Why do you draw?

I'm already pretty used to the whole "not that many people read my stuff" part of the OP, but I think that's mostly because the entire reason I started drawing a webcomic was for me. I was frustrated with my job and my attitude at work was starting to get reeeeeeeally shitty. Like, I was constantly grouchy, made my coworkers uncomfortable, that kind of thing. So when I was asking my friends on social media which comic I should just shut up and finally do (I'd been wanting to do one for years but never had the courage to just go for it), out of the options I gave them they picked NLPCo. So basically I drew it for myself and for my coworkers. I didn't have a story, I didn't have characters, I didn't really have anything other than "here's a pizzeria, here's the kind of frustrating shit that happens to the people who work in the pizzeria, if you're one of those types of customers and these jokes offend you then screw you, this comic isn't FOR you!" Essentially it was just a way for me to vent. I didn't really care if that many people read it because my goal wasn't to make something for everyone, it was to make myself an outlet. And I'm pretty sure that's why it's wallowing in relative obscurity. The art in the first couple dozen strips is sketchy and awful; the characters didn't even have NAMES for a while; there was no actual story, just a slice-of-life sort of joke-a-day thing; and the overall tone of the comic is just kind of mean and bitter (which, I reiterate, was the whole point) and that's why I don't get many subscribers.

But here's the weird thing: It worked for me.

After a while my general attitude at my day job improved. I no longer dreaded going to that stupid pizzeria because now it was fuel for my creative outlet. My girlfriend also finally asked me when I was going to, ya know, DO SOMETHING with the entire premise or if I was going to just keep being mean to customers in my imaginary wonderland where being horrible to people doesn't get you fired. So that's my new reason to draw this dumb thing. My focus shifted from venting to challenging myself to create a world that I find amusing, and it's one of the most satisfying things I'm doing with my life at the moment. Sure, it's not the comic I'd been hoping to do (I'll get to it after I'm done with Neon) but it's fun coming up with scenarios I can put these characters in while simultaneously making jokes about work that my friends and coworkers will still appreciate.

So if it ever gains a wider audience, fine, very cool. I'll be happy with that. But for now it's enough that it makes me happy. The art will get better. The story will progress. I've got some crazy ish coming up, and I'm excited to show it to people. That's why I draw.

You'll never know if you will be recognized or not. I make my comic because I love making comics- I love sharing my comics with my readers and hopefully through that, things can happen. I know it may take some time and I'm good with that- it could never happen, but if I didnt try as hard or didnt come out of the gate as I needed to then what's the point? Part of the process is enjoying the journey, not always looking to the reward...

For drawing in general, pretty much because I can and always have.
But as for for making comics, I just want to tell the stories I've had stuck in my head for decades. If I 'make it' cool, if I don't, cool, at least I tried.

It was a hobby that I just did when I was bored. I always enjoyed animations when I was a kid. I even would redraw scenes or characters who I liked. But after a while it wasn't just enough for me. I wanted to put out my own stuff. So after thinking about it and some motivating words from my friends, I started doing it for real.
At the beginning, I sucked drawing my comic (Backgrounds ain't easy yo!). But as time went on, I gradually got better and enjoyed my hard work I put in. And now 2 years later, after i just recently publish it (and getting some critics), I started redrawing the whole thing. Sure it lets me kinda down reworking it but at the same time I kinda get those burst of motivation and inspiration doing it. I know people may never read my stuff with the same excitement (or at all) like I have but that's okay. I'm happy that I did something I enjoy the most (also I'm my own boss so I don't have anybody tell me how I work according to their liking.)

I need to. Art is an addiction. I hope to be able to call it at least a part time job on the side eventually or even just a side hustle. Right now it's not so much but I'll keep hammering away

This is something of a multi-faceted question, so for a break down-

Drawing in general:

Simply because it's fun and a long-time hobby of mine. Been drawing since I was a young child and just never stopped lol. I think the big decided/turning point for me though was early middle school, around 6th or 7th grade. I distinctly remember it being around then that I took a step back to look at my drawing and firmly deciding that it was something that I was really interested in and wanted to invest time and effort into getting better at as a Hobby with a capitol H (as opposed to other activities I did like Soccer/Baseball, or my feeble attempts at learning guitar lol). I agree with what others have said in that being able to see the progress and improvement over time is addicting and I get a big kick out of that. You can't really see it so much day to day, but any time you look back like several months or years... ahhhh yeahhhhh.

Another aspect is that this is my only hobby that feels "productive" to me. Like, there was a period of time through my 4 years at University and then like the following year and a half or so if job hunting, doing some seasonal work, and then finally landing at my current job where I basically stopped drawing, or very rarely. In school i was doing other design based work (architectural design) and so didn't feel like working this time consuming hobby inbetween course work, and then getting used to working was just draining (especially the first bit while I was doing seasonal retail) so I pretty much just spent most of my free time not spent with friends playing video games. After a few years of this I just felt... lazy and unproductive in a way? It felt like I was letting something that i had spent a huge part of my life building up a skill set for to do cool things with rot away, and that didn't feel very good. So i picked myself back up and decided to get back into it a few years ago and have felt a lot better since!

