allows Paypal payouts, so, if I want to keep selling books there, digital or physical,  I need to find a way to rewire my account to someone else's Paypal account - a friend who is outside of Russia and who then can transfer the money to me through other (barely) available channels.

Because of the recent Gumroad/NFT debacle I 've been begrudgingly considering leaving Gumroad for Itch.Io, but both payment systems the Itch uses are suspended in Russia, too.

4) Print Lover packages: I'm really sorry, but the budgeting and shipping concerns force me to put those packages aside for a little longer. This month, I'm going to ship a few of my remaining store orders to see if the mail continues working, and later (hopefully) we'll get to your packages. 

Worst case scenario, I will just owe a ton of art to all of you for betraying your trust and being so god damn slow.

5) Commissions: almost a full month without drawing anything but the most urgent work messed up my schedule for commissions again, but I'm hoping to resume drawing them ASAP.

6) Alternative to Patreon: I have a Boosty page now. It's a Russian analog of Patreon, so it shouldn't be too complicated to handle, and can withstand sanctions and cannibalistic Russian laws. Again, I am hoping to resume payouts from Patreon pretty soon, but just in case if you wanted to try something fresh, shoot a dollar of support right away or - for some weird reason - completely migrate from here to another alien platform - my Boosty is there for you. Right now it accepts Paypal payments (as well as few other options), which it then turns into regular Russian bank transactions on my end through the magic of banking that is completely inaccessible to regular mortals.

И да, дорогие российские и белорусские патроны: Бусти это ваш шанс сохранить подписку на мой контент в ближайшее время - но только если вы можете позволить себе такие (по сегодняшним меркам - совершенно факультативные) траты. Я понимаю, что многие из вас будут вынуждены покинуть эту страницу по окончанию текущего месяца, за который с вас успели снять оплату, и я навсегда я признателен вам за каждый доллар, каждый день и каждое слово вашей поддержки.

Thank you for your attention. Endless gratitude for your support.

 Хуй вoйнe