Okay, folks, input please.
Joey just got feedback from a firm in Chicago who checked out her work. She was rejected, of course, because her humour is "too dark, especially in light of recent events". Keep in mind these people weren't going to pick up TS, it was just for design work in general.
Now the poll. And please feel free to add your own feedback here--we trust you guys more than we trust them.
"In light of recent events..."
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Hbomb
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Too dark? Which strips did she show those people? Somebody's definitely on something.
-H
-H
Snowflake Studios, home of "Jerry Little", "Rainy Day Comics", "Scarlet, P.I.", "47 Meatballs", and more. Storming on the internet since 2000.
I'm kind of wondering about the adjective 'recent', myself. Can something that occurred, what, nine or ten months ago (sorry, for some reason I can never seem to count months. I always wind up leaving February or some other month out and having to recount) really be called 'recent'?
I've been enlisted to plug a webcomic called Strawberry Tokyo Girls (though it has nothing to do with strawberries and isn't set in Tokyo) because I color it, and the artist/writer doesn't have a net connection. So. Visit http://strawberry.keenspace.com so I can tell the artist I'm doing my job.
Huh?
I think the "recent events" crack was just an excuse. They'd have thought you were "too dark" on September 10th, most likely, but would have had to actually think up an actual B.S. reason to turn you down.
And if they think your comic is too dark, may whatever diety they worship protect them if they start looking at other online comics. Chopping Block, for example.
I don't think these yahoos know the meaning of "dark".
T'Renn "You're not dark. Sick, twisted, and evil, maybe, but not dark.
" Vraomrell
And if they think your comic is too dark, may whatever diety they worship protect them if they start looking at other online comics. Chopping Block, for example.
I don't think these yahoos know the meaning of "dark".T'Renn "You're not dark. Sick, twisted, and evil, maybe, but not dark.
" Vraomrell-
ZOMBIE USER 195
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BJ figured it was just the latest line that people use now, right up there with "I love your work, but it's not what we're looking for".
If I had a strip of Mindy flying a plane into a skyscraper and used it for comedy, sure. There'd be an argument there. But, that happens to NOT be funny, and I've never drawn anything like that, or will. I'm just sick of people (movie reviewers, Republican baby boomers, potential employers) twisting everything from a comic strip (mine), to a movie (Spiderman, the Powerpuff girls), to life in general ("it's unpatriotic to question government in this time of war") into something relating to 9-11. How the hell is someone dressed like Xena with a Teddy Ruxpin attached to her head related to that?
(ahem) I shouldn't be ranting at you guys, I s'pose; chances are the people who should be reading this aren't. I know that there're a lot of people who do tons better work than I do, but I just don't get why a potential employer or whoever can't just say "no thanks."
Thanks for humoring me and my horn-tooting. I'm genuinely curious about all input (even if you happen to agree with "them")...
If I had a strip of Mindy flying a plane into a skyscraper and used it for comedy, sure. There'd be an argument there. But, that happens to NOT be funny, and I've never drawn anything like that, or will. I'm just sick of people (movie reviewers, Republican baby boomers, potential employers) twisting everything from a comic strip (mine), to a movie (Spiderman, the Powerpuff girls), to life in general ("it's unpatriotic to question government in this time of war") into something relating to 9-11. How the hell is someone dressed like Xena with a Teddy Ruxpin attached to her head related to that?
(ahem) I shouldn't be ranting at you guys, I s'pose; chances are the people who should be reading this aren't. I know that there're a lot of people who do tons better work than I do, but I just don't get why a potential employer or whoever can't just say "no thanks."
Thanks for humoring me and my horn-tooting. I'm genuinely curious about all input (even if you happen to agree with "them")...
Dark?!
Too Dark?
In light of Sept. 11?!
There's no shown sex, very little violence. Only occasionally gross humor, though the last was BJ's fault . Hey, my kids read this strip when I'm not busy surfing internet porn.
