[...] Guigar (Evil Inc.), one of the authors of How to Make Webcomics, expands on those instructions by covering how to write a press [...]

[...] pleasant conversation with Kris Straub and Brad Guigar about the reactions to my review of their webcomic book. They’re great guys, and I hope to get a chance to talk to Scott Kurtz as well tomorrow, [...]

[...] Dennis West emailed me to let me know that he’s just launched a weekdaily webcomic called Backyard Frontier, inspired to do so by How to Make Webcomics. [...]

[...] about how Scott Kurtz of PvP fame apparently threw a tantrum over a review of his (and three other guy’s) book about how to make webcomics titled “How To Make [...]

[...] the Webcomics book review, I guess I’ll have to start reading PvP — at least this [...]

[...] Draper Carlson, of Comics Worth Reading, (whose work, for the record, I don’t even like) gave a pretty good review of Kurtz (and friends) new book, How to Make Webcomics. Carlson actually had pretty nice things to say about the book, though she [...]

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=19812176&id=263044864

I think that if everyone listens to it you’ll all find that Scott’s blog about insulating from criticism was a very specific statement and not meant to be a blanket opinion about all forms of criticism. He actually says in this podcast some of the very things that have been argued against him in these blog comments.

[...] sure everyone’s tired of the whole Scott Kurtz/webcomic book review/”are critics ever useful” debate by now (although I love that people are getting [...]

I guess this isn’t too far off topic because it’s been a good example how external input can help improve things!

THanks!

Since we’re talking about critiques… :-)

If you hand-letter your fonts, it will give your strip more of a “personable feel” – there’s no doubt about that.

A lot of times, you’ll find auto-biographical strips hand lettered due to that “personal feel”.

My strip’s not autobiographical, so I never felt compelled to go that route. Again though, I did listen to some advice I valued, tried it and found that I didn’t like the results so I quickly ditched it and went back to digital fonts.

Now, is it like when you write down letters on your own, and those get translated into a font, so it can sort of “pull” from your handwriting? That’s kind of nifty.

Actually, i should look into that. I’m just using the Dave Gibbons Font from comicbookfonts.com

http://www.comicbookfonts.com/fontpacks/catalog.html?sid=0001lvEn5LnBY8Uqic9Z0w7&keywords=gp1

I think i’ll stick with digital. My process is getting pretty streamlined and i’m going to need it if I’m going to be doing these 6 days a week.

Math and (most) sports are easier to judge because you quite often have definitive results. In its most simple form, a math equation is either right or wrong. An athlete either fails or succeeds. Many times, that failure or success is due to how well the student or athlete was taught or coached.

If you get bad information – no matter what you’re trying to achieve – you will likely get bad results – no matter if it’s math, athletics or art.

I brought baseball into this discussion because that’s something I know quite a bit about. Not just by observing but also by playing and coaching. And I do think the comparison is valid as I do see a lot of well intentioned dads give very bad advice. I’m not saying they do so intentionally – every dad would love to see their kid succeed at baseball but some of them simply pass down bad habits that were taught to them or simply try to wing it as best they can.

It would be no different then if I tried to teach my daughter calculus based strictly on my Algebra II knowledge. I could give her SOME good advice – up to a point – but at a certain point, I would fail her because the problem exceeds the level of my experience.

But when it comes to entertainment – whether it’s music, film or arts – we completely disregard our own sense of limitations since there are no definitive results in entertainment like there are in math or sports. We have been listening to music, watching TV shows and movies and looking at art all of our lives. So naturally, our experiences have made us experts at knowing what we like to hear, what we like to watch or what we like to look at or read even though many of us have never played music, acted or created any kind of art before.

I think that’s where an artist might find frustration. Again, an artist has to decide if the opinions that are given to him/her are valid – and rightly or wrongly, we judge the value of the opinion by the experience of the person.

I’m not going to listen to a little league dad tell me how to hit. If he says I’m swinging too early, I’ll politely thank him for his observation and go about what I REALLY know what works from coaches who actually knew the intricacies of hitting.

But EVEN THEN, artists have to make their own choice. For example, I’ve also been told that it would be “cool” if I hand lettered my own strip by people I admire. And I am certainly capable of doing so. But I’m a graphic designer by trade. I LIKE the cleanliness of digital fonts and I like the flexibility digital fonts offer in terms of special effects, sound effects and, most importantly, the speed of a spell check!

