Maybe it's a testament to my skills as a webcomic artist (ho-ho!) but I seem to have a lot of people telling me, "why are you wasting your time drawing cartoons?"
People tell me to focus on more "respectable" forms of art... "why don't you paint instead?"
My parents keep bugging me to get an internship and guilt-trip me when I draw...
And I get lots of eye-rolling from friends when I gripe about having to miss posting this summer when I'll be abroad. It seems like very few people believe in the awesomeness of comics.
Does this happen to you? Do people go, "COMICS?"
.... ... just wondering.

Actually, no. I get nothing but encouragement. Alot of my friends act as little advertising moguls and tell their friends about my comic. My parents read the comic as well, and they love that I'm focusing my free time on something other than TV and video-games, heh.

yeah, from my art teacher mainly. People make fun of me for it, but in a fun silly way. That and zombies, they make fun of me for.

zombies make fun of you?

please. People who make art, I'm like, "and you aren't doing comics... why?"
when you make comics, you make art.

acadia... I wish my parents liked what I draw. Lucky.

Not really. My parents get mad if they are not the first ones to see the page I dish out. What I get mostly, is 'Why is it taking you so much time?' Which I don't really mind because nobody who hasn't sat down to draw a comic page can't possibly imagine the time needed to recreate the same character in several panels :)

I'll be frank: From all I've learned from being around the net and talking to pros, if you want to do comics professionally you probably want to concentrate on serious forms of art first. It's very annoying to be faced with an answer like this, but I can attest to the fact that my art improved immensely after I stopped doing comics. However I get this annoying itch (as if in the back of my mind) which keeps wanting to draw a particular story. So I end up filling my sketchbook with character designs, much to the annoyance of my art teacher.

Basically you need to have a background in serious art to be a good comic artist. Same with writing.

I don't focus on my web comics enough for it to be an issue. College comes first and whatever comics I do, I do with my own time. This last week I've spent every evening working on L7S2, after I've finished my homework and study. At this point I love it as much as I love reading, watching movies, or playing video games. If you want to make something that people really enjoy, I believe you have to enjoy it yourself. That joy will appear in your work, and people will notice that.

So far I haven't gotten any flak about the comic. My classmates seem to enjoy it, and give advice on improving it. My teachers like to see the extra practice. Since I work so hard on each page, I've been improving rather swiftly. I've suppose some have been concerned that I've been making a webcomic, but I figure that if I continue to focus it might become something more than just a silly side project.

heh... guess not...

The only people who give me crap about it are dumbasses.

Seriously. One of them actually told that art is a waste of time and that people like Michaelangelo wasted their lives drawing instead of making money. 0_o

michelangelo is immortal through his art. i think immortality trumps money

Yeah, well. Try telling that to spoiled and idiotic rich kids.

but then most artists don't get any recognition until they're dead. there are a lot of great artists that are left undiscovered or just lost in time. 'tis a crapshoot.

wait, didn't Michelangelo make a huge amount of money because he was commissioned by the church? I know at least one of them dudes was...

My art teacher gives me flack about drawing comics, but not so seriously since i put lots of effort into "real" art, too. and generally my parents think it's silly...my sister thinks i don't concentrate -enough- on my comic, and keeps telling me to try to get in the newspaper. uhm...no, I don't want to have to adapt myself to a medium I'm too foreign to. I don't have newspaper humor, nor am I good enough, nor would I want to put that kind of stress on myself, nor do I really feel like "selling out". she gets so pissy about it, too...

suzi
wait, didn't Michelangelo make a huge amount of money because he was commissioned by the church? I know at least one of them dudes was...

Yeah, he did that whole roof thing in the sistine



bored much? =D

acadia
Actually, no. I get nothing but encouragement. Alot of my friends act as little advertising moguls and tell their friends about my comic. My parents read the comic as well, and they love that I'm focusing my free time on something other than TV and video-games, heh.

Exactly the same.

But maybe it's because I can't do anything else....yeh....

Back when I was first starting, and my art kind of sucked balls I had alot of people rolling their eyes at me (in that way where in their mind you're sure they're searching for the word douchebag.) But when my art improved and I started doing prints other that comic related stuff people became less antagonistic and more astounded.

LIZARD_B1TE
The only people who give me crap about it are dumbasses.

Seriously. One of them actually told that art is a waste of time and that people like Michaelangelo wasted their lives drawing instead of making money. 0_o

I disagree. Michaelangelo wasted his life drawing instead of drawing comics.



oh wait, I've been wrong! Are those panels I see?!?!?



granted they're quite uneventful panels, but panels nonetheless. Michaelangelo made the hugest most nonsensical comic EVER.