These folks are either:
1) Using a new form letter for rejections, as noted by others.
or
2) A bunch of (draw breath), bible thumping, school board sitting, meddling in neighbor's affairs, choice protesting, facism endorsing, sexually repressed, window peeping, drink hiding, brown wrapper porn recieving, "its for the children" excusing, "its not the prisoner's fault they are here" blabbing, driving while using cell phone, red light are optional for me, we should just turn our lives over to the state so we can be safe, jello spined, mush for brains, republicrat, demipublican (yes i repeat), freak of nature who wouldn't know humor it came up to them, offered a card, introduced itself, pulled down their pants, and bit them on their shiny butt!
(new breath)
That should about cover it.
On other subjects:
1) What? no special 4th of July strip?
2) Wasn't the song with the bucket of water "Manhunt" instead of the theme song? Yeah, I saw the film. What can I say, teen aged boy, near naked women, dancing about provocativly with sweat glistening off of their ........ sorry was getting distracted there.
frempath
In light of Sept. 11?!
There's no shown sex, very little violence. Only occasionally gross humor, though the last was BJ's fault . Hey, my kids read this strip when I'm not busy surfing internet porn.
These folks are either:
1) Using a new form letter for rejections, as noted by others.
or
2) A bunch of (draw breath), bible thumping, school board sitting, meddling in neighbor's affairs, choice protesting, facism endorsing, sexually repressed, window peeping, drink hiding, brown wrapper porn recieving, "its for the children" excusing, "its not the prisoner's fault they are here" blabbing, driving while using cell phone, red light are optional for me, we should just turn our lives over to the state so we can be safe, jello spined, mush for brains, republicrat, demipublican (yes i repeat), freak of nature who wouldn't know humor it came up to them, offered a card, introduced itself, pulled down their pants, and bit them on their shiny butt!
(new breath)
That should about cover it.
On other subjects:
1) What? no special 4th of July strip?
2) Wasn't the song with the bucket of water "Manhunt" instead of the theme song? Yeah, I saw the film. What can I say, teen aged boy, near naked women, dancing about provocativly with sweat glistening off of their ........ sorry was getting distracted there.
frempath
How Dare they!
This sounds like the time to write them an angry letter demanding an apology for accusing you of supporting or condoning terrorism through your artwork. If they're going to dish out bogus rejections like that, someone should turn the tables on them and make them eat their words.
Doc
Doc
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Schol-R-LEA
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Was this for a book deal or for syndication?
If it was a book deal, then scroo'm. There are plenty of publishers out there with more balls than that; any publisher that whines that way is going to make your life miserable anyway. For a good publisher of comics archives, I'd recommend Plan Nine off the top of my head. They've been quite good to Pete Abrams and Bill Holbrook, among others. Chris Baldwin's Moody Cow is another possible choice, though that's about as small an operation as could be, and right now he only carries his own material AFAIK
If it was over a syndication deal, my thought would be, why would you bother? Daily print comic writers give up their souls to get in print, and unless their carried buy several hundred newspapers, they make back less than their costs in paper and ink. What's more, the syndicates have grown more and more tightassed as the years have passed, not wanting anything that could offend even the fussiest casual reader. If today's standard had been held to in the past, then strips like Popeye, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Pogo, Doonsbury, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, or even For Better or Worse, would never have seen the light of day.
Just a few of the things you'd have to give up in a syndicated strip:
And when that's all gone, you'd still have to face the editor's red pen each and every strip. And even then, chances are you'll have papers dropping the occasional strip because of some local editor with a bug up his ass and if that happens too often, the syndicate may decide you're too hot to handle and drop your contract.
I know I'm going a bit over the top with this, but I've already seen "Helen, Sweeheart of the Internet" go from one of the best daily web strips around to a watered-down, joke-a-day shadow of its former self. I'd hate to see the same happen here. Not all the syndicates are quite as bad as I painted things here, but they have been consistently growing more and more careful and conservative lately, as there are far more comics than there are spaces to print them and the syndicates only want thing which will appeal to the lowest common denominator.
