Big Pimpin': Discussion.

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:39 pm

Joel Fagin wrote:I read 1985 once, as well. Hated it, but it was good.

You mean 1984 had a sequel?!

--Sij

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:40 pm

Mostly. Earlier you seemed surprised at people going after you. I was merely offering an explaination. Though the pimping tips would be helpful if I wasn't so lazy about my comic promotion.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:41 pm

Van Douchebag wrote:Why in hell would I do that?

What? Read my opinions on the matter at hand? Not sure. It'd certainly get in the way of a good tirade. You have an amazing capacity to violently disagree with and insult people who agree with you, Van.

I don't believe I've ever argued against advertising webcomics. I know that I've felt that "word of mouth" is more honest somehow but I recently realised why that didn't apply to webcomics and thoroughly debunked it in my tutorial.

- Joel Fagin

Phalanx · Post by **Phalanx** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 4:49 pm

Van Douchebag wrote:I'm less concerned about how people see me, Vort, than as I am about promoting White Hydra and my other ideas.

Indeed, but you do realise acting like this does make your job of promoting White Hydra much much much harder, do you?

Van Douchebag wrote:I mean, Scott Kurtz is a prick. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins rub off as pricks, too. But look at them and where they are - people care more about the comics than they do about the person themselves.

I don't know about Mike and Jerry, but Scott Kurtz started off as a really nice guy when he started PvP. I don't know how much he's changed since then, but he WAS a nice guy back when he started.

I think it's been said that you can do whatever you want when you're one of the big guys, but not until then.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:02 pm

yeahduff wrote:
Van Douchebag wrote: What are you? Mentally retarded?
Excessive avertising?

Do I have White Hydra commercials on TV every commercial break, billboards 100 feet high, and more pages in magazines than their articles themselves?

No! So shut the fuck up already with your stupid opinions - you were the one who I was talking about in my post earlier, except I was too polite to openly mention it. Fuck politeness, and fuck your know-nothing opinions.
Don't swear at me. We're talking. If you disagree, tell me why. Part of promotion is being a professional, and part of being a professional is not throwing tantrums.

As per your points, for a webcomic, you do over-advertise, or advertise more than I'm comfortable with. I didn't say that was wrong or that it was beneath me. What I said was that I could never do it because it doesn't fit with what I'm trying to do.

As for your exposure of Scribblekid, that seemed like blatant self-promotion, a la cutting down those who are established and more popular than you in an effort to take their place. No one cared because they saw through what you were doing. Even now you called him your archnemisis, which exposes pretty clearly that you had other motives.

Look. I don't have a problem with you do. I already said that. If someone wants to get online readers, they should do the things on your list. For me, and for others, it just wouldn't work and I wouldn't feel comfortable doing. That's all I was saying.

edit- moved from other thread.

Post by **STrRedWolf** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:02 pm

Calm down, folks. Please continue to discuss the thread here. If you have additional suggestions to add to the Big Pimpin' thread, do it there. I've split it off. If I get another complaint, I'll lock both.

Nyke · Post by **Nyke** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:03 pm

Wow, Kelly can do that? (EDIT TPC: Split a thread)

Cool.

Mr.Bob · Post by **Mr.Bob** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:05 pm

And here I was thinking that Vorticus was channeling the undead again.

Vorticus · Post by **Vorticus** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:10 pm

Mr.Bob wrote:And here I was thinking that Vorticus was channeling the undead again.

I've been channeling the undead again

. Why don't you people let me know when that happens?

Van Douchebag · Post by **Van Douchebag** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:13 pm

yeahduff wrote:As for your exposure of Scribblekid, that seemed like blatant self-promotion, a la cutting down those who are established and more popular than you in an effort to take their place. No one cared because they saw through what you were doing. Even now you called him your archnemisis, which exposes pretty clearly that you had other motives.

Scribblekid and I have dealt with each other for 4 or 5 years - way before either of us went into webcomics.
We attended a board of a site called the "Digi-Artists' Domain". He used to draw snuff hentai and lolicon hentai, and I admonished him for it and went on a mini-campaign of sorts against snuff artists including that freak Uziga.

Him and his friends shot me down for it and he held a grudge against me since. He later got me banned from another message board because he's friends with the administrator, so I figured I'd repay the favor on Buzzcomix where people hold him in admiration. People on the Buzz board did disapprove, but there was no way to convey it to all his patrons.

We are in a cold war of attrition.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:52 pm

That's fine if you don't like him. That's none of my business.

I just wonder why you care.

[geoduck] · Post by **[geoduck]** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 9:36 pm

Luprand wrote:
Joel Fagin wrote:I read 1985 once, as well. Hated it, but it was good.
You mean 1984 had a sequel?!

