Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...
Years ago, I talked about the notion of personalized comics. You give a company your name and a handful of minor details, an they could drop those into a comic book story thereby making you a character in the story. I had a storybook version of this as a kid, but it had to be manually typewritten. I suspect it was a HUGE amount of effort and only worked finanically because they must have paid someone slave wages to type the whole script out for each and every book that was sold. Marvel attempted this in the 1990s, relying on their Captain Universe character as a stand-in for the customer.
(The whole Captain Universe concept is brilliantly ideal for this type of thing. Like, if I didn't know better, I'd like the character was specifically created for exactly a project like this.)
Up until maybe 2000-2005 or so, those types of stories were relatively rare because it did require a fair amount of manual effort. However, by 2009, when I wrote that post, the technology was far enough along that I felt it could be handled relatively easily. Databases meant you could plug in the inividual's name and details into the story quickly and effortlessly, digital lettering meant that dropping that now-customized script into art files was also automatic, and print-on-demand printing meant that there would be effectively no set-up prouction costs. You've removed virtually all of the manual labor involved with creating these beyond developing the initial basic story. So why was no one doing personalized comics?
Well, apparently someone has finally gotten around to it!
Poorly.
Well, poorly from a comic book art perspective at any rate.
There is now a Scooby-Doo framework where you can personalize yourself into a graphic novel version of "What a Night for a Knight," the very first Scooby-Doo cartoon from 1969. You plug in some basic details about yourself -- including a customizeable Hanna-Barbera-style avatar -- and they'll produce a hardcover book of the story with you inserted as a new character...
I'm of two minds about the result here. In the first place, the addition of a customizeable character is relatively well-done. I mean, yeah, there is some measure of looking like the additional character was just pasted into existing art, but it's not at all bad for a completely customized, entirely new character design to be dropped into an existing story automatically. Certainly a vast improvement over the generic art that just presented a generic character and only change the name in older books of this type. But whoever put this together doesn't seem to have much knowledge or familiarity with actual comic books. Setting aside that it looks like they basically just took screen shots of the original cartoon, the page and panel flow is clunky at best.
I learned about this project from Scott Niswander's recent video about his going through and getting one of these. He's the one who noted the panels look like screen shots of the show. (I'm almost certain they're not precisely just screen shots, though -- those wouldn't print well AT ALL. They must be re-drawn. Either new for this project or re-purpose from an old storybook based on the episode?) He also noted that much of the dialogue assigned to his character is just lifted from other characters in the show, mostly Daphne and Velma. All of which suggests to me that this project was almost entirely built out by the programmers and developers figuring out how to make all the backend systems run as smoothly as possible, and there was minimal effort on the creative/storytelling side of things. Which further suggests to me that this is more of a proof-of-concept product than anything else. They're testing this to see if it is indeed profitable to make these types of books on a more affordable scale that than used to be possible.
If that is the case, I hope this is successful. I'd love to see more of these types of things -- I'm genuinely disappointed these haven't been more prevalent given how ubitquitous the technology is. I'd just like to see them afforded some interesting and creative storytelling by professional cartoonists to make some results that are cool and interesting beyond just the fact of their existence and the potential they purport.
Up until maybe 2000-2005 or so, those types of stories were relatively rare because it did require a fair amount of manual effort. However, by 2009, when I wrote that post, the technology was far enough along that I felt it could be handled relatively easily. Databases meant you could plug in the inividual's name and details into the story quickly and effortlessly, digital lettering meant that dropping that now-customized script into art files was also automatic, and print-on-demand printing meant that there would be effectively no set-up prouction costs. You've removed virtually all of the manual labor involved with creating these beyond developing the initial basic story. So why was no one doing personalized comics?
Well, apparently someone has finally gotten around to it!
Poorly.
Well, poorly from a comic book art perspective at any rate.
There is now a Scooby-Doo framework where you can personalize yourself into a graphic novel version of "What a Night for a Knight," the very first Scooby-Doo cartoon from 1969. You plug in some basic details about yourself -- including a customizeable Hanna-Barbera-style avatar -- and they'll produce a hardcover book of the story with you inserted as a new character...
