Comic Fury Webcomic Hosting - Audience Catering and You: Sacrificing Content for Fame

So I was on the Tumblargh and I stumbled on this.



For those who can't watch it, the video is about how, in a quest for fame/more subscriptions, Youtubers start treading into territory that they think will make them more popular (more sex appeal, more explosions, more stupid cats, etc.), and in the process lose the reason why they made these videos to start with. They "become" the medium; the video creator describes how photographers would submit their work to TIME LIFE magazine in an attempt to get known, but then realize that their work just becomes part of the magazine experience. While it's meant to talk about Youtube videos, I think it's easily applicable to webcomics and people who make webcomics.

Here's my thought provoking question of the day. Do you do anything that could be considered audience catering?

This includes...
- Fanservice
- Memes
- Image macros
- Reusing a medium that another webcomic pioneered/did exceptionally well
- Pop culture references
- Fanart of more popular works
- etc. etc.

Additionally, if you are guilty of one or many of these things, why? Is it because you want more subs/views, or because you legitimately like these things and you're dovetailing out of devotion? Addendum, do you think your content/message rings clear enough, even with the presence of these things?

Also, do you think that audience catering is a bad thing at all?

MORE QUESTIONS (edited as I think of more):
- If your comic dovetails out of a specific pop culture item (D&D, Homestuck, Nuzlocke, etc.), are you doing anything unique with it? Or are you content with being part of this experience? Example: Making a Homestuck-type comic which uses the same style of art, writing, story twists, etc. as the original Homestuck.

((If it makes you feel better/superior, I do some amount of this. They're usually all on my Tumblr/deviantArt/etc., I try to separate the silly pageview-grubbing stuff from the actual site so there's a clear distinction between content and silliness.))

I do none of these and I intentionally steer away from them.

But I do often wonder if I should put some of these things into my work, but then I realize it's kinda hard to fit that kinda stuff into my comic, and I guess that's a good thing. I have a major stick up my ass when it comes to originality and artistic integrity, mostly because I grew up with more serious, artsy comics and that's the kind of thing I aim and look for.

And considering this is more of a labor of love than a commercial work, I see no point in 'forcing' it to fit the interests if the general populus. Art for the sake of art, if I'm allowed to use a cliched idiom.

Though in the end I guess these aspects can be forgiven, as long as the author does it very well, and adds their own twist to it.

But if it consists of nothing but these things, it'll just end up hollow and collapse in on itself.

EDIT: Whoops, looks like I overlooked one bit. I have done fanart of a much more popular webcomic (Gunnerkrigg Court) but that was because I absolutely love the comic, and not as a plan to get more hits.

Another forum I go on, Nuzlocke forum, is massively guilty of this. They have a load of comics on there and it's hard to get noticed, so naturally the only noticeable popular ones are those that cater for their audience by copying other famous runs and referencing them, who in turn are probably referencing someone else. It's one of the reasons I can't stand the place: There's next to no original content anymore.

I supposed out of what you listed I would be guilty of using pop culture references, since my comic is influenced by tabletop RPG's (D&D and the sort). However, I created this comic idea from the use of this specific pop culture item. The fact that my comic's world lives in a tabletop RPG universe, with full knowledge of experience points and +1 magic weapons, along with personified Dungeon Masters who go up against Adventurers (much like that of a real game of D&D), was the premise of my comic at the beginning.

I'm not sure if that constitutes as a creative use of pop culture, but I never really meant to widen my audience by it. I just really love D&D, comics, and D&D comics XD

btw, that video was great. Very informative!

Definitely. A lot of webcomics out there are for pretty niche interests, it would be stupid to try to make it accessible to everyone (at least in this fashion). Because then you'd be competing with other comics that actually capitalize on memes/macros/potty humor/etc. and with their own twists on it.

Gunnerkrigg Court fanart is always forgiveable. XD I'm talking more in lines of, "let's cram as much Pokemon/Doctor Who/Korra/Avengers/Zelda references as possible! People like that stuff!"



I'm not too familiar with the Nuzlocke phenomenon, although I do have a friend who did a few comic strips on that. But, forgive the Reddit-reference, Nuzlocke in itself seems to be just a huge Pokemon-with-internet culture circlejerk. At least, that's just me being an outsider. Or is that what it ultimately became?

(edited because I didn't see you there!)


