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Syndicate vs. some-indie-cult
Aug. 4th, 2011 04:33 amSuccessful webcomic artists talk about the business.
The "money" quote from the whole thing is, not surprisingly, about money:
Other interesting takeaways:
There are apparently 47 wiki-notable, wiki-verifiable "professional" (by which I assume they mean it's their sole employment) webcomic artists. And many thousands upon thousands of webcomics. Those who cheerlead for the old ways of doing things would probably call this a point for syndication, or a sign of the weakness of the webcomic market. But that would actually suggest that all those "failures" would get a syndication deal, which is far from the case.
And it's not a binary matter, where there are 47 decent quality webcomics that make their creators a living and then a mountain of garbage stacked to the moon... at WisCon 35, I spoke a bit on the way web-based self-publishing offers more shades of success. If you cartoon as a hobby, your work is going nowhere but your co-workers' cubicle walls or your mom's fridge or the free bin at your local indie whatever shop... unless you put it online, where it might find appreciation among a few dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of readers.
And it might make you some money... or it might just give you the boost you need to keep doing it. People of the current and up-and-coming generation are less likely to define themselves throughout their adult lives by what they do for a living, by their career... some people go into a profession, but many more people just get a job. You need a job to have money, you need money to secure the essentials of living and... one hopes... have some time to enjoy life.
So how do you define yourself? Your art, your music, your gaming, your writing, your blogging. This could probably be a whole separate blog post, but it's the things you do that you find fulfilling that define you best, not the things you do because you have to.
To pull this back: someone whose comic makes "some money" will never score (or keep) a syndication deal as long as there's another artist out there hungry for that spot whose comic will make "some more money". And in either case that money will be parceled out into a lot of different hands, leaving the one person who was most instrumental in this singular piece of creative content with a relative pittance.
So while there may be only about fifty people making a living off webcomics as far as can be verified to kipedia, there are more people out there seeing money from their creations than could be accommodated by the syndicates.
And I don't get the local paper, but I doubt there are 47 comics in it. I know there aren't hundreds or thousands. I don't read hundreds of comics. I don't even read 47. There's probably around a dozen I check regularly. But I don't remember any point in my history, from the time I first became aware of the funny pages, that there were a dozen strips that I really liked that, that really spoke to who I am and to my interests and sensibilities and sense of humor. The whole internet doesn't cater to me and me alone, but it doesn't have to. I don't need the whole internet. I just need my dozen strips.
The creator of Dominic Deegan... whose name I neither retain nor care enough about to shift-tab back to that article and find out... is referenced and quoted in that article as talking about how he knew his strip would have a particular kind of niche appeal. And it really does. There's a really strong, really large, and really organized "hatedom" against his strip, with targets including everything from the questionable moral lessons and careworn tropes to the faux-manga art style to the forced humor (its sole redeeming value). I would hazard that more people on the internet have tried to read Dominic Deegan and not liked it than have ever liked it.
In fact, the first strip I mentioned at the top of this blog post, Questionable Content, is probably the same way. I know a lot of people in my immediate circle who like it. I like it. But it seems like any random community or forum where I see it being discussed, it's people tearing down the art or the characterizations or the artist's attitude or whatever.
This is the flipside of me not needing the whole internet to cater to my tastes: creators online don't need to capture the whole internet audience. They don't need to think in those terms. Some do, I'm sure. Some set out to create the most broadly appealing thing they can think of. I can't think of any really successful webcomic that really does that. No comic could appeal to ~*the mass market*~ as strongly as Questionable Content or Dominic Deegan or _your_favorite_strip_here_ appeals directly to its fans.
And that's the practical lesson to be learned from this article. Not "don't join a syndicate"... for the vast majority of cartoonists out there, particularly those posting online, "should I accept this contract from the syndicate" is a question that will never, ever need to be considered.
No, the lesson is to find the audience you can connect with most strongly. You can play around with how much you can broaden the appeal without watering down the attraction, but at the end of the day you have to be satisfied with what you're doing so you might as well just do it the way you want to.
After all, if you're not making a living and you're not satisfied with your work then you have to ask what you're doing it for... and if you are making a living at it but you're not satisfied with your work, you've effectively turned your dream career into a dead-end job.
