First comic hate

I haven't gotten much, but one of the most memorable, I got in person at a convention. Someone came by and picked up the print-version of the first 16 pages of Grassblades48, then rolled their eyes and went on a rant about the TERRIBLE INACCURACIES of how I drew swords, and did I know ANYTHING about swordfighting, REALLY? And anyway European longswords are SO much better than silly Japanese katana, and blah blah blah blah. They were so passionate about the subject that they came back more than once to complain, and on the later visits to my table also read the back cover of my other comic, and complained about my grammar. And then tried to argue about René Descartes with me. And I was sick with a cold, running a pretty high fever at the time, so let's just say it wasn't my best con experience.

I'm seriously considering getting myself a button with the words "Don't ask me about swords" on it for my next con.

However, it was the sort of hate that is easy to get over. The person in question obviously cared more about swords than the average person, and took offense at unrealistic depictions of them, even in comics that are clearly fantasy or scifi settings (I'm told he went round to other people's tables and complained about their comics as well), and it was nothing specifically against my comic. He didn't even read it - he just looked at the cover and flipped through the first three pages.

This seems like a misery loves company situation.

Amazing. Sounds like you met a real life internet troll!

Nothing wrong with that every once in a while ^_^

@AnnaLandin What a nutjob! I admit I appreciate attention to accuracies even in fantasy/sci-fi settings; they don't have to be historically accurate, of course, but it's always nice when they make sense in terms of physics and such. But that guy obviously has issues.

@scullpanda You should tell us about your experience!

The only real hate I've gotten was from someone who had a personal vendetta against me, seemingly out of his own insecurities (he'd FLIP at perfectly valid, non-hostile critiques on his own work, often on alt accounts). He'd just throw some criticisms at me at random intervals on alt accounts while pretending to be friendly on his main. His critiques didn't even make sense most of the time, often contradicting himself within the same paragraph? It seemed like an evil version of misery loves company -- my only guess is he wanted to see me flip out on him, because he didn't want to be the only one flipping out at criticisms.

While I've had people hating on comics of mine, like one time when I was featured on Inkblazers, I recieved a 9 page long hate-mail of why my The Steam Dragon Express manga was utter shit story-wise, and couldn't be saved, but the one I always remember is not hate for any particular comic.

When I was 16 I wasn't really good at anything, as I was failing in school both socially and academically, and with no particular skills, I decided I was just going to say "Fuck it, I'll do manga." I wrote a Facebook status about my decision, and this one girl bombarded me with how unrealistic it was that I would ever be able to get even one manga finished, and I would never make it in any sense of the word.

Well I made it. Screw you, girl. I've got loads of series under my belt now.

Oh yes, I appreciate attention to detail and a certain level of plausibility in my fantasy/scifi (note: plausibility, not realism), but his main complaints were that the hand-guards on the swords I was drawing were too narrow, and didn't agree 100% with real katana-guards. There's attention to detail, and then there's hysterical nitpicking.

I think he might have had some form of Aspberger's; he was completely unable to grasp that what he did was inappropriate and rude, even though I told him that he was going a bit overboard, and he did, as I said, wander around the con and complain to several other comics-creators, and has apparently been known for doing so for several years. I hadn't gotten to see any of it before, because up until this year, the comics I had for sale did not have much in the way of swords in them.

Indeed.

@scullpanda and one of the best ways to learn is by POSTING your work online and asking for critiques/pointers. Apparently your roommate doesn't realize that!

Look, @scullpanda . Here's the thing. No, your art isn't perfect, and yes, it could do with some improvement - but as long as you actively work towards improving your art, it's going to get better! I promise, it will! The only way to do it is to practise - and a regularly updating comic is a good way of giving yourself a reason to practise! Also, you shouldn't keep yourself from telling your story just because your art isn't perfect. If we all waited until we were masters of art before we started drawing comics, there would be no comics.

And drawing by hand instead of digitally is a perfectly legitimate choice. There are a LOT of professionally published comics that are inked traditionally, and quite a few that are coloured or screentoned by hand as well! There's no rule that says you have to draw it digitally just because digital art is a thing that exists.

Finally - if your roommate doesn't have any constructive or encouraging things to say about your art, perhaps they should keep their opinions to themselves, and those people who stole your work, used it and then tore it apart (I'm assuming that they tore up your original pages?) are clearly cruel idiots, and I hope you aren't spending any more time with them than you absolutely have to.

My first comic hate was from the comic club in college. They were uber into the superhero comics and despised anime and manga. I was there ladled as anime artist and bad artist. So They really did not like me there. But I went every day to absorb all the knowledge on comic making that I could. AND I DID!

On my comic specifically, I just had someone being like, "OMG YAOI!! GROWS!!" at witch I just rolled my eyes and deleted the comment.

