Missed It: Mega-Demented Fight Thread

While I was a out of town, Daily Cartoonist gave birth to a long comments thread spinning out of a Julie Larson-related post that will give anyone interested an excellent snapshot of the webcartoonists vs. strip cartoonists battle as it stands right now. Both sides are taking past each other more than talking to each other and there are enough asinine comments to fuel any political press conference of the last 30 years, but there are some good points to be had, too. It is a battlefield littered with snark and I'm not sure the two sides are even facing each other in most cases, let alone slugging it out.

The problem with the discussion is two-fold, I think. First, neither side seems to fully believe the claims of the others, particularly when it comes to money. I'm not sure how that improves, but no one in comics gets a medal for transparency where money's involved so I think that one limps along for a while yet. Second, there seems to me a completely unearned assumption of basic common ground where strip comics and webcomics are concerned, and I would challenge the logic that this should be the case. I think the differences end at the size-of-some-strips level. Just about everything else is like debating tennis vs. peanut butter.

Me, I'm happy that there are many cartoonists making a living on-line, and I have a hard time figuring out what gets people so upset about this. The strip cartoonists who continue to pooh-pooh the basic fact that there are webcartoonists doing this full-time sound clueless, defensive and old. Anyone still dancing around the reality of self-actualized, self-supporting webcartoonists in any way, shape or form should be ignored until they stop talking dumb. At the same time, we don't know if the models in play are an effective prescriptive. We don't know if the new models have legs, and we don't know how many cartoonists can pursue the same strategies and enjoy the same opportunities. That's above and beyond whether or not all cartoonists are suited to the alternative models available on even more fundamental levels. I also think that webcartoonists should realize that when they advocate for a certain model, the flip side of being taken seriously is that there are more rigorous comparisons -- what kind of living does each model offer? -- and you don't always get to fudge around that by claiming a stamp of approval from the future.

So for me I think the rhetoric could tone itself down generally, and maybe each side could stop engaging with each other except on those issues there's real overlap or perspective involved. I mean, it's fun stuff to read, but I think such discussions distort reality more than they clarify it.
 
posted 7:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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