I learned about this project from Scott Niswander's recent video about his going through and getting one of these. He's the one who noted the panels look like screen shots of the show. (I'm almost certain they're not precisely just screen shots, though -- those wouldn't print well AT ALL. They must be re-drawn. Either new for this project or re-purpose from an old storybook based on the episode?) He also noted that much of the dialogue assigned to his character is just lifted from other characters in the show, mostly Daphne and Velma. All of which suggests to me that this project was almost entirely built out by the programmers and developers figuring out how to make all the backend systems run as smoothly as possible, and there was minimal effort on the creative/storytelling side of things. Which further suggests to me that this is more of a proof-of-concept product than anything else. They're testing this to see if it is indeed profitable to make these types of books on a more affordable scale that than used to be possible.
If that is the case, I hope this is successful. I'd love to see more of these types of things -- I'm genuinely disappointed these haven't been more prevalent given how ubitquitous the technology is. I'd just like to see them afforded some interesting and creative storytelling by professional cartoonists to make some results that are cool and interesting beyond just the fact of their existence and the potential they purport.
It would appear that Patreon is changing some of it's methodology again. Jennie Gyllblad posted a video this week explaining it from the creator side of things. Most of the video is her response and what she will be doing to adjust, but she covers the basics of what's happening in the first two-ish minutes if you want the basic gist of it...
Gyllblad's (and I suspect many other creators') concern is ultimately that the business model that they've been relying on for however long is being disrupted. If Patreon suddenly collapsed, that would be akin to your losing your job. This is perhaps closer to your employer saying, "instead of paying you every two weeks, we're just going to give you one big paycheck every quarter." Even if the end dollar amount is essentially the same, you would likely have to significantly alter how you handle your personal budget. It's not a perfect analogy, I know, but the point is that you have to find a way to radically restructure how you handle your income even though, on paper, it doesn't seem all that different.
Of course, Patreon is free to establish their rules however they see fit, and some of this is in response to Apple changing the rules of their app store. (Although I'm not sure why Patreon even needs an app. If you're giving them credit card an contact information for billing purposes anyway, the app wouldn't offer much more useable data. I mean, yeah, technically it would have more data but how would they use it? I suppose they could read what other apps you use and try to suggest other Patreon campaigns based on your interests there, but I don't think they've ever pursued that. That would be more difficult and less accurate than just suggesting campaigns based on other campaigns you've already backed, which is what they do already. So ultimately, the app doesn't offer Patreon any functional advantage over just having a website that can be viewed on a person's phone. But hey, that's me thinking like a user.) I expect Patreon looked at their user base, saw that the majority of creators just use a monthly setup anyway and decided that they could save some money in development/maintence costs if they forced everyone into a single billing standard. The number of creators like Gyllblad who might find this problematic are inconsequential as far as they're concerned.
Crowd-funding was a major disruptor in the comics market. Not just Patreon, but Kickstater and IndieGoGo and all of them writ-large. They allow creators to work in regular, micro-payment systems that would be, at best, difficult to manage with digital funds-transfer options like PayPal or Venmo. However, there haven't been enough variants in the overall system that have become successful enough to offer competition. The problem with this type of market is that you're not just talking about a basic product alternative that you can cast aside if you ultimately don't like it; people are understandably more reluctant to turn over credit card info for regular payments to a company they're unfamiliar with. Which means competitors take longer to build up trust, and it takes more to get consumers to switch.
All of which means Patreon can "get away with" more significant changes with less impact than many other industries. They're likely counting on that. They pushed that limit a few years ago when they attempted to push processing fees down to the indiviual consumer (Gyllblad references this in her video) because that was a change that impacted literally everyone on their platform. I don't doubt that they're considering here that it won't get as much pushback because it doesn't impact nearly as many people.
I don't have a real solution or answer to any of this. I point it out mostly to spotlight that this is what 21st century capitalism looks like for comic creators. Companies have always been in business to take as much of your money as possible with the least effort/expense possible, and this is just the 2024 version of how that plays out. Independent creators are heroic in my mind for even attempting to carve out a living in this environment, and this type of thing is just one of the many challenges they have to face just to to make something that might not sell to the broadest swath of the population.
