10/11: Getting Out More
Congratulations to Jim Massey for his Hollywood fortunes, and Nicholas Gurewitch for his impressive Amazon sales streak. And speaking of webcomics success...
Tom Spurgeon says it's time he started taking "this webcomic thing" a bit more seriously... albeit with more good intentions than enthusiasm, like a new gym member signing up on New Year's Day. Among the reasons for this is that Tom, like Sean T. Collins, finds webcomics boosters annoying when they equate popularity with quality, or financial success with either.
I can't really argue with that.
I've made that mistake myself often enough, proceeding from "if this is popular, there must be a reason, and it'd be interesting at least from a cultural perspective to explore that..." which has resulted in a lot of crap in my Google Reader that I'm only just starting to thin out now.
But... glass houses, you know? It seems to me that many of the Ignatz nominees are likewise guilty of equating other things with quality, things like obscurity and a determined assault on the senses. In some cases, the work's lack of popularity with any general public seems to be proof of its worth. It is rewarded and buoyed up by a niche as self-congratulatory and insidery as the webcomics cults... or the makers and consumers of the worst of superhero comics' "continuity porn."
The name "alt-comix" implies a "mainstream" that is not addressing the public's artistic needs. If your world is the newsstand/direct market, then the need for an "alternative" quickly becomes apparent. But if your world includes the graphic novel market and the webcomics market, then things get murkier, especially since one-time "alternative" creators like Harvey Pekar and James Kochalka are now making more headway in those new markets. And then there's manga.
But this "alt-niche" has evolved under the assumption that the comics market is the newsstand/direct market, and it actually seems more interested in clinging to its feelings of persecution than in coming in from the cold. Sean, I don't think this kind of comics is part of the problem because it has fewer readers than Diesel Sweeties. I think it's part of the problem because so much of it doesn't read like it's the least bit interested in getting more. And you can have wonderful thoughts and fantastic insight, but they don't mean much if you don't share them with the whole class.
As distasteful as bragging about your audience numbers may be, it still seems better to me than writing and drawing specifically for the art-house critics. Dinosaur Comics and xkcd have demonstrated that you can get FREAKIN' HUGE audiences WHILE doing comics that address the great philosophical questions, the many quirks of everyday life and other esoteric topics... AND you don't even have to be a great artist to do so.
(P.S.: No, I don't hate all the Ignatz nominees, and no, I'm not telling you which ones get my goat. I'm more concerned about a general trend here, one that I'm glad to see in decline.)
Tom Spurgeon says it's time he started taking "this webcomic thing" a bit more seriously... albeit with more good intentions than enthusiasm, like a new gym member signing up on New Year's Day. Among the reasons for this is that Tom, like Sean T. Collins, finds webcomics boosters annoying when they equate popularity with quality, or financial success with either.
I can't really argue with that.
I've made that mistake myself often enough, proceeding from "if this is popular, there must be a reason, and it'd be interesting at least from a cultural perspective to explore that..." which has resulted in a lot of crap in my Google Reader that I'm only just starting to thin out now.
But... glass houses, you know? It seems to me that many of the Ignatz nominees are likewise guilty of equating other things with quality, things like obscurity and a determined assault on the senses. In some cases, the work's lack of popularity with any general public seems to be proof of its worth. It is rewarded and buoyed up by a niche as self-congratulatory and insidery as the webcomics cults... or the makers and consumers of the worst of superhero comics' "continuity porn."
The name "alt-comix" implies a "mainstream" that is not addressing the public's artistic needs. If your world is the newsstand/direct market, then the need for an "alternative" quickly becomes apparent. But if your world includes the graphic novel market and the webcomics market, then things get murkier, especially since one-time "alternative" creators like Harvey Pekar and James Kochalka are now making more headway in those new markets. And then there's manga.
But this "alt-niche" has evolved under the assumption that the comics market is the newsstand/direct market, and it actually seems more interested in clinging to its feelings of persecution than in coming in from the cold. Sean, I don't think this kind of comics is part of the problem because it has fewer readers than Diesel Sweeties. I think it's part of the problem because so much of it doesn't read like it's the least bit interested in getting more. And you can have wonderful thoughts and fantastic insight, but they don't mean much if you don't share them with the whole class.
As distasteful as bragging about your audience numbers may be, it still seems better to me than writing and drawing specifically for the art-house critics. Dinosaur Comics and xkcd have demonstrated that you can get FREAKIN' HUGE audiences WHILE doing comics that address the great philosophical questions, the many quirks of everyday life and other esoteric topics... AND you don't even have to be a great artist to do so.
(P.S.: No, I don't hate all the Ignatz nominees, and no, I'm not telling you which ones get my goat. I'm more concerned about a general trend here, one that I'm glad to see in decline.)
Labels: Webcomics
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