inkdick: february 28 2009 parents just don’t understand
So today was the SCAD Zine Fair, and over all it went really well, especially considering it is a small fair open only mostly to SCAD kids and alum. We recorded an episode of Seqalab, I sold a good amount of books, and picked up a lot of good mini-comics from some of Savannah’s finest mini-comicers. And it was also a SCAD Day, which is where high school students and their parents come and visit the college to check it out. I thought that would be a great thing, as I could maybe sell more books, and introduce mini-comics to a new generation of young people and to middle aged parents.
Well, apparently the average mainstream middle aged person will never get mini-comics. When they picked up minis off the tables, their faces just read as “What the hell is this? This is different. This is not safe. I don’t like this, I don’t like being challenged.” Then they would say something unintentionally condescending to the artist and put the comic back on the table. One example of that being when a parent seemed to be soooo amazed that Kevin, who tabled next to me, actually drew a whole comic on his own. Yeah, that is so amazing that a comic artist actually drew a whole comic on their own. Ahem. Anyways. To them I think that they still think comics can only be superheroes or inoffensive newspaper comic strips and ultimately for kids. Their brains and set ways can’t seem to handle the fact that comics can actually be an art-form, can be mature, and that there are artists out there who actually want to make these sort of comics.
Mini-comics and zines are very counter culture, underground, and all that jazz, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that they are not gotten by the mainstream middle aged person, but still. I was hoping that maybe I could help change their perception of what comics are. Oh well. The best I could do is introduce them to the next generation of students so that they will live on. And hope that when I become middle aged myself I am still open minded to new forms of art and ideas.
I need to be fair. There were a small handful of parents that seemed more open to mini-comics, but ultimately the closed minded parents out numbered them.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:23 am
See, I wouldn’t have been so polite and let him walk away after saying something like that.
I would have explained what you just said in as few words as I could get out before they got away. I don’t like it when people always look at art like it should be commercial. It’s terrible.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:27 am
Tedzuka Osamu paved the way for Japanese comics to be accepted as mainstream culture fitting all levels of maturity. Basically, those born in or after the 1950s are in majority open to some sort of comic genre. And thankfully, there is a lot of adult comics, often more about the challenges of life or work or family, than about existential agonies.
I think the 60s~70s shook up generational gaps, and the 80s dream of a scientific utopia made SciFi and related comics more valid, then came the booming Japanese 90s with the economic bubble that turned everyone wealthy, and thus consequentially able to swim in the world of leisure, that often renders an individual eternally childlike, playful.
Beyond the chronology, and the leadership of certain men, the sheer fact that the Japanese comic industry kept aiming at the general public with a great variety of styles and stories meant that it was only a question of time that enough % of the population would be interested by one artist or another.
Unfortunately, the populist mass production would produce cartoons that were more suspenseful than really meaningful, and thoughtful. The demand to write an episode or part of an episode every week or month would force the authors to create a style where they’d end the part with just enough to make the reader want to read the next episode. As readers read more, they read faster, and the drawings grew often flashy, but just that.
I am saddened by the Japanese comic book industry… So big, and so shallow.
March 3rd, 2009 at 8:48 am
FYI. The Army since WWII was using comics as instructional manuals. One that I was introduced to the the ’70’s was “Preventative Maintenance”. At first, I did not get it, then realized the Soldiers who had to take care of vehicles in the motor pools got it . . . that was important. These PM comics are classic.
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:48 am
It’s funny, I can barely imagine not doing a whole comic by myself.
The thing is, on the scale of things that you’ll see at an art school, comics (especially yours and Kevin’s) tend more toward the “normal” end of the spectrum. If the parents are that dismissive of comics, I wonder what they think of abstract art. Or, for that matter, performance art.
But I think things are changing. The comic section at my local library is at least half, maybe more, realist comics. Also, with the exception of some Manga and Marvel/DC books, it’s all considered part of the “adult” section. To me, that’s a huge sign in support of comics gaining more acceptance.
March 3rd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Ouch. That reminds me of the portfolio show my class had. I was in a Visual Communications program so we had illustrators, character designers, graphic designers and advertising. We also had a combined show with the photography department.
People looking through the illustration/character design portfolios while eyeing when the photographer beside me was going to be free. “So . . . what do you plan to do with this after?”
“Probably freelancing illustrating or working in concept art–”
“Good luck with that.” Then leaves and goes to talk to the photographer or graphic designer or whatever.
*facepalm*
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:12 pm
i was expecting him to comment on the title.
March 3rd, 2009 at 6:18 pm
I sold more comics at a non-comics event than I have at any other convention I’ve gone to recently. I guess it depends on the event itself.
Oh, and to that bald guy, “Good luck with your FACE!” Burnn…
March 3rd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
haha the dad you drew totally looks like a thiner version of my dad
March 3rd, 2009 at 11:54 pm
My parents were happy that I majored in Graphic Design (offered via the art department at the school I attend) instead of going to SCAD and doing, in their words, “god knows what.” They don’t see any general arts as a very successful way of supporting oneself, which I suppose I can understand, but I think they forget that sometimes doing what makes you happy is the best thing you can do! I’ve always wanted to do comics and go to a school like SCAD, so you should be very happy that you completed such an opportunity and are doing so well at it!
March 4th, 2009 at 1:25 am
I know it took my parents a while to get used to the idea that comics can be a job. Hell, I didn’t even think about the people behind those Spider-man comics I used to love were doing that as a career until nearly the end of high school. It’s just a whole new world that most of the US just doesn’t know about.
But it does irk me that an artist can spend a lot of his time and money on a comic, only to have someone flip through a few pages and put it down without a word.
March 4th, 2009 at 10:31 am
You know, oddly enough I had a dream last night about a book with your comics in them. Or, really, all I saw was the outside of the book. Hardcover, some nice blue cloth, no dust jacket. And embossed in gold on the lower left toward the center a bit was “inkdick”. No joke.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
It may be because I’m new to this, but I felt a really favorable reaction from the browsing parents. Only one or two picked it up, but nearly all of them were appreciative. Given how often I have to explain mini-comics and zines to people younger than me, I was suprised.
March 5th, 2009 at 10:23 am
Artists, sequential artists, artisans, craftsmen, architecs, ANYONE creative, craves recognition, or appreciation for the time, skill, effort involved in their creation…
but the reality is,
that mostly only peers, contemporaries of these creators are the ones that even begrudgingly sprinkle a trace of appreciation over the creators’ heads…. Yes?… No?…
SOME of the rest of the population, may enjoy… but say NOTHING.
A FEW of the rest of the population… say NOTHING.
MOST of the rest of the population DON’T KNOW about you…
And, the REMAINDER of the rest of the population, even if the KNEW…
would NOT care…
…
only the FEW survive.
…
Is this pessimistic?
no.
just REAL :P
March 5th, 2009 at 10:24 am
btw:
THIS parent CARES :-)