Gyllblad's (and I suspect many other creators') concern is ultimately that the business model that they've been relying on for however long is being disrupted. If Patreon suddenly collapsed, that would be akin to your losing your job. This is perhaps closer to your employer saying, "instead of paying you every two weeks, we're just going to give you one big paycheck every quarter." Even if the end dollar amount is essentially the same, you would likely have to significantly alter how you handle your personal budget. It's not a perfect analogy, I know, but the point is that you have to find a way to radically restructure how you handle your income even though, on paper, it doesn't seem all that different.
Of course, Patreon is free to establish their rules however they see fit, and some of this is in response to Apple changing the rules of their app store. (Although I'm not sure why Patreon even needs an app. If you're giving them credit card an contact information for billing purposes anyway, the app wouldn't offer much more useable data. I mean, yeah, technically it would have more data but how would they use it? I suppose they could read what other apps you use and try to suggest other Patreon campaigns based on your interests there, but I don't think they've ever pursued that. That would be more difficult and less accurate than just suggesting campaigns based on other campaigns you've already backed, which is what they do already. So ultimately, the app doesn't offer Patreon any functional advantage over just having a website that can be viewed on a person's phone. But hey, that's me thinking like a user.) I expect Patreon looked at their user base, saw that the majority of creators just use a monthly setup anyway and decided that they could save some money in development/maintence costs if they forced everyone into a single billing standard. The number of creators like Gyllblad who might find this problematic are inconsequential as far as they're concerned.
Crowd-funding was a major disruptor in the comics market. Not just Patreon, but Kickstater and IndieGoGo and all of them writ-large. They allow creators to work in regular, micro-payment systems that would be, at best, difficult to manage with digital funds-transfer options like PayPal or Venmo. However, there haven't been enough variants in the overall system that have become successful enough to offer competition. The problem with this type of market is that you're not just talking about a basic product alternative that you can cast aside if you ultimately don't like it; people are understandably more reluctant to turn over credit card info for regular payments to a company they're unfamiliar with. Which means competitors take longer to build up trust, and it takes more to get consumers to switch.
All of which means Patreon can "get away with" more significant changes with less impact than many other industries. They're likely counting on that. They pushed that limit a few years ago when they attempted to push processing fees down to the indiviual consumer (Gyllblad references this in her video) because that was a change that impacted literally everyone on their platform. I don't doubt that they're considering here that it won't get as much pushback because it doesn't impact nearly as many people.
I don't have a real solution or answer to any of this. I point it out mostly to spotlight that this is what 21st century capitalism looks like for comic creators. Companies have always been in business to take as much of your money as possible with the least effort/expense possible, and this is just the 2024 version of how that plays out. Independent creators are heroic in my mind for even attempting to carve out a living in this environment, and this type of thing is just one of the many challenges they have to face just to to make something that might not sell to the broadest swath of the population.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton is perhaps most-remembered these days as the author who first wrote, “It was a dark and stormy night” as the opening line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford. Despite the scorn that style of writing often receives today, Bulwer-Lytton was actually fairly popular writer in his day. He published 28 novels, four plays and several books of poetry. He also introduced several well-known phrases into the English lexicon including, “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almigthy dollar” and “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
One of his last novels, published in 1871, was called The Coming Race and centered around the exploration of a utopian society that lives in a subterranean world beneath the Earth’s crust. This underground society runs on an “all-permeating fluid” called Vril, which some modern readers have equated with atomic energy. The ideas in Bulwer-Lytton’s book proved so popular that “Vril” began to be used in 1870s slang to mean a powerful, healing elixir (often what we would call snake oil, but still…) and some theosophists have gone so far as to accept his book as having a significant element of truth to it.
The book remained popular enough over the ensuing two decades that Dr. Herbert Tibbitts of the West End Hospital in London used it as the theme of his 1891 fundraiser, which he called the “Vril-ya Bazaar an Fete.” The Wikipedia entry has a decent enough summary of the event, but the short version is that the four-day event featured characters in cosplay, vendors selling vril-themed items, and decorations that took their cues from the location descriptions in Bulwer-Lytton’s book.
The event was far from a success, winding up substantially in the red and garnering more than a few critical reviews. His previous year’s event had been a rousing success, so the failure of the “Vril-ya Bazaar” must have been particularly disappointing. Some have casually wondered that perhaps the science fiction nature of Bulwer-Lytton’s story was too strange for Victorian England. But I suspect that’s not the only reason for the failure. After all, the first day of the Bazaar seemed to be well-received and a cosplayer dressed as Princess Zee was hailed for her winged costume.