As a comparison: Anheuser Busch is one of the best brewers in the world, from a purely technical standpoint. They have hardware and the expertise to brew any beer they could want, for any tastes imaginable. There's no question of this, they have repeatedly produced single batch brews of truly world-class quality. But aside from that, what do they make? Budweiser! Their success, the money-making method that gave them this wealth of technical power, is built upon making a product that is as uniformly consisent, bland and unoffensive as possible, so that they can sell it to the largest number of beer drinkers without changes everywhere in the world, and then market it to hell and gone to make it fly off the shelves. All well and good from a business perspective, as it makes a lot of money for the company, but it does leave those wanting something else high and dry.
The comic strips syndicates work on the same prinicple. They aren't interested in how good a strip is, they just want to know how many papers will carry it, how many copies of the reprints they can sell in the bookstores, and how many people will write back complaining about it. They're in business to make money, after all, and the bigger you get, the more you have to look to the bottom line first and foremost. But since the artist only gets a very small part of that (unless it is a tremendous hit), it is hardly worth the effort except from the perspective of ego satisfaction.
If it helps any, you're hardly alone. Chris Baldwin has tried repeatedly to create a strip that would be acceptable to the syndiacte editors, and has been turned down many times... and please note that he never tried to submit Bruno to them as an option. He knew that Bruno would be way, way out of the question, and didn't bother asking; instead, he worked out other strips which he hoped would fit the syndicate format. Despite this, he's had little luck. That alone should say a lot about how difficult it is to get a new strip accepted. (I doubt it will ever work out for Baldwin, anyway. His work is far too cerebral - even the slapstick like "Kim in Love" - and goes over the heads of even his regular readers far too often to work in the newspapers).
Carson Fire also has a few things to say about his efforts at syndication, IIRC, little of it good.
If it was a book deal, then scroo'm. There are plenty of publishers out there with more balls than that; any publisher that whines that way is going to make your life miserable anyway. For a good publisher of comics archives, I'd recommend Plan Nine off the top of my head. They've been quite good to Pete Abrams and Bill Holbrook, among others. Chris Baldwin's Moody Cow is another possible choice, though that's about as small an operation as could be, and right now he only carries his own material AFAIK
If it was over a syndication deal, my thought would be, why would you bother? Daily print comic writers give up their souls to get in print, and unless their carried buy several hundred newspapers, they make back less than their costs in paper and ink. What's more, the syndicates have grown more and more tightassed as the years have passed, not wanting anything that could offend even the fussiest casual reader. If today's standard had been held to in the past, then strips like Popeye, Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Pogo, Doonsbury, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, The Far Side, or even For Better or Worse, would never have seen the light of day.
Just a few of the things you'd have to give up in a syndicated strip:
- The Firetrap. A comic strip in a bar? Forget it. Perhaps once they might have accepted it, but they'd never let that through today. Especially with a police officer min character spending all her free time there.
- The joke baby. This is a no-brainer; anything even vaguely like this would be edited out without hesitation.
- Bunny Stomping. The same, only worse if anything.
- Booty-cruisin' elementary school teachers.
- Jo Beth, or any other crossover characters. Even camoes are problematic, due to the current copyright paranoia; actual crossovers would be impossible.
- Continued stories like 'Xima', or anything that takes more than a one-strip setup. It's not jst enough that you need a joke in every strip; you now are discouraged from anything that takes longer that a week, at most, to finish.
- In-jokes or references that anyone could possibly miss. Even ones you'd think no one could.
- Any reference to the city, state or even country the strip takes place in. (That's more of an issue with JF that TS, but it has come up a few times).
- Color weekdays and variations in ayout.
- Days off. If it isn't weekly with a Color Sunday, they won't want to hear about it, and can you have that two weeks in advance, please?
And when that's all gone, you'd still have to face the editor's red pen each and every strip. And even then, chances are you'll have papers dropping the occasional strip because of some local editor with a bug up his ass and if that happens too often, the syndicate may decide you're too hot to handle and drop your contract.
