Drawing Yourself into a Corner and then Bitching About It

[tabbiewolf]

Or, How Normal People Operate on the Internet.

There is a post circling Tumblr right now called "The Furry Problem." I was going to bitch about it on Tumblr but in all honesty there's enough to bitch about that I'm moving my bitching here. Go give the post a read (or at least a quick skim), I can wait :)

Done? Alright, it's opinion time!

This post really, REALLY rubs me the wrong way. And I say that as someone who has been a member of the furry fandom for half my life now, and drawing furry art for nearly 30 years (I drew it long before I discovered the fandom). Also please keep in mind I have never read this fellow's comic or any other post he's made, so the post I linked is all I know about him.

First off, he's just not correct:
"As I grew older and began seriously getting into cartooning, I noticed something odd going on around me: the cartoon animal was quickly becoming an endangered species. The animal designs of the 80’s and 90’s TV cartoons were being seen less and less in modern times within the industries that they helped create.

How could this happen? Are people just no longer interested in funny talking animals?"

Uh. Funny talking animals are still pretty popular. Yes, the styles have changed, but they're still there. He seems really focused on the idea of style here; characters like those seen in Adventure Time, Regular Show, and even My Little Pony apparently don't count? Heck, when you get down to it, Spongebob Squarepants and all his undersea buddies are talking animals.

So, instead of thinking: "Hey, maybe I should work on my artistic skills! Drawing humans or in a style other than the one I draw in could be beneficial to my career!", he blames the furry fandom for his not being able to make a decent career out of drawing cartoon animals.

Beyond that, this statement:
"To everyone else, it roughly translates to a fandom entirely focused on sexual deviancy, homosexuality, and sexual activities that incorporate elaborate animal costumes."

...is extremely offensive. Homosexuality being equated with sexual deviancy is pretty fucking awful. Homosexuality is not a choice. Sexual deviancy and fucking in fursuits is. Beyond that, sexual deviancy and fursuit sex aren't hurting anyone AND they aren't any of your business; if you judge someone based on what they do in the bedroom you're basically an asshole (and a voyeur. Seriously, why do you care?). This entire statement sounds like someone trying to justify being against gay marriage (because, you know, those gays make you uncomfortable), and it just reeks of entitlement.

Actually, entitlement is a good word for the whole post, because the entire thing is just sitting there gleaming with it. Oh no, I can't get published because I draw furry art! Uh, so...if you want to get published by the company that rejected you specifically for the cartoon animals, draw something else. You've literally drawn yourself into a corner, and instead of opening your talents and drawing other things, you are blaming the fandom you have boxed yourself into.

To quote my friend Venter: "Remember kids: If you treat the fandom as a stigma, strangers will too."

Another bit from the article, reflecting on what I just said:
"You could argue that it was silly of me to not bend to the pressure and just make Peter & Company an all-human cast, but that is precisely the problem. There shouldn’t be anything WRONG with cartoon animal characters, nor should there have to be a plot-specific reason why these animals can walk and talk."

So far, outside of that one letter saying they weren't accepting comics with cartoon animals at the moment, I really doubt this a problem that's been encountered too much...well, unless this guy is listening to the assholes on the internet, which he probably is. Again, limiting yourself to one genre/fandom/style and then bitching about that genre/fandom/style being the reason you're not popular/can't get published/whatever he's bitching about is quite possibly the most moronic thing I have ever heard.

TLDR: Tabbie's opinion on the "Furry Problems" post is basically her making masturbatory gestures and rolling her eyes.

ANYWAY, I think I've run out of steam on this whole thing, but I just felt like bitching about it, and that's what LJ is for. Everyone is free to chime in your opinions on both the original post and my opinions on it...which is also what LJ is for!

Comments

[fenris-lorsrai.livejournal.com]

Just for shits and giggles, this was the image that was displayed side by side on my friends feed with this post:


AH HAHAHAHA
I love when stuff accidentally does that.

anyway, I have noticed with a lot of furry artists that this is part of their identity. They are FURRY artists and it is part of their identity, as is that outsider status. it's all furry or nothing!

There is most certainly a demand for content featuring anthropomorphic or animal characters. Things released just so far this year in movies that are pretty solidly furry:

• The Nut Job
  
• Rio 2*
  
• Mr Peabody and Sherman
  
• Muppets Most Wanted
  
• Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
  
• How to Train your Dragon *(while not strictly "talking" the dragons definitely communicate and are characters in their own right)
  

The starred ones are in the top ten for movie gross so far this year.

And Guardians of the Galaxy and Ninja Turtles are out in a week.

