Hello everyone! This week I FINALLY got around to making another Let’s Draw video. It’s been so long because of the move and the lack of established routines in the summer, I haven’t had the time I’d normally have to make them, but stuff is starting to normalize again so here we are. Also school is out here in Canada, which means there aren’t as many kids who see the videos (as a few teacher friends show the videos in their classes). Anyways! In this video we’re drawing books which is pretty straight forward and fun and something I think is useful for everybody to know how to draw. For the hard mode I did a cute lil’ pikachu painting. If you don’t wanna watch the whole video, I’d still recommend checking this short pikachu timelapse video out:
I also got around to making some comics this week. Check ’em out!
Ahh. Social Media. Right now the thing that drives me the most insane about social media (if you can’t tell from the comic above) is that, at one point, it was an enjoyable experience because it was simple: Follow the people you want to see, then you see their stuff when they post it. Videos, cat pics, whatever- you see it as people make it. For me, that meant following a bunch of web cartoonists and whenever I open the app (instagram specifically for me) I’d see their stuff in real-time. But somewhere along the ways the social media companies realized that the simple way of doing social media wasn’t going to lead to enough engagement with their apps so they could accomplish their purposes (this was probably pretty early on to be honest) and so algorithms were implemented to try to drive engagement endless scroll etc etc etc. I get why they did it- it just sucks and takes the fun out of it.
I follow about 100 cartoonists and I know they’re still making stuff, but I don’t see hardly any of it. I DO see a lot of tik-tok videos re-posted. It’s not really what I want or why i started using any of these platforms. Facebook is the worst, of course: Scrolling through my feed, 5/10 things I see are from actual people, and the other 5 are suggested posts trying to get me to engage more. It’d be like watching 15 minutes of tv and sitting through 15 minutes of ads! …wait a sec… that’s basically what cable is (and people PAY for cable! what the heck!?)
I DON’T have a patreon, btw. I’ve almost set one up a few times, but I always stop short of publishing it. If you’re unfamiliar with patreon, it’s a system set up that allows people to be a patron of the arts and support artists/musicians/whatevers. You give anywhere from $3 or $5 or $10 a month and beyond to get different rewards from the person you’re supporting, and the person you support hopefully has enough people chipping in that it’s worth it to foster that community of support. If analytics can be trusted, I have tens of thousands of people that see these comics. Out of that number, there are about five hundred people across different platforms that go out of their way to follow my stuff, and then out of those there are about 50 people who I know regularly see and interact with the stuff I make (with a like or a comment or whatever). Out of those 50, how many want to kick in a couple bucks? Maybe one or two. I’m super thankful for everybody that reads my comics and for those who take the time to let me know they like em, don’t get me wrong- I’m not complaining. I don’t think my audience is broad enough to build a viable livelihood through my cartooning, those numbers just don’t make any kind of sense to me for launching a patreon. It seems like more trouble than it’d be worth for like, MAYBE $5-$15 a month. ‘leveraging’ social media, patreon, kick starter, indie gogo… it all starts to feel like a scheme that I don’t really want to have any part of. I don’t want to leverage people. I just want to make comics and help other people find joy in self expression through creative means, you know? YOU KNOW!?
Yeah, you know.
Being bad at the internet isn’t going to stop me from making comics. and music. and videos. but comics specifically! I love making comics! I’ve tried to stop many times over the last decade and I just CAN’T. It’s my favourite way to try to spread some joy in the world. I don’t care if it won’t make me money. It’s nice to remind myself of this from time to time.
So, with that in mind, here’s some archive dive:
I LOVE the blinking comic, it didn’t translate as well to print (obviously) but I think it’s fun none-the-less.
Thanks so much for reading!
GO GO MACH ROCKET SHEEP! 