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Dinner with the Hoosband. :)
Jan. 17th, 2016 09:59 pmHad a nice dinner out with the Hoosband today, where we talked about some big picture stuff! Usually we're so bogged down with short term to-dos and logistics, it was good to check in with each other and talk about the bigger things on our minds, and other enthusiasms. :)
Like how weird it is that people don't give you unsolicited marriage advice, but it's totally socially acceptable to give parenting advice -- becoming parents is waaaay more like joining some secret societal club than getting married, and it's... disconcerting? I think I'm much more used to my personal choices and experiences being mine alone, and not part of this larger discourse that's full of Expectations. Things like "Motherhood is Sacred" and "Miracle of Life" and "Your Greatest Creation" and "Parenting is the Hardest Thing." On the one hand, I appreciate all the support and advice and it's cool that it's a new way I can connect to other parents (including my own!). On the other hand... I didn't know I was signing up for this???!
Or like how I'm reverting to my introvert ways and keep forgetting to look people in the eyes when talking to them. Ooops! Gotta remember how social skills work!
And we talked about our differing experiences with internet fame, and the importance of Not Starting Shit. Like, seriously, there are things that I'm not gonna say on the internet because it's just going to cause wank that I don't want/need. (Hoosband's experience of the internet has been permanently changed by that one time a blog post of his got taken out of context and went completely viral and used as fodder for wank, and I don't blame him -- there's such an intense sense of futility and frustration there. And fear and distrust of the internet at large at being reasonable receptors for his creative work. I feel like Hoosband hasn't ever trusted the internet since. My experiences haven't been this negative, so I'm more inclined to see the internet as a place for creative communities and collaboration.)
And the drive to create and find and audience. Been thinking about how "what drives me to create/the core message" and "how I convey that" and "who the audience is" intersect.
For example, what I wanted to do with Tisquantum was to talk about an instance of Indian experience of living in a post-apocalyptic society while dealing with the Europeans, to show how complicated these intersecting cultures and experiences were. But maybe telling a story via comic is not the most effective way of doing so? (versus, say, writing a blog post (the modern day treatise), or writing fiction, or teaching it as part of a class, or a game, or a kids book, or an educational comic.) So in this case, there's a mis-match between my impetus to create Tisquantum, and the medium that I chose to deliver the message. There is also a mismatch between the medium (longform story comic) and my skill in said medium (beginner). And who's the audience, anyway?
(I'm technically done with this current chapter, and am sitting on roughly 10 pages that I haven't put online yet. But I feel no burning desire to put it online. Odd, isn't it?)
In contrast, China Comics remains A Good Thing because what drove me to create it (Wanting to share aspects of China that I don't see in mainstream media), and my method of conveying that (single page educational comics), and the audience (people tend to self-select to be: folks who are interested in China but didn't grow up there) all match. When I look back, I see a lot of art things I could have improved, but overall it's good. And it's a pretty natural voice for me, much easier than longform stories.
So I need to think a bit more about the intersections of these things and I consider where to go next, creativity-wise. Do I want to create as a way to share myself as a human (a la autobiographical stuff)? Or to connect and collaborate with others (fandom)? Or to educate? To make people briefly consider a new idea or perspective? Or just to have tell an entertaining story? I feel like people remember better with a story -- stories move us in ways that facts don't. But what's the best way to tell those stories? Maybe stories have a natural length/medium? (At least as they apply to my ability to convey them...?)
Like how weird it is that people don't give you unsolicited marriage advice, but it's totally socially acceptable to give parenting advice -- becoming parents is waaaay more like joining some secret societal club than getting married, and it's... disconcerting? I think I'm much more used to my personal choices and experiences being mine alone, and not part of this larger discourse that's full of Expectations. Things like "Motherhood is Sacred" and "Miracle of Life" and "Your Greatest Creation" and "Parenting is the Hardest Thing." On the one hand, I appreciate all the support and advice and it's cool that it's a new way I can connect to other parents (including my own!). On the other hand... I didn't know I was signing up for this???!
Or like how I'm reverting to my introvert ways and keep forgetting to look people in the eyes when talking to them. Ooops! Gotta remember how social skills work!
And we talked about our differing experiences with internet fame, and the importance of Not Starting Shit. Like, seriously, there are things that I'm not gonna say on the internet because it's just going to cause wank that I don't want/need. (Hoosband's experience of the internet has been permanently changed by that one time a blog post of his got taken out of context and went completely viral and used as fodder for wank, and I don't blame him -- there's such an intense sense of futility and frustration there. And fear and distrust of the internet at large at being reasonable receptors for his creative work. I feel like Hoosband hasn't ever trusted the internet since. My experiences haven't been this negative, so I'm more inclined to see the internet as a place for creative communities and collaboration.)
And the drive to create and find and audience. Been thinking about how "what drives me to create/the core message" and "how I convey that" and "who the audience is" intersect.
For example, what I wanted to do with Tisquantum was to talk about an instance of Indian experience of living in a post-apocalyptic society while dealing with the Europeans, to show how complicated these intersecting cultures and experiences were. But maybe telling a story via comic is not the most effective way of doing so? (versus, say, writing a blog post (the modern day treatise), or writing fiction, or teaching it as part of a class, or a game, or a kids book, or an educational comic.) So in this case, there's a mis-match between my impetus to create Tisquantum, and the medium that I chose to deliver the message. There is also a mismatch between the medium (longform story comic) and my skill in said medium (beginner). And who's the audience, anyway?
(I'm technically done with this current chapter, and am sitting on roughly 10 pages that I haven't put online yet. But I feel no burning desire to put it online. Odd, isn't it?)
In contrast, China Comics remains A Good Thing because what drove me to create it (Wanting to share aspects of China that I don't see in mainstream media), and my method of conveying that (single page educational comics), and the audience (people tend to self-select to be: folks who are interested in China but didn't grow up there) all match. When I look back, I see a lot of art things I could have improved, but overall it's good. And it's a pretty natural voice for me, much easier than longform stories.
So I need to think a bit more about the intersections of these things and I consider where to go next, creativity-wise. Do I want to create as a way to share myself as a human (a la autobiographical stuff)? Or to connect and collaborate with others (fandom)? Or to educate? To make people briefly consider a new idea or perspective? Or just to have tell an entertaining story? I feel like people remember better with a story -- stories move us in ways that facts don't. But what's the best way to tell those stories? Maybe stories have a natural length/medium? (At least as they apply to my ability to convey them...?)
