(no subject)
The last few months, and the last few weeks in particular, have been pretty cool, because I feel like I've actually been making consistent, real progress on my oddball long-form webcomic/graphic novel project. It's a massive undertaking, but I increasingly feel like it's really starting to come together, and I'm beginning to understand what it's going to look like when it's done. It's pretty exciting.
Part of what makes it interesting is that long-form serious comics specifically designed for the web, as opposed to online comics in forms tied to print, are fairly unexplored territory artistically. It's one of the few mediums where everything hasn't been done already. I'm very wary of incorrectly thinking of myself as some kind of pioneer, and I know I'm not the only mad scientist out there by far, but it does seem like there's plenty of room on the internet to experiment without degenerating into novelty for novelty's sake. Other, more crowded mediums can make that a lot harder.
I chose to do it that way because of all the interesting storytelling possibilities of the internet as a medium for sequential art, and also because the barriers to entry are sooo much lower than in print. Blame Scott McCloud, I guess. But the unintentional bonus prize is that I might get to do something really new.
The flip side of that is that I don't really have enough data to know if this kind of thing is going to interest very many people. But the cool thing about the internet is that I don't really have to worry about that. No editors means that tons of stupid crap makes it to the internet, but it also means that there are no fetters. That's only a benefit if you can be trusted to work without them, and I'm starting to think that I can.
If ten people read my crazy-ass magnum opus and get it, and that's as far as it goes, I'm totally okay with that. I'm confident that I can generate a lot more interest than that, but the great thing about the internet is that I'm not obligated to give a shit. All I have to worry about it whether I'm making the thing the way it needs to be made, according to its own standards and mine. If nobody wants it, that's fine. My kind of people will stumble along eventually. And even if they never do, the thing seems to have a hold on me now. I feel more like a midwife to some kind of crazy self-evolving process than I do like any kind of writer, but either way I'm going to be carried along to the end now, however long that winds up taking.
Part of what makes it interesting is that long-form serious comics specifically designed for the web, as opposed to online comics in forms tied to print, are fairly unexplored territory artistically. It's one of the few mediums where everything hasn't been done already. I'm very wary of incorrectly thinking of myself as some kind of pioneer, and I know I'm not the only mad scientist out there by far, but it does seem like there's plenty of room on the internet to experiment without degenerating into novelty for novelty's sake. Other, more crowded mediums can make that a lot harder.
I chose to do it that way because of all the interesting storytelling possibilities of the internet as a medium for sequential art, and also because the barriers to entry are sooo much lower than in print. Blame Scott McCloud, I guess. But the unintentional bonus prize is that I might get to do something really new.
The flip side of that is that I don't really have enough data to know if this kind of thing is going to interest very many people. But the cool thing about the internet is that I don't really have to worry about that. No editors means that tons of stupid crap makes it to the internet, but it also means that there are no fetters. That's only a benefit if you can be trusted to work without them, and I'm starting to think that I can.
If ten people read my crazy-ass magnum opus and get it, and that's as far as it goes, I'm totally okay with that. I'm confident that I can generate a lot more interest than that, but the great thing about the internet is that I'm not obligated to give a shit. All I have to worry about it whether I'm making the thing the way it needs to be made, according to its own standards and mine. If nobody wants it, that's fine. My kind of people will stumble along eventually. And even if they never do, the thing seems to have a hold on me now. I feel more like a midwife to some kind of crazy self-evolving process than I do like any kind of writer, but either way I'm going to be carried along to the end now, however long that winds up taking.