Essay: Woodward contra Simpson

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I deliberated for a while on which pronouns to use for D.C. Although I consider "him" a man, since he was born one, raised one, and his essays were often accompanied by pictures of his male self, I cannot deny the fact that he may now be, mentally and hormonally, a woman. As of this date, I do not know if his transition is completed, which is the deciding factor, for me, as to which sex he currently is. However, because my experiences with transexuals have been largely positive, I feel unable to deny Mr. Simpson his right to be regarded in the gender he prefers. As a result, this article will use feminine pronouns when discussing D.C.'s work, but for entirely selfish reasons--based on personal experience, and not out of any false reverence for how D.C. expresses himself, or how he spends his time. Regardless of how I feel about D.C.'s personal character, I am in the habit of criticizing what people do, not what they are.
--C.W.

"Family Circus" creator Bill Keane believes there are two kinds of comic strips in the world: those made for readers, and those made for comic strip artists. He sees a true divide between readers and writers, and also sees moments where writers forget their readers, to the extent that the medium is used not to convey a view of life, but to bemoan it.

While Bill's work doesn't really connect to me (at least, not in my current state as a lazy, self-absorbed, pretentious philosophy student), I don't think he could hit this nail on the head any harder. Even Scott Adams (whom I learned of Bill's maxim from) points to a time in his career when he felt compelled--whether by the TV studios he was working with, or by his own concerns--to create a series of "prequel" strips, describing how his "Dilbert" characters met. These strips contained no set-ups, no punchlines, no Machiavellian dogs exploiting hapless Americans. Just a ridiculously contrived series of events that involved a robot. Scott likely knew that the project was a horrible idea from the start, and thankfully, he had the good conscience to abort the whole thing, turning instead to e-books and experimental cubicle designs, for his extra-Dilbertical activities. But not every cartoonist has this foresight. Some would deign to the level of "auteur", in its most bastardized form, and corrupt the dialogue between artist and audience. They are so veiled by their own perceived superiority, so blinded by the causes they champion and their self-professed "uniqueness", that they have shunned the audience entirely. "You just don't understand!" They cry out. "I am a precious snowflake, adrift in a sea of mediocrity! Lavish me with esoteric praise and publication deals!"

I know I'm new at this. I only started making comics in February of 2009, and that I only purchased this web space in September of the same year. I realize there are people who've been doing this longer, and more effectively, than I currently have. And now that I've gotten the self-depreciating, passive-aggressive boilerplate out of the way, I'm going to box people into categories. There are four kinds of artists in the world. Those who are talented and are heard, those who are talented but unheard, those who appeal to the herd and are heard, and those who are heard without having to herd. We call the first group "successful", the second, "tortured", the fourth, "lucky bastards", and the third, "hacks". Successful artists work hard, not just at their work, but at making connections to have their work seen and interpreted by people. If they get to a point where their work is being received well by the public, with little compromise or censorship, they are truly successful. Tortured artists make powerful work, often just as (if not more) powerful as the successful artists, but they lack the social skills needed to leverage networks for exposure. Sometimes it isn't their fault--maybe their social and business skills are fine, but their material is too difficult to commodify, making it hard for investors and exhibitors to bank on it. Lucky Bastard artists are just that, lucky bastards. They aren't trying to be particularly bold or groundbreaking, but they're not trying to satisfy everyone, either. They just made a thing they liked and hey, they're selling it and doing well. We stand in awe of these people, and then plot to kill them later (swiftly, of course!). And that brings us to Hack artists. These people do not make art to satisfy some intrinsic human need, burning inside them. At least the Lucky Bastards are making something new that honestly appeals to them, and that just happened to appeal to other people. Hack artists don't even have such a conception. They don't explore themselves. They don't explore how they view others, or make a leap into another person's self. They don't even carve niches. Hack artists find niches that someone else has carved, paint that niche a different colour, and convince people it's theirs. They pick the scraps off the tables of the lucky, successful, and tortured alike, then assemble them in a way that they hope will appeal to the audiences of the lucky, successful, and tortured. They don't understand human will, only its affects in the objects of its affection, and how to reproduce those affects as closely as possible. Their imitation of others goes beyond the innocence of "inspiration", and they mire themselves within a thick, fetid slurry of ego. They are the robbers of ideas, the thieves of passions, and the stealers of voices.

Two kinds of Hack artists exist: the ones who only look out, and the ones who only look in. The outlookers are obsessed with how people are reacting to things. Screw the things themselves, or the artists who made them. All that matters is how people react. A thing can be duplicated, torn apart and reused. The outlooker says, "The artist is nothing more than an intercessor for some pretentious busywork, to a commercial end! And look at how little it takes to make art, now that the definition of it is so broad! It's the easiest profession in the world! If they get a good response and make money, I can do the same as them, and have what they're having! Or, I'll be a good inventor, and find something they're not doing, do that thing, milk it for all its worth, and it'll still be seen as legitimately 'creative'!" The outlooker says these things because he is lazy and stupid. His flash of insight probably suits him for the role of a businessman, but that would demand long hours, strong instincts and people skills. The outlooker has none of these, so he makes what he considers to be art (an interpretation which will always be legitimized, thanks to the efforts of postmodernists!), by either reacting to or imitating the successful, tortured, or lucky artists he sees. His limp, dullard efforts may succeed, but he will need a repertoire of targets for his parasitic pseudo-talents. Otherwise, the diversity of his creations will stagnate, the audience will grow numb to them, and he will fall into obscurity.