Why Comics specifically?:

This is a more complicated and nuanced topic lol. I honestly don't know why, but I've been interested in drawing comics from a very young age. The reason it has me scratching my head looking back is... I just didn't really read many comics when I was younger from which to draw inspiration. I grew up when newspaper strips were still a thing so I remember reading some of those as a kid, and I think the only comic I like owned pre-middle school was a sonic the hedgehog comic. But generally speaking I played more video games and watched more cartoons by far. But yet, I have several short comics from when I must have been like 4 or 5 to 10 years old, so evidently something inspired me to turn my drawings to stories like that LOL I just can't remember what.

After middle school though, I got introduced to the world of manga though and that absolutely solidified my interest in making comics. I never had really read super hero comics growing up, but I had interacted with the genre via animated series on tv and they never really inspired me to make my own similar content- they were fun to watch but just didn't feel really "me". A lot of the comics I made as a kiddo were either newspaper style gag comics or fan comics based on shows like digimon, yugioh, pokemon, etc. But walking into the middle school library and book fair and seeing the wide variety of types of stories available was totally eye opening to the breadth of content that comics could actually cover. So that totally solidified my interest- I for sure wanted to make my own comics now!

That said, i instantly feel into the "my first real project should be this huge fantasy epic" trap lmao. I feel like there needs to be some guard rails and warning signs around that pit anyways designing characters and scenarios for that first story drove by creative focus for like... 10 years. I never got much farther than 5 pages into the first chapter as I continued to reboot it every year or so, but I did get valuable practice in designing characters and writing stories nonetheless. Wrote out a novel version of the story up to like 10 chapters, used the setting and characters as the basis for several creative writing class short story prompts, learned how to color, draw clothes, practice poses, etc. with all these characters over countless standalone illustrations. And even in 2017 when I was like "I want to start drawing again!" as described above, my first project was going to be "the final reboot of this story (that I had started at age 12 and was now 22/3). Got 8 pages in, realized the scope was way too huge relative to both my skillset and speed, and decided to drop it and move on to newer, shorter projects instead.

And as for why continue even if it's not blowing up with popularity... is more or less the challenge of getting there, I guess. My primary goal is to build presence as both an artist and an author such that a lot of people can enjoy my work. So if my skills aren't good enough for that right now that just turns into motivation to keep working towards that point~

I think the most exciting thing for me right now is that after working seriously on a few projects over the last year and a little, I finally have enough content completed for it to be viable for me to try my hand at tabling at some small local conventions by maybe late this year or early next year, as I compile stuff into printable format and compile additional supplemental merchandise. I don't intend to ever necessarily turn comics into my job-job (as I'm really happy with my architecture drafting job and hope to grow this career even further) but I would love to be able to connect with the local community and make a little money on the side >u>

I draw because I'm a kinetic learner. I learn by physically making things, so I've always been very crafty and very hands on when I have to learn a thing. It's what lead me into studying art. So, when I was interested in how comics work, I just...started making them. The projects I made into comics were ones that weren't really clicking as a book, so I thought "lets try it as a comic" and it felt good, so I'm still doing it, still learning.

I have always been self conscious about my art, I always felt I wasn't good at it. In high school I would jump from interest to interest and for the longest time I wanted to be an author however I was always drawing and it wasn't until my first year of college I found that my heart wasn't in writing and I had a passion for my art. The one thing I found about art is that it is always evolving, our styles, our color choices, the amount of detail. everything and so the reason why I take the time to draw a small comic that will only be looked at for a few seconds and if i'm lucky get a like, is because I know that this is where my art has evolved and I want to follow it and see where it takes me, even if it takes me to nowhere, at least I can look forward to where it takes me after

Drawing has been my passion since I was little kid drawing random noodle doodles. Seeing constant improvement is just so satisfying and I get a good laugh at how bad my art looked like before, in comparison to my current artstyle and skill.

The pleasure of learning how to do it is good enough for me. I look back on my old work and I've always tried to illustrate well beyond my current means. I like the challenge, and I like the feeling of 'cracking the code' when I understand something new. Comics kind of takes things to a whole new level, where you're mastering and merging several very different skill sets together to create a practical artwork. When done correctly, an audience connects with it rather than just simply consumes it. And as much as I love to illustrate - I can't stand the idea that I spend 50 hrs on a painting that people view for 5 seconds and move on. So, I love comics because it's high risk, high reward.

I'm not really bothered by if people see it or not, because I already got what I wanted out of the page.