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Thunderchickens Withdrawn From Zuda "In Light Of Recent Events"

Bleeding Cool covered some of the local press that the creators of the webcomic Thunderchickens, Chad Boudreau and William Blankenship received before their entry into DC's webcomic talent show Zuda Comics. And this month it seemed it was working for them, Thunderchickens consistently gaining the top slot. They were definitely on track to win this month and gain the coveted Zuda continuing slot.

Until yesterday. When, on the Zuda blog, co-creator Chad Boudreau stated;

I am writing to inform you all that in light of recent events Bill and I don't feel comfortable proceeding and we respectfully withdraw The Thunderchickens from the competition. Bill and I have been in touch with DC Comics and The Thunderchickens will be removed from the competition in the near future. Bill and I want to thank our supporters, friends, family and fans that got us to the top and kept us in the #1 spot for so long. Rest assured, you have not seen the last of The Thunderchickens. Good luck to the remaining competitors. Cheers.

Cue bafflement from voters, competitors and other Zuda figures. Bobby Timony posted;

Let the work speak for itself. Thunderchickens is a strong comic and should stay in the competition.
My unsolicited advice: If you feel like you've been wronged, stay in the competition and win it. That's the best revenge.
If you feel that you've done wrong, stay in the competition and offer a heartfelt and sincere apology. Follow up with some pie. No one can stay mad at you if you offer them pie.
Either way, stay in the competition. This is about the comics, not about those that create them. I hate to see people's personal problems torpedo a good comic.

Today Zuda editor Ron Perezza added;

Last night The Thunderchickens resigned the competition. I won't go into the specifics behind the resignation other than to say that its a decision that Chad, 3iLL and the staff here mutually agreed was the best course of action given recent events.

Later today we'll remove Thunderchickens from the competition and re-post the rankings. This means that all votes previously cast for Tunderchickens will be "unvoted." Similarly any Ratings, Comments, Favorites and other activity on Thunderchickens will no longer affect the results of this competition. Votes and activity on the other competitors' comics are unaffected.

Once we remove Thunderchickens we're going to recalculate the rankings. The new rankings will reflect all activity taken since yesterday's Rank Update in addition to the removal.

Remember this competition ends on January 29th at 12:00 noon, NYC Time. You can continue to vote (or change your vote) rate, favorite and comment at any time right up until the end.

Best of luck to the remaining competitors.

So what actually happened? Well, whatever it was, artist William Blankenship took the blame with a few mysterious tweets;

I'll elaborate tomorrow. What happened was my own damn fault.

Right now I can only apologize to my writer, Chad Boudreau. He IS a professional, I am not. MY actions hurt him.

And while various blogs and posts have been deleted, this one seems to give some kind of indication of a war of words (and pictures) that got out of hand.

So what was it? A hate crime? Did someone compare someone else to Hitler? Was there hacking, teasing, bullying or a better offer? We still don't know. But if you want to read Thunder Chickens do so now. While you still can.

UPDATE: It's gone.

UPDATE UPDATE: Yup, it's a war of words. Wiliam took offence at another poster's comments and cartoon, there was a slinging match of insults, allegations of voter fraud and generally a big "Your momma"-off. Too much, it seems.

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