The other Hack artist, the inlooker, is also disinterested in what is being created, but instead of looking at reactions to it, she only cares about her life experiences, and how her work can best reflect it. True artists express their personal view of life, but life is not just the artist's view of it. Life must be lived in order to react to it. There can be no room for ego, other than the protection of one's work from hacks, censors and other enemies. This is not to say that critics have no right to complain when an artwork does not compel them, when they cannot interpret the creative spirit behind it, whether through their own ignorance or the author's lack of ability. Art is a form of dialogue, and outside criticism is one half of this dialogue. The inlooker rejects dialogue. "I am the architect of my own vision," she says. "Anyone who dares confront my intention or credibility as an auteur should not dare show their face to me! They are oppressors, monsters, nemeses to culture and freedom!" Her words are a polemic, designed to give her the satisfaction of being "correct". Ironically, she will suggest that no one can be correct about anything, but assumes that she, herself, is correct in saying this. How can she be sure? Maybe we should take a look at her art and see what all the fuss is about. And if we do, we will discover artwork about her experiences, about her fears, anxieties, depressions, childhood memories only she remembers, and most importantly, things she has already said, through the same medium, many times before. None of this work will say anything new or powerful about life, which is not limited to her. Indeed, she is limited to life. It is all she has to work with, and the less she lives, and the less she LEARNS, the less her art will reflect life. But she has no need for learning. She thinks she knows everything already. "Why learn some crap any idiot could read out of a book," she exclaims, "when I control my own destiny?" Indeed, why exhibit your art in a gallery, exposing it to the world, if you control your own destiny? Why are the opinions of others so necessary for you? Why do you launch vitriol at those who you perceive as "slandering" you? You are very same as the sheep you ridicule. You have taken whatever belief system gives you the greatest comfort, placating your weakness and feeding you the illusion that you have strength. You are fundamentally broken, and what is worse, you use your brokenness as a sign of "uniqueness" and "creativity". You have rejected the signs that life has given you, that your brokenness is something that must be overcome, lest you flail and wallow in self-pity. You have left the world to rot in a corner, telling the same sad stories to the same sad people who, like you, would rather crouch into a ball and weep than march forward and go somewhere new.

But she knew all that, right?

Comic strip artist D.C. Simpson has received a publishing deal through a contest held by Amazon. Her work was once something I looked forward to; an enjoyable, surprisingly literate strip, featuring two precocious fox children and their musings. If that strip was the one with the big-name publisher, and she was continuing it with the same level of passion and dedication to her craft she once employed, I would have nothing but praise for her success. Instead, she decided to submit an entirely new comic for the contest. One that features a precocious girl, a precocious bird, and their musings. It's derivative, and she's halting her ability to tell things in a new way, but at least the theme is flexible enough to allow for some new ponderings, right? It's not like she'd copy the dialogue and panel layout word for word, and just swap the characters and setting around!

New

Old

As you can see, there are times when even I can be proven wrong.

Simpson's new comic, entitled "Girl", is completely repackaged material, with some cloying, sappy original pieces to flesh everything out. In a display of complete and utter laziness, Simpson hasn't sold out, she's sold in, creating something that was already created, just with a different coat of paint, to say what's been already said with a Lisa Simpson-esque mouthpiece she can more closely identify with. I understand wanting to start over if you've gone through an identity crisis, but to parade around with repackaged material that nets you awards is to be not only a Hack, but a Double-Hack. This is because, in addition to reprinting the same material that's already available, but with different characters, she's also going to ridiculous lengths to appeal to her target market--namely, those who think they're "special".

At the same time that she's masturbating over her old strips that happened to be clever, she's trying to insidiously placate the members of the audience she feels most likely to connect with. Art is not the abstraction of a sexual favour; using it to stroke the audience's ego while you stroke yours is to engage in a kind of deception, like giving a dog a treat after you scream at it. Ms. Simpson would like you to believe that this is a more "honest" and "personal" reflection of how her previous strip "should" have gone, but the truth is more obvious--Simpson is too full of her own baggage and self-importance to actually make something bold and original, so she's playing the George Lucas card, retreading old material that people liked because there's money to be made. If you can spruce it up with slightly more ambitious visuals and gain more exposure, just think of where you can go from there. Think about those children's books you want to write, because your identity crisis has forced you to regress back to childhood, starting over from scratch and never going further. Michael Jackson repackaged his old work, too--HIStory's entire second disk was nothing but his earlier music. As I recall, he also had an identity crisis (albeit not a gender-related one) and wanted to remain a child forever. Navel-gazing is just another form of stagnation, and for people to treat any work thereby produced with accolades and worship is doing no service to the creator. If you let your fears and issues consume you, cripple you, root you to the ground, life will flow without you, and without it near, you will cease to exist. Sad memories of what you could have been are all that will be left. D.C. seems content to ride the boat of mediocrity and Hack work, selling into her own self, her own assumed rightness, while she sells out to the herd she so desperately craves affection from. Her works have become hollow and false, nothing more than testaments to how low the bar has to be before she'll jump over it.

What's sad is that we need more artists with skill. But honesty doesn't pay as well as unused potential.