One of the more uncomfortable questions I get asked is whether I’d “take a look” as someone’s comic. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE looking at new stuff. I love seeing how people go about developing their styles. I thoroughly enjoy watching artists navigate hurdles and grow. So PLEASE send me stuff to look at. I’d be honor. Just don’t expect a response. Here’s why:
The problem is, people who ask you to look usually want feedback. They want to know what I think. That’s where the squirming begins.
I honestly don’t feel all that qualified to determine if someone’s work is worthy of “comic stardom” or not. I don’t feel that I’ve crossed any land marks in my career that make me an authority. PLUS, I’m a firm believe of the old saying “opinions are like asshole… etc etc.”
The funny thing is that I’m guilty of the same thing that makes me squirm. Oh yes, I’ve asked for artists opinions. But I learned the hard way. Good example: Early on, I sent my strip out to cartoonists I’ve admired asking “what they thought.” My expectation on the interchange between me, the fledgling artist and the weather comic professional was very low. But let’s face it…a majority of the successful cartoonists out there are bung holes. I don’t think they MEAN to be bung holes. They’ve just spent so much time at their Cintiqs and drawing boards that they’ve lost the skills required to hold a decent conversation.
Dear cartoonist: Don’t get offended when I say this. More than likely, you don’t fall into that category. But in the grand scheme of things there are roughly more cartoonists on the web than there are Chinese citizens. Chances are fairly good that a lot of them are jerks.
I can remember one occasion where I sent a few samples of 44UA to a syndicated cartoonist who I admired very much. In the e-mail I expressed my undying devotion to his work and explained that I too was a cartoonist attempting to get in “the biz” (yes, I said “the biz”…can you tell I’m cringing right now?). In my message I simply said “take a look and let me know if you like it.”
Now I would’ve been satisfied with a simple “I like it” or “it sucks dog balls.” Both are plain, simple answers that sum his opinion up quite nicely.
Did I get that response? Negative, Ghost Rider.
What I did get was a thorough dress-down of my strip from the poor choice of font to the predictability of the line-work (I still have no freakin’ clue what that means)to the awful characters (ouch) to the downright over-done story content and unoriginal humor. It was like standing in front of Mike Tyson and letting him punch me repeatedly in the balls.
It took me weeks to recover. I felt demoralized. I felt stripped of my creativity. PLUS, I never picked up another copy of that bung hole’s comic strip. And that’s when it hit me…
Why should we as artists, cartoonists, musicians, jugglers, WHATEVER… let ANYONE else tell us what is great, funny, beautiful, touching, etc? It’s a travesty that one person’s opinions have the ability to totally ruin someone else’s day.
So I say this: Please send me your work. I’d love to read it. Don’t expect a detailed response. It comes down to this. If it makes YOU happy, who gives a shit what anyone else thinks.
I am afraid that we are like small children who say look at what I drew. We crave the attention and admiration and we want our efforts to be praised. Do you grow out of it? I really don’t know. I turn 60 this week and I haven’t yet. I sometimes do have to wonder… if my stuff is any good why do I only have 50 or 60 hits a day on it. The sad thing is that I have more followers on Twitter and more friends on facebook than I ever have hits on my site.
I left out a thought to close that out. If your friends and followers aren’t crazy enough about it to check it out regularly (since we spend quiet a bit of time and effort reminding them) how can we expect someone else to take an interest in it.
BTW You do excellent work.
Another thought I want to leave you with. A LARGE majority of my pre-comic friends don’t even bother with Pinkerton. I’m not even exaggerating.
I think your web traffic has NOTHING to do with the quality of your work. Okay…maybe a LITTLE. But I’ve seen huge piles of crap out on the web with a TON of hits. You need to harness those twitter and FB friends.
I’m with you on that. I’ve been astonished at the piles of crap that have more traffic than I do! What do I do? If possible, I advertise on their site! I think my better art is a factor in why one site gets me a particularly good return on my advertising dollar. I’ve noticed the opposite with placing my ad on a site with better art. Horrible returns.
As for Facebook friends, well, they’re a separate audience anyway. I certainly don’t expect many of them to Like my comic’s fan page. I was surprised when early on, a majority of my page’s Likers were people I knew personally.
Way back when, I thought Bobcat Goldthwait, while a terrible actor, was a very good stand-up comic. His “Meat Bob” album was brilliant. So one night, he and Tom Kenny (voice of “SpongeBob”) come into this bar where my friends and I hung out. I walked up to him and said: “Bob Goldthwait, you’re my comedy idol.”
He responds: “Wow, that’s a lot of responsibility. You know I’m a dick in real life, right?”
Yeah, these encounters never go how you think they will.
Many years ago,Wit and i became friends over me emailing (bugging) him to death about pointers. One of the main things he told me and still to this day still tells me…if it makes you happy,Damn the torpedoes!….(Ha! 44 U.A. joke there)…and just draw for yourself! if your not making yourself happy,how can you please anyone else if you decide do the hardest thing in the world…..to show your work to the public?
Artist (especially comic strip artists,for they do it on a almost daily bases) have to have skin like a rhino.They put their art and writing skills for all the world to see. no matter what the response..love it or hate it, praise it or bash it.They keep on doing it over and over again.
why? because it brings them happiness!
In my recent venture into the cartooning world i’ve discovered that it’s A LOT of hard work for very little return but guess what?? I’m just as happy as i can be working on it!
so in the end…damn the torpedoes..and just make yourself happy!
