You are enabling an egomaniac, folks.

This is the point I was trying to make, Tom. I just didn’t do it as eloquently as you.

If you can wrap your mind around an act of creation where you take on a specific subject matter or more specifically an act of cration where you riff on pop culture or more specifically an act of creation where you pay homage to another work or more specifically an act of creation that involves remixing elements of an original work into something new you can probably learn to see writing about something as a creative act.

Most of it sucks giant, hairy balls, of course. But yeah, HL Mencken’s act of creation in “A Book For The Gourmet” is in my estimation and a lot of reasonable folks’ estimation more significant, more edifying and a greater act of creativity than the script for the ’60s diary episode of Beverly Hills 90210. And with that noted, I think that the majority of criticism of the majority of things tends to be inferior to the original thing, and most times it’s not close to being a fair fight.

The only tie is the Kentucky Derby/Hunter Thompson on the Kentucky Derby.

I’m not sure I understand the original tussle, and I assume at this point everybody has said something nice about everybody else and there’s not longer any fighting. As a creator I don’t read criticism of my own work because I’m no longer 23 and I consider most critics, myself included, to be total fucking morons. As a critic I don’t write to creators because I’m more interested in how their works are received than how they were created. If I were to write with the creators in mind, I’d forgive them if they didn’t agree to return my attention.

Now it’s kind of funny, like a messed up Thanksgiving that starts out okay, but at the end, grandma’s hair is on fire, a couple of uncles are trading punches, grandpa is chasing the dog to get his dentures back, children are crying, dad is half-drunk, and mom is pretending to be completely oblivious.

And as Larry points out, I actually have worked both sides of that aisle (in two ways — online and print publication, and criticism and creation. Kevin Church has had quite a bit more published than me, so he knows, too.) I can say with some authority that writing good criticism isn’t merely “passing judgment,” it’s more like a reflexive action created by lifetime obsession and a need to express yourself. If you’ve got the bug, you can’t NOT do it. That’s something I think most artists could relate to.

Even more basic than that, good writing is just good writing. And that most certainly is a worthy craft.

Scott: That is the finest lesson of Ratatouille, and I mean that sincerely.

Ed Ward…

I know that, you cretin. If you read what I actually wrote, I was refering to a JOKE. That SOMEONE ELSE made. In a comment thread to a mind-bogglingly stupid ‘review’ that Abhay wrote, mocking him.

Oh, and you want to talk about misnomers? Refering to people as ‘native’ to a nation that was founded several millenia after they started living on that continent? Built on the back of their mass genocide? Well done! Who’s a culturally sensitive boy, then?

She doesn’t need me belittling her work. I shouldn’t do that. I’ve gotten defensive and angry in these comments and it’s clouded things a lot.

You guys are right to call me on the blogger/critic thing. A person’s work always speaks for itself. It is what it is. My work are my cartoons. Johanna’s work is her review site. In the end, the only opinion that makes or breaks anyone is the opinion of the market. If I love Johanna’s work and the market doesn’t, she won’t survive and vice versa.

Ken Lowrey – You make an excellent point and I concede it to you. Everyone who puts their reviews online is not a professional critic just like everyone who posts their cartoons online are not professional cartoonists. However, there are web-only critics and cartoonists who are obviously pros at their craft. Not everyone can be a professional, but professionals can come from anywhere. Thanks for calling me on that.

Ken, tell Chris about your incredibly well-reviewed story in BLACK DIAMOND #2, you published critic and published creator, you.

That’s a far cry from someone simply owning a WordPress account.”

Isn’t that akin to drawing a distinction between creators of webcomics and those who have been “published”?

That’s a far cry from someone simply owning a WordPress account. Also, you don’t suppose to be a part of the creative process.

C’mon man, you know that’s completely f**king relative, predicated by whatever level the individual is deciding to function on when art making or analyzing the context in which said work was created. An artist does not need to “justify” their work, it can exist as pure expression, it can exist just for interpretation (if the artist so chooses), but a critic has to back up their statements on the artwork, justify their opinion or interpretation; not being of the artist’s “actual” mind, that in and of itself can make the critique as “hard” and time consuming as the actual art making was. But that’s not even the point, NEITHER IS BETTER, that’s completely subjective.

This isn’t a case of which is better or which is “harder,” the individual decides that before setting upon their projects.

I actually think your just f**king with us now to rile us up more, sitting back laughing at all these posts.

There’s no way that was a serious comment you just made.

R.D….

Come here…

Just thought that you might want to know – the question of Tribe doesn’t really correspond to being INDIAN-American. I think that you may have confused INDIAN-American with NATIVE-American. You know. Native-American – the term that has found popular usage due to the fact that calling the indigenous people of the Americas was, at absolute best, a misnomer on the grandest scale.

I’m doing fine selling tee shirts. You should start a blog and start reviewing them.

And that’s nice, but you plainly don’t read criticism, you don’t appear to be very well read in general, so guess what? Your personal beliefs are without merit. They aren’t based upon either experience or evidence, just a snotty sense of self-importance. You’re not entitled to your opinion, only your informed opinion.

