Experiences sharing your comics with people irl? How did it go? (Share your stories)

[PixyByte]

I feel bad for any artist who has a bad experience with sharing their art. I've had my share, and it's not fun. Honestly though, all the negativity I received IRL was in middle school/high school. And when I say negativity, I don't mean just kids making fun of me, teachers would insult my art right to my face.
One of my worst stories from high school was when an English teacher would allow 10 minutes of free time to the end of class before it was over, and in those 10 minutes you could do anything you wanted as long as you were quiet. I decided to doodle. Nothing offensive, just like flowers or little cartoon Harry Potter characters. She came right over and told me it wasn't art class. There was some back and forth arguing, which ended in her making a huge deal in front of all the students and tearing my picture to shreds, while saying "If you put this much attention to your English assignments, maybe you wouldn't be failing this class". I wasn't failing her class.
I get mostly positive now, but I've also learned to adapt and work that "selective hearing" skill towards anything that's too negative for even constructive criticism. I usually get positive feedback IRL with my comic. The worst I've gotten is a "oh, that's nice" in a disinterested sort of way. I don't take that too personally. My comic is a gag-a-day style, and sometimes it's just not a person's taste in comedy which is nobody's fault. I've only showed my comic to friends and friends of friends and friendly acquaintances, and that's only because my friends told me to (I hate showing my art to people). I don't know if I'm being politely lied to, when people say they like my comic, but I've had some really good reactions. People who see me somewhat regularly in day to day life always ask me about it, and recently a friendly acquaintance had a group of his friends over that I didn't know, and got them all interested in it and we were all talking and laughing about possible funny situations to go in the comic. It was just a fun time all around

[UrMom]

Luckily I don't experience the lack of support most get, my family actually pushes me to make a living off my work, but aside from a few glances I don't show my stuff to anyone. I only know my family and coworkers irl (no friends on or offline), my coworkers are very... close-minded, and no matter how a character looks my family always asks if that's me; ALWAYS. So I keep it all to myself, less hassle, less questions.

[DsCashewsOfficial]

Luckily I haven't received any negative feedback IRL. Every time I show my site to someone, they always laugh pretty hard and tell me that's awesome.

Unfortunately that doesn't turn into any type of interest in following what I regularly post...the people I have shared my site with in real life have no idea I still even have a site whenever I bring it up with them again.

You mention having real supporters who have been following you for years. That alone is worth way more than any comments made by someone IRL and should give you a better view as to what people think of your work.

[Tweekling]

This happened as a result of sharing my art on FB. It also made everyone around me uncomfortable.

A few months ago this design company (they do t-shirts and and stickers and stuff) approached me and wanted me to be an artist for them having been sent to me through a friend who showed them my art, and I decided to go for it. I signed a contract, was happy that I might be making money off my art outside of commissions, and didn't consider anything bad would happen. Over time I noticed that everything seemed too personal and unprofessional.. The head guy in charge of everything wanted to text me and stuff and I thought it was fine because I assumed he'd be giving me business updates but nope.

Then he started coming onto me really hard and being very, very creepy. He wanted to take me to a nudist spa alone with him, complimented me excessively, wanted to take me to bars or to his house to drink illegally (I'm underage) and even joked about threesomes between me and his girlfriend. I wondered HOW or WHY he'd be hitting on me so I assumed I must be confused. He didn't even know what I looked like. Come to find out my friend showed him art on my facebook profile so. Yep. I had to cut all ties with him, void my contract, take down all the art I made for the company and bail. My friend felt so bad, she is one of the only supportive artist friends I have.

It sucks because I told a bunch of people I was doing it and they were excited to buy my art merchandise. This included friends and family, then I had to keep it a secret that this guy was doing this to me until it became too much when he started sending me expensive gifts when I didn't respond to his millions of texts.

So yeah. That was shitty. I lost that opportunity and shamefully avoided telling anyone that happened because I was afraid they'd be disappointed. Once again another experience where I wish I hadn't shared anything irl haha

[Sanz]

I was told to stop drawing and grow up, by my mother once. When i was younger she would support me and stuff, and think it was nice i had a hobby that kept me in the house. but when i mentioned i wanted to go to an art school when i was like 14 she said i needed to grow up and do something else. I never did get to go to an art school and self taught myself everything i had a supportive art teacher, in high school he said "people will always pay for what they can't do themselves" and i will never forget that. nowadays when i show someone, they are shocked i draw comics...they'd be even more shocked if they knew what half of them were about , i don't know why they get shocked..but. then we start talking about marvel. lol

[Tweekling]

Geez man I kinda get that. My dad harped at me about how art degrees are useless and how I better not hope to go to art school. And I don't want to in the first place, but good god. All he did was talk about how impossible it is to be an artist and how it's pointless and I'll starve on the street etc. My dad supported me until I hit about 15. Sorry you had to deal with that.