What seems to have been missed, however, is that Bulwer-Lytton died in 1873, nearly twenty years before Tibbitts’ event. Popular fiction of the 1890s had been shifting towards a less flowery style as exemplified in the Sherlock Holmes stories that began appearing in 1887. Science fiction as a genre wasn’t dead, as evidenced by the continuing work of Jules Verne, and the popularity H.G. Wells began to see a few years later. But Bulwer-Lytton’s particular brand of science ficiton, more specifically the style in which he wrote science fiction, had fallen out of favor. The waning interest in his work almost certainly impacted the Bazaar’s reception.
There were, of course, additional problems specific to how the Bazaar was executed. The themed-constructions were showing their wear after only a day or two, and the “flying” Vril-ya mannequins had mechanical problems that led them to eventually just hanging motionless. But that the event wasn’t especially well-attended in the first place suggests that there were deeper problems with the show. Munro suggests a lack of adequate advertising may have played a part, but given how resoundingly successful Tibbit’s previous fund-raisers had been, this strikes me as doubtful.
I think what we can glean from this is that being in tune with your audience is key. Tibbit’s apparent personal interest in The Coming Race didn’t carry over to much of anyone else. There were undoubtedly still fans of Bulwer-Lytton’s work in 1891, but not in the numbers that Tibbit needed. Show organizers today seem to recognize that, and that partly speaks to why so many guests are included. It might not be profitable to just bring in Gil Gerard, but if you also bring in the likes of Nichelle Nichols, Peter Mayhew, Sylvestor McCoy, Richard Hatch, and Marc McClure, you might be able to attract a wide enough swath of interested parties to draw some crowds. A dedicated show to a single character or property only works if you’re able to capture it while it’s still popular, but miss that window and you’re stuck with a room full of annoyed guests wondering why only one costume included electric lights.
One of his last novels, published in 1871, was called The Coming Race and centered around the exploration of a utopian society that lives in a subterranean world beneath the Earth’s crust. This underground society runs on an “all-permeating fluid” called Vril, which some modern readers have equated with atomic energy. The ideas in Bulwer-Lytton’s book proved so popular that “Vril” began to be used in 1870s slang to mean a powerful, healing elixir (often what we would call snake oil, but still…) and some theosophists have gone so far as to accept his book as having a significant element of truth to it.
The book remained popular enough over the ensuing two decades that Dr. Herbert Tibbitts of the West End Hospital in London used it as the theme of his 1891 fundraiser, which he called the “Vril-ya Bazaar an Fete.” The Wikipedia entry has a decent enough summary of the event, but the short version is that the four-day event featured characters in cosplay, vendors selling vril-themed items, and decorations that took their cues from the location descriptions in Bulwer-Lytton’s book.
The event was far from a success, winding up substantially in the red and garnering more than a few critical reviews. His previous year’s event had been a rousing success, so the failure of the “Vril-ya Bazaar” must have been particularly disappointing. Some have casually wondered that perhaps the science fiction nature of Bulwer-Lytton’s story was too strange for Victorian England. But I suspect that’s not the only reason for the failure. After all, the first day of the Bazaar seemed to be well-received and a cosplayer dressed as Princess Zee was hailed for her winged costume.
What seems to have been missed, however, is that Bulwer-Lytton died in 1873, nearly twenty years before Tibbitts’ event. Popular fiction of the 1890s had been shifting towards a less flowery style as exemplified in the Sherlock Holmes stories that began appearing in 1887. Science fiction as a genre wasn’t dead, as evidenced by the continuing work of Jules Verne, and the popularity H.G. Wells began to see a few years later. But Bulwer-Lytton’s particular brand of science ficiton, more specifically the style in which he wrote science fiction, had fallen out of favor. The waning interest in his work almost certainly impacted the Bazaar’s reception.
There were, of course, additional problems specific to how the Bazaar was executed. The themed-constructions were showing their wear after only a day or two, and the “flying” Vril-ya mannequins had mechanical problems that led them to eventually just hanging motionless. But that the event wasn’t especially well-attended in the first place suggests that there were deeper problems with the show. Munro suggests a lack of adequate advertising may have played a part, but given how resoundingly successful Tibbit’s previous fund-raisers had been, this strikes me as doubtful.
