Modern Commentary
Because squinting at things and seeing what they want to see is what these guys do, hence the accountant joke.
One of the other things about Living Game, to circle back to that, is that the beginning is a lot stronger than the middle. You see, the reason why all this is happening is because they're in Tokyo, it's a boom, and real estate prices are just CRAZY.
One of the subplots is about an old guy. Developers have bought all the other land on his block but he has his little house and refuses to sell. It's not entirely unlike Up. They offer him a million dollars but he doesn't want to give it up.
Then about a year into the manga, the bubble burst and everything changed. He couldn't even give the house away. The manga meandered for a while because of this, which is kind of a shame. - Terrence

Modern Commentary
Web Comics Awareness Day was very much a thing in the early 2000s. I don't think it's still really an ongoing concern. Perhaps a few of the old ones still carry on the ancient ways.
Back then, online comics was very much its own community, and building associations within that community was important. This was in part because print cartoonists were, with a few execeptions, dismissive of webcomics. It felt like it was us against an establishment that didn't see any value in what we were doing, and we had to stick together. We had to convince the world that online comics were A Thing, instead of just folks practicing for newspaper comics and/or college newspaper cartoonists who graduated but hadn't figured out how to stop. - Terrence

Original Commentary
Like this. In the original draft, Brisbane replies "the coast is never clear", which is really cool if you listen to Beulah like I do.

Modern Commentary
Again, the references, 2004-Terrence. At least you had the sense not to out it into the comic. - 2022 Terrence