Why It's a Hobby Now
May. 6th, 2002 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechFeeling much better; nap and dinner were a big help there. My knee will probably be sore for at least a few days, tho. Back to the two-Advil breakfasts, I guess. :P
Anyway as a followup to this post, I thought I'd ramble on some more about SJ, and what it would take to do it for a living.
I was poking around Cardcaptor Sakura fan sites, and I happened upon a post on a message board that commented, "CLAMP[1] studio is in it to make money." Hardly a groundbreaking comment, I realize, but it came along at a propitious moment to make me think about the implications of it.
Cardcaptor Sakura has been published in many forms ... manga, anime, movie, art collections, and so forth ... even a badly hacked-up Saturday morning cartoon. And, while it doesn't have that big a following compared so something like Dragonball or some of the other big anime hits, it has a following that blows SJ right out of the water. On the other hand, CCS isn't the result of just one person's work -- it's the product of the entire CLAMP studio, with all their money and resources to put behind it.
Thinking about that fact made me ponder a bit. Imagining for a minute that I won the lottery or something, and had the money to work on SJ as my day job, and could afford a studio of people to help me out with it, who would I hire? And what would I do with the company?
Well, first of all, I'd hire a merchandise guru/sales rep, a production assistant, and an accountant. Their jobs, respectively, would be: to create, promote and monetize merchandise; take care of general business-related stuff such as supplies, facilities, a website perhaps, and running to Starbucks (snicker); and keeping track of the money and looking for ways to grow it!
That would free me up to create the actual comic(s), come up with new ideas for additional projects, and generally run the show. My first priority would be to come up with a business plan that actually had a snowball's chance in hell of making an actual return in something like a reasonable time -- which SJ's current existence as a webcomic just plain fails to do. I haven't even received a Plan 9 royalty check in quite some time, and I'm too busy drawing the silly comic to chase that $60-for-three-months-sales down.
So I'd have to figure out where the money was, and how to convince people to give it to me!
Japan has a thriving manga/anime market, something which American animators constantly whine about lacking here. America's rough equivalent, the drug store comic book market, dried up sometime in the 1980s, and isn't likely to come back any time soon -- costs are too high, and profit is too low. In America, it is possible to make a living doing comics ... but the competition is fierce and the conditions aren't exactly friendly for a small name trying to make an impression.
My work on SJ has brought me into contact with a fair number of animators. The most famous one, of course, is the incredible Don Bluth; but there are certainly others (such as the very talented and super-nice John Nunnemacher). And the one thing I've discovered about them, is that they are all perpetually angling for work. Disney makes more money than everyone in the world combined, and yet animators all over the country are hungry. What is that about?
The comics industry -- and here I am including comic strips and comic books in the same boat -- seems to be much the same way. The new Spider Man movie broke box office records! There are Spider Man toys, games, videos, CDs ... but what about comics?
A small selection of graphic novels in Barnes and Noble is about it for "mainstream" stores; otherwise, it's to the comic shops, where the only people who are going to discover new comics, are people who like comics already.
However, since I'm floating around in the land of pipe dreams, I can just wave all those considerations aside with a flick of my magic wand. Imagine instead, if America had a manga market, where somebody with a pretty good product could get somewhere by word of mouth promotion, and make a decent living...
Well heck, if I'm going to do that, why not just wish webcomics made any money?
Okay, scratch all that. Let's go back to imagining for a minute that I had a huge pile of money, with which I was instructed to go forth and take over the world with SJ. What would I do?
I think, once I had the merchandise guy, the production assistant, and the accountant, my next goal would be to bring on some other talented artists and writers. Assuming I had the right people working on it with me, people that I trusted and respected, I would be willing and even glad to share some of the SJ accolades in exchange for some of the burden. I already do that to some extent with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katayamma as colorist, but I'm talking about on a larger scale ... "Suburban Jungle Issue #324 ... Head Writer: The Gneech; Artist: Bigname Furryartist; Backgrounds: Someother Artist;" etc.
Once I laid down model sheets and the basic "look" of it all, each artist would have a fairly free hand with it. Dozens of different artists have drawn Spider Man over the years, but the core character is the same; I suspect that as long as I retained control over the scripts and art direction, Tiffany, Drezzer, and crew could easily survive the same thing.
Vince Suzukawa and I have talked about collaborating on various projects from time to time, and I occasionally wonder if that could lead to something like what I'm talking about. Of course, he's just as much of a perfectionist and egotist as I am. ;) So any project that we created would have to be a team project from the beginning. I doubt he'd be any happier with "The Gneech's Suburban Jungle (Drawn by Vince Suzukawa)" than I would be with "Vince Suzukawa's Class Menagerie (Head Writer: The Gneech)." Not if that was the only thing on the plate, anyhow. If it was a creative studio a la CLAMP, where both SJ and TCM were the flagship titles of lots of series, that might be different.
