The difference in attitudes to fanart and fanfic
General meta about fanworks tends to be written by fanfic writers(*), and I often get a squidgy feeling of "that's not right" when I try and apply their conclusions/assumptions to fanart. Unfortunately I suck at this sort of sociological analysis so this is just some vague impressions, please let me know if your experience is different.
Some major differences that jump out at me:
a) A lot of successful artists openly draw fanart as fanart, but few successful writers will openly share their fanfic unless they call it a "postmodern pastiche" or something.
b) It's considered more acceptable to show creators fanart of their work than fanfic.
(b) There are many examples of fanartists being hired as commercial artists based on their fanart, but I don't know of anyone getting a writing gig directly via fanfic (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised, I know people have gone from fanfic to official spin off novels) EDIT: Two counterexamples so far in the dw comments. I get the impression it is still rarer for fanfic, but maybe not!
c) Lots of fanartists openly sell fanart and do fanart commissions of copyrighted works, while selling fanfic is usually considered unethical and dangerous. (Opinions on the legality of both differ wildly, I'm not sure of any consensus in either case)
Thus it annoys me when fanfic writers talk about how fanworks "are always done for love and can never make money" etc. There is a gift economy around fanart (all mine is certainly done for free), but there's a thriving cash economy as well. NOTE: I do not want to get into whether or not this is a good thing. My point is that it exists.
EDIT: Plus of course people sell fanfic of out of copyright works all the time e.g. Pride and Prejudice fic. WHICH I WRITE. *thwaps self* This post is (I realise belatedly) focussed on attitudes to fanworks based on in-copyright works, though if you have opinions about out-of-copyright stuff I'd still be interested to hear them. Also! As always my POV is very much limited by my experience (English speaking, Western country, mostly lj-clone and DeviantArt based etc)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to ponder why these differences exist.
This is just a theory, feel free to poke holes in it.
One of the major issues with fanfic is the clear distinction in people's minds (whether they write fanfic or not) between fanwriters and "real" Writers. Where "real" Writers includes not just writers of Real Literature like Hemingway etc but anyone who's published a short story in Asimov's, Stephen King etc, a large and opinionated group that a great many regular people like to imagine they could join one day and whose works we are all familiar with.
But while there is a distinction between fanart and "real" Art, it's a much more complicated continuum. On one end is fanart, in the middle there's graphic design, comics and illustration, which are the bulk of the modern art we see in everyday life(**), and at the fair end there's Fine Art, an esoteric discipline that most people have little contact with or interest in. Consider the number of places you can buy newly published Literature versus the places you can buy newly created Art.
I would say that fanart is accepted as Fine Art as little as fanfic is accepted as Literature. You could get into a discussion about how this relates to postmodernism and the way Fine Art has less of an emphasis on originality etc, but to a large extent it doesn't matter since the opinions of The Academy have little impact on broader attitudes. (Also: my understanding of art and writing theory is way too shallow to discuss this very well)
But since the sort of modern art we see around us most of the time is inclined to be in the form of illustration or commissioned work there isn't this emphasis on originality. People also are less inclined to notice artists as individuals at all, think of all the anonymous wall art at Ikea, generic fantasy art posters etc (some people do pay attention to who creates these things. But many consumers don't). Certainly within fandom I've noticed this attitude towards art as this mysterious Thing that just appears and can be shared about and turned into icons etc, the fact that there's actual artists who make it and might like credit and feedback doesn't always seem to occur to people.
