Apr 2019
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Apr 2019
Apr 2019
colinmooredraws
Apr '19

........why would you do that? Even if your intent is to eventually make money, targeting something you have zero interest in is just hollow.

If you're hired to do a project of some sort that's not to your taste, sure. But if you're creating stories of your own, why on earth would you put it into something you have no interest in? That's a sure way to kill the idea and and lose interest fast.

You're on the internet. No matter how niche your thing might be, you WILL find your audience. Sometimes it takes time, but they're out there.

Then again, which "mainstream" are you trying to target, exactly? Sure, there's shifting trends. Like one year vampires are the thing everyone's thirsting after, and the next year it's werewolves. But it's all still urban fantasy or horror. And the lovers of either will overlap. And there's tons of general markets that one would call "mainstream."

Just how niche are your interests that not even one broad stroke of "mainstream" holds zero interest for you? So you don't like historical fantasy or steampunk. What about scifi horror? Slice of life anime/manga? Steamy romance? Absurd comedy? Action/adventure? Superheroes? Epic fantasy? Magical girl manga? Gritty noir?

Heck, around these parts the examples you gave aren't even that big.

So which thing is it you're not interest in?

KelheorRegular
Apr '19

I will put here recent tweets by Stjepan Sejic, he is better with words than I am.

I often speak about this how my original style, my artistic handwriting was something i had, and killed when i got into the comics industry because i was convinced everyone else was doing it better and doing it the right way, and i was wrong.

I spent 13 years at least trying to be everyone but me. It resulted in a massive burnout and my return to my personal style resulted int he most unexpected of successes. I made sunstone, i made death vigil and i kept growing from an honest place. A personal place.

Looking at it now, these images of ravine before i changed it all to realism, i see every element of what made me big later on. I think of where i could have been if i staid true to myself. Don't give up on your approach. If it is honest and from your heat, believe you me, there is value in it. It may be imperfect but you will grow faster and tronger than by being someone else. this was ravine from about 17 years ago. This was me. The heart of me. And i abandoned that heart for what i thought others would prefer. Don't be like me. Embrace your heart.

colinmooredraws
Apr '19

That's a perfect example! And a tale you'll be find told in a thousand variations by a thousand artists. And it all comes down to that same idea of "I tried to be what I thought people wanted, but when I did what I like people wanted it."

Also his stuff is wildly off from what most would consider mainstream, yet he's crazy popular. Especially Sunstone.

unknown_user
Apr '19

Guys, I know you all have good intentions and you all try to cheer thread author, but let's be a bit more realistic.
Hard and persistent tries to create something sincere from the bottom of your heart don't guarantee to gain ANY readership from it. This all is about luck, marketing and existing of enough amount of people, who can relate to your work. When authors becomes more "pop", it means increasing amount of people, who can enjoy their work, and thus it increases success chances.

I guarantee that my own comics have too much features, which prevent it from becoming super-popular. Like:

  • Moral ambiguity of everything and thus, lack of definitely positive characters. Reader will NOT gain any sense of justice from depicted events. You can't say that good defeats evil, if they are intertwined with one another so much, that you can't even distinct them... and sometimes there is even no difference between them.
  • Complicated plot and non-stadard setting, which require a bunch of non-trivial explanations (in my case these explanations are also heavy technical). Most of people don't like complicated things. Only small part of them can be interested in it.

And... I can see the same features in the current novel of the topic author, just expressed in less degree. It makes their novel interesting for me, but it also means that it will never be as popular among wide audience, as more simple, easy-to-understand-and-relate things.

You're on the internet. No matter how niche your thing might be, you WILL find your audience. Sometimes it takes time, but they're out there.

There are people who have been unlucky and couldn't gain audience for years. It happens, too.

KelheorRegular
Apr '19

Drawing naked anime girls or beefcake guys with guns doesn't guarantee it too =) It still is about luck, marketing and people relating to your work.
I'm sure there are tons of awesome artists, who draw good fanart and still are not popular as some other artists. But the thing is, you can draw naked anime girls, become popular and hate it and go down with depression, and you can draw things you love and maybe some day become popular.

unknown_user
Apr '19

Sure. I just think that "naked anime girls or beefcake guys with guns" will provide popularity with somewhat more probability, than drawing stuff which is interesting only to the author. :slight_smile:
But it's a lottery in any case.

ben
Apr '19
unknown_user

You just described two things that are pretty hot right now with the mainstream. I think there are bigger issues with your work that might be preventing you from gaining a bigger audience.

Like, the artwork for example. But that’s something you can get better at and doesn’t affect the story you wanna tell.

skicoak
Apr '19
unknown_user

It's a good point.

There are artists that succeed by "aping" trending styles then develop artistically from that point.

