But a Jape

“Actually, it’s hilarious, but these plebeians on the internet just don’t get it!”

– A more accurate version of my thoughts

I’ve seen a number of creators lament that their passion projects get no attention but they could easily become more successful if they abandoned their creative ideals and just churned out low-effort work with mass appeal. Personally, this sentiment just strikes me as bitterness towards others’ success/one’s own lack of success and I doubt their actual attempts at “low-effort, high appeal” works would even bring them the shallow success they suggest. But to take these statements at face value – suppose these guys did have the keen sense of identifying exactly what audiences want and can exploit it by tailoring their work to popular tastes – I’d say it’s foolish of them to languish as a starving artist when they have this goldmine of a talent at their fingertips.

When I’m making my comics, I have no idea which of them will strike a chord with the internet – a lot of the ones I really like get no attention and some I just knocked out willy-nilly will really speak to a lot of people. I wish I knew how to consistently replicate my well-received comics that took me relatively little effort – I’d just bang those out constantly to build up my reader base and have that fund the ideas I actually care about. But in the absence of that skill, I basically just throw out whatever ideas come to mind and see what sticks.

So yeah, maybe I end up thinking “Lightbulb” isn’t funny after all, but I’ve got a deadline approaching and I have no idea what other people think is funny; might as well throw it in and see what happens.

– James