So I used to make fun of this guy for using the same face over and over. And you know what? Kudos on this made for actually taking the criticism and breaking out of his rut.
This is also terrifying and I hate it.
“Kudos for actually taking the criticism and breaking out of his rut.“
Except it wasn’t criticism, it was constant daily harassment. Look, I’ve been making comics for the internet for 10 years. I made comics for BuzzFeed for about two years, but people love to focus on those comics for some reason. They were simpler and quicker because I needed to publish at least one thing a day. And I loved it! I learned a lot!
At some point when I was getting really popular, Reddit and Tumblr decided they’d had enough and launched a targeted campaign against me. Tried to doxx me multiple times. Sent death threats. 4Chan threads started popping up for the sole purpose of spreading rumors that I’m a pedophile. All because I was making “lazy” comics and getting a salary for it.
Also, it’s always the same 10 or so comics that got posted as proof of my laziness. I made 1,008 comics at BuzzFeed (I counted). I worked really hard for my extremely mediocre salary.
Now that I’ve left BuzzFeed and don’t have deadlines anymore, I can spend more time on comics and only draw things I’m passionate about (like my dick). But make no mistake—if you like my stuff now, it’s because I pushed myself so hard as BuzzFeed. I’m not better now because of the “criticism” I got from trolls on the internet. Don’t fucking take credit for that.
Is all criticism from trolls or is there any way of providing you with constructive criticism? Do you even care to hear it or would you prefer people keep it to themselves?
Not trying to be a troll myself, just curious.
I will answer this question for you: No, unless you are someone who an artist knows well, is on friendly terms with and the artist has asked you specifically for advice.
Artists know other artists. If I’m having trouble with something specific, I can actively say “who do I know that does this really well?” and immediately come up with a shortlist of names belonging to people who I 1)trust to be honest and helpful and provide me with actual solutions to the problem I’m having, 2) know what they’re talking about, 3) are at least somewhat familiar with my workload and process and 4) have time for my questions. If my issue is more involved, I will even offer to pay them for their time!
Most artists will not take unsolicited advice from random people on Tumblr or in their comments, and they shouldn’t! You have no way of knowing if the person giving you critique has any experience, has any insight into what might work better, has any familiarity with anything about how you work, and so on. You also don’t know anything about them personally, so you really can’t trust that someone has genuinely good intentions towards you and isn’t just fucking with you–that even if you did everything they said they wouldn’t just move the goalposts until you finally realised that their goal wasn’t to help you improve, it was to waste your time and jerk you around for as long as they could get away with.
Also, you never want to give people who consume your work the idea that they have power over the decisions you make, because then you set yourself up for caving to audience whim in a time and place where collective hate-reading is a thing that people do.
That’s not to say that your readers shouldn’t call you out if you say something shitty or racist or genuinely harmful, but that is an entirely different situation from constantly being hounded by a group of assholes who are all saying ‘you’re doing it wrong, do it a different way because I say so, and if you don’t I’m going to tell everyone that you just can’t take criticism!’ Fuck that.
Good on Adam for having clear boundaries and being able to articulate them so succinctly.
ifesbob 