I know I'm going a bit over the top with this, but I've already seen "Helen, Sweeheart of the Internet" go from one of the best daily web strips around to a watered-down, joke-a-day shadow of its former self. I'd hate to see the same happen here. Not all the syndicates are quite as bad as I painted things here, but they have been consistently growing more and more careful and conservative lately, as there are far more comics than there are spaces to print them and the syndicates only want thing which will appeal to the lowest common denominator.
As a comparison: Anheuser Busch is one of the best brewers in the world, from a purely technical standpoint. They have hardware and the expertise to brew any beer they could want, for any tastes imaginable. There's no question of this, they have repeatedly produced single batch brews of truly world-class quality. But aside from that, what do they make? Budweiser! Their success, the money-making method that gave them this wealth of technical power, is built upon making a product that is as uniformly consisent, bland and unoffensive as possible, so that they can sell it to the largest number of beer drinkers without changes everywhere in the world, and then market it to hell and gone to make it fly off the shelves. All well and good from a business perspective, as it makes a lot of money for the company, but it does leave those wanting something else high and dry.
The comic strips syndicates work on the same prinicple. They aren't interested in how good a strip is, they just want to know how many papers will carry it, how many copies of the reprints they can sell in the bookstores, and how many people will write back complaining about it. They're in business to make money, after all, and the bigger you get, the more you have to look to the bottom line first and foremost. But since the artist only gets a very small part of that (unless it is a tremendous hit), it is hardly worth the effort except from the perspective of ego satisfaction.
If it helps any, you're hardly alone. Chris Baldwin has tried repeatedly to create a strip that would be acceptable to the syndiacte editors, and has been turned down many times... and please note that he never tried to submit Bruno to them as an option. He knew that Bruno would be way, way out of the question, and didn't bother asking; instead, he worked out other strips which he hoped would fit the syndicate format. Despite this, he's had little luck. That alone should say a lot about how difficult it is to get a new strip accepted. (I doubt it will ever work out for Baldwin, anyway. His work is far too cerebral - even the slapstick like "Kim in Love" - and goes over the heads of even his regular readers far too often to work in the newspapers).
Carson Fire also has a few things to say about his efforts at syndication, IIRC, little of it good.
::ahem::
"too dark" ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Good gravy and Tink, too! This is one of the funniest strips in the world!
(not just on the web, but the WORLD... let's see if Joey has to buy a new helmet to fit her swelled head now)
"too dark"? Hmm, sure some of those people say that, but I bet that "every night they come and they lay their money down" er, I mean click on the comic link....
"She was raised in the back of the Firetrap bar;
Darron tended bar while Julie served;
Tonja drank 'ritas while harassing Tink;
Damien helped out by antagonizing D.
Mindy, Cute, but Trouble;
You hear it from her teacher and the kids who know her;
Mindy, Cute, but Trouble;
But every week you come and the kid makes you laugh..."
Cholma
yeah, that was pretty lame... good thing I have a day job
"too dark" ?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Good gravy and Tink, too! This is one of the funniest strips in the world!
(not just on the web, but the WORLD... let's see if Joey has to buy a new helmet to fit her swelled head now)
"too dark"? Hmm, sure some of those people say that, but I bet that "every night they come and they lay their money down" er, I mean click on the comic link....
"She was raised in the back of the Firetrap bar;
Darron tended bar while Julie served;
Tonja drank 'ritas while harassing Tink;
Damien helped out by antagonizing D.
Mindy, Cute, but Trouble;
You hear it from her teacher and the kids who know her;
Mindy, Cute, but Trouble;
But every week you come and the kid makes you laugh..."
Cholma
yeah, that was pretty lame... good thing I have a day job
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ZOMBIE USER 195
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Hmm. Episode I, anybody...? It also reminds one of the CRAP that passes for music nowadays.Awlrighty...It was submitted for style; for a graphic design firm.Schol-R-LEA wrote:Was this for a book deal or for syndication?