If you do a soft definition of anthro characters where its characters with animal characteristics or non-human characters with human like characteristics, there's only two movies in the top ten for gross this year that DON'T include some type of anthropomorphic or talking animal character. (Noah and Captain America: the Winter Soldier- I expect Guardians to knock Noah off the list shortly)

Newspapers and comics have sort of been circling the wagons and sticking with more of the same thing that works for several years as their business model undergoes serious seismic changes. So trying to get into that market is pretty hellish. Newspaper strips in particular are HARD but if you actually look at sunday comics, most markets the front page is Peanuts and Garfield and a third strip (here's its For Better or Worse, so the front page is TWO comics that are no longer producing new panels. DEATH TO THE NEW). Inside you find several other strips featuring talking animals. so they aren't exactly missing, but they tend to be very similar. don't fit the mold, don't get the syndication. Nobody wants to rock the boat.

Comic shops tend to be a little more diverse but you had serious shifts in distribution that made it DAMNED HARD to break in there. Diamond Distrributors pretty well has a monopoly and if they don't carry you, too fucking bad.

Traditional book publishers are in the same kind of publishing funk of the big boys largely only accepting manuscripts from known authors. If you do see a breakout, many of those were effectively writing for a smaller publisher and then recruited from there, like a sports team recruiting from farm team.

Now that said, you still see loads of anthropomorphic characters in those medias but you rarely see 100% all talking animal casts. But by far one of the most requested childrens series I get is 100% animal cast. (Erin Hunters "The warriors") Looking at the required summer reading for the schools I see four things there that are considered great lit with talking animals... but are almost never included in discussions about "furry." (The Metamorphosis, Animal Farm, Watership Down, and the more recent The ARt of Racing in the Rain)

So a lot of "furry" artists confine themselves to this very narrow corner of total furry purity and thus aren't being included in the mainstream of pop culture.

I'll leave longer comment about comics, books, and the furry ghetto later, but I need to go to the Arts Council meeting in my furry as all hell t-shirt you gave me and talk about my upcoming gallery show of furry as all hell art aimed at the general public. :P I'm taking my furry ghetto and getting it all over their serious art stuff!

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Pissed off gang member Barney Rubble is best Barney Rubble? What he hell is that from? (It made me laugh)

As I said in my post: masturbatory gestures, eye rolling. I dunno what crawled up this kid's butt, but he's apparently just REALLY PISSED OFF that he can't get a publishing deal and he has to blame it on those goddamn furries!

Also hooray furry ghetto invading serious art stuff! I need to work on getting my various sexy furry pin-ups into art shows just to fuck with The Man or whatever I'm supposed to be fucking with these days.

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

The kid needs to get a more realistic perspective.

"I must have sent out 30 submissions." I know published authors who took 70-80 to get their first story. And those were one-time deals, not steady work like a newspaper comic is.

I'm no comics scholar, but based on publishing history, your first work is often not your best. You will often not sell it. You will look back on it years from now and laugh at how bad your first efforts were.

If they reject you, you need to pick yourself off the floor and write something else. Actually, you're best off if you're writing something else while you're waiting for the response to your first work.

And saying "Hey, we're not looking for cartoon animals right now" isn't anti-furry. It means that your work doesn't meet our needs. Newspapers want variety in their cartoons: a little something to appeal to everyone. It's pretty common in publishing to be told "We're not looking for X right now." This is why you suck it up and send them something else.

As I said before, I'm not educated on comic strips, but looking at the big names:

Charles Schultz of Peanuts started his career drawing 1 panel strips, particularly something called Lil' Folks. Peanuts apparently actually had a rocky start and he was also working on a sports comic called "It's Only a Game" at the same time.

Bill Watterson of Calvin & Hobbes started his career as a political cartoonist and was shortly fired because he didn't understand the local politics. He then got a job with "Target: The Political Cartoon Quarterly." When he did finally sell Calvin & Hobbes, he also apparently embarked on a quest to change comics as they were currently published, so I don't think that initial sale was all that easy. He wanted to do experimental things, and that's hard to get someone to take a chance on.

Gary Larsen of The Far Side published his first work in a small local paper. Then he published his work in another small local paper. It was only after he thought he might break even if he could get just one more contract that he became successful and famous by selling to the San Francisco Chronicle.

I'm sure I could go on and find other stories. I know Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist before he was an author, but I don't know what he did before that.

Essentially, the guy is whining that working in the arts is hard. And, let's face it, working in the arts during an economic collapse (or anywhere for that matter) is hard.

But no, furries ruin everything. It's totally all about them and not about the fact that people aren't interested in his current work or that publishers simply have no space to take on a new strip.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

I have never attempted to get into syndicated comics (it was a childhood dream that died sometime around high school), but I have heard that it is, by far, the most difficult field to break into. You may have to literally break something to become a part of it, or happen to be in the right place at the right time (read: when someone dies or retires a strip, and even then the chances are slim because strips can be republished. CHANGE IS BAD). At least in fiction, there's many many many publishers; comic strips get I think two? One might have bought the other one and it might just be one now.

