Okay.
Y'know, I wrote this as a comment on an entry in ocarina's Livejournal, but I think it can stand alone in mine as well, and I'm making this a public entry. Yes, my first public entry in god only knows how long.
You wanna know what I think about online comics? Here you go - and I may be posting more on this later:
...I still find myself baffled and amused by those that go 'I'M ON KEENSPOT OMG I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U' or 'I'M ON MT SO I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U N I'M HARDCORE INDIE OMGLOL!!!'
...Keenspot is a publisher. Modern Tales is a publisher. They're webhosts. That's all they are. There is no secret society, there is no 'cool kids' club, there is no automatic little flag that you get to carry around and wave at people and go 'ha ha look I'm professional!'
Being on Keenspot doesn't make you a professional, *being* a professional makes you a professional, and if you're still wandering around talking badly about other comics under the pretense that you're better than them because, oh my god, your comic is hosted on a different website than theirs, that makes you the least 'professional' of all.
Saturnalia? Saturnalia decided not to join Keenspot. It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter what the reasons behind it are, they decided not to join. End. Of. Story. The reasons? I don't really care. If they decided they didn't want their webcomic hosted by Keenspot, that's entirely up to them.
Do I automatically raise a flag of 'Keenspot is the greatest and therefore everyone on it is the greatest too tra-la-la'? HELL NO. Just because my comic is being put through a publisher doesn't mean I automatically have to like everything coming out of that publisher - jesus, that's be like...Anne Rice being published by Doubleday, and Leo Leonni (children's author) being published by Doubleday - and all of a sudden Rice has to agree that Leonni is the best in his field, and vice versa for Leonni, regardless of whether they like the author or the author's books or even the genre or not.
Bullshit.
I don't like everything on Keenspot. I've been vocal about expressing my views of Keenspot on the PvP Forums - when Carson Fire decided to go about pulling his archives so people would buy his stuff, there was a HUGE thread about it over there. Did I agree with Fire? No. Do I like his comic? Not particularly, anymore. I think he's got beautiful artwork, and a lot of talent with that, but I think that as a writer he's completely lost where he is with his story, so much that I cannot and am not willing to try and make sense of his story anymore. Did this mean I wanted him to get evicted? HELL NO - having BEEN that route myself, I don't really wish homelessness on *anybody* - I simply didn't agree with his selling methods. All of a sudden, it's a big deal, when it isn't a big deal - I don't care if Carson reads my comic or likes my comic. I care that Carson isn't on the street, but that's about it. No one on his 'side of the fence' as it were could see how it was possible for me to both disagree with his opinion and methods, and still respect him as a human being.
Frankly, I think it's sort of sad how much importance is placed on something as important as a publisher. Because once you get to that publisher - then what? What do you do after that? You've spent so long obsessing over something as simple as where your comic is hosted that once you get there you lose the drive that had you doing comics in the first place.
It goes back to what I've been saying all along - if you're going to do your comic, do your comic for what it is, not where it is. In the long run, that's really more important than anything else.
(edit - removed the link to the journal entry I was commenting on, as not everyone can see it and I hate confusing people with mysterious links. You don't really need to read her entry to get mine at all.)
You wanna know what I think about online comics? Here you go - and I may be posting more on this later:
...I still find myself baffled and amused by those that go 'I'M ON KEENSPOT OMG I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U' or 'I'M ON MT SO I ROXX0R HARDER THAN U N I'M HARDCORE INDIE OMGLOL!!!'
...Keenspot is a publisher. Modern Tales is a publisher. They're webhosts. That's all they are. There is no secret society, there is no 'cool kids' club, there is no automatic little flag that you get to carry around and wave at people and go 'ha ha look I'm professional!'
Being on Keenspot doesn't make you a professional, *being* a professional makes you a professional, and if you're still wandering around talking badly about other comics under the pretense that you're better than them because, oh my god, your comic is hosted on a different website than theirs, that makes you the least 'professional' of all.
Saturnalia? Saturnalia decided not to join Keenspot. It doesn't matter why, it doesn't matter what the reasons behind it are, they decided not to join. End. Of. Story. The reasons? I don't really care. If they decided they didn't want their webcomic hosted by Keenspot, that's entirely up to them.
Do I automatically raise a flag of 'Keenspot is the greatest and therefore everyone on it is the greatest too tra-la-la'? HELL NO. Just because my comic is being put through a publisher doesn't mean I automatically have to like everything coming out of that publisher - jesus, that's be like...Anne Rice being published by Doubleday, and Leo Leonni (children's author) being published by Doubleday - and all of a sudden Rice has to agree that Leonni is the best in his field, and vice versa for Leonni, regardless of whether they like the author or the author's books or even the genre or not.
Bullshit.
I don't like everything on Keenspot. I've been vocal about expressing my views of Keenspot on the PvP Forums - when Carson Fire decided to go about pulling his archives so people would buy his stuff, there was a HUGE thread about it over there. Did I agree with Fire? No. Do I like his comic? Not particularly, anymore. I think he's got beautiful artwork, and a lot of talent with that, but I think that as a writer he's completely lost where he is with his story, so much that I cannot and am not willing to try and make sense of his story anymore. Did this mean I wanted him to get evicted? HELL NO - having BEEN that route myself, I don't really wish homelessness on *anybody* - I simply didn't agree with his selling methods. All of a sudden, it's a big deal, when it isn't a big deal - I don't care if Carson reads my comic or likes my comic. I care that Carson isn't on the street, but that's about it. No one on his 'side of the fence' as it were could see how it was possible for me to both disagree with his opinion and methods, and still respect him as a human being.
Frankly, I think it's sort of sad how much importance is placed on something as important as a publisher. Because once you get to that publisher - then what? What do you do after that? You've spent so long obsessing over something as simple as where your comic is hosted that once you get there you lose the drive that had you doing comics in the first place.
It goes back to what I've been saying all along - if you're going to do your comic, do your comic for what it is, not where it is. In the long run, that's really more important than anything else.
(edit - removed the link to the journal entry I was commenting on, as not everyone can see it and I hate confusing people with mysterious links. You don't really need to read her entry to get mine at all.)