I’ll be honest, it took some very harsh criticism from a syndicated cartoonist for his brutal, tearing apart and lashing of my work. I was LIVID when I got my submission back from him (an very well know Reuben winner and syndicated cartoonist) with every page containing words like “awful”, “horrible” and “not funny”. But, it was true! I was always a “good” cartoonist, but professionally, I didn’t have it. I look back, and see that. He (I will leave his name out) was honest with me. I was always told my whole life how I was a good artist, so I became – I don’t know – cocky about it? I thought breaking in would be easy because I was good – right? Well, I honestly wasn’t as good as I thought. And he made me realize how hard cartooning was and how hard I would have to work.
I agree – who’s to say what’s good or bad, but constructive criticism can do wonders. I sent this cartoonist a “Thank You” letter three years later.
It probably varies for everyone, but I really appreciated the harshness from (we’ll just call him Mr. Critic). And now, he really enjoys my work when 3 years ago it was all “garbage”.
Nate, That seems to be a big misconception of lots of people out there. They think because they are good artists, they can be cartoonists. I dunno, man. I just never subscribed to that theory tho. I think first and foremost you have to be a good writer and (if its you’re genre) a good humorist.
I totally agree about the writing. I think writing is 90% of cartooning (that’s changed a lot over the years…it used to be somewhat the other way around). I focus more on the writing than anything. I used to be the other way around. However, in terms of art, it’s a lot more expendable than it used to be. Still, my old art wasn’t up to par for anything. I’m still learning new things everyday (for example, it took me a long time to learn Photoshop, which now I think is a must in the cartooning world). And who’s to say what’s good or bad? Personally though, I took the harsh criticism and used it to my advantage. I had a lot of “harsh words” in college for art as well (brutal, man) but I did learn a lot.
I think it depends on what your goals and ambitions are and then combining it into a nice Slurpee for all of them to ones advantage. If you enjoy what you’re doing, it’s all that matters.
I totally agree. While I like your art, I read Pinkerton because it’s so damn funny. Also, xkcd is a prime example of the writing>art concept. I think that as long as the art style doesn’t draw away from the writing and isn’t irritating to the eyes, it can be a successful strip. I’ve seen funny comics with artwork that would put a yak into a coma.
Dilbert is a perfect example of a popular comic that looks ugly. Well, it looks much better now but when it first came out it looked pretty awful.
I can’t say any big name artist has seen my work, but I think the best criticism comes from my family. I show them a new strip I’ve drawn or an idea I come up with and they are so blatant about it, it’s not even funny! I showed my grandma a Flip and Barrel strip and she said it’s retarded. RETARDED! I couldn’t believe that! As you said wit, I was completely demoralized from that. I wanted to burn what strips I had and give up drawing. But I then realized as you said, who cares. I lve doing it too damn much! (plus she’s going blind anyway, so what does she know.) it is a lot of work for so little in return, but if your happy when your doing it, screw what anyone else thinks! Excellent blog! And a good reason to keep on cartooning!
This is why I don’t ask for reviews or for anyone to tell me what they think I should change, etc. I currently have a big Swedish syndicated cartoonist looking at my stuff and giving me pointers, but that was out of his own insistence because he was interested in “Imy.” I didn’t ask him, and I don’t think he’d have offered if he didn’t think “Imy” had some sort of potential.
I agree with the whole “do what makes you happy” camp. I’m honored that there are people who think my opinion on their comic is worth something. But when they ask me for it I want to just run. I may not like their drawing style, or the subject matter – and that’s just personal taste. And I really don’t want them to change anything based on what nobody-me thinks.
I’m with you. To my knowledge, there has never been a review of Pinkerton posted. At least not one that I’ve sanctioned. It would just hurt my feelings.
That was painful to read. I’ve never sent my material to fellow cartoonists (I don’t think), because I went to CalArts and was around enough talented, immature, cocky students to last me a lifetime. I can think of a few webcartoonists off the top of my head that I would never approach, even though they are doing well despite my opinion that their work has lousy writing. I wouldn’t approach them because they come off as jerks.
Usually, they’re not parents. Parents have a little more experience being nice while trying to instruct. Sometimes they’re just as immature as people half their age.
What’s interesting to me is that at CalArts it was the most talented people (Joe Ranft leaps to mind) who were the most giving and patient. Some of my fellow students, pretty much all of whom were more talented, were the ones to be complete jerks when criticizing. It wasn’t until a few years passed and they grew up a little that they were more patient with budding talents. I’m happy to say that a few of them went on to be spectacular teachers.
I enjoy seeing work in the embryonic stages. That guy who can’t draw hands very well may wind up being John Byrne. The person who has a weird, flat style may make it work in a way you never thought possible.
Anytime somebody makes themselves vunerable and says “here, check out my work” is placing you on a pedestal. If you abuse that it will come back to haunt you. I don’t care how antisocial the professional has become because of years behind a drawing board. If they go off on a beginner, a student, seeking advice or a critique, then they’ve lost the ability to relate to human beings and I don’t want to read their work.
I say we track down the cartoonist who insulted you and …. hmmm….. hit him in the face with a nice, cream pie. I’ll think of something ….
I agree, Stephen. I have no respect for people who slam others’ work in an unconstructive way. I don’t care how established you are, be a decent person. Or don’t bother giving any feedback to people.
Re: Joe Ranft, I actually emailed him about 8 years ago, when I had this delusional dream of working at Pixar. I asked him what I need to do to get a job there. Given what I had sent him for samples, he would’ve been justified in completely ignoring me. Instead he actually replied with a nice email. He was a class act.
I’ve had ONE person ask me to review his comic. I looked at it, and didn’t feel comfortable saying anything about it. I just ignored the request because there was absolutely nothing good to say. Not the art, not the story.
So THAT’S why I never heard back from you…And THIS is how I find out?!! *sobs hysterically*
He did the same thing to me, Kelly…. Heartless bastard
Great post. Now I want to know who that jackass is who slammed your work.
If you really really don’t care what anyone else thinks, why post it on the internet?