Thus a great many professional artists are unselfconscious about making fanart, since the art they create to pay the bills isn't entirely original anyway. I'm less sure why people are more ok with fanartists (whether they are also employed as professional artists or not) selling their fanart without the ok of the copyright holders. (Again: not interested in discussing if they SHOULD be ok with it, and I know some aren't. But it seems to be much more accepted overall)
It's also interesting to compare fancomics to original comics. One the one hand we have published mainstream comics, which often have an emphasis on the Writer with various artists who usually get less attention (EDIT: Except, as has been pointed out, when the opposite is true. I fail at understanding the comics industry.) On the other hand we have fancomics, which afaict are pretty much always the result of a fanartist deciding to have a go at writing (are there any examples of fanfic writers who can't draw creating scripts and getting them turned into comics by an artist? EDIT: Yes!) But in the middle are webcomics, which like fancomics usually have a single creator and are done for free. Something I find interesting is that there are webcomics which are fanart but are culturally very much a part of the webcomics world, and there are long running continuing fancomics which don't seem to consider themselves webcomics (and of course comics that straddle the boundary), and the difference seems to have more to do with where the creator started out than what they're making. In either case, fancomics seem to be taken relatively seriously within the webcomics community. But webcomics themselves tend to often be belittled by mainstream comics culture even when they're published and successful, and even Real Graphic Novels tend to be looked down on by both fine artists and novel writers.
Hmm. And I have no conclusion. Anyway, do people agree with my analysis?
EDIT: Some further thoughts:
I get the impression that attitudes are different in Japan than Australia and the US (which I'm more familiar with via physical proximity and internet dominance respectively) On the one hand they have fairly accepted sales of doujinshi fancomics, on the other hand fanartists seem to be much more worried about being sued EDIT: being outed and suffering the shame of being a known fanartist.
And come to think of it, sales of fanart may be common in Western fandom but sales of fancomics are less so. Then again, fancomics are rarer than fanart and fanfic.
EDIT: Emily Carroll Classes It Up In Her 'BioShock' and 'Mass Effect' Artwork, in which a comics blog promotes the fanart of a webcomic artist as "classy". It's also notable that the blog seems to classify Marvel/DC and webcomics etc as all just "comics". I can't imagine a prose focussed blog blurring those boundaries so much, at least not with serious fanworks of copyrighted works (though they might post silly crack fanfic, a fairytale retelling, or an original short story by a random blogger)
(*)Which isn't the fanfic writers fault, it's hardly surprisingly that writery types are more prone to writing. But it inevitably skews the analysis.
(**)Since we're talking about attitudes to living, working artists and writers the huge swathes of old art prints around the place are less relevant though their existence is worth noting.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/367487.html. There are
comments.
Some major differences that jump out at me:
a) A lot of successful artists openly draw fanart as fanart, but few successful writers will openly share their fanfic unless they call it a "postmodern pastiche" or something.
b) It's considered more acceptable to show creators fanart of their work than fanfic.
(b) There are many examples of fanartists being hired as commercial artists based on their fanart, but I don't know of anyone getting a writing gig directly via fanfic (though I wouldn't be entirely surprised, I know people have gone from fanfic to official spin off novels) EDIT: Two counterexamples so far in the dw comments. I get the impression it is still rarer for fanfic, but maybe not!
c) Lots of fanartists openly sell fanart and do fanart commissions of copyrighted works, while selling fanfic is usually considered unethical and dangerous. (Opinions on the legality of both differ wildly, I'm not sure of any consensus in either case)
Thus it annoys me when fanfic writers talk about how fanworks "are always done for love and can never make money" etc. There is a gift economy around fanart (all mine is certainly done for free), but there's a thriving cash economy as well. NOTE: I do not want to get into whether or not this is a good thing. My point is that it exists.
EDIT: Plus of course people sell fanfic of out of copyright works all the time e.g. Pride and Prejudice fic. WHICH I WRITE. *thwaps self* This post is (I realise belatedly) focussed on attitudes to fanworks based on in-copyright works, though if you have opinions about out-of-copyright stuff I'd still be interested to hear them. Also! As always my POV is very much limited by my experience (English speaking, Western country, mostly lj-clone and DeviantArt based etc)
Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to ponder why these differences exist.
This is just a theory, feel free to poke holes in it.
One of the major issues with fanfic is the clear distinction in people's minds (whether they write fanfic or not) between fanwriters and "real" Writers. Where "real" Writers includes not just writers of Real Literature like Hemingway etc but anyone who's published a short story in Asimov's, Stephen King etc, a large and opinionated group that a great many regular people like to imagine they could join one day and whose works we are all familiar with.