The "money" quote from the whole thing is, not surprisingly, about money:
But for [Questionable Content creator Jeph] Jacques and many other webcomic artists, syndication is out of the picture.
"There’s no real money in that," he says.
Other interesting takeaways:
There are apparently 47 wiki-notable, wiki-verifiable "professional" (by which I assume they mean it's their sole employment) webcomic artists. And many thousands upon thousands of webcomics. Those who cheerlead for the old ways of doing things would probably call this a point for syndication, or a sign of the weakness of the webcomic market. But that would actually suggest that all those "failures" would get a syndication deal, which is far from the case.
And it's not a binary matter, where there are 47 decent quality webcomics that make their creators a living and then a mountain of garbage stacked to the moon... at WisCon 35, I spoke a bit on the way web-based self-publishing offers more shades of success. If you cartoon as a hobby, your work is going nowhere but your co-workers' cubicle walls or your mom's fridge or the free bin at your local indie whatever shop... unless you put it online, where it might find appreciation among a few dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of readers.
And it might make you some money... or it might just give you the boost you need to keep doing it. People of the current and up-and-coming generation are less likely to define themselves throughout their adult lives by what they do for a living, by their career... some people go into a profession, but many more people just get a job. You need a job to have money, you need money to secure the essentials of living and... one hopes... have some time to enjoy life.
So how do you define yourself? Your art, your music, your gaming, your writing, your blogging. This could probably be a whole separate blog post, but it's the things you do that you find fulfilling that define you best, not the things you do because you have to.
To pull this back: someone whose comic makes "some money" will never score (or keep) a syndication deal as long as there's another artist out there hungry for that spot whose comic will make "some more money". And in either case that money will be parceled out into a lot of different hands, leaving the one person who was most instrumental in this singular piece of creative content with a relative pittance.
So while there may be only about fifty people making a living off webcomics as far as can be verified to kipedia, there are more people out there seeing money from their creations than could be accommodated by the syndicates.
And I don't get the local paper, but I doubt there are 47 comics in it. I know there aren't hundreds or thousands. I don't read hundreds of comics. I don't even read 47. There's probably around a dozen I check regularly. But I don't remember any point in my history, from the time I first became aware of the funny pages, that there were a dozen strips that I really liked that, that really spoke to who I am and to my interests and sensibilities and sense of humor. The whole internet doesn't cater to me and me alone, but it doesn't have to. I don't need the whole internet. I just need my dozen strips.
The creator of Dominic Deegan... whose name I neither retain nor care enough about to shift-tab back to that article and find out... is referenced and quoted in that article as talking about how he knew his strip would have a particular kind of niche appeal. And it really does. There's a really strong, really large, and really organized "hatedom" against his strip, with targets including everything from the questionable moral lessons and careworn tropes to the faux-manga art style to the forced humor (its sole redeeming value). I would hazard that more people on the internet have tried to read Dominic Deegan and not liked it than have ever liked it.
In fact, the first strip I mentioned at the top of this blog post, Questionable Content, is probably the same way. I know a lot of people in my immediate circle who like it. I like it. But it seems like any random community or forum where I see it being discussed, it's people tearing down the art or the characterizations or the artist's attitude or whatever.
This is the flipside of me not needing the whole internet to cater to my tastes: creators online don't need to capture the whole internet audience. They don't need to think in those terms. Some do, I'm sure. Some set out to create the most broadly appealing thing they can think of. I can't think of any really successful webcomic that really does that. No comic could appeal to ~*the mass market*~ as strongly as Questionable Content or Dominic Deegan or _your_favorite_strip_here_ appeals directly to its fans.
And that's the practical lesson to be learned from this article. Not "don't join a syndicate"... for the vast majority of cartoonists out there, particularly those posting online, "should I accept this contract from the syndicate" is a question that will never, ever need to be considered.
No, the lesson is to find the audience you can connect with most strongly. You can play around with how much you can broaden the appeal without watering down the attraction, but at the end of the day you have to be satisfied with what you're doing so you might as well just do it the way you want to.
After all, if you're not making a living and you're not satisfied with your work then you have to ask what you're doing it for... and if you are making a living at it but you're not satisfied with your work, you've effectively turned your dream career into a dead-end job.
