This transcript is auto generated by our recording software.

00:02.23

Thane

Hello and welcome to Screen Tones where we talk anything and everything webcomics. Today we're going to be talking about how to network with other creators in webcomics. I am Verathane, my pronouns are she, they, and I make the comics Wychwood and Chirault.

00:31.77

Rae

And I'm Rae. My pronouns are they, them, and I do the webcomics Overlord of Ravenfell and On Empyrean High.

00:40.89

Bob

I'm Bob. I use any pronouns. And I make the webcomics Into the Smoke and Demon of the Underground.

00:55.64

Thane

So our topic today, it's a bit of a big one. It's one of the buzzwords, so to speak. It is one that can feel a little weird to use in web comics. But what we're talking about in this episode is basically just the concept of connecting with other creators or other creatives.

01:15.06

Thane

And this can have a ton of benefits, like getting to share opportunities with one another, sharing audiences, and also just make the process of making your webcomic less lonely. It's also something that can get a bit awkward if we don't approach it in a natural or respectful way. And it's become a loaded topic depending on, a, what's going on in the scene at any given point in time.

01:39.48

Thane

And today we're going to talk about what it looks like. The first question for the group, bit of a softball, basically, what does networking mean to you?

01:52.76

Rae

So for me comic creation is a pretty lonely process. So networking is really a good way to remind yourself that you don't have to go at it on your own. And a lot of my network is really just creating a support group of friends and acquaintances around that specific thing. So it's pretty much adding shared knowledge into one giant pool.

02:23.41

Bob

Yeah, my starting point for networking is very much the same as Rae’s. It stems from just a need to have a community around me to know that there are other people doing the same thing as me. That's how it all started back when webcomics were just a hobby for me. And that's still a really important part of what I look for and what I try to maintain when I'm working on web comics so that I don't become a hermit, because that's always my inclination is to just hide away and, you know, never talk to anyone. But I force myself to because I do think that the community element is important. And then that has grown as I went into web comics on a professional basis. Now it is also it does also have a big

03:13.37

Bob

professional element to me, which is you know, how do I share resources with other creators? How do I make sure that I know what's going on in our industry? How do I know what types of companies and businesses to avoid? And it's basically a lot of supporting each other in ways that are not just being friends, but are a little bit more

03:43.19

Bob

Constructive, I guess.

03:51.67

Bob

And then, you know, whether that's, you know, helping each other build an audience or just warning each other about what to watch out for. Those are all benefits that I personally always I'm looking for.

04:07.77

Thane

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of different sides to this subject. Like I personally see networking itself as kind of a big and very broad and inherently neutral term, just referring to any process of building relationships with other people who are working in a similar field.

04:29.59

Thane

And it gets complicated because I feel like depending on who you talk to and where you are, what's going on, it can mean a lot of different things. Like there's definitely the community side that you guys have been talking about. Obviously, especially in creative fields, like everybody wears their heart on their sleeve and is interested in what they're doing. And we're all making art together.

04:52.89

Thane

And that is such a strong basis for building friendships and having these more emotional connections. But in other areas, when you bring up networking, people might also be thinking about things like going to trade shows and workshops and talks and doing those kind of very dry “This is strictly professional.

05:16.41

Thane

I am going to an office party and I'm going to go home to like the rest of my life” . It's a very different kind of field. They're both a kind of networking, but they have different emotional associations, I guess.

05:30.71

Rae

I think one of the things about comics and just essentially indie art in general is we do have trade shows. We do.

05:41.27

Rae

And people just cosplay at them and have a good time. And, I mean, anime conventions usually have a rave. So I think that kind of...

05:52.50

Rae

shows just how varied it can be sometimes because trade shows don't have to be boring or stuffy I know when I went to Ohio Con sometimes it was right after an accounting convention and they would just side eye us but some of them looked very jealous that our conventions were actually kind of interesting

06:20.98

Thane

Oh, my gosh, that's awesome. Actually, I think one of the first conventions I ever did was a tiny one called Anna Maritime in New Brunswick, and it was being held in a hotel at, I think, the same time. as a dentist conference on the lower level. So there'd be all these cosplayers walking past. It was very funny. But the the other thing with conventions is that they do also serve as a platform for that kind of more dry, like a, i don't know what to call it, not traditional.

06:53.24

Thane

This is the digital age

06:55.29

Rae

It’s face to face networking a lot of it

06:59.54

Thane

Well, it's face-to-face. Yeah, but people do go to like portfolio reviews with publishers at conventions and stuff like that. And they'll line up with the little books under their arms to talk to people from Marvel.

07:11.10

Thane

And that's a very, like that is networking with a capital N and not necessarily like I'm looking to make a friend.

07:14.74

Rae

Though a lot of them will go be like, hey, let's go get pizza after the convention closes up.