I think what we can glean from this is that being in tune with your audience is key. Tibbit’s apparent personal interest in The Coming Race didn’t carry over to much of anyone else. There were undoubtedly still fans of Bulwer-Lytton’s work in 1891, but not in the numbers that Tibbit needed. Show organizers today seem to recognize that, and that partly speaks to why so many guests are included. It might not be profitable to just bring in Gil Gerard, but if you also bring in the likes of Nichelle Nichols, Peter Mayhew, Sylvestor McCoy, Richard Hatch, and Marc McClure, you might be able to attract a wide enough swath of interested parties to draw some crowds. A dedicated show to a single character or property only works if you’re able to capture it while it’s still popular, but miss that window and you’re stuck with a room full of annoyed guests wondering why only one costume included electric lights.
My background is in graphic design. I went to college in the early 1990s and got a Bachelor's degree in it, before working in the field for several years. The timing of my education is particularly interesting because that is precisely the period when the profession was changing from traditional, analog materials and processes to digital ones. When I started school, they had just opened a computer lab and it consisted entirely of three computers, one of which was hooked up to a flatbed scanner and was allowed to be used for that. And despite only having that few machines, it was never full. By the time I graduated, the lab had expanded to about 100 computers and you frequently found yourself waiting for someone to finish up so you could jump on the machine they were using. During my internship between my sophomore and junior years, we had a local photographer give us a tour of his studio to drum up business and his main selling point was that he had the only digital camera in the tri-state area.
This timing meant that we were among a pretty small group of graphic designers who were actively trained on BOTH traditional and contemporary techniques. I don't doubt design students today get history lessons on how things were done before computers, but we were basically the last group of students who actually had to practice those techniques. Corrections made by hand on physical paste-up boards that then had to be photostatted for a final piece. Taking tours of printing presses which still largely relied on processes that had been in place for the better part of a century.
This background has proven to be immensely useful in my comic book hobby. Because I have a pretty intimate knowledge of old production techniques, I can look at old comics and understand precisely what went into making them and why they look the way they do. When I learned about the pink/green variant of Fantastic Four #110, just one glance told me exactly what happened. Because I'm familiar with those printing processes, it was immediately obvious what had happened; there was essentialy only one way that could've happened. I was formally studying graphic design, not comic books, but the printing process remains basically the same whether you're making newspapers, magazines, fliers, posters, record album covers, cereal boxes, stickers, menus, greeting cards, election ballots, and just about anything vaguely paper-ish that has printing on it. Including comic books.
All of which I use as a preface for today's post to say that I'm very familiar with printing production processes. But it's still only within the past year or so that I've learned about flongs.
Flongs are an intermediary step in the printing process. They were basically a way to get printing plates that were set up in an even, flat format into a curved one that would fit on the rollers used in massive sheet-fed presses. I had always assumed that the original flat plates were heated just sufficiently enough to to bend them into a curved shape without appreciably distoring the details for printing. But that is not the case. Instead, these flexible flongs were made off the flat plate and then used to cast a curved plate from. Glenn Fleishman has this pretty comprehensive post about the history and development of flongs. The reason they're generally not discussed in printing process histories likely multi-faceted. In the first place, they were essentially a very minor aspect of the printing process that you wouldn't need to know about unless you were the person who had to make them. In the second place, they were generally made out of paper or a paper-ish material that often got damaged in their use and discarded. Even when they weren't simply burned after usage, they're fragile enough that they'd get damaged in the same way that old newspapers and comic books might if they're not cared for.
Earlier this year, Fleishman actually ran a Kickstarter campaign to write about the entire production process of comics. It's called How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page. Following his work on the book is where I first heard about flongs. (The flongs I have pictured here were ones he sent me as part of my backing the campaign.) His book is printed now and shipping as we speak. He was kind enough to share with me a digital copy shortly before it went to press and, again, even with my comfortable background in printing and production processes, I learned a great deal. I'd like to suggest if you want to know about how comics were produced for basically any time during the twentieth century, I can assure you this is the best book on the subject. And while his focus is primrily newspaper comics, the exact same techniques were used for comic books as well. So if your interest is more in X-Men than Peanuts, just pretend it says "Wolverine" instead of "Snoopy" and you'll be good. Despite the book being a Kickstarter project, Fleishman is selling copies directly from his site for $73.50 US. Which might sound a little steep but it is an impressively long and detailed look at the process -- more detailed than I've ever seen anywhere for comics -- and I can all-but-guarantee you'll learn something new because it's just that well-researched and comprehensive. I am 100% certain he'll get an Eisner nomination at least for this, if he doesn't outright win. Seriously, if you have any interest whatsoever in the production side of comics, I highly recommend you check this out!