[Sanz]

yeah same here with the harping, she said i'd get nowhere, i'd starve, i'd never have a car ...all this garbage, she would also kinda criticize it if i showed her something. and not the good kind of crit, but her tone of voice was just disappointment. it sucked.

[Sanz]

holy crap dude that's awful. I never understand how people get off like that. hopes and dreams crashed on top of a creeper...

[Tweekling]

It really sucked. I thought it was the first good thing to come from sharing my art with friends and then nope. God it was so bad. I almost had to get the cops involved too. Everyone should be really careful when they're offered opportunities in the art world, especially young women.

[Dozzer]

I recognized your icon @Tweekling right after I read your post.
I'm all, "Wasn't that the artist that got featured 3 hours after posting their episoooooddeee yeeeea it is!"
Your series: The Settlers

I'm sorry to hear about your RL experiences. It's tough to keep up motivation when surrounded with such negative energy.

For what it's worth (and I'm sure everyone here can agree on some level), the tapastic community is a very nice and welcoming one. Glad you post on forums. Hope to see you around often =D

My series: The Middle Crowd

[Tweekling]

Yeah! It's really friendly here I'm enjoying it a lot thus far. I'm planning on being active here as much as I can. It's a much nicer place than offline, but most people don't /understand/ the world of comics unless they're involved so I guess it's understandable but good lord sometimes it's pretty discouraging. I'm feeling a lot better though.

[mappypaint]

Ahhh yes, and the reason I do it online nowadays is because of my experience sharing it with friends. Before I uploaded any of my comics, I make pages then bind them and make a cover for it just like a comic book. I will bring it outside with me to show my friends, but they wouldn't really read it. They will just browse through it then give it back to me. The only time they read my work was when I made a gag comic and they were the characters. But they ignored my story comic, it made me think that they didn't like the theme of it. They do read manga, and they are really updated to the newest chapter releases. It pains me whenever they talk about the newest manga because I make my own yet they don't really care about it. One time I was thinking of winning them back by making a story about stuff they like. Making a story about samurais, ninjas, basketball, etc., but I realized it wont be enjoyable since I want to tell my own story and not be a copy any of the mainstream stuff.

Then back in 2010 I started to upload my comics into webcomic hosting sites. There I found people who likes my work, real fans who will wait for every new page, readers who will give feedback. Who knew they were on the other side of the world.XD So it all worked out for me. ^u^

[Marshminator]

Geebus. I'm sorry to hear your friend is being.... y'know. :/

Feel free to ignore this next bit, because I know you didn't ask for it, but I recommend considering finding friends that will actually support what you do. Yeah, we're not all going to be surrounded by people who look at our art and read our work religiously (or ever)- but they definitely shouldn't be tearing you down. Friends are like the family you get to pick, and if you're stuck in a group of people that don't even support you- you're just poisoning yourself. Granted, if you're stuck in that group, maybe trying to give yourself some time alone may help.

I was stuck in a toxic group of friends for years and it seriously stunted my creativity and confidence... the idea of such a thing happening to someone else irks me a lot, because you don't deserve that. No one does. >:I

[AnnaLandin]

Maybe I've been super-lucky, because I haven't had that many negative reactions.

My family is very supportive, and most people I show the comic to are really impressed - mostly because most of them have no idea how to draw, and are deeply impressed by anyone who can. I went to school for Comics and Visual Storytelling, and met a bunch of fellow comic artists through that, which is nice too!

There are some people who just shrug, but then there are some people who just don't enjoy comics in general, so whatever.

My one and only genuinely negative experience was the one I refer to as Sword-Guy. He came up to my table at a con last year, picked up the preview booklet for Grassblades, and without even reading the actual contents, launched into a long tirade about how lazy and terrible I was for not drawing 100% accurate swords in my comic, and gosh he was so sick of people not doing research properly and why did people draw Japanese swords so much didn't they know that European medieval swords were inherently better because medieval Europeans were just smarter and better people than the medieval Japanese and blah blah blah blah.