I think in that case, your comic is representing a whole subgenre in itself, rather than just dovetailing. Nothing wrong with that, but here's a question specifically for people who are making specific-genre comics like that, what do you bring to the table that's new, or are you satisfied simply being part of that genre's experience?

Gonna update the top post with that. 8D

Unfortunately, that's what it became. There was a 'golden era' of Nuzlocke where everything wasn't shit, the comics were witty, memes would get you yelled at for, people listened to criticisms, and nobody did fan service or did stuff just for the fans. Everybody had a story to tell and everybody listened to it.

Nowadays, it's all about who can make their title as obnoxious as possible and cram as many fan-pleasing memes as possible into their comics or screen shot runs. It's a very sad time.

This is basically all I can add to the thread:
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Or here if the embed doesn't work.

The basic idea in the video is that the 'audience' your work has must be treated in whatever way you can best manage, because the way an artist reacts to an audience, any way at all, will determine how many stay or go.

Kissing ass for the lowest common denominator is a valid strategy, and a profitable one at that, but I wouldn't necessarily do it. It's like eating at the dinner table - if you keep givng your dog scraps from your plate, it'll start feeling entitled to it.

Very interesting. I think it really is so tempting for a lot of people to do those things to get more views because despite what your initial reason was at the onset, a high percent of people become really motivated by pageviews and subscribers. Which is kind of sad because it takes away your enjoyment of just making the comic and puts the power in the hands (or eyes) of those viewing it.

With my comic I am doing now I think it is easy for me to steer away from a lot of those things because really, I am making my comic for an audience of one [me]. Not to say I don't try to do something better or don't listen to comments, but ultimately I am doing to get me to enjoy making it and finally tell this story. For my other comics that I am working on (or am planning) I could see it becoming more of an issue.

For my I see fanservice becoming the biggest potential issue. Now in fanservice I include not just sexy shots, but in making what the fans want to see or having the story go the way they want, not the way you necessarily did.

Now, I have done fanart of other comic characters I like, because I enjoy making them and love looking at fanart myself. But it doesn't go on my comic page, so unless you are following me elsewhere you will never know.

Though, I have to say that a comic could be full of all of these audience catering things and more and still be great and original. But it makes it a lot harder to make something that is good and not just something that is popular because those can be two very different things.

You can look up my YouTube channel if you want. The name is the same.

Aside from my Skyrim reference videos... most of my videos are really random. Like they're totally pointless. They tend to exemplify my maxim that if I can't do anything right, that it is ok if I just ... do stuff without trying for anything in particular. Action without intent. End result is that my videos tend to just be whimsical thinking out loud nonsense.

Also very old for the most part.


Sometimes I consider trying to make a video properly, and actually make it ABOUT something... and make something that people will want to watch.... but then I end up making a video of a loading bar on my computer screen while I make stupid noises in the background.
If videos are art, my videos are Dadaist.



[Besides... I have a male body and no marketable skills... so I couldn't make interesting, pointful videos if I tried.]



... Oh yeah. And my comic.
It is a Skyrim webcomic. Besides trying to save me effort, it is also supposed to appeal to the demographic of people who play Skyrim. No surprises there.

Thing that struck me was that an incredible variance of situations may come into effect before an author decides to float up to the surface of the ocean with the other comic bodies. If say, an author did his or her comic in complete original material and kept it that way, did it for him or herself with the support of a fanbase or some friends, family, or some other means of motivation, you can't put a finger on how successful in a mainstream sense the comic will become, as it is entirely subjective to "unassisted" viewership, or "uncatered" viewership which unfortunately, are less likely to become popular. I could point my fingers at various people, but rather, I will only go as to say I am firm supporter of original material. Recycled work is unpalatable for me.

Heh... I don't even have any readers nor fans or anything.
Only support my little comic has is the artist... which isn't me, for the record.