--Sij

Heh. Actually, the answer to your question is yes. Sort of. I have in my possession a slim tome titled "1985: What Happens After Big Brother Dies", written in the 80's by a Hungarian named Gyorgy Dalos. Even though it discusses the fall of the government of Big Brother in a revolution, it's more of a Eastern European meditation on the themes of Orwell's original, than an out-and-out attempt at a sequel. I picked it up on a whim in some bookstore years ago.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 10:53 pm

Heh...this thread was more colourful than Question Time in the Australian Parliament...

If you lot were ten years old I'd have you all sitting in separate corners

Bustertheclown · Post by **Bustertheclown** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:45 am

yeahduff wrote:...Many people, here and otherwise, do view them as art. In such a view, advertising excessively can be alarming. You want the word to get out, but you have to constantly take stock of whether you're undermining your work or not, particularly if you know what you're doing is not for mass consumption...

First off, this is a response to the general viewpoint which was engendered by your statement, Yeahduff. It was not really a response to the statement itself, since that would essentially take your statement WAY out of context. While I do make some specific responses to your words in this mini-essay, I'm not really calling you out in particular, just so you know. Also, I apologize in advance for this, because DAMN, this is long...

I, for one, most certainly view comics as an artform. However, I certainly don't believe in 'high brow' ivory-tower viewpoints that for something to be considered art, it can't seek a populist audience, or more to the point, it can't be seen as 'entertainment' at the same time. Art is not pure and unsullied. Art is huge business, and if you don't believe me, ask any gallery owner, or better yet, ask any mayor of a town that thrives on 'cultural tourism'. More to the point, true and important artists shamelessly self-promote themselves and their work all the time, and have always done so. They don't become important purely by feats of divine accident.

In my humble opinion, self-promotion can't really be outwardly 'excessive'. Promotion is how we gain an audience, and with an audience our work is legitimized. That's especially true of we cartoonists, since cartoons are stories, and we are storytellers. If a storyteller told a story in the woods, and nobody is there to hear it, does he make a sound? We need to announce our presence to the world, so either you do it all the way, or you don't do it at all, and hope that somehow your work becomes magically important to society despite your obsurity.

As far as undermining one's work is involved, I guess I'd have to say that only your work is capable of undermining itself. If you're running around telling people how great your work is, and it isn't, is it your fault for believing in your abilities? Well I guess it is, hubris and all. But if your work is of a level of quality that is befitting the hype, how could it be undermined by anything but itself?

A fine example of this would be Winsor McCay. He was always promoting his work. He did vaudeville, made musicals, printed his strip in syndication around the country, made all sorts of en vogue merchandising of the day based upon Little Nemo. Did his reputation suffer from this at the time? Historical sources point to no. Has his seat in the realm of comic godhood crumbled because of it? He's still held up as one of the greatest innovators of the form, with a level of work not seen before or since. Despite his uncommon and self-realized popularity, his work spoke best for him, and thus no amount of advertising could undermine him.

Like I've said, I view comics as an artform. I seek out artful comics, and I come to all comics that I read, popular or not, as being either good art or bad art. However, I can't deny that comics are a populist artform, and there's no getting around that. They always will be, too. Even the most obscure comic still roots in the same soil Garfield does.

I think that being an artform that is read and consumed in it's many forms by everyone at some time makes it a pretty powerful artform, too. To take full advantage of the power, however, we need to get past the stigma that so many 'artiste' types want to pin on popularly consumed arts. Just because it isn't cordoned off behind a velvet rope, and just because it is popularly accessible to the drooling masses does not make a thing less artistic. It just makes it more successful. I find it very tragic that artists often desperately want success, but are unwilling to persue that success to its fullest extent. I don't want that defeatist mentality to flow into my beloved cartoon artform. Comics already have over a century of issues to work through without additional baggage.

Not to mention the big 'art' sect of our industry certainly seem to be doing pretty well for themselves, despite all the sighing and shuffling they do over their popularity. I haven't heard Crumb complaining about the house in France that his sketchbooks bought him. I haven't seen Spiegelman quit waving his Pulitzer around at every chance he gets. I haven't seen McCloud refrain from riding the wave of UC by putting out hastily assembled crap. I haven't heard news that Moore, Clowes, or Pekar have refused any attention OR checks from the movies they had okayed. Oddly enough, any and all attention they've garnered for themselves by way of what could certainly be seen as shameless self-promotion is not going to diminish the level of quality within the work they've done, or the steps that they have taken to change the face of comics as an artform.

Okay, end breathy rant mode.

Yeahduff · Post by **Yeahduff** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 2:27 am

I respect your caution before the statement, but you never put yourself in any danger. I play nice.