There are creators who have an entire career by being the cheaper/quicker version of a more popular creator.

There's always more than one path.

Like I said earlier in the thread, everyone wants larger audiences/recognition. But if the need for it is crippling then maybe you should give up your personal vision and chase it a different way for awhile.

Jenny-Toons
Apr '19
2

I mean, realistically -- a lot of what it means to be mainstream isn't just solely about the work.

It's how you sell it.

How many times have any of us bought something we really didn't need or we really didn't end up liking but we bought it anyway because the advertisement was stellar?

And let's not forget about connections, the ability to hype up your audience, putting yourself out there so people know who you are.

If you're just working in a bubble and not really actively trying to promote yourself or sell your story, people are not going to know what your story is and they're kinda not gonna care.

Here's a good example of a indie artist who's getting more mainstream: Tame Impala.

He did his own thing with psychedelic music and sounds, experimenting and enjoying his work, and people who liked him sought out to find more from him. He had a niche feel, yeah, and based on mainstream music that's popular (so says the media), he's not very big.

Just last month, this guy appeared on SNL live to preform his new song "Borderline"

He's getting out there just doing his own thing. It's not impossible.

Just -- there's more to getting out there than the actual work. It's the engagement to the audience, how you present yourself as a creator, and anything else people talk about.

Sides -- "Mainstream" is so vague. As @colinmooredraws What exactly do you mean by that? Because I can tell you there's a lot of Mainstream stuff I view myself that show up in some way in my work. We can and are influenced by the previous art we see -- whether that's Indie or Mainstream. I personally feel no one's work is that niche.

My personal advice is to just work on what you have now and work on promotion. If you're only active on one social media platform, branch out into other spaces. If you're not really engaging in the creator community, branch out and offer your own experiences to new comers.

It can also help to learn some marketing and managing skills. A lot of creators can fall into the pitfall of thinking just following the trends and their work alone helps them. No -- you need to become a creator salesperson. Pitch yourself like any good salesperson. Be your own Billy Mays.

See -- it's the little things that help rank up work, not just the work itself. Because as many of us have said before -- those popular creators had comics before that tanked. They had worked before that wasn't seen. We have to look further than face value and just understand that this is an over-saturated field and that trends come and go.

It can help to look at them, but depending on them will kill your work and your drive in the long run.

punkarsenic
Apr '19
unknown_user

some of the most popular shows (like this one ^^) of the last decade have been morally grey and complex

there are works that are inaccessible and unlikely to hit mainstream success, and mainstream audiences dont like being made to work, this is true. however, neither you nor OP make work that is too inaccessible for the average reader - the really inaccessible underground stuff is like, tarkovsky films which are like 9 hours long and scenes last forever. yer average marvel viewer isnt gonna put up with that, or even know what it is, but theyre acclaimed films. works that are inaccessible can still gain massive and passionate response especially in comics. there are lots of very strange, niche, and inscrutable comics that have been widely celebrated.

youre totally right, @tired_programmer , that getting ~discovered is 100% luck - but developing an audience, however small, is about consistent, quality work (and promoting. obvs).

unknown_user
Apr '19

I thought so, when GoT started, too... that's why I've loved it. But look, what it has become now...

Spoiler
  • Two unkillable goody-two-shoes cheaters have become the main characters. Yes, I call Jon Snow and Daenerys cheaters, because they should die by the logic of the story, but survived because author's arbitrariness. Especially Snow. He should die more than once.
  • Despite grayness and ambiguity of the beginning, at the end, everything have boiled down to conflict between humans and absolute evi. Meh.
  • If you'll read discussions about new episodes of this serial, you'll see that most of the spectators don't even manage to follow the complicated plot and stories of all characters. Many of them look it just for blood and sex, lol. Maybe at the end the show itself have become more simple because it adapts to mass reader's intelligence... ¯_(ツ)_/¯

there are works that are inaccessible and unlikely to hit mainstream success, and mainstream audiences dont like being made to work, this is true. however, neither you nor OP make work that is too inaccessible for the average reader - the really inaccessible underground stuff is like, tarkovsky films which are like 9 hours long and scenes last forever.

Yes, I try to make my work more understandable and glad if I reach at least partial success here.

About Tarkovsky... I don't know about any of his movies which would be more than 3.5 hours long. :thinking: Besides, I've watched his "Solaris" and "Stalkers" in my 15 and have understood the main ideas even in that age. Yes, he is surely deep and sometimes complicated, but I wouldn't provide him as an iconic example of inaccessibility. I would better recall some works of Neil Stevenson, which can be fully understandable only by IT dudes. :grinning: But it's allready too deep off topic. :slight_smile:

yer average marvel viewer isnt gonna put up with that, or even know what it is, but theyre acclaimed films. works that are inaccessible can still gain massive and passionate response especially in comics. there are lots of very strange, niche, and inscrutable comics that have been widely celebrated.