This timing meant that we were among a pretty small group of graphic designers who were actively trained on BOTH traditional and contemporary techniques. I don't doubt design students today get history lessons on how things were done before computers, but we were basically the last group of students who actually had to practice those techniques. Corrections made by hand on physical paste-up boards that then had to be photostatted for a final piece. Taking tours of printing presses which still largely relied on processes that had been in place for the better part of a century.
This background has proven to be immensely useful in my comic book hobby. Because I have a pretty intimate knowledge of old production techniques, I can look at old comics and understand precisely what went into making them and why they look the way they do. When I learned about the pink/green variant of Fantastic Four #110, just one glance told me exactly what happened. Because I'm familiar with those printing processes, it was immediately obvious what had happened; there was essentialy only one way that could've happened. I was formally studying graphic design, not comic books, but the printing process remains basically the same whether you're making newspapers, magazines, fliers, posters, record album covers, cereal boxes, stickers, menus, greeting cards, election ballots, and just about anything vaguely paper-ish that has printing on it. Including comic books.
All of which I use as a preface for today's post to say that I'm very familiar with printing production processes. But it's still only within the past year or so that I've learned about flongs.
Flongs are an intermediary step in the printing process. They were basically a way to get printing plates that were set up in an even, flat format into a curved one that would fit on the rollers used in massive sheet-fed presses. I had always assumed that the original flat plates were heated just sufficiently enough to to bend them into a curved shape without appreciably distoring the details for printing. But that is not the case. Instead, these flexible flongs were made off the flat plate and then used to cast a curved plate from. Glenn Fleishman has this pretty comprehensive post about the history and development of flongs. The reason they're generally not discussed in printing process histories likely multi-faceted. In the first place, they were essentially a very minor aspect of the printing process that you wouldn't need to know about unless you were the person who had to make them. In the second place, they were generally made out of paper or a paper-ish material that often got damaged in their use and discarded. Even when they weren't simply burned after usage, they're fragile enough that they'd get damaged in the same way that old newspapers and comic books might if they're not cared for.
Earlier this year, Fleishman actually ran a Kickstarter campaign to write about the entire production process of comics. It's called How Comics Were Made: A Visual History from the Drawing Board to the Printed Page. Following his work on the book is where I first heard about flongs. (The flongs I have pictured here were ones he sent me as part of my backing the campaign.) His book is printed now and shipping as we speak. He was kind enough to share with me a digital copy shortly before it went to press and, again, even with my comfortable background in printing and production processes, I learned a great deal. I'd like to suggest if you want to know about how comics were produced for basically any time during the twentieth century, I can assure you this is the best book on the subject. And while his focus is primrily newspaper comics, the exact same techniques were used for comic books as well. So if your interest is more in X-Men than Peanuts, just pretend it says "Wolverine" instead of "Snoopy" and you'll be good. Despite the book being a Kickstarter project, Fleishman is selling copies directly from his site for $73.50 US. Which might sound a little steep but it is an impressively long and detailed look at the process -- more detailed than I've ever seen anywhere for comics -- and I can all-but-guarantee you'll learn something new because it's just that well-researched and comprehensive. I am 100% certain he'll get an Eisner nomination at least for this, if he doesn't outright win. Seriously, if you have any interest whatsoever in the production side of comics, I highly recommend you check this out!
The concept of branding is relatively recent in the span of human history. For centuries, if you wanted to buy a horse, you’d talk to some guy like Wilbur Post and buy your horse directly from him. But by the 20th century, if you wanted to buy a car, you did not talk to Henry Ford; you bought it from a salesman who sold cars made by people that Ford employed. With several layers between the customer and the person(s) who created whatever it is they were buying, there was little emotional accountability and/or attachment. Add mass media on top of that, and you wind up with corporations so far removed from their customers, that they have to spend time selling their own image as well as their products.