Lol @ the Michaelangelo thing. lol!

Anyway, honestly, I don't get people discouraging me when I tell them I draw comics. I mean.. in school, my teachers wanted me to stray away from comics and do life work, but I expected and appreciated that. (I'm a firm believer that your art can only improve, no matter what style you work in, when you know the basics.) But when I told them that what I really wanted to do was draw comics, they were usually supportive, amongst the occasional "why? You won't make any money doing that". :P

Sometimes I think my parents wish I was making $100k a year working in an office building somewhere (with health insurance!), but they've always been supportive of me anyway.

Anyway. It's not important what other people think. If you're doing what you love and you're happy doing it, that's all that matters.

I haven't told anyone I make a webcomic.

ccs1989
Basically you need to have a background in serious art to be a good comic artist. Same with writing.

Very, very true. Along with painstacking studies and practice in both art forms.

I'm not an art major... so, I hardly get those. I live in an environment where comic culture runs deep in the society. I guess most of the people I met actually look at my comic as a form of art.

Akumyo
I don't focus on my web comics enough for it to be an issue. College comes first and whatever comics I do, I do with my own time. This last week I've spent every evening working on L7S2, after I've finished my homework and study. At this point I love it as much as I love reading, watching movies, or playing video games. If you want to make something that people really enjoy, I believe you have to enjoy it yourself. That joy will appear in your work, and people will notice that.

So far I haven't gotten any flak about the comic. My classmates seem to enjoy it, and give advice on improving it. My teachers like to see the extra practice. Since I work so hard on each page, I've been improving rather swiftly. I've suppose some have been concerned that I've been making a webcomic, but I figure that if I continue to focus it might become something more than just a silly side project.

it's the same here for me. when my art teachers heard about it, most encouraged me to keep up with it as seeing it's great pratice... that is, as long as I was still doing the "serious art", like doing realism and stuff and not neglecting that for my web comics.

At this point I probably give myself a harder time about making comics than anyone else does.
I should be making money as an illustrator, and putting the time into that, but my
'silly little webcomic' is a muse- a labor of love- and sort of a personal quest in a way.

After so much time and energy invested in my webcomic, and still no publication, when I could be earning
money, it seems frivolous and terribly indulgent. Im a single parent. I have kids to feed. And yet
I am inexplicably drawn to draw this damned story.

I dont know if that really answers your question, but yeah, I wish comics had more
respect. I think that they and animation are wonderful, and I always have.

~B

Eunice P
I'm not an art major... so, I hardly get those. I live in an environment where comic culture runs deep in the society. I guess most of the people I met actually look at my comic as a form of art.

my parents used to nag me even when I painted a lot (which come on, everyone considers a serious form of art, right?). It's a rule in my household: no painting in the house. I used to just lock the door to my room and sit kinda behind my bed and paint, though (it makes sense with how my room was set up). Maybe my family's odd, though?
but I'm not an art major either... so that may be why my parents/family want me to focus less on comics and art in general.

Kristen Gudsnuk
I used to just lock the door to my room and sit kinda behind my bed and paint

Heh, that brings back memories... I used to have two easels set up on either side of the couch in front of the TV with all my paints and pallets set up on a coffee table. Ha! That was fantastic ^_^
-they were acrylics though, so no probs with STINKY oils and turpentine. I used to do that in my bedroom and that's what turned me off of them for life :(

I did some good paintings that way...

I've never gotten crap from doing art or comics, but I'm in the same boat as Barb.

I get crap for doing comics that don't get read. I'm encouraged by my friends and my family to draw "real" stuff or to write prose, but most of them see comicsas a waste of my time (especially since I don't have a whole lot of time to "waste" it all making comics). While I enjoy both I like comics. The people that actually do read my comics appreciate them and the South Coloradan has actually recieved at least two letters to the editor about Pornography for the Soul being missing (I graduated, so the comic sort of petered out). That makes me fuzzy enough to soldier on despite the shit I take for it.

Some Bullpen Bits on the subject:
Bullpen Bits #38
Bullpen Bits #57
Bullpen Bits #52-X

The only time I catch guff about drawing is if I should probably be studying instead. It's taken a few years to find the balance (ie; draw when no-one else is home) but for the most part, my friends & family are more likely to bug me about "when is the next one going to be up?"

Its definitly been awhile since something like this has happened to me.