Webcomics: all things to all people

[scarfman]

Yesterday evening I met a fellow webcartoonist face-to-face for the first time: fellow Daily Grinder Matt Johnson, creator of Cortland. He comes into Omaha from Lincoln on Friday nights for swing dancing, and we met at a coffeehouse for an hour beforehand and talked webcomics - Grind politics, gag pacing and outside influences on it, free hosting vs paid hosting. Matt actually dropped out of the Grind this month to put Cortland on burnout hiatus for the summer. Like me, he's not one of the webcartoonists out to make his living by it (though his reasons are different from mine). He has some questions in his mind about the strip's direction, but mostly the other elements of his life just needed more attention. "There comes a time when you have to choose between that and your social life," he said. Which set me to thinking.

I've always said I write, or draw, to be read; I had burnout haituses during my pre-internet Dailies days (so far not during AKOTAS, knock wood), but most of them¹ coincided with periods when I didn't have a large circle of friends to read them. I also say that when I write or draw is when I touch God, because that's honestly what I think that rush is. But when Matt said he'd had to choose between his cartoons and his social life it made me realize that to me there's no such conflict, because those two things are the same thing. I'll keep drawing AKOTAS while its unique visitor count continues to rise steadily - hell, I'll keep drawing while its unique visitor count isn't zero². But part of the reason I do it - part of the reason I started AKOTAS instead of just drawing fanfiction Dailies the rest of my life, I see now - is to be involved in the back-and-forth of all webcomics culture, especially while qtrhorserider and I can't find any sf fandom in this town. My daily cartoons are my social life, and in one fashion or another they always have been.

Which is why [spoiler for Flash movie project deleted].

¹ Not all, but most.

² There's the possibility of burnout hiatuses, but so far the evil days come not.

Comments

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

One of the great things about the Internet, after all, is that it can unite people with even the most off-beat interests, almost as if they were next door to one another. Webcomics certainly don't qualify as the most off-beat, but they are somewhat special.

I have a life chock full of people, but the webcomics community, and livejournal, etc., are just about the only place I can go to talk about these topics. It's very nice, I must say!