But while there is a distinction between fanart and "real" Art, it's a much more complicated continuum. On one end is fanart, in the middle there's graphic design, comics and illustration, which are the bulk of the modern art we see in everyday life(**), and at the fair end there's Fine Art, an esoteric discipline that most people have little contact with or interest in. Consider the number of places you can buy newly published Literature versus the places you can buy newly created Art.
I would say that fanart is accepted as Fine Art as little as fanfic is accepted as Literature. You could get into a discussion about how this relates to postmodernism and the way Fine Art has less of an emphasis on originality etc, but to a large extent it doesn't matter since the opinions of The Academy have little impact on broader attitudes. (Also: my understanding of art and writing theory is way too shallow to discuss this very well)
But since the sort of modern art we see around us most of the time is inclined to be in the form of illustration or commissioned work there isn't this emphasis on originality. People also are less inclined to notice artists as individuals at all, think of all the anonymous wall art at Ikea, generic fantasy art posters etc (some people do pay attention to who creates these things. But many consumers don't). Certainly within fandom I've noticed this attitude towards art as this mysterious Thing that just appears and can be shared about and turned into icons etc, the fact that there's actual artists who make it and might like credit and feedback doesn't always seem to occur to people.
Thus a great many professional artists are unselfconscious about making fanart, since the art they create to pay the bills isn't entirely original anyway. I'm less sure why people are more ok with fanartists (whether they are also employed as professional artists or not) selling their fanart without the ok of the copyright holders. (Again: not interested in discussing if they SHOULD be ok with it, and I know some aren't. But it seems to be much more accepted overall)
It's also interesting to compare fancomics to original comics. One the one hand we have published mainstream comics, which often have an emphasis on the Writer with various artists who usually get less attention (EDIT: Except, as has been pointed out, when the opposite is true. I fail at understanding the comics industry.) On the other hand we have fancomics, which afaict are pretty much always the result of a fanartist deciding to have a go at writing (are there any examples of fanfic writers who can't draw creating scripts and getting them turned into comics by an artist? EDIT: Yes!) But in the middle are webcomics, which like fancomics usually have a single creator and are done for free. Something I find interesting is that there are webcomics which are fanart but are culturally very much a part of the webcomics world, and there are long running continuing fancomics which don't seem to consider themselves webcomics (and of course comics that straddle the boundary), and the difference seems to have more to do with where the creator started out than what they're making. In either case, fancomics seem to be taken relatively seriously within the webcomics community. But webcomics themselves tend to often be belittled by mainstream comics culture even when they're published and successful, and even Real Graphic Novels tend to be looked down on by both fine artists and novel writers.
Hmm. And I have no conclusion. Anyway, do people agree with my analysis?
EDIT: Some further thoughts:
I get the impression that attitudes are different in Japan than Australia and the US (which I'm more familiar with via physical proximity and internet dominance respectively) On the one hand they have fairly accepted sales of doujinshi fancomics, on the other hand fanartists seem to be much more worried about being sued EDIT: being outed and suffering the shame of being a known fanartist.
And come to think of it, sales of fanart may be common in Western fandom but sales of fancomics are less so. Then again, fancomics are rarer than fanart and fanfic.
EDIT: Emily Carroll Classes It Up In Her 'BioShock' and 'Mass Effect' Artwork, in which a comics blog promotes the fanart of a webcomic artist as "classy". It's also notable that the blog seems to classify Marvel/DC and webcomics etc as all just "comics". I can't imagine a prose focussed blog blurring those boundaries so much, at least not with serious fanworks of copyrighted works (though they might post silly crack fanfic, a fairytale retelling, or an original short story by a random blogger)
(*)Which isn't the fanfic writers fault, it's hardly surprisingly that writery types are more prone to writing. But it inevitably skews the analysis.
(**)Since we're talking about attitudes to living, working artists and writers the huge swathes of old art prints around the place are less relevant though their existence is worth noting.
This entry was originally posted at http://alias-sqbr.dreamwidth.org/367487.html. There are
comments.