But, coming back down out of pipe dream land and back into reality, there is one big problem with that, which is the time and money required to do it. Heck, if I had the money required, I'd call Vince today, say, "I'll give you ten thousand bucks to quit your job and come work on this idea with me," and get started. But since I don't have the money required, there are only two ways it could happen: find a way to get the money required, or find a way to do it without the money required.
I don't have anything resembling a useful plan to achieve either of those. As an entrepreneur, I make a fine cartoonist. And there are other complications ... Laurie, despite her protestations that she'd happily finance my working on writing and such at home, would not actually be happy doing that. She hates living on the edge financially and gets very stressy when monthly rent payments are jeopardized. I don't want to put her through that, nor myself through what living with her like that would be like. (To give her her due, I think she thinks she would be happy doing that, and is very sincere in her desire for me to be happy with my work. But we've attempted similar arrangements in the past without success; I just don't think it's viable.)
Also, and let's be honest here, I tend to be a flake. If I had the time and money, would I actually do it? I had all that time I was on severance pay, and still had angst, hiatuses, and writer's block. It was only when it looked like a job was imminent that I had a burst of creativity, and that was about my fantasy writing.
Oh well, my capacity for pipe dreaming seems to be expended for tonight. I'll be writing more about this subject in the future, I'm sure. In the meantime, g'nite and have a terrific tomorrow. :)
-The Gneech
[1] CLAMP = The original creators of Cardcaptor Sakura, a popular Japanese manga publisher, as I understand it ... but whoever they are, I just love saying their name! CLAMP. CLAMP. CLAMP! CLAMP? CLAMP-CLAMPITTY CLAMP!
*ahem
Excuse me.
Anyway as a followup to this post, I thought I'd ramble on some more about SJ, and what it would take to do it for a living.
I was poking around Cardcaptor Sakura fan sites, and I happened upon a post on a message board that commented, "CLAMP[1] studio is in it to make money." Hardly a groundbreaking comment, I realize, but it came along at a propitious moment to make me think about the implications of it.
Cardcaptor Sakura has been published in many forms ... manga, anime, movie, art collections, and so forth ... even a badly hacked-up Saturday morning cartoon. And, while it doesn't have that big a following compared so something like Dragonball or some of the other big anime hits, it has a following that blows SJ right out of the water. On the other hand, CCS isn't the result of just one person's work -- it's the product of the entire CLAMP studio, with all their money and resources to put behind it.
Thinking about that fact made me ponder a bit. Imagining for a minute that I won the lottery or something, and had the money to work on SJ as my day job, and could afford a studio of people to help me out with it, who would I hire? And what would I do with the company?
Well, first of all, I'd hire a merchandise guru/sales rep, a production assistant, and an accountant. Their jobs, respectively, would be: to create, promote and monetize merchandise; take care of general business-related stuff such as supplies, facilities, a website perhaps, and running to Starbucks (snicker); and keeping track of the money and looking for ways to grow it!
That would free me up to create the actual comic(s), come up with new ideas for additional projects, and generally run the show. My first priority would be to come up with a business plan that actually had a snowball's chance in hell of making an actual return in something like a reasonable time -- which SJ's current existence as a webcomic just plain fails to do. I haven't even received a Plan 9 royalty check in quite some time, and I'm too busy drawing the silly comic to chase that $60-for-three-months-sales down.
So I'd have to figure out where the money was, and how to convince people to give it to me!
Japan has a thriving manga/anime market, something which American animators constantly whine about lacking here. America's rough equivalent, the drug store comic book market, dried up sometime in the 1980s, and isn't likely to come back any time soon -- costs are too high, and profit is too low. In America, it is possible to make a living doing comics ... but the competition is fierce and the conditions aren't exactly friendly for a small name trying to make an impression.
My work on SJ has brought me into contact with a fair number of animators. The most famous one, of course, is the incredible Don Bluth; but there are certainly others (such as the very talented and super-nice John Nunnemacher). And the one thing I've discovered about them, is that they are all perpetually angling for work. Disney makes more money than everyone in the world combined, and yet animators all over the country are hungry. What is that about?The comics industry -- and here I am including comic strips and comic books in the same boat -- seems to be much the same way. The new Spider Man movie broke box office records! There are Spider Man toys, games, videos, CDs ... but what about comics?
A small selection of graphic novels in Barnes and Noble is about it for "mainstream" stores; otherwise, it's to the comic shops, where the only people who are going to discover new comics, are people who like comics already.
However, since I'm floating around in the land of pipe dreams, I can just wave all those considerations aside with a flick of my magic wand. Imagine instead, if America had a manga market, where somebody with a pretty good product could get somewhere by word of mouth promotion, and make a decent living...
Well heck, if I'm going to do that, why not just wish webcomics made any money?
Okay, scratch all that. Let's go back to imagining for a minute that I had a huge pile of money, with which I was instructed to go forth and take over the world with SJ. What would I do?