The fact that this kid is running a regular webcomic and has for nearly a decade is nothing to sneeze at, but damn, he's ruining it by being a spoilsport and whining about not being "professionally" published. Seriously, kid, set up a Kickstarter, start a Patreon, do something other than bitch and moan and blame the furry fandom for what is really a lack of effort on your part.

I realize I'm preaching to the choir here ;)

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Cathy Guisewhite apparently fell into being a cartoonist. She made doodles to deal with her own issues as a professional woman in the '70s trying to figure out the rules in the post-feminist era. Should she be girly or worry about rights?

Her mother pushed her and pushed her to send in the doodles, and so she finally did so to get her mother off her back. And it sold on the first try. Shortly thereafter she was in 150 newspapers making $50,000 per year.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Cathy strip. But I suspect she was accepted because her viewpoint was new and she was making comics about situations that were unique to her generation at a time that women of her generation needed a voice. I do respect that.

So, you can try that route, but that kind of chance doesn't happen often.

[stokerbramwell.livejournal.com]

You know what kills me about this is that this is all based on him failing to get NEWSPAPER syndication. You know, when the age of the average newspaper reader is 55?

He is trying to break into a market that not only has always been notoriously difficult to break into, but which is shrinking more and more every day and which has absolutely no interest in the type of product he's trying to sell.

Also he draws porn too, but it's of him and his wife sneaking exhibitionist sex in public places so I guess that doesn't count as "deviancy."

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Yeah, SpotWeld and I were discussing this yesterday -- I haven't read his comic or seen his archive on FA (or wherever he has one), but Spot has. He was like "Oh, he draws porn too," and I was really surprised.

Judging others for "sexual deviancy" and completely ignoring your own contributions to the world of furry pornography is just sad. And it makes the whole rant sound even more like the crap coming out of certain political parties.

[stokerbramwell.livejournal.com]

You know the icing on the cake? He's actually extraordinarily successful online. He recently made $10k on Patreon. Dude doesn't even NEED syndication...

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

It has also occurred to me that from a publishing perspective, newspapers likely don't want to support an internet comic for fear it might just bleed more readers from the mag.

IF the guy wanted to try to sell a publisher, he should figure out if there's a particular locale where a large number of his readers live and try to sell the publisher by convincing him that his comics will sell more papers through him encouraging his fans.

ETA: Or, you know, do something totally different from the Peter & Company strip that he's already producing. Something unique to the printed medium.

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

I really don't understand why he is SO STUCK on the one comic instead of branching out -- have a few different ideas to send to publishers, and keep producing Peter & Company online to show that yes, he can do a strip on a regular basis. I believe that's what DC Simpson did, and now she's actually being published by a syndicate (after years and years of trying, and I think just online, but I don't read physical newspapers anymore...she also has a well developed online fandom of her own, because of those years of online publishing).

Of course, I have the exact opposite problem: I have dozens of story ideas but can't keep myself rolling on just one, and though I'm proud of them, if anyone said "Change this and we'll publish you and give you lots of money" I probably would, whereas this guy won't allow any critique at all apparently. I'm comfortable being a sellout if it comes to it!

[world-dancer.livejournal.com]

Listening to critiques doesn't make you a sell out. An author has to be willing to work with an editor. No one writes so well that they're above editing. Even editors themselves.

Of course, that doesn't mean you should always just do what the boss says, but if you don't you should have reflected and have a well-thought out reason why you disagree. Other than "because I want to" or the dreaded "but it's my style."

[corelog.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I didn't read that post as whining or bitching, and it seemed to be respectably written. I didn't read it as anti-gay, anti-deviant, or anything else.

He could have adapted his style if he chose, sure. He could have submitted his comic more times. But I personally read the post less as whining and bitching and more as reflection on the fact that people do listen to all the anti-furry crap, and toning it down might be a good thing.

Especially for furry trolls, who like to mock their own fandom and post anti-furry comments so they can scare off the mundanes and keep the fandom "pure". Yes, I have seen this with my own eyes!

[tabbiewolf.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I'm not surprised that exists, sadly.

I dunno, to me, the whole thing read as a case of sour grapes. "I didn't get accepted to one of the most difficult fields of publishing to get into because my art is furry and the furry fandom can't stay out of the spotlight as weirdos." Don't get me wrong: it was well-written...though, truth be told, he's been editing it as more comments critiquing the post have been made; I wish I'd copied the original when it was posted.

Eh, I got my own bitching on the subject out of my system with this post. I wish him luck getting published, but I still don't think you should blame something that is completely out of your control -- and more than likely, always will be -- for your perceived lack of success. *shrug*