Furry Art, SJ Merchandise, 'n' Stuff
May. 3rd, 2002 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechThere are times I contemplate hanging up SJ and switching over to just doing furry art. The main reason for this is the fact that a comic strip is a hunger that never dies -- every day, I know that I need another strip either tomorrow or the next day. It gets very tiring, which is why I'm so prone to hiatuses.
On the other hand, I love doing it, and if anything, I find myself wishing I had more stuff out there. I like being a fixture of the furry community, and it always makes me happy to have somebody I've never met before pop up one day and comment on my work. I even more love it when somebody tells me my work has a profound personal effect on them for the better, or that they found something in my work that had great meaning for them. It's not because I'm a big attention hound (although I am definitely that) ... it's because I want to feel like I'm making a positive impact on the world around me.
The problem with doing the art just by itself, is that individual pictures might end up feeling like they existed in a vacuum. Take a look at Drezzer Wolf, to pick one more or less at random. He's a very popular character, fun to draw, fun to write about, etc. ... but without his existence in the context of The Suburban Jungle, how much would anyone know about him? Individual drawings could show his twinkling eyes and crooked grin, but all they would show is a wolf in a leather jacket. Drezzer, the cockney-speakin', Conrad-snoggin', bouncy playboy wolf, would remain largely unknown.
Compare Drezzer to Falstaff, to see what I mean. Just about everybody who knows furry art knows Falstaff's swinging habits, largely because he's been featured in so much erotic (or semi-erotic) furry art. But what else do we know about Falstaff? Precious little, it seems to me. (At least, I know precious little ... I gather J. Willard hangs out on MU*s fairly regularly, so Falstaff may make appearances there that I don't know about.) What does Falstaff do when not engaged in, er, adult activities? What are his views on things? What does he do for a living? These are the kinds of details that I find most interesting about a character, and it seems to me, the sort of thing that static art is actually least likely to address.
This is why I do comic strips rather than just random artwork. I am a student of human (or furry) nature, and that is ever a study of context, action, and reaction. Artwork by itself captures moments ... but a story shows you consequences, and consequences are what interest me.
I have been thinking long and hard about the role SJ has in my life, for some time now, and I have decided that I am going to place it firmly in the category of "hobby," and let it exist there happily. Once the current round of commissions are done, I'm going to stop taking new ones, and shut down the "SJ Goodies Page." At conventions, I'll do sketchbooks for lunch money, but I'm not going to try to create a SJ marketing empire. If, someday, someone with a mind for business wants to create the SJ merchandise machine, I'll be glad to entertain offers, but not as an active participant. It would be more of, "Gneech, can you draw image X, and I'll put it on a shirt and sell it," instead of me sitting around thinking of something that would look good on a shirt, arranging to find a place to sell such shirts, and so forth.
I did have a person make an offer seed money and logistical support for shirt creation, and I had hoped to sell shirts at AC; but it turned out that even that was doing too much of the business end for me. I need to have a specific drawing requested, hand it off, and then not think about it any more until I'm sent a check -- basically as is done with the books. And since I don't think anybody is likely to do such a thing, I don't think SJ merchandise is likely to ever exist. (I'd love to see someone prove me wrong, however. ;) )
Creating the comic strip is more than hard enough by itself; trying to make a business out of it, is more than I can take. Particularly when it's not a business that will ever make enough money for me to live on. I need to focus those energies on my writing career, because that does have the potential to someday become a day job, where the cartooning doesn't.
-The Gneech
On the other hand, I love doing it, and if anything, I find myself wishing I had more stuff out there. I like being a fixture of the furry community, and it always makes me happy to have somebody I've never met before pop up one day and comment on my work. I even more love it when somebody tells me my work has a profound personal effect on them for the better, or that they found something in my work that had great meaning for them. It's not because I'm a big attention hound (although I am definitely that) ... it's because I want to feel like I'm making a positive impact on the world around me.
The problem with doing the art just by itself, is that individual pictures might end up feeling like they existed in a vacuum. Take a look at Drezzer Wolf, to pick one more or less at random. He's a very popular character, fun to draw, fun to write about, etc. ... but without his existence in the context of The Suburban Jungle, how much would anyone know about him? Individual drawings could show his twinkling eyes and crooked grin, but all they would show is a wolf in a leather jacket. Drezzer, the cockney-speakin', Conrad-snoggin', bouncy playboy wolf, would remain largely unknown.
Compare Drezzer to Falstaff, to see what I mean. Just about everybody who knows furry art knows Falstaff's swinging habits, largely because he's been featured in so much erotic (or semi-erotic) furry art. But what else do we know about Falstaff? Precious little, it seems to me. (At least, I know precious little ... I gather J. Willard hangs out on MU*s fairly regularly, so Falstaff may make appearances there that I don't know about.) What does Falstaff do when not engaged in, er, adult activities? What are his views on things? What does he do for a living? These are the kinds of details that I find most interesting about a character, and it seems to me, the sort of thing that static art is actually least likely to address.
This is why I do comic strips rather than just random artwork. I am a student of human (or furry) nature, and that is ever a study of context, action, and reaction. Artwork by itself captures moments ... but a story shows you consequences, and consequences are what interest me.
I have been thinking long and hard about the role SJ has in my life, for some time now, and I have decided that I am going to place it firmly in the category of "hobby," and let it exist there happily. Once the current round of commissions are done, I'm going to stop taking new ones, and shut down the "SJ Goodies Page." At conventions, I'll do sketchbooks for lunch money, but I'm not going to try to create a SJ marketing empire. If, someday, someone with a mind for business wants to create the SJ merchandise machine, I'll be glad to entertain offers, but not as an active participant. It would be more of, "Gneech, can you draw image X, and I'll put it on a shirt and sell it," instead of me sitting around thinking of something that would look good on a shirt, arranging to find a place to sell such shirts, and so forth.
I did have a person make an offer seed money and logistical support for shirt creation, and I had hoped to sell shirts at AC; but it turned out that even that was doing too much of the business end for me. I need to have a specific drawing requested, hand it off, and then not think about it any more until I'm sent a check -- basically as is done with the books. And since I don't think anybody is likely to do such a thing, I don't think SJ merchandise is likely to ever exist. (I'd love to see someone prove me wrong, however. ;) )
Creating the comic strip is more than hard enough by itself; trying to make a business out of it, is more than I can take. Particularly when it's not a business that will ever make enough money for me to live on. I need to focus those energies on my writing career, because that does have the potential to someday become a day job, where the cartooning doesn't.
-The Gneech
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
He didn't say that!
I've read your comments here, and I don't see that at all. Now, many of your friends communicate by IM and similar mechanisms, and I do not (for the same reasons I do not watch television) -- so it's possible these characters have secrets that I don't know. ;)
However, HERE you are saying, I believe, that you're going to focus on the comic, as a hobby, and stop trying to turn it into a business. I understand that and approve, not that it matters.
A relaxed Gneech is a happy Gneech, and this makes for good stories, both drawn and written. I like it, for the effects upon your life and upon others, including my own. It's a Good Thing.
===|==============/ Level Head
Re: He didn't say that!
Date: 2002-05-04 02:17 pm (UTC)