The first I remember was like 6 years ago. A weird girl posted a long message about my loud colors, childish characters and bad drawing. Also she said that my drawing give away a feeling of repressed sexuality O_o.
I think it was because i was making happy innocent drawings and she liked gore things.

I don't actually remember the 'first' hateful comment I got it's been a while, and I guess it didn't affect me hard enough to stick with me to remember for this long.

The first ANNOYING comment I remember for sure, and that's because it was from a friend of mine. Before I started drawing comics I just wrote stories (I actually wanted to slowly phase out my drawing and just work on writing, in fact I still do), and he did the "I'll only read it if it's a comic." "You should make this into a comic, I would be awesome and I would SO read it." "You're good at art so you should use that and make your stories into comics it just makes sense." And he got a lot of people to agree with him, and they too all thought it was the best idea ever and decided they would only read (or continue reading because they stopped reading at that point after hearing about it being a comic) if it was a comic. So eventually I did make it into a comic, and that resulted in a "OH MY GOD the art is so good, so I told you you could pull off a comic this looks fantastic!!" and I asked him "Yeah ok, so I get that you think it looks good, but what did you think of the story, was it ok, did it flow alright? Are the characters ok?" to which he responded. "I didn't actually read it. I just looked at the pictures and they were amazing."

The whole point of me making that into a comic was so that he and other people would read it, in the end most of them just looked at the art and complemented that instead of actually looking at the dialog. If I wanted people to look at my art I would just make art. Not go through the stress and work of making a comic.

My first real comic hate was at a convention. I was just graduated from my videogame school and started to do Echo19, which is the real first comic I do. A man came, we discussed a little bit, and when he heard that I was graduated from my school and wanted to continue in graphic designs, he froze and said "I'm a professional graphic designer/illustrator AND a teacher at [another videogame] school".
Then he continued to tell me that all I did was trash, that I got nothing for myself in every way : the story, the action, the drawings, the pacing, everything was really trash (I never got drawing classes, so I learned everything by myself). I remember him showing me my friends's comics on the booth and kept telling me "you see ? THIS one is PROFESSIONAL. Yours ? No, nothing.".
He told me after that I should go to better schools and spend money on them instead of wanted to find a job, because no one would hire such a drag that knows nothing. After this, he told me that he wasn't sure that the school would let me enter, given how bad I was at drawing.

He was really nice, huh. So when he walked away, I rested on my chair for 2 minutes, because he just destroyed me. Then I got up, just said some really bad words about what he said and picked up what I found interesting in his monologue, and continued my life.

So, yeah... it was the first comic hate, and I was doing this comic for merely one year or half a year, so it was really hard! But I didn't give up at comics. : )

Armour. You have to have armour.

You also have to have the ability to disconnect your ego and your passion from your project for a short period of time.

First off, people are often negative. I once heard critics described as "people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing." critical people are hard to differentiate from flat out haters, but in the end, all that matters is that you have something negative being said about your baby.

So you have to have armour to protect your ego, and you have to have the ability to look at your work dispassionately. Every time someone says something negative about your work, it's time to look at it, and see if there is some actual truth in there once you have stripped away the vitriol and hate. Turn the negative into a positive, always.

This does not mean become immune to negative comments, it means to rob them of their harmful effects, and to learn from what legitimate complaints are hidden in them.

Eagle
(Since I am my own worst critic, no one else comes close)

@Blacksanz He did mention something about studying medieval European swordsmanship, but from how he put it, it seems he did not actually practise it so much as read about it. He even tried to convince me that medieval European swordsmanship was vastly superior to Japanese swordsmanship in every possible way, blah blah blah (I had at no point claimed Japanese swordsmanship to be superior; Grassblades is merely set in a world visually influenced by East Asian popular culture; it's pretty much a samurai movie, except a comic) and got very arrogant about it.

And the thing about swordsmanship in comics or other popular media is that 99% of the people reading it will have no clue that the swordsmanship is inaccurate - or, knowing that it's not accurate (most swordswinging in fiction these days is in fantasy-stories, after all), just don't care. I did not set out to make Grassblades a sword-manual, and made to claims of accuracy. As long as you achieve the emotional impact you're after, and it's not absolutely vital to the progression of the story, there's no need to be 100% factual in things like how your characters handle swords

Also - thanks! I hope you'll enjoy Grassblades more than the sword-dude at the con!

I didn't get too many nasty comments (maybe they talk about it behind my back, but who cares) XD
But it's good that you've received some hate, for real, it means that your work brings emotions (even if negative)!

I remember that I was once called a sexist schwein for creating a rude female character. That person explained it that I used her to make my male character look poor. IDK
At first I was super upset but then I told my friends about it and we were laughing all day about it