I believe I fall under one of the mentioned categories since I myself have done a Nuzlocke comic. Up until I began The Very Best, I was out of the whole comic business for quite a while so I started it as a way to improve my art, writing, and work ethic (haha). Basically relearn everything. Knowing I would be treading territory built upon a foundation of dead horses, I did my best to write comics with fresh jokes (ie. None of those stupid "ARE YOU A BOY OR A GIRL" jokes) because even though I was doing this out of practice, I still wanted to make something to the best of my ability. While I was tending to the Pokémasses, I didn't feel as guilty about it because I was a fan of Pokemon myself and I knew I was actively trying to do something different and fresh in terms of writing. However, I quickly grew tired of the whole Pokemon fandom (I began to loathe the idea of drawing Gatsby and his stupid face) and wanted to do something completely of my creation. The Very Best did become quite popular but I still felt comfortable leaving the fan base it built because it wasn't what I wanted to do. All I can do is hope the fans of Very Best were also fans of me, and follow my new comics. If not, well then *shrug*

Pop Culture-Guilty as charged...But I don't want to overwhelm the comic with pop-culture references. Yeah, I do throw in pop-culture references from time to time, but I try to do it in a funny way that doesn't distract from the story. It must have a purpose...to show something about a character's personality or interest or play into a joke.
It has to somehow tie in to a character's joke or sometimes what the character is going through. I don't want it to be too pop-culture heavy or it will "date" the story. People have responded to the pop-culture references positively. However, I feel if I flood the comic with them they won't be as special or entertaining when they do pop up.

Frell. That. Shite.

I started My Mediocre Mind as a way to break back into cartooning/artwork and, in a happy two-birds-one-stone situation, work out some of my inner demons through comedy and jokes. Going into it, I've become pretty certain that I'll never have a really dedicated reader-base (I have mediocre artwork with an okay story in strip format, not a recipe for fanaticism) and because of that, I have nobody to pander to.

I mean, sure, if it came down to me desperately deciding that I'd like to make some ad revenue rather than develop and grow as an artist/writer, I could swap the story out for a lame gag-a-day roommate strip, rife with gamer/nerd culture reference and fanart out the squeedlyspooch... but why the hell would I do that?

Where's the fun?

I've actually been hatching an idea for a new gag-a-day comic that, by it's very nature, is pandering to at least ONE demographic... but I didn't think of it for that purpose.

I HAVE, on the other hand, been considering doing some more fan art than I've done previously. To date I've generally stuck with fiction novel characters that I haven't ever seen brought to life before, but considering the bevvy of awesome franchises I'm obsessed with...

It might not be such a bad idea, to have some fun drawing fan art I genuinely enjoy doing with a few views fished out as a bonus.

My comic this the end process of a year long thought train for a world where videogame jokes could be looked at in a different light.

While it's mostly a side effect of writing in advance but I can't reference trending things, at least in the comic itself. This means I have to make sure my gags stand the test of time or at least the test of a couple of years. I have characters from games as old as Pac-Man to as recent as Pokemon BW but I can't do memes or current events. I have an otherwise good script that's useless because of how events transpired about the fan choice of the female Commander Shepard. I'll post it one day as an extra or something.

Also, while my cast is all female one is a Pre-Teen robot and the rest are Pokemon so I can't do the *nudge-nudge winkwink* type of fan service with them.

I'm actually really glad this thread exists. This is something I've been pondering about for quite some time as of lately.

I've been making my comic, Ryu's Krew for over 4 years at this point. At first it was incredibly bland (as I'm sure most of your first serious comic projects were), and it ended up becoming something that I personally fell in love with.

The things that are in my comic are more or less for me, and the things that I want to see in a story. There are little jokes and things of that nature, but that's all of my own accord, none of it is placed in order to try to cater to a larger audience whom would enjoy that sort of thing.

There was a point when I wanted to focus on that. But I realized that ultimately, if I did that, I'd be like every other comic wannabe (meaning those who strictly follow/copy other comics and do nothing unique) out there, and that's not what I want. I want readers/fans to be able to recognize my work, and be glad knowing that what I do is 'mostly' original. Or at least, something that they haven't seen before.

The only thing I could say that people might get iffy about is the video-game reference parts. But something to keep in mind with that is, the entire basis of the story-telling is around video-game plots. In the way a character progresses, are bosses, get stronger, etc, etc. So I figured throwing in different things would make for a funner, more enjoyable reading experience.

I leave to cook risotto for lunch and holy hell look at all this awesome discussion. Gonna reply to them all despite the food coma, so apologies for any weird typos/grammatical errors.



Loved the video, very interesting. It does sort of go with my philosophy on storycrafting, that you make a story with an audience/demographic in mind, but when it comes down to it, you call the shots on how the story unfolds. So basically, make a story that pleases yourself, but also one that you know can please other people. But don't specifically cater to their every whim and desire. I think that's what happened to the creators of Legend of Korra.