The other reason for branding is for a single corporation to provide a consistent message. As soon as you start adding people to a group, the danger for sending mixed messages exponentionally rises. Each person has their own beliefs and values, of course, and they might not all perfectly align with the ones of everyone in the group. So people who run corporations use branding, in part, to help ensure that all of their employees are adhering to a single message.
But here’s the interesting thing: this applies to individuals as well. You might think that a lone cartoonist, just by the simple fact that they’re a single individual, would pretty much always project a pretty straight-forward brand presence. They might not have a logo or company uniform, but they would still, theoretically, present basically the same face to their readers. Their audience would grow accustomed to their update schedule, style of humor, speech patterns, etc.—all of which would help to make up the cartoonist’s own brand.
The problem with that is that we, as humans who interact with the rest of the world, are not single individuals. Think about this: how do you talk and act around your friends, and how does that differ from how you talk and act around your parents? Around co-workers? Around the clerk at the grocery store? Around the repairman who’s fixing your refridgerator? Around your significant other? You become a slightly different person in each of those situations/interactions.
What that means is that the presence a comic creator puts out online might run into conflict when they encounter someone other than their anticipated audience in that environment. A relative, an old bully from grade school, an ex… And though that interaction might be completely typical for those two individuals, it’s now on display for everyone else the creator interacts with. And if their interactions are radically different than what they’re seeing, that’s going to have a negative impact on the individual’s brand.
That’s how/why we’ve saw a rise in so many mea culpas in professional sports starting a decade or so back; viewers started seeing athletes in settings and interactions outside the normal playing field more often, and those interactions are at odds with the good sportsmanship ethos usually shown on the field.
All of which is to say that, while corporations pioneered the notion of broad-scale branding to unify how their audience sees them, it’s perhaps not a bad idea to try applying the same ideas at a smaller scale to coalesce the personal branding of comic creators. A set of rules and guidelines on how to act or respond online that can be referred to when an atypical interaction crops up. While cartoonists are less likely than pro athletes to be caught on video, they’re probably more likely to post something untoward online; and these days, both are equally likely to damage a reputation or, worse, a livelihood.
The other reason for branding is for a single corporation to provide a consistent message. As soon as you start adding people to a group, the danger for sending mixed messages exponentionally rises. Each person has their own beliefs and values, of course, and they might not all perfectly align with the ones of everyone in the group. So people who run corporations use branding, in part, to help ensure that all of their employees are adhering to a single message.
But here’s the interesting thing: this applies to individuals as well. You might think that a lone cartoonist, just by the simple fact that they’re a single individual, would pretty much always project a pretty straight-forward brand presence. They might not have a logo or company uniform, but they would still, theoretically, present basically the same face to their readers. Their audience would grow accustomed to their update schedule, style of humor, speech patterns, etc.—all of which would help to make up the cartoonist’s own brand.
The problem with that is that we, as humans who interact with the rest of the world, are not single individuals. Think about this: how do you talk and act around your friends, and how does that differ from how you talk and act around your parents? Around co-workers? Around the clerk at the grocery store? Around the repairman who’s fixing your refridgerator? Around your significant other? You become a slightly different person in each of those situations/interactions.
What that means is that the presence a comic creator puts out online might run into conflict when they encounter someone other than their anticipated audience in that environment. A relative, an old bully from grade school, an ex… And though that interaction might be completely typical for those two individuals, it’s now on display for everyone else the creator interacts with. And if their interactions are radically different than what they’re seeing, that’s going to have a negative impact on the individual’s brand.
That’s how/why we’ve saw a rise in so many mea culpas in professional sports starting a decade or so back; viewers started seeing athletes in settings and interactions outside the normal playing field more often, and those interactions are at odds with the good sportsmanship ethos usually shown on the field.
All of which is to say that, while corporations pioneered the notion of broad-scale branding to unify how their audience sees them, it’s perhaps not a bad idea to try applying the same ideas at a smaller scale to coalesce the personal branding of comic creators. A set of rules and guidelines on how to act or respond online that can be referred to when an atypical interaction crops up. While cartoonists are less likely than pro athletes to be caught on video, they’re probably more likely to post something untoward online; and these days, both are equally likely to damage a reputation or, worse, a livelihood.
Here are this week's links to what I've had published recently...