I think, once I had the merchandise guy, the production assistant, and the accountant, my next goal would be to bring on some other talented artists and writers. Assuming I had the right people working on it with me, people that I trusted and respected, I would be willing and even glad to share some of the SJ accolades in exchange for some of the burden. I already do that to some extent with
katayamma as colorist, but I'm talking about on a larger scale ... "Suburban Jungle Issue #324 ... Head Writer: The Gneech; Artist: Bigname Furryartist; Backgrounds: Someother Artist;" etc.Once I laid down model sheets and the basic "look" of it all, each artist would have a fairly free hand with it. Dozens of different artists have drawn Spider Man over the years, but the core character is the same; I suspect that as long as I retained control over the scripts and art direction, Tiffany, Drezzer, and crew could easily survive the same thing.
Vince Suzukawa and I have talked about collaborating on various projects from time to time, and I occasionally wonder if that could lead to something like what I'm talking about. Of course, he's just as much of a perfectionist and egotist as I am. ;) So any project that we created would have to be a team project from the beginning. I doubt he'd be any happier with "The Gneech's Suburban Jungle (Drawn by Vince Suzukawa)" than I would be with "Vince Suzukawa's Class Menagerie (Head Writer: The Gneech)." Not if that was the only thing on the plate, anyhow. If it was a creative studio a la CLAMP, where both SJ and TCM were the flagship titles of lots of series, that might be different.
But, coming back down out of pipe dream land and back into reality, there is one big problem with that, which is the time and money required to do it. Heck, if I had the money required, I'd call Vince today, say, "I'll give you ten thousand bucks to quit your job and come work on this idea with me," and get started. But since I don't have the money required, there are only two ways it could happen: find a way to get the money required, or find a way to do it without the money required.
I don't have anything resembling a useful plan to achieve either of those. As an entrepreneur, I make a fine cartoonist. And there are other complications ... Laurie, despite her protestations that she'd happily finance my working on writing and such at home, would not actually be happy doing that. She hates living on the edge financially and gets very stressy when monthly rent payments are jeopardized. I don't want to put her through that, nor myself through what living with her like that would be like. (To give her her due, I think she thinks she would be happy doing that, and is very sincere in her desire for me to be happy with my work. But we've attempted similar arrangements in the past without success; I just don't think it's viable.)
Also, and let's be honest here, I tend to be a flake. If I had the time and money, would I actually do it? I had all that time I was on severance pay, and still had angst, hiatuses, and writer's block. It was only when it looked like a job was imminent that I had a burst of creativity, and that was about my fantasy writing.
Oh well, my capacity for pipe dreaming seems to be expended for tonight. I'll be writing more about this subject in the future, I'm sure. In the meantime, g'nite and have a terrific tomorrow. :)
-The Gneech
[1] CLAMP = The original creators of Cardcaptor Sakura, a popular Japanese manga publisher, as I understand it ... but whoever they are, I just love saying their name! CLAMP. CLAMP. CLAMP! CLAMP? CLAMP-CLAMPITTY CLAMP!
*ahem
Excuse me.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
I had just seen your earlier message, and was happy to see this one before responding to that.
It seems that you kneed a better job, for your health.
One never knows what the future will hold -- but it's good to ready for as many possible variations of it as you can. Your business plan is somewhat more likely to attract funding if it exists. ;)
I note that the $10k is survival money for a few months at most. Any idea of the steps that would bring replacement revenue in within that timeframe? I suspect that timeframes will "adapt" upon exposure to more planning; let's see.
===|==============/ Level Hea
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-06 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 05:32 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-05-07 09:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 03:47 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-05-07 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-06 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 05:36 am (UTC)FWIW, if I had what I thought was a syndicatable idea for a comic strip, I might go that route -- I did want to, once upon a time. But at the moment, I feel myself drawn elsewhere. -TG
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 09:49 am (UTC)It dawned on me that I have told you this about Watterson several times now. Sorry about that. ;) My mind functions like swiss cheese-- there are a lot of holes.
Watterson, especially after reading The Tenth Anniversary Book, has become a sort of hero to me. And quite frankly, I think Suburban Jungle is of comparable caliber to Calvin and Hobbes. I know I shouldn't say that 'cause I always holler at you when you compare yourself to other artists. But I mean it. You have a truly great comic here. And being someone who is actually incredibly finicky about comics (I read many, but only truly like a select few), that says a lot. :)
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 03:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-06 10:00 pm (UTC)*grin*
Re: *grin*
Mur
Re: *grin*
Date: 2002-05-07 05:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 03:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 02:13 am (UTC)*blinks*
What a concept.
*chuckles*
Of course, should I win the Powerball lottery out here, I'll be sure to take up funding Rumblepurr Studios. :)
no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 05:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-05-07 08:29 am (UTC)Re: Neat...
Date: 2002-05-07 09:52 am (UTC)Re: Neat...
Date: 2002-05-07 03:48 pm (UTC)