Thanks! I'll look into those...If it was a book deal, then scroo'm. There are plenty of publishers out there with more balls than that; any publisher that whines that way is going to make your life miserable anyway. For a good publisher of comics archives, I'd recommend Plan Nine off the top of my head. They've been quite good to Pete Abrams and Bill Holbrook, among others. Chris Baldwin's Moody Cow is another possible choice, though that's about as small an operation as could be, and right now he only carries his own material AFAIK
Maybe if she beat up Andy Capp, Hagar the Horrible, and that stupid old general from Beetle Bailey every so often...?Just a few of the things you'd have to give up in a syndicated strip:
- The Firetrap. A comic strip in a bar? Forget it. Perhaps once they might have accepted it, but they'd never let that through today. Especially with a police officer main character spending all her free time there.
Pay me, and I'll do this fraggin' strip 7 days a week, sez I[*] Days off. If it isn't weekly with a Color Sunday, they won't want to hear about it, and can you have that two weeks in advance, please?[/list]
Ask Frank Cho about that. And he works for the GOOD syndicate!And when that's all gone, you'd still have to face the editor's red pen each and every strip. And even then, chances are you'll have papers dropping the occasional strip because of some local editor with a bug up his ass and if that happens too often, the syndicate may decide you're too hot to handle and drop your contract.
As a comparison: Anheuser Busch is one of the best brewers in the world, from a purely technical standpoint. They have hardware and the expertise to brew any beer they could want, for any tastes imaginable. There's no question of this, they have repeatedly produced single batch brews of truly world-class quality. But aside from that, what do they make? Budweiser! Their success, the money-making method that gave them this wealth of technical power, is built upon making a product that is as uniformly consisent, bland and unoffensive as possible, so that they can sell it to the largest number of beer drinkers without changes everywhere in the world, and then market it to hell and gone to make it fly off the shelves. All well and good from a business perspective, as it makes a lot of money for the company, but it does leave those wanting something else high and dry.
On another note; Cholma's scary. But, "Gypsies Tramps and Thieves" is still one of the most fun songs ever (complete with parody lyrics). Thanks to all for the input so far; my next big endeavor is to finish the Zema book and send it out to some small publishing houses, so we'll see how that goes...
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Zodo
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I'll put in another plug for Plan9. They do really good work with many other keen strips, and you can't go wrong with a company named after a movie that won an award for being the worst ever made! 
The General from Beetle Bailey is General Halftrack.
And I still like Andy Capp. It's one of the few newspaper strips that can make me laugh out loud from time to time.
And if someone thinks that Tonja Steele is too dark, they would probably have a conniption fit if they read something like Jack.
-Zodo, CI
Consummate Troublemaker
King of the Forum
The General from Beetle Bailey is General Halftrack.
And I still like Andy Capp. It's one of the few newspaper strips that can make me laugh out loud from time to time.
And if someone thinks that Tonja Steele is too dark, they would probably have a conniption fit if they read something like Jack.
-Zodo, CI
Consummate Troublemaker
King of the Forum
Of course, that award was before.... "Battlefield: Earth". "Plan 9 From Outer Space" might still be worse, but dollar for dollar, Travolta's movie beats it... if only because they spent so many more dollars to make such a horrible movie.zodo wrote:I'll put in another plug for Plan9. They do really good work with many other keen strips, and you can't go wrong with a company named after a movie that won an award for being the worst ever made!
T'Renn "Hmm... what if Ed Wood directed 'Battlefield: Earth'? *brain explodes* " Vraomrell
Plan9 is good and you might also check out Dork Storm Press. They're the ones that publish Dork Tower, Nodwick and PvP.
I wish Keenspot would wake up and transfer both TS & JF to the 'spot. They have comics on their current list that haven't updated in over a year! If you were on the 'spot, you could publish thru them. (I'm just guessing they won't publish 'space comics)
Cholma
"Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?"
I wish Keenspot would wake up and transfer both TS & JF to the 'spot. They have comics on their current list that haven't updated in over a year! If you were on the 'spot, you could publish thru them. (I'm just guessing they won't publish 'space comics)
Cholma
"Does Barry Manilow know that you raid his wardrobe?"