I'm a bit split on the issue of pageviews and subscribers. It's a natural desire to want people to pay attention to you, and if you have a story you're telling, you want to know that people are paying attention to your comic. I guess what it ultimately comes down to is what the lady in the video was saying, it's better to have an audience who legitimately are interested in your content (regardless of size) rather than a large audience who only cares about the stuff you riff off of.

As for things that cater to audiences that are still great and original, the film Back to the Future actually was crafted for the sole purpose of being a hit, according to screenwriting teacher Robert McKee. And it was a huge success, and it still holds up today. There is nothing in Back to the Future that wasn't done before (and some scenes were straight up ripped from earlier works), but it was presented with expert storytelling and with great flair. So definitely, a comic could be full of audience-catering things and be absolutely amazing.

Just not everyone is Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale.



Have you heard of a Youtuber called Chriddof? All his videos are incredibly random, very eccentric, but he has something of a cult following. I think he's the perfect example of a Youtuber who doesn't bend to anybody's will, he just continues to make highly strange, nonsensical videos/audio/video-mixing experiments and people just flock to him for it. Even if he changes username every few months. He found his niche and he's quite content with it.



That takes it to the third point the Youtube video made: taking advantage of the channels available. Especially in this day and age, there's no reason not to get some amount of exposure for your work. You can do something that is purely for the entertainment for yourself and some friends/family, and yet you can still release it to a world-wide audience, where ultimately like-minded people could find your work and follow it. Vihart (the video creator) works with an extremely niche interest: explaining math in a simplistic, narrative way, and has found her audience despite little actual advertising on her part.

I think we're at the pinnacle of a ton of new original content thanks to the internet. But a lot of the rehashed trash surfaces first.



(Oh no a reaction gif! Kyo will be maaaaad..!)

That's very insightful. What made you go into the Nuzlocke in the first place? Because you liked Pokemon in general, or did you feel you could bring something new to the table that other Nuzlocke comics couldn't?

As someone who's doing an original webcomic, the fancomic scene is an entirely different world to me. I think it's interesting that, with a fancomic, you know you'll have immediate readers who are dying to get all things Nuzlocke (or any other fandom), but I just wonder how you could compete in that kind of environment, when everyone is doing the same thing.

===

Will be back with more replies. Food coma is definitely getting to me.

Pop culture references?

Hell yes! My whole damn comic is based on 1950s B-movies and bad Saturday morning cartoons of the '70s. No specific movies or toons, but rather a general reference to those two much-damned mediums, with a dash of Golden and Silver-Age comics thrown in just for good measure.

And yes... I do it because I like those things. Modern stuff doesn't appeal to me at all. I sure as hell don't do it to get fans. Half century old in-jokes and character references aren't exactly a big draw for the current generation.

Let the kids have the video games, and leave the originality to the long-hairs, as they used to say.

I'll take the buttery popcorn stuff every time. ;)

The title to this thread reads like a 1950s era PSA. (Or maybe I'm just weird, LOL.)

Short answer: I will admit that I'm guilty of slipping in pop culture refs, haha.

Long, ranting train-of-thought answer: I think there's a fine line between catering to an audience and selling out, just as there's a difference between slipping in pop culture references/memes/fanart occasionally, and slathering them all over your work for hits. A little bit of audience catering is necessary from time to time -- everyone wants popularity, and it's good to show your audience that you appreciate them -- but content and quality should never be sacrificed.

Also, from what I've seen, selling out never brings long-term popularity. Yes, you may copy a popular style or meme and get a lot of attention that way, but that attention will fade away as quickly as it came up. On the flip side, if you look at people who have managed to make a lasting name for themselves you can easily see the originality and integrity there. A good example is Homestuck. How many huge, popular, Homestuck-style comics were there BEFORE Homestuck? Probably none. And how many Homestuck-style cosplayers/fanartists/etc. are there now that Homestuck is popular? Probably millions, but I personally can't name a single one. [NO OFFENCE TO HOMESTUCK FANS. D: ]
All I'm trying to say is that while the bigwig comics have obviously done their share of audience catering, what really makes them shine is the fact that they are more than just sex, explosions and cats. There's a level of integrity that has seen them through low stats, and that same level of integrity that helps them endure massive popularity.

I should probably stop ranting now okbai.

I've never done this at all. Thought about it, but never went that direction. It's important to be yourself and just do you.