I have made a conscious decision to ignore a suggested made by others that I admire. I do so because it’s a decision that works for me and because I am knowledgeable enough to know what works for me and WHY their suggestion is a bad one for me.

-Chris

But I couldn’t watch a professional baseball player like Ichiro and say anything about his form or why he’s having an off day or anything. But I could watch and say he’s not doing very well today (but i’d never tell him that).

I very much agree with David’s post. You don’t have to have an approved resume to offer feedback that might be valid. We as creators are creating something for public consumption and if we are not at least mildly interested in what the public has to say and at least entertain the option of implementing some of it, we stand the chance of loosing our audience.

I’m not saying that every piece of feedback is gold, some of it might not be possible to implement, but I think we do ourselves a disservice if we don’t at least consider it a little.

Now there are times when people will be cruel, perhaps more so because of the anonymous nature of the internet, and we definitely need to deflect those kinds of feedback. Or maybe someone doesn’t or can’t articulate what they don’t like about it beyond telling us that they think it’s crap. I don’t think anyone would argue that there’s not much you can do with that. But if someone has an opinion about my work, I think it’s valuable to at least listen to what they have to say.

As a personal example: I’m working on my first Web Comic, and I recently got some feedback from an industry professional on a few points about my strip. I agree with all of the feedback and am trying to implement most of it, but there’s one that I just can’t do right now. He said that I should hand letter my text instead of using a font. I’ve chosen to do my strip on my computer with my Wacom and after experimenting with lettering on my Wacom, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m better off sticking with my font. I’m a little nervous about this decision and will keep trying to work out the digital hand lettering technique, but for now I think I have to concentrate on getting my strip established.

I’m happy that he took the time to give me the feedback and I’m going to try to follow up as things get rolling, but in the end, it was up to me to decide what would be best for me at this time.

Because the team bus doesn’t have a wheelchair lift.

You are being completely disingenuous using anecdotes about emotionally destructive fathers and requiring people to be professional batting coaches. My point still stands that people who have not excelled or even performed an act can still have information to impart. A blanket statement to ignore all criticism – as Mr. Kurtz did to initiate this thread – are not only useless, they are quite possibly more distructive than taking all criticism as valuable.

“An athlete, student or artist needs to trust their own instincts as to what that is. And it’s never an easy decision.”

It would be best for an athlete to believe in themselves, yes. And it is unlikely that anyone, no matter how gifted, will do well without that belief. But there is a difference between self-confidence and Hubris. A student who enters my classroom *sure* that they know more about the value of Calculus in the business world than I do will not learn anything. An athlete who dismisses biometric analysis because it comes from a computer geek is losing a powerful tool. And the artist who cannot bring himself to “paint like a child” will never be as good as Picasso.

You are right, ultimately the artist makes the final decision, and that is very hard. And it should be, because whther you are an artist or an athlete or a student, you are putting yourself out there – your very Self – into the world and making it what you will. But part of the reason that being the best You you can be is hard is that it requires a lot of learning, a lot of information, and the very difficult task of separating the wheat from the chaff. A pre-hoc decision to ignore all outside commentary because it can “damage the sensitive artistic soul” or whatever is like refusing to let a child ride a bike for fear they will break their arm: Sure, they may never break their arm, but they will never win the Tour de France either. And you will never know what might have been.

Facing up to external criticism is just as important as facing down personal demons. And when all is said and done, there is a lot more to be learned out there in the world than there is inside your head.

I would say at first glance, it might be easy to say that comparing coaching hitting with art criticism is a huge stretch. And yet, we can look throughout many professional baseball teams and not see a single Steven Hawking employed as a hitting instructor. Why is that?

Surely it’s because hitting – like art – is much more complex then JUST saying “you’re swinging too early” or “your feet are too close together”. It’s much more complex then simple observation will allow.

Yes, hitting a baseball and drawing a figure are COMPLETELY different things. You get no argument from me on that.

My point wasn’t to claim they were the same. Instead, I was pointing out how easy it is to have the best intentions but still give useless advice. You can place your legs farther then your feet and still hit the ball with power. Intellectually, yes, you could be correct but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right or that success will follow.

THAT’S really the point I was trying to make.

In my mind, coaching is not all that different from teaching and teaching is not all that far removed from critiquing since criticism is a form of trying to teach an artist how to improve.

But like all things in life, you can have good coaches, teachers and critics just as easily as you can have bad coaches, teachers and critics.

An athlete, student or artist needs to trust their own instincts as to what that is. And it’s never an easy decision.