Tom Preston is the Modern Day Snapesnogger/Owlgem

Before I begin I would just like the get my general view of   out of the way.

First off, I don't like his art and the majority of his comics. I'm not saying he's a shitty artist, however I am saying that it is generic, lacking and quite frankly unappealing. If only he put as much effort as he does in the Brentalfloss comics(or his political ones) and he does his own SYAC comics than I would tolerate it much better than I normally do.

Secondly his general attidude towards critiques in general is annoying. He leans on his BFA in art as a crutch to not improve anything, and he has an internet behavior that is comparable to a insecure artistic teenager.

I'm just going to make a list that compares and contrasts him and Snapesnogger.

ART

Both Snapesnogger and TomPreston were harassed by trolls, and critiques alike for their generic and bland art style. In Snapesnogger's case it was the fact that it was generic anime with no noses, and with Preston it's the fact that it looks like a horrible mix between newspaper comics and 1980's DBZ like anime. Both Snapesnogger and TomPreston grew very angry when fans criticized them. They would often go on the defensive about their style of drawing, and defend it with a fierce ferocity. They never took any of their critiques, and adamantly believed that they didn't need any improvement.
However TomPreston at the age of 30+ something, still has this state of mentality. Since he first graduated from college till present day, you can see that his style in general has not changed at all. You can clearly see his art has grounded to a halt, and it is stuck where it is. With Snapesnogger however, if you were lucky enough to see all of her art before she deactivated her Owlgem account, and all the art she did when she was on her first DA account Snapesnogger, once she stopped putting her fingers in her ears about critiques on her art style/skills the sheer amount of improvement in her art was astounding. It was almost like her old art vs. her new art were drawn by two different people, and this all occurred within a couple years after she got into college</i> At this point Snapesnogger was in her early twenties, and she improved her art tenfold within a couple of years. Had Preston of done the same thing he would've been a much better drawer now, and not out paced by every single teenage sparkledog artist that knows how to cell shade, and pen tool better than him.

SUBJECT MATTER

Okay. To be fair, nothing will ever surpass Snapesnogger's monstrosity of hermaphrodite nagas, and weird fantasy plots. I also think nothing could be more boring and unfunny than Tomprestons SYAC comic strips. However I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about how they both handled critiquing of their own work. The sad thing is that TomPreston acts exactly like a teenage hormonal Snapesnogger did back in the day when her own Naga story was criticized. The only difference being Preston had a little more maturity in it. When anyone "attacks" their work both Preston and Snapesnogger defended it by saying the typical rehashed DA retorts of "your jealous" "there is nothing wrong with it" "if you don't like it, don't look at it" etc. Many people told Snapesnogger that her hermaphrodite Naga's made no sense, while with Preston people told him that his characters had very one-dimensional personalities overall, and that in most of his comics he would constantly miss the punchline. While Snapesnogger  had since ended that comic arch in general(not before making her main character officially female.) TomPreston has not changed a single damn thing in his work, and he doesn't seem ready to be doing it soon.

TROLLS

Let's face it. Where there is popularity, there are trolls. No exceptions. However what both Snapesnogger and TomPreston seemed to think is that 99% of everyone who ever critiqued anything they did were trolls when in reality they were actual people concerned with helping them grown as an individual artist. So, as with most popular artists on DA that are insecure and have a sense of Unwarranted Self Importance, they block everyone left and right, give off smart remarks to these "trolls" and act even more of a whiny, douche, with their fingers in their ears eventually attracting the attention of ACTUAL trolls. Once they get picked, teased, and swarmed with hate they then make journal entries ranging from "You cannot harm me" to the eventual "Don't feel the trolls" journal entry. Ironically enough they both never followed the don't feed the trolls rule. EVER.
Except that at some point Snapesnogger actually understood what that meant, and quite literally ignored every single troll that she ran into. By the time she created her Owlgem account, the amount of real trolls she had on her page decreased tenfold, and the only ones there at the time were pathetic newfags that were not only jumping the bandwagon, but were also beating on a dead horse.
Tom Preston has still yet to realize this.

THE FANS

Both Snapesnoggers and TomPreston's fanbase consisted of for the most part young, aspiring, easily influenced, artistic preteens that hang on their every word. As you can expect, they are mindless, whiteknights, that will always come to the rescue of their idol regardless of the many flaws they presented in the argument they are butting into. I must give Preston a little credit, that at the very least, he didn't use his fanbase as a personal attack army towards those who were "mean" to him like Snapesnogger did in her early days. Currently Snapesnoggers fanbase has mellowed considerably. Probably due to the fact that they all grew up, or moved on to someone else once Snogger got less and less active on her DA account, and her other accounts on varying websites. Preston's fanbase is still as strong and annoying, and dumb as ever sadly...

With all that being said, Snapesnogger managed to stop all of her internet drama by taking her own advice and ignoring the trolls. Not only that, but she finally stopped and listened to what her critiques were trying to tell her all of these years and as a result had vastly improved over the short span of a few years.
With that in mind I will clarify that yes, Snapesnogger was once an attention whore on the internet,
yes it was funny as hell,
and yes at that time every single bit of trolling was something to laugh about, and I have a feeling at the rate this is going, if Preston keeps this up, he may one day reach the infamous fame of Snoggy back in her golden days.






I need to go to bed...