Thanks again for a fun #webcomicschat. What a great group of tweeps that came out to play. Tonight I asked what our motivation is for making web comics. Do we do it for “fun and profit” or for “fun or profit”? Unfortunately, the later seems to be the most common. To my knowledge there are only a few web cartoonists out there making a full-time living from their work. This fact leads to a logical question, if not for money then why do it? @RedsPlanet called it an artistic IP investment in your future. I think that’s a great way to look at it. As artists and designers we spend a great deal of time working on other people’s projects. That’s a necessary part of commercial art but if that’s all we do then we miss out on building a body of work that WE own. The way I look at it we’ve got nothing to lose except a bit of our free time.
Aside from investing in myself, my web comic is also an essential artistic outlet. Over the years I’ve heard artists say that they felt compelled to create their art. As an illustrator, honestly, I never quite understood what they meant. I always enjoyed drawing and painting and knew I wanted to work as a commercial artist, but I never had anything to “say” with my art or had something I felt compelled to do. That is to say until I started working on my web comic. I genuinely feel a need to work on my comic and I find great satisfaction in making people laugh. So there it is, if you boil it down, whether or not I make money I HAVE to work on my web comic. I’d do it anyways and how thankful I am that I live in an age where I can self-publish my work and build my own audience. Pass or fail I think it’s worth it.
Absolutely, I believe that our webcomics, or at least mine is an extension of my imagination, of who I am. I recently ordered product for an upcoming festival I am doing, and to hold in my hands something I created, is well a little bit awe inspiring to me. I am not a commercial artist, but I am an artist. and to be able to say that still makes me smile, and I’m 33. Great chat last night!
To follow up a bit on my comment about investing in your own intellectual property, as a professional artist for over twenty years, I have been asked to work on spec through the years for ambitious creators who have great ideas (so they say) but don’t have the artistic ability to bring them to life.
At different times in my career, for some reason or another (usually due to my inability to say “no”), I have taken on this kind of charity work only to find that my ideas to make it better are dismissed. Needless to say, non —yes, NONE— of these projects took off. Some of the people went as far as to blame me for the failure. As I look back I realize that it was time that could have been better spent creating my own projects.
Effort and sweat maybe all we can afford to invest in our own projects, but if time is money, then I think I’m better off spending that money on something that will be mine alone.
Oh, and as far as making a profit…I’m still trying to figure that one out!
You are totally right. I’m finally starting to get a thick skin and be able to tell people no. I don’t know why it’s so hard to do but I have to now. In this day and age illustrators shouldn’t spend their free time chasing someone else’s vision but should instead develop their own.