07:22.10

Rae

Or I know OhioCon used to have a midnight draw jam and you'd have like all the artist alley people, all the people that didn't make the artist alley shoved in one room with a giant roll of butcher paper.

07:38.04

Rae

So, you know, it really depends.

07:39.85

Bob

Yeah.

07:43.18

Bob

That's actually such an interesting point though, because when you mentioned the convention space being dry because I'm not someone who goes to conventions. So I always envisioned that as being more of like a fun thing you do with friends. Though I guess if you are tabling stuff and or if you're doing portfolio reviews, then that really is, like you said, networking with a capital N. What I have gone to in the in-person realm is conferences, like creator conferences. For example, Patreon used to have annual conferences. They did it like three years in a row when I went to all three and then they stopped. And you would think that that would be drier because it's it's a conference and you're going and you're sitting and you're listening to all these things. But there is something freeing about being surrounded by creators and only creators. because then you really are actually having those sorts of interactions where you're on the same level, you're not performing for anyone, which can be the case when people are in a space where they're trying to reach customers as well as talk to other creators or where they're trying to you know make those connections to people who maybe they perceive as above them. So I do find that kind of an interesting

09:10.10

Bob

correlation, I guess.

09:15.77

Thane

Yeah, I feel like the word dry was not right, maybe not the right one to use because I have a blast at conventions every time I go. They are a ton of fun. Don't get me wrong. The fact that people will pursue work opportunities in a very kind of classic way with those portfolio reviews, it's probably only a small part of that experience. And they'll leave it and then go have fun and go to other panels and go to parties and stuff like that. And honestly, i like going to work events.

09:48.98

Thane

Even if the talk turns out to be dry or something, I love free food. So it's got that going for it.

09:55.70

Bob

who Who can argue with that, honestly?

09:58.00

Rae

Can't argue with free food. Nope.

09:59.90

Thane

Right. So this leads me to the second question, which is what benefits has networking with other creators had for your own webcomic journey?

10:11.51

Thane

I know we've already talked about this a bit, but let's ah let's talk about it some more, starting with Ray.

10:16.18

Rae

So probably the main benefit of networking for me is the sharing of resources. It can be advice, technique, printers, merchandise resources, or sharing tables at conventions. Or even if you want to go beyond just web comics, it can be getting advice on publishing, getting an agent, or maybe even some leads to some paying gigs.

10:45.37

Rae

if you know the right people. Pretty much every artist comes from a different place with different resources and experience. So I think the free sharing of information is probably one of the best things I've seen from the webcomic community, especially since, you know, I've done convention circuits and some some of the artists in those circuits keep their resources very close to their chest because they don't want their particular

11:20.76

Rae

resource to be overwhelmed by all the artists going, Hey, I like this thing. I'm going to do it too. But essentially just getting to know the other people and getting all this information from all these a variety of different experiences, I think is probably one of the coolest things about networking.

11:49.82

Bob

Yeah, I feel very much the same way. I think we're going to be agreeing with each other a lot during this because definitely same on all points. The sharing of resources is such a big deal. And I do want to say that um there is kind of a different approach that people have in public spaces versus private spaces.

12:13.53

Bob

So I think people feel a lot freer to share resources and especially to share about their experience with publishers, with agents, with editors, if they're behind closed doors. So there are certain types of conversations you really only can have with other creators in private artists' spaces. And I've definitely benefited from that a lot.

12:49.18

Bob

When I decided that I wanted to try to get a graphic novel published, it was private communities with other people who had already gotten an agent and oftentimes been published. You know, they would share their experiences. And that told me at to expect, how to prepare my pitch, and also what experiences people had with different agents. And people were able to vouch for some agents that were really good. And, you know, for me, that was a happy ending because I got an agent, I got a publishing deal, I'm working on that now. So that was a really big benefit to me. Another thing I'd say is that

13:29.75

Bob

when you're in a field for long enough, the chances are pretty high that you're going to kind of get screwed over by someone. And when you have these connections with other creators, you have a whole lot of people who have your back, who can help you through it either on an emotional level or on a more practical level. Like if you need to put out a statement against a publisher, which I have had to do with a prose publisher, or if it's, you know, something along those lines, just...

14:03.70

Bob

Yes.

14:03.93

Thane

something topical that may have just happened

14:05.82

Bob

Yeah, these are things that when you have a community of support around you, you can prepare yourself better. And you can also know that you're not doing it alone. And to me, that's been a huge deal.

14:23.10

Thane

Yeah, definitely the like communities can be such a huge, huge benefit of making these connections with other creators. I think the the friends that I've made within this field, but also the groups that I've come to join, I feel like I got...

14:42.33

Thane

Maybe not lucky exactly, because I was in the right place, but also the internet was a lot smaller back then. But I landed in a great community very early on in my webcomics journal, which was Spider Forest.