Wanna bet?
At least you can get hats! Try to buy a size 7 7/8 hat sometime! "Why yes, they do make hats your size, but we don't sell them. No, we can't special order them, either. There may be stores that carry them, but not on this continent. And they don't mail-order either! Have a nice day!"thefiretrap wrote:Ohyeah. My head's big enough the way it is. No, literally. It's a fathead. All my hats are adjusted to the last two buttons!
Doc
"All I need to complete this project is a large quantity of unobtainium..."
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Cannonshop
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Don't forget the Democrat Baby-boomers, anyone associated with the faculty of a major university, virtually the entire staff of the "Nanny-State", (Those wonderful folks who want to make you do things "For the Children"), most Insurance Fascists, the Lawyers, those Soccer-moms who vote their hormones, but get cheezed off when they catch their sons looking at dirty pictures, every shade and stripe of the whiny, loudmouthed, politically correct, minority who make the rest of our lives hell, the Yogurt Nazis that want to strip away all the fun in the universe...thefiretrap wrote:BJ figured it was just the latest line that people use now, right up there with "I love your work, but it's not what we're looking for".
If I had a strip of Mindy flying a plane into a skyscraper and used it for comedy, sure. There'd be an argument there. But, that happens to NOT be funny, and I've never drawn anything like that, or will. I'm just sick of people (movie reviewers, Republican baby boomers, potential employers) twisting everything from a comic strip (mine), to a movie (Spiderman, the Powerpuff girls), to life in general ("it's unpatriotic to question government in this time of war") into something relating to 9-11. How the hell is someone dressed like Xena with a Teddy Ruxpin attached to her head related to that?
(ahem) I shouldn't be ranting at you guys, I s'pose; chances are the people who should be reading this aren't. I know that there're a lot of people who do tons better work than I do, but I just don't get why a potential employer or whoever can't just say "no thanks."
Thanks for humoring me and my horn-tooting. I'm genuinely curious about all input (even if you happen to agree with "them")...
Yeah, "too Dark", it means they really were hoping you would be some half-assed airhead whose sense of humour extends only so far as what MTV tells her is "Funny", and, whose opinions can be reset with a heart-touching picture from Biafra... Fuck 'em if they can't take a goddam joke, it's time to send Roland the headless-Thompson Gunner after the publishers of the world, and those Syndicators, too...
I don't see how Tonja Steele is dark at all. It uses darker colors than, say, Mickey Mouse, but that's about it. It's about as dark as Looney Tunes is.
Hell, my fanfic "The Arkana Force" is more dark. Of course, that's a no-brainer considering the main character gets his family blown to pieces right in front of him in Chapter 1, and then gets slammed into a parked car in Chapter 2, breaking his arm. Although I do have light-hearted moments such as Eric losing his #1 spot in a fighting game's top score list in a matter of minutes, Matt constantly losing in Pok
Hell, my fanfic "The Arkana Force" is more dark. Of course, that's a no-brainer considering the main character gets his family blown to pieces right in front of him in Chapter 1, and then gets slammed into a parked car in Chapter 2, breaking his arm. Although I do have light-hearted moments such as Eric losing his #1 spot in a fighting game's top score list in a matter of minutes, Matt constantly losing in Pok
Duke. Call me Duke.
<A HREF="http://www.angelfire.com/ego/andthen/" TARGET=_blank>Andthen...Fanfiction</A> Ah. Fanfic Paradise!
"There's a riddle. What's round on the end and HIIIIGGHHHH in the middle?"-Brak
"Uh, I know this. Switzerland?"-Zorak
"NO! It's O-hi-o-hi-o!"-Brak
<A HREF="http://www.angelfire.com/ego/andthen/" TARGET=_blank>Andthen...Fanfiction</A> Ah. Fanfic Paradise!
"There's a riddle. What's round on the end and HIIIIGGHHHH in the middle?"-Brak
"Uh, I know this. Switzerland?"-Zorak
"NO! It's O-hi-o-hi-o!"-Brak
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Joshnickerson
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