At 2/5/23 08:18 PM, Ypok wrote: The shit at the top of the page is total brain rot. I don't know if the new stuff is too... there's something arrested development about it. I don't mean the show. I mean retarded. But if I can sort of communicate a bit more clever or at least positive stuff through the story it could be something worth reading or whatever. Jesus.
I enjoy reading and seeing both your old and new stuff- imo sometimes the brainrottier the better. I even occasionally think about this thread and re-visit because your art is unique and the stuff you write about is fascinating to me. It's... relatable, the way you express your thoughts.
ayaAt 6/10/23 01:39 PM, RKarlto wrote:
Hey anyone, is this cherry blossom drawing good? Objectively? I can't tell.
I guess that's like fishing for compliments or whatever but just because it took a long time and the reference photo is pretty good doesn't mean it turned out. I keep revisiting it and I actually don't know. I have to do a couple more like it so anyway I'll have to think about it.
Struggling with this... is it worthwhile to put significant time and focus into making comics when Herge already did it better? Making comic books professionally would take significant motivation, and that motivation would only come from the belief that it's a valuable thing to do. Maybe the highest value of the medium has already been made, between Tintin and Asterix. They are funny, admirably drawn, and cleverly written without being self-serious.
I'm not asking for you to tell me what I'm doing has value, I have to decide that for myself. I'm trying to think through it. If it's truly worth doing, the full-hearted motivation will come.
The dark side is that I'm 29.5 and this thread is deeply unprofessional. Making comics has been more than a hobby for me but I've never even really thought about it as business. It could be this is ultimately a cautionary tale.
I had a dream once that I was Charles Crumb, trying to escape the house, with Robert way ahead of me. Charles failed to make into adulthood, while Robert spun a career out of his talent for drawing. Professionalism is the answer - reliably providing value - but you can't full-heartedly sell your work if it's an imitation of a greater creator.
If Tintin is the stronger work, my attempts to distinguish my own - stealing Alan Moore's formal panelling, using photos to boost the drawings like Alex Ross, using a Joycean steam-of-consciousness narrative style, and plotting the panels to popular song lyrics - are pathetic.
In the arrogance of my inspiration for my book, I figured the ultimate test of its worth is that women like it.
We'll see. It has to get finished first.
I'm reading this literary critic called Northrop Frye who says... uhhhm that poets don't write well out of personal sincerity but out of literary sincerity. They want to make great literature, and so they recreate literature, even when they say they are throwing books away and taking inspiration straight from life. Even to say that, 'nature is my muse, not books,' is to rehash a literary trope. The trope is of convincing the reader of the strength of your poetic connection to nature, but it's still a literary trope, sort of a lie that the poet himself believes.
So an artist who purports to be more real than the field recreates the trope of realism, and doesn't necessarily create great work because of it. The artist who respects the traditions of the medium he's in will go farther than the stylist.
