November 13, 2006

They must be nuts

I don’t know how web comicsdo it. They amaze me. For years on end, with no guarantee of any financial reward or recognition for their hard work, these people create free entertainment for the masses. I’m talking about people who put out regular web comics, sometimes on a daily basis. For all those comics that have helped me keep my sanity on a slow or dreary day, I just want to say, THANK YOU! I’d like to give each and every one of you a hug when I see you sitting at your tables at a con. (Hmmm … but I won’t, ‘cause I get all shy and don’t want to come across all wacky-geek-fan nuts ‘n stuff. But I LOVE you guys so much!)

I don’t know ALL of what goes into creating a web comic, but I’m figuring there’s … a concept, storyline, creating dialogue, drawing the cartoon, scanning, typesetting the dialogue, color and shading, uploading to the web … a lot, not to mention all the stuff that goes into web design and hosting. That’s a lot of work! Some of these guys get donations if they’re lucky, but a lot don’t get or ask for anything. The real art is just out there for FREE! Wow. I’m pretty sure they don’t make much money on those books and t-shirts. To state the obvious, very few can actually make a living just from their web comics.

I’ll be the first to admit that I get impatient for the next installment of the story, too. But I just want to remind all those fans out there that unless you’re paying them a nice, juicy annual salary to put out that comic, that flaming them doesn’t make any sense. They do have lives outside of the web comic and sometimes that’s going to have to take precedence over the land of make-believe. They’re sharing their creation with us. Donating 20 bucks or buying their t-shirt does not mean you own the artist. Instead, you piss them off and they won’t want to keep making cool stories with cool characters and cool quips.

So knock it off. Feed those creative geniuses! Get their motors running. I NEED those stories and those funny one-liners.

October 9, 2006

The Problem with Blogs

So the idea of keeping a weblog is simultaneously fascinating and frightening to me. Here’s an opportunity to put my thoughts down in written form, to express those general observations we all have at some point or another, and share them with anyone who WANTS to read it. Nobody HAS to read this if they don’t want to. Really. Move on along if I bother you. But to connect with like-minded people and know that they might be reading this thinking, “Yeah, yeah. That’s so true.” or, “Wow, I never thought about it from that angle. That’s so insightful.” Now that’s just cool. So that’s the fascinating part to me.

The frightening thing about a weblog is knowing that I’m putting myself OUT THERE for potentially the whole damn world to see. I tend to consider myself a fairly private and vaguely paranoid individual.  There’s nothing really private about putting your ideas out there for anyone to read and talk about. And strange, scary people exist that could read my words, look at my pictures, and decide to go all stalker psycho on me and mine. Yup, that’s the paranoia talking. But “just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you.” (Yeah, I have no idea who said that originally.)

I don’t really expect that many people to ever read my blogs, but those scary strangers still have the opportunity to look upon my words and evaluate me without ever meeting me. But then, aren’t I doing the same thing when I read what others have posted on their websites? I’ve been peering into everyone else’s ideas and thoughts and evaluating them for years. I think it’s time to give something back.