“Anyone can sit back and judge all the work that’s being put out. It’s another thing entirely to put your own heart out for others to judge.”

Buy a trenchcoat; flash kids on the sidewalk– it’ll cut down on your bandwidth costs.

What you do IS NOT special. Millions of people have written fiction. Bookstores are choked with novels, published novels; publishing houses are choked with manuscripts; there’s thousands of comics on the internet. It’s just what you do, and what you take pleasure in, and apparently have met with some success with. Fine. Great. Good luck with it.

But you’re not some unique snowflake, and to suggest that that only what you do is art, and only what you do is special– does it not occur to you how unbelievably arrogant that is? Really?

All you’re doing is continuing to reveal is that you don’t really read much, or you’re not very educated. Bookstores are thick with critics, dead critics even, who people read and take pleasure in to this day. If you’re thinking you’re better than or will last as long as H.L. Mencken, you’re delusional. (And this time, at least google H.L. Mencken’s Wikipedia page).

You might be exposing your heart, but if the results appear to be somewhere between hackneyed and creepy, who gives a good goddamn? To a segment of the audience, what matters isn’t how you feel about yourself; it’s quality. And you don’t have the monopoly on that just because you call yourself an artist, and arbitrarily decide who is and who isn’t a part of your artist club.

Oh but I forgot: other people agree with you but won’t say. You got us there! Well, your mom and your mom’s mom, and your mom’s mom’s mom all agree with me but they aren’t saying anything because they don’t want to hurt your feelings. They all wish you would call more.

Good luck selling t-shirts.

How can that even be argued?

Anyone can sit back and judge things, yes, just like anyone can create a webcomic, or novel, or play, or comic, or song, or whatever else you want to bring up. Anyone can do anything. People do things constantly. However, not just anyone can do it well.

You keep conflating (good) critics with flamers or message board trolls or I don’t know what, so you aren’t actually talking about what anyone else is talking about here. You’re taking shots at Johanna in lieu of actually speaking to the idea that some critic, somewhere, at some point in time, may actually have a good point with regards to the work.

There are some critics who put their hearts out there, too. Sometimes they have a deep personal reaction to a book and that colors their review, for good or ill. Sometimes personal history plays into how they receive a work.

This isn’t about Creators vs Critics. Stop trying to frame it like that.

Johanna, your opinion and my opinion of her work set completely to the side, is a critic. She self-identifies as a critic, others have called her a critic, and she has been recognized as a critic by other writers, artists, and creators. You’re trying to diminish her status as a critic by calling her a blogger– why? Because you two disagree on whether or not a critic can ever be right? Because she said your book would have benefited from a section on how to deal with critics and journalists? That’s foolish.

Her position, which I hope I am not misrepresenting here, is that sometimes, a critic can be helpful. Not all the time, not every time, sometimes. She’s said that all critics are not the same, all critics do not have valid opinions, and that all critics aren’t helpful.

What is so terrible about that position that you have to basically denigrate anyone who ever bothered to produce criticism? Art being hard doesn’t mean that criticism has to be easy. You’re trying to prove your points through ridiculous personal attacks against Johanna in particular and critics in general, when what you should be doing is looking at what the argument actually is.

Stop conflating idiots and critics. There’s a tremendous difference between the two.

This shouldn’t have been a Creators vs Critics argument at all and it was a mistake to frame it in that way.

I’m not the only one who feels this way. I’m just probably being the most vocal about it right now. Webcomic people do not need to shit on critics so we can have someone lower than us on the totem pole. That’s ridiculous. I think we are all very comfortable with our position in artistic society. We’re doing what we love for a living. You can’t get a better feeling than that. If this is the bottom of a totem pole, then I am a very lucky man.

Johanna is not a critic. She’s a blogger. I know professional critics. I know bloggers who SHOULD be professional critics because they understand what it is that they do and they should be paid for their opinion. They’re that good. They offer a useful and entertaining service to consumers.

As someone who creates on a daily basis, I personally believe it’s hard to create and easy to review. Anyone can sit back and judge all the work that’s being put out. It’s another thing entirely to put your own heart out for others to judge. I get snarky when people try to claim the the two are interchangeable.

I don’t know why so many people find that surprising.

Here’s about as far as this conversation should have gone:

Scott to Johanna: Oh yeah, f-ck you, too, Johanna.
Johanna to Scott: *push down stairs*

Have we learned nothing from 50 Cent? Instead, we’re having strawmen propped up left and right. And no one’s asking, “What about the strawmen body count? Won’t somebody think of the strawmen?”

I don’t understand how saying “critics also work hard at their craft” becomes in Scott’s mind “critics think they’re more important than those they write about”.

What you don’t seem to appreciate is that many people; novelists and painters, and fans of such folk…do not include YOU in that WE. Even as you labor to lord you superiority over the critics, yea verily others feel the same way about you.

Thank God these giants deign our work worthy to judge.

I’m glad I could spend even a small amount of time on this earth doing my part to contribute to the true artists of our time: the critics.