Deep cleansing breaths.
Some people are fans of something because the person that created it paid them attention.
I’m kind of curt about the fact that I don’t take suggestions from the audience. I don’t mean to be rude, but here’s the issue. If I take a suggestion, I am now beholden to the one who made it.
Not only that, I’ll have set a precedent, wherein that person will peruse my work in perpetuity, hoping for another use of the suggestion. It’s a kind of writer/audience codependency, and it’s unhealthy for either party.
It’s common practice in digital culture.
Like most artists, I go through intermittent periods of extreme financial drought, and I have to be cautious that I don’t doubt myself as a result. Money comes and goes, and as I’ve said, no one ever got rich doing what I do. If someone were to suggest ways I could make my output more profitable, I would tell them to go fuck themselves.
If I took suggestions from the audience, how would I know what I was ultimately responsible for?
There are online comic strips that have existed for over a decade, with their own forums, teeming with Cheeto-fed remora. Not only will any comics professional over 50 be blissfully unaware of them, they’ll forget about them five minutes later. Oh, hi there, you took my life’s work and made it a breezy weekend activity on your home computer? Let me just hop on the long, long line to respect that.
Would you like a religiously passionate, fascist fan for life? A “Fanscist”?
Take a suggestion from your audience.
That’s how you sell a product outside the free market, and it guarantees you a captive audience member, for life.
Hey fans! I’m having trouble coming up with a punchline for this month’s strip! Send me your suggestions, and the lucky winner gets to moderate the site forum! Put on your thinking caps!
It’s so innocent and fun! You could swap the capital letters in a name, and Disney might use it in the next “Stars Wars”! Anything would be better than the creatively-void J.J. Abrams using Beastie Boys album titles! (“BB-8″… and the Beastie Boys had 8 albums. That’s why he gets paid the big bucks, folks.)
…Oh, a reference to a bad Nicolas Cage movie? I stand corrected. You know, in the real Star Wars, Lucas alluded to Dickens, Melville, Kurosawa and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Yeah, Con Air, that’s a clever reference. For idiots that watch nothing but crap.
Real fans are the ones you earned, with your work, not the ones you bought with your attention. The difference is clear to those who know, too; it’s someone trying to elevate themselves through another person’s achievements and status. The creator sees free publicity and praise; the admirer sees fame tantamount to the creator’s. Inevitably, it becomes a Rubik’s Cube of resentment, when the admirer over-reaches and is ignored or admonished.
What’s the weight of that line between love and hate, again?
Anytime an intellectual property reveals its creative machinations to its public, its detractors will abuse them. The best method is to keep your work to yourself until it’s done. Hasbro trod eggshells with its Fan-Built Robot Poll a year ago, futilely and literally trying to please everyone, and the robot result still got an unfair reception. It’s not because the robot was subpar, it’s because the public saw a place to stick a knife in.
Creators and audience shouldn’t just be at arms’ length; they should be separated by a figurative orchestra pit, and a stage riser. Do comedians take suggestions from hecklers? Of course not. What’s the difference between that, and a respectable IP farming for input on social media?
Obsequious behavior is widespread on the Internet, and just as widely manipulated. Maybe your intentions in “friending” a celebrity are pure, but what about the next person? Say, here’s a contest that you can’t tell is connected to the promotion of an upcoming box office bomb. How could it be exploiting you? You know the answer! It’s easy! Sorry, you didn’t win. We’ll send some plastic detritus to your home address (which you volunteered previously)! Free!
The most abused word in the English language! Free!
Wait a minute- this contest was just a way to squeeze art out of fans, for no money! All they offer is “exposure”! Better sign this petition boycotting the movie whose marketing department is getting MORE FREE PROMOTION THAN MONEY CAN BUY RIGHT NOW.
Another fine line is the one between encouraging and discouraging a budding artist. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as they say, and a common experience among young artists is hewing too close to the style of an idol. I’m no stranger to this, as I used to unintentionally ape Pete Bagge.
But it’s this way: no one likes a copycat. Maybe there’s a public website that you upload your fan-art onto, but don’t mistake that for a living, and don’t mistake the feedback you get for any kind of a legitimate critique. If you’re honing your skills rendering characters from an existing property that is not yours, don’t expect legitimate payment or employment, and don’t anticipate a positive relationship with the creator(s) of the property. To them, you are working to capitalize on something they built, “on spec”. You’re setting up a lemonade stand on their land, next to their lemonade stand, saying “I liked yours, so I made some too.”
The percentage of fan-artists who have “made the jump” to professional licensing work is infinitesimal. I took a whack at it with Transformers a few years back and couldn’t cut it. It requires skills I possess, but also an inextinguishable energy for consistent and prodigious output, which I do not. However, I can always insinuate myself again, with spot illustrations, which would be approved and most importantly profitable, for me. I can draw a Transformer nicely enough that you would offer money for it.
But the problem with fans, and fan-artists, is that they got on board for pleasure, not business. They crumble the minute things heat up, suffer criticism, or take a downturn. They believe that every single aspect of the job should be as fun as the property is, inside their mind. It took me a long time and a lot of sacrifice to reach the artistic regimen I use now. When I wake up, I try to finish whatever I was working on before I went to sleep. If something I’m creating isn’t going right, I don’t ask anyone for the reasons. They don’t have any idea what the fuck I’m talking about, and if they did, why would I ask them? What do they know?
Imagine your next door neighbor’s house is on fire. The fire engine rolls up, and the firefighters get out to meet your neighbor. The fire chief asks, “What’s your advice on the best way to hold this hose?”
And then you realize that your neighbor designed the hose in a contest, and is presently donning an “Honorary Firefighter” outfit, which isn’t XXXL and doesn’t fit. The fire spreads to your property, as your neighbor takes a wheezily requested break from holding the heavy hose.
How would this affect your confidence in the fire department?
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