Do comments ever drive you mad?

[otterlyhuman]

I recently published a silly comic that includes a blobfish. As some of you may know, the blobfish only looks hideous when it is taken out of the deep sea due to the pressure difference. In it's natural habitat it just looks more like a normal fish. But for the sake of the joke, it makes much more sense to have it look like the ugly blobfish that everyone knows and loves.

It has been less than 24 hours and I have already gotten twelve comments/messages telling me that the blobfish actually looks like a normal fish in the sea. I love getting comments, but it's exhausting to have to explain over and over again that I'm aware of this and it's just a silly little joke. How do you guys deal with feedback like this? I know it's probably best to just give them the ol' "wow cool fun fact!" and move on, but it grows tiring after a while haha.

Here's the blobfish comic:
https://tapas.io/episode/2097490

[darthmongoose]

Well, think of it this way: lots of comments means you get into trending, which means more people see your comic so like... when people hate comment or joke comment or comment to "well actually..." you, they're really helping. Respond to all of them to drive engagement. You can copy-paste or do silly responses if you like.

[Crusoe]

You can add it as a note in your description/authors note of the episode which should at least help a bit. Don't feel obligated to respond honestly, especially if people comment very similar things.

[therosesword]

I drink.

No, seriously I'm joking. Usually my first reaction is a facepalm and i really want to answer them with nothing more than "and?"

I used to be polite and answer people with explanations and then I realized that for the most part, a percentage of them are trying to be helpful and the other percentage are just showing off how smart they think they are. And, of course, there is a small percentage you have no idea why they do what they do.

Being, of course, unable to tell which percentage I'm dealing with... I move on.

Well, think of it this way: lots of comments means you get into trending,

Have to agree with @darthmongoose though,

Best of luck

[vothnthorvaldson]

I can understand the annoyance, but I think it is something that will happen with anything pertaining to recent popular culture trends/memes/ etc propagating incorrect, incomplete or false info.

The problem is, the reader does not read in the author's mind. They cannot know what you know or not. Maybe the comments drive you mad... but maybe the readers were driven mad by the comic too. Not necessarily by you intent.. but they cannot know for sure your intent.

As a biologist, a lot of these pop culture trends/memes etc around animals/plants irritate me terribly. All the sudden everyone thinks they know better etc. and very quickly transmit false information that takes years to forget or possibly will even stick forever. Because it is often not that important to humans (as opposed to false medical info for eg), there is very little incentive to reestablish the truth 'officially' and some people can get very irritated by always seeing the same incorrect info circulating.
Obviously, you also have the commenters who don't give a shit about the subject but wants to show they know better than you....

[joannekwan]

Yes. There are certain comments that I just grew exhausted of seeing at certain points of my comic.

In one instance, my character eats banana bread with a fork. And like 80% of the comments on that page were all along the lines of "Who eats banana bread with a fork??"

Sorry? The banana bread I've always grown up with was more cake than bread. It was somewhat sticky, and had the consistency of a loose poundcake. So if someone were to eat it straight with their hands, their fingers would get sticky from the crust and the cake would crumble in their grasp. I've never actually had a banana bread that was a bread.

Another comment I tired of addressed a certain character and every so often multiple people would ask "Did he lose weight?". For some reason, I think a few folks thought he was bigger at the beginning of the story? But each time this comment came up I would have a lot of self-doubt and go back to previous pages to see if I really sucked at staying consistent drawing him. _ (:'3」∠) _

After replying to the first dozen or so, I just began to ignore them for my mental health.

[Tanako]

Personally I just ignore them as long as it isn't racial. but yes, I have ran across comments that aggravated me but most times I just ignore it.

[otterlyhuman]

Hey, that's a really good point actually. Engagement is engagement after all haha.