I just stood kind of speechless at my side of the table, because I had the worst cold and my nose was dripping and I was running a fever and I wasn't entirely sure I wasn't just hallucinating this idiot. He went on for FORTY MINUTES, then dropped the comic and went away, only to come back TWO MORE TIMES - the first time to reiterate his "critique" of my comic, and the third time to, uh, argue about philosophy and René Descartes? I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure that last one happened, because it felt unreal. Happily, my tabling-neighbours were really sweet and gave me candy and a pep-talk after he'd gone.

I asked around afterwards, and it turns out Sword-Guy does this every year at this con, to anyone making comics with swords in them - and that he's apparently somewhere on the Aspberger's spectrum.

... This year, I'm going to be wearing a badge that says "Don't ask me about swords". =.=

[Mane]

Same here, I was lucky enough to usually receive pretty nice comments on my drawings. I actually felt comfortable enough in High school to constantly draw stuff with everyone around and they would even come up to me and ask questions about it or just give a compliment or two. Friends and family were also mainly supportive, but there was some discussions regarding if pursuing a career as an artist was financially safe, so it wasn't completely void of tension.

[phen]

Man alive! You guys! This is heartbreaking stuff you've gone through, I'm gasping to myself as I read through some of these recollections. I've been making art and comics since the beginning of my me and I haven't had any negative experiences. My family moved A LOT when I was little so I've been to dozens of different public and private schools in the US (concentrated midwest and the bible belt). I was a pretty insecure kid but... I was never afraid of showing my stupid drawings around, hah. I doodled Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon cartoon characters for classmates, they loved it. It's how I bridged the gap many, many times.

I really wonder what about these situations brings out the hate in people. Jealousy for one, obviously! But... is there some kind of misgiving here? I've never been made to feel uncomfortable about my art and in the case that there's a misunderstanding (I've participated in local gallery shows of paintings featuring purgatory saints, lots of blood), I explain it and it resolves itself.

Have some of you been given the opportunity to defend your work? Or, upon being given a negative reaction, do you prefer not to pursue it any further?

[Pandastrophic]

I don't think I've ever gotten negativety when I show my art to friends and classmates, some of my friends are super supportive too. However I do have my cousins who are around my age, I'm very close to them and they've watched me draw almost all my life...and they're so negative, like nitpicking every small sketch, it's so depressing whenever I show them my sketchbook or illustrations. I tried to take it as criticism, which I'm okay with, but they where abit too much and almost making fun of my art at times. It used to make me feel so bad about my art and made me think I wasn't improving either, which I think is even worse. I actually stopped bringing my sketchbook to family gathering and I stopped talking about my art as well, I feel like I'm improving more when I don't show them. I don't know why they were so critical, I guess since we are close family they felt they could say anything to me.

[foxowl]

I share my comic on facebook, since I know my family don't bother with my artwork so I know they won't read it. A lot of my close friends seem to like it, one I shown a few pages before uploading it seems to be a big fan, but my classmates (bar one) seem to switch off and stop listening as soon as I mention anything about my comic or the artwork I do (yet they're all over me when it comes to making a storyboard) They keep saying they'll read it but I doubt it.

[insomniascrawl]

Most people read it passively, but a few of my good friends are super supportive of my art and for the most part always have been interested in it. My family is a bit more critical, but mostly in the constructive way... Mostly.

I have a few acquaintances who expressed that they felt my art/writing/comics were a waste of my time, but I never really cared about those people much in the first place, so their opinions were largely unimpressive to me >_>

[Tweekling]

Mannnn I wish I had better experiences. I mean, I did, some times. In high school I was the art kid and everyone knew that about me. I got interviewed for the yearbook, I got in the newspaper, I won a gallery award at town hall, I won probably 5 or so awards in art shows, and people regarded me very highly. However there was this one guy who was the art kid in middle school who desperately tried to compete with me and quite literally challenged me to draw something it have it judged like a contest and I refused. He had a grudge against me every since his crush said she liked my art more lmao.

I also ended up more or less co-teaching my graphic design class because my teacher barely understood the programs.

I got the highest possible score on my AP exams and got college credit for that, yadda yadda yadda I pretty much got every possible award and recognition in high school yet people did the stupid immature, "lol why are her who boobs so big" and "is he being raped by a tree?" .... And people would steal my sketchbook. Or ask to look through it then do so anyway when I said no. Typical stuff but eh it doesn't really phase me.

ONE TIME this guy had a crush on me?? And he sought me out on Facebook because he saw me in the halls in school and instantly went on and on about how he wanted me to draw his anime for him, and without a breath he said "so I'll take you on a date and we can discuss"... wtf, I never even said I'd do it, why did he feel so entitled to me? I was 14 and he was 18 so good going dude.