We don't know the details of her working relationship with the artist so I wouldn't immediately say Eva made such a massive blunder or is lying about it.
It could be that she has been working with this artist for the past few chapters and didn't expect them to just vanish with the money previously paid. Perhaps they get paid on a monthly wage and again the artist didn't respond in all of February.
Theres too much unknown and it's not like EK said no progress was made, so it honestly doesn't matter.
Sure, all possible. I'm not saying she's lying, just that it's weird as most companies/businesses pay commissions after delivery. A monthly wage is very unlikely unless it's some kind of continuous work project, but I'm guessing she only asks for certain scenes/amount of drawings as future chapters aren't planned out, so there isn't much of a reason to pay on a monthly basis.
Anyway, the real question is why she didn't feel like there's reason enough to post status updates considering all of those things happening at once, considerably slowing the work process down (hence why she said there isn't much to report in regards to the game itself). If only for her paying supporters it would make sense to let them know what's going on. I think that's a fair thing to say...no?
That said, EK is one of my favorite artists, so it's not like I'm going up the walls over it.