You raise some good points. A degree of self-promotion has always been necessary for an artist, as your guy in the woods example points out. I certainly promote myself from time to time, as you can see the banner at the bottom of this post. My presence here itself is in part an act of self promotion, making myself known in at least one corner of the webcomic world. I never said artists shouldn't promote. And I didn't mean to put a strict dichotomy between art and entertainment. Even if I did, I never said creating entertainment was bad or a lesser goal. Art suffers today by making itself irrelevent to society rather than challenging and/or enriching it. Artists too often seem to be working for each other and for rich people, leaving most others to scratch their heads. While "the masses" don't often put in the time or effort to deeply consider art very often, surely they can be included in the discussion that art is supposed to be. There are wildly successful indie cartoonists, and they do make money off their work. Clowes, Crumb and Pekar have all been involved with film (albeit in smaller studios), and their work still stands up. There are wildly successful artists in all artforms who are not independent who make exciting and challenging work, and their being popular doesn't make their work less valid.

I disagree with your main point, though, that only a given work can undermine itself. If a work has a certain meaning and feeling, and some extracurricular activity outside of the work attaches a different meaning and feeling, then the work is successfully undermined. Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "Born in the USA" as an indictment on how the United States, particularly its government, turned its back on Vietnam veterans. Ronald Reagan wanted to use it as a patriotic anthem to accompany his Nineteen Eightyfour reelection campaign. Bruce said no, but the song has been used as an anthem by so many people who misunderstand what the song's supposed to be that the original work has suffered for it.

And there is such a thing as excessive advertising. If you are supersaturated with ads for a certain work, after a while you're going to seriously lose your taste for that work. Also, seeing ads and hearing discussion of a certain work all time will likely remove a lot of the mystery of the work before you've even seen it. Look at the new U2 record. With them performing on every other talk show on TV every day, unlimited press, and an ubiquitious commercial for Ipod, a lot of people are just sick and tired of the blokes.

There of course is the flipside to these negatives, though. "Born in the USA" is by far Springsteen's most famous song, and after a week of release, U2's new record has gone platinum. So advertising will get yourself seen/heard. I get that.

The question is where is it too much? Artists have always self promoted, but they've also always wondered about the nobility of such a thing. I think you have to find the line for yourself keep an eye on it, so that when you cross it from time to time it doesn't disappear.

I do want my work to be seen. Yeah, anyone who tells you they do it only for themselves is lying, but that implies people only have one reason to do comics. You can be famous and rich doing lots of things; We chose comics. Massive popularity is not in my future. And I feel really uncomfortable doing the things Van suggested. I'm a cartoonist, not a PR guy. My primary concern is with the quality of my strip. Get too wrapped up in the promotion aspect of it and you'll undermine your work out of neglect for the craft.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 3:57 am

Hmmm... *reads thread*

Summ: What Joel said.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:04 am

Luprand wrote:
Joel Fagin wrote:I read 1985 once, as well. Hated it, but it was good.
You mean 1984 had a sequel?!

--Sij

Lots of writers were inspired so write something of a sequel to 1984, but they weren't nessecary bad books. Anthony Burges wrote "1985". You probably know him the best for his "Clockwork orange" but he is also pretty established critic. I'm still to find his history of angloamerican literature that I've heard is particulary good. Also, one of most respected serbian postmodern writers, Borislav Pekic wrote a kind of a sequel before Burges.
They're both serious writers, although I didn't read those particular books, I highly doubt they would give in the sin of leeching off from popular novel or copying Orwel's writing. Books are probably more of postmodern projections of the story, than direct sequels. I don't know how good they are, but they're probably not particulary good.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 5:12 am

Just to clear it up, I meant 1984.

*shudder* Hated it. Hate, hate, hate!

- Joel Fagin

Luprand · Post by **Luprand** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:52 am

On the subject of U2, whoever wrote that song that goes in the iPod commercial needs to be slapped. I'm sick of hearing Bono yell out, "1, 2, 3, 14!" (and no, that isn't a mistake) in Spanish like he's so clever ...

--Sij

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:16 pm

I just wanted to say that this is the first topic I've read where VD gets swearing-mad, and I wasn't provoking him. Do I want a cookie for that? Hell yeah - someone out there owes me a double-chocolate. I like 'em warm.

I guess I have to agree with VD on this one, at least in principle. I may not buy a razor because there's a Mach-3 commercial on (it's a type of razor), but if I see a webcomic ad that I like, I'll probably go visit. There's no harm in getting your name out there.

On the other hand, if you're not shooting for a speed record to the top of the charts, and are happy making your way around via word of mouth, more power to you.