Can you provide an examples, please?

unknown_user
Apr '19
ben

Not in that degree which I want... not in that degree. (look at my prev. post about GoT for example)

I think there are bigger issues with your work that might be preventing you from gaining a bigger audience.

Like, the artwork for example. But that’s something you can get better at and doesn’t affect the story you wanna tell.

Yes, this is true. I mean, if you make something not mainstream, you should try harder and be better to become recognizable. But it doesn't change the fact that I'll never reach success of 50 shades of grey. Even if I will learn to write and draw like a God :joy:

punkarsenic
Apr '19
unknown_user

re: got i dont actually watch the show or have any positive feelings towards it, so im not gonna discuss that. i just used it as a topical example of a show that was positively received for being morally grey and complex - i dont care if it went down hill later on, im waiting for it to end.

i was tryna pull a number id heard from the air, clearly i got that one wrong... but there ARE like Really Fucking Long movies in similar strains to his, i feel like hes just my go-to example bc kyle kallgren seems to really like him

and i didnt really mean inaccessible in that its dealing with lofty topics, but more the formatting. theres stuff thats inaccessible in the way its laid out, stuff thats inaccessible because its just Fucking Long And Dull, stuff like the tribe which is inaccessible because of both. i watched the tribe and the themes were perfectly clear, and besides some bad lighting i could follow the narrative, but it was really boring and unappealing to a mass audience; thus, inaccessible.

for comics?

my favourite things is monsters by emil ferris was one of the most highly acclaimed graphic novels of last year - the compositions are hard to follow and make you work, and the narrative has so many interlocking threads that are hard to follow, and extremely heavy in subject matter. its not the most inaccessible thing, but it takes work to get through and isnt immediately appealing to someone whos only read, like, captain america or something else quite mainstream.

then theres here by richard mcguire, which is also highly acclaimed and highly experimental - rather than following any explicit narrative, here follows a single plot of land throughout time. if you werent Really Into Comics it probably wouldnt appeal to you, but for comic people (and other art people i know who arent into comics but get the way of thinking) its extremely exciting, and it did very well.

and thats just the surface stuff that i know of, all sorts of weird and unexpected stories with weird and unexpected formats are being published and celebrated every year, but these are just two examples i can describe without doing any research.

ben
Apr '19

God My Favorite Thing is Monsters won sooo many awards when it came out too and its my favorite comic I’ve read in the past few years tbh.

Can’t wait for volume 2.

Jenny-Toons
Apr '19
1

Another thing came to mind today about this topic:

If you have a limited idea of what "mainstream" is, you're going to limit your creativity.

I feel the real problem with trying to be "mainstream" is that there's this generalized idea of what it means, and that idea is so limited, you force yourself into a box.

The biggest example is romance. Already, if you see romance, you might think "Cute Meet" or "Coffee Shop AUs" or "They were Roommates" -- and then you get frustrated because that's been done before so many times.

Romance is that. But romance can also be combined with other genres and with other elements.

Take my comic Our Universe for example. It works on the trope "Love at First Sight". But I'm working with cosmic elements, the hint of cosmic horror, and the supernatural. Overall, it's a romance, specifically a sci-fi romance. It's not the first thing you think of when you think "Romance", but it is still romantic and still has the same elements any "Coffee Shop AU" could have.

Hell -- even a Coffee Shop AU can get excited. Make one of the love interests a former mob hitman under witness protection, and you got yourself a story.

As it was stated before -- things that are popular now had some trouble being popular in the past. Trends come and go, and the stories that are remembered are the ones that didn't follow any trends. They were unique to the creator's creativity, and you can tell there was some passion in them.

So my new piece of advice is to broaden your idea of mainstream. If you lump it all together into small generalizations, you're never going to grasp it or learn how to mold it into something that's "you".

You're only going to limit yourself to things you don't really like in the first place.

Jenny-Toons
Apr '19

Well, no, it's not mainstream in that sense.

But, the elements I've used are part of a mainstream romance setting. My point was more about looking at what's mainstream, or rather taking what you like about mainstream content, and turning it on its head.

You're only limited by your imagination, and again -- a lot of mainstream stuff wasn't mainstream before. My work on cosmic romance probably isn't as popular now. But give or take a few years, and it might jump. Just like vampires and zombies and what not.

Key thing is to just do what comes natural to you. :blush:

JRHoch
Apr '19

At the end of the day, a comic artist will spend hundreds if not thousands of hours creating a comic. Do you want to do something you're passionate about or something you care little about but hope will have more commercial success? If you can marry both in a single idea, then go for it.