Before reading this post, I'd just like to mention that I'm a writer, or rather a very new writer who's in the middle of a few projects that have yet to be released.
So this week this really angry person came onto the forums and made a rash thread about artists. Basically they went along the lines of artists being condescending about how hard their work is as well as writers not being paid for their efforts either, and worded it in almost a way that said that artists should be paying the writers to make art for their stories . They mentioned that some have a tendency to think that writing is so easy that
all it takes is a sneeze and a script magically appears out of thin air
and then proceeded to go on and say that artists should take a leap of faith more often basically. Then they attacked the artists who responded to them.
https://forums.tapas.io/t/bs-here-bs-there-bs-everywhere/33320 (if you want to see the original thread)
As a writer, I disagree with what they said. Art is very time consuming, realistically it's not worth taking leaps of faith. Leaps of faith is for entrepreneurs who take risks for a living, not broke comic artists who just realistically cannot be told to spend days, months, even years of their time to a risk that amounts to nothing.
As a writer I also get behind the idea that artists should be paid more than writers, that's not to say that writers shouldn't be paid at all, but rather they'd be paid less compared to the artist the way a doctor's pay check is compared to a telemarketer's. The reason I agree with this is because employed folks in the real world make money off of hours they put into their work, and seeing that it can take years to draw what took months to write, it just makes sense mathematically that artists end with more money than writers do for the same story.
The simple fact is that there are lots of "writers" (who aren't actually writers) who come on here and ask basically what this guy was asking:
Take a leap of faith and make art for me for free for this magnum opus comic idea I have.
It should come as no surprise when artists don't bother responding and those that do end up grilling them until they either find an artist who actually decides to do the work or until they fuck off.
From what I've seen, it's generally agreed upon that you cannot compare the difficulty of writing to art. They are two very different professions for a start, and secondly you cannot quantify how "hard" something is.
However, I feel like because of all these pseudo-writers, I feel there is an over generalization going on about writers.
The over generalization I feel that I'm seeing is simply put: "most or all writers on the forums are these pseudo-writers asking for free art."
Now the reason why I want to point this over generalization out is pretty much to warn yall about a brewing discord among the community and I also ask for mercy upon those who are like me and are just starting out in the community and aren't these pseudo-writers.
It's rather disheartening that when occasionally someone who does have a more legitimate sales pitch than a pseudo-writer's typical shit post basically gets a "No offence, but..." as their first response:
(Mod note: Removed Screenshots)
and then this disheartens me more:
(Mod note: Removed Screenshots)
If you can't put two and two together, the underlined bit is the same dood I explained at the beginning of this post.
I'm not sure if the artist that responded first even saw that whole spiel, so let me just break it down in both whether they did or didn't.
If they DID see the post and that thread IS why they were kinda rude, this only confirms my over-generalization fears that all writers on this forum is seen as the same pile of shit as the pseudo-writers are. Nasty thread or not, that gives them no right to be like that to just a bystander who in all reality is pretty much following the guidelines I see most artists give for free collaborations:
-Posts work they have done (human capital, check)
-Asks for a one shot (not asking for a magnum opus, check)
-Asks for a one shot of a story that has 14 chapters just to see if that'd get popular instead of just doing all 14 at once (not taking a massive leap of faith to 'make it big', check)
-Says that they can discuss with the artist (Allowing room for the artist to have a say in what happens, check)
Do I need to go on?
Now, if they DIDN'T see the nasty thread, hello, maybe the pitch doesn't convince you, that doesn't mean you have to give them any sort of regards for how much you dislike their sales pitch to a point where they are practically told "no good artist would ever collaborate with you" (see the end of tanako's post)
And what's worse is that I feel like the artists who I usually see engage in those writing vs art debates tend to act as if artists are perfect. I've seen a post before from an artist looking for a writer (a rare site) that basically had this incredible lack of care for the writer they were looking for, and was asking for free work, something I see artist complain about pseudo-writers doing on a daily basis:
Now am I saying all artists are like this? Absolutely not. However, it just has to be said, it's not like pseudo-writers are the only ones doing this, although they are more common than artists.
As wrong as I might be, I feel like the population for the amount of artists who are acting like Tanako's behavior is growing or can potentially grow into something more because of this useless debate that somehow evolves from "why I won't work for pseudo-writers" into "Why writing isn't hard and art is" and that right there would be the very crux of where this over-generalization comes from and is starting to create discord among this community.
Just because a pseudo-writer (who may actually be a troll jsyk) blows a gasket doesn't grant artists the right to go be ass holes to writers. The way these trolls usually work by the way, is that they target and tug the nerves that have already been weakened by discord in the community that has already existed.
There is a specific reality that needs to be explained here. The reality is that collaboration offers made by actual writers and not by a pseudo writer I'd bet is as rare as an artist looking for a writer.
Pseudo-writers should not even be given the honor of being called 'writers' if the best they could do was come to the table with a comic idea that might "make it big" whatever the fuck that means. If they don't have work to show you, then they have not written anything and henceforth are not writers. So I call upon our community to try to remove the discord among ourselves and make sure to differentiate between the writer and the pseudo-writer menace, and to also be nice to actual artists and writers as well.