14:58.26

Thane

And that kind of gave me access kind of right away to this big circle of other creators who were all doing these things with very different levels of experience. So I could hear that there were other folks who were like, you know, teenagers just starting out like I was, but there were also folks who'd been doing this sort of thing for decades, people who started in print and then moved their stuff to the internet or people who did it the other way around. And so many different

15:28.30

Thane

levels of experience and different mediums and all these interesting things to kind of learn about. And when I started trying to take my own comic further, that community was the first place that I would turn to get any kind of feedback on it. Like when I decided to start going into print,

15:46.26

Thane

Some others in Spider Forest had done that through Kickstarter. And I had, you know, kind of watched them go through that process and seen what it looked like under the hood and looked over their campaigns ahead of time. And I was like, you know what, I could do this, too.

15:58.65

Thane

And then when I got started, you know, I had this space to share links to what I was working on and be like, how does this look? What should I change and get feedback from people who like,

16:10.20

Thane

even the folks who hadn't done one themselves, ah you can still look at it and give feedback on like, you know, this graphic is confusing or this text could be cleaned up a lot, to make it clearer, or more appealing, all these things. And it's so valuable. It really...

16:29.28

Thane

helped me get a lot of confidence and learn a lot of stuff when I was early on in my comics journey. And, you know, even today, now, the Screen Tones community has been super cool.

16:40.98

Thane

And I like all my friends. And yeah, it's been a ton of fun. There are areas of what I would call networking that can be a bit more mixed. I feel like almost all social media now has kind of skewed from the community building and friendship side more to the kind of pragmatic networking side, if that makes sense. I know we're talking about networking as if it's all kind of in one umbrella, but I do feel like there is a very different flavor when people are interacting with one another

17:20.18

Thane

thinking this is networking for professional purposes, as opposed to I'm in a community of peers. That's subtle, it's subtle, hard to hard to put a finger on.

17:31.32

Rae

Yeah, I remember when a lot of it was, oh, you should DM this person and they'll make a post and all these people will flood your Kickstarter. And I'm just like, I mean, that might be true and it's cool that they do it, but oh my but it never felt right to me to get these people with like this huge amount of clout that I had no idea who they were to retweet something or promote me um just because I DM them.

18:09.40

Thane

Oh, yeah. There's the follow for follow accounts and stuff like that. There's a whole weird social media side of what is technically networking, but it includes those people who follow tens of thousands of other users hoping to get more of them. I feel like the way...

18:27.51

Thane

There are positive sides too. Like I know on Twitter and now starting up on Blue Sky, there were those events like Div Pit and stuff like that where people can post pitches on social media and agents might be able to see them.

18:41.94

Bob

That is actually where I got my agent.

18:43.03

Thane

Oh.

18:43.26

Bob

was not Div Pit. It was a Twitter pitch event that I found out about through other creators.

18:45.40

Thane

oh Oh, nice.

18:49.50

Rae

You are probably the only person I know that got an agent from that.

18:49.88

Bob

Yeah.

18:56.85

Thane

I feel like I've heard of others doing so, but yeah, I don't know personally.

18:57.91

Bob

The thing is the pitching events used to be better. The ones that still exist now, particularly the ones on Blue Sky, they just aren't really frequented by big agents and editors anymore. I think that kind of the pitching event phase, it has kind of dwindled and it just isn't what it used to be. I think I slipped in right before it started to go down. Because I do know a lot of people who got very good agents through it back in the day.

19:27.16

Thane

Yeah, that's one of yet another thing.

19:29.02

Bob

Yeah.

19:29.20

Thane

the Modern internet has ruined. But sometimes there really is like a time and a place. I feel like a lot of this stuff I hear about only after it's gotten too popular to be useful anymore to the people who would have been using it.

19:43.38

Thane

Like it was definitely being flooded by the time it was on my radar, I could see why people might not be.

19:46.81

Rae

Same though. oh Late to the party, if only were better at networking.

19:55.42

Thane

If only. If only.

19:55.26

Bob

There is always something to be said for being an early adopter or something or being there at the right time.

20:01.06

Bob

It's just, oh I wish that wasn't the case, but it really is.

20:07.67

Thane

I mean, I feel like starting Chirault when I did, when the scene was so much smaller, it was a lot more kind of easy to get noticed, I guess. And my comics are not huge by any means, but I definitely feel like when I got started has played a part into the success that I've seen, which is maybe… sorry if it's disheartening to say, oh golly.

20:33.80

Bob

But the subject of social media is interesting, though, because when you do mention like the follow for follow accounts and like the the ones that are just kind of like trying to game other people to get them to do a thing for them, it can be very daunting to try to jump into a situation like that, because I think that a lot of the strife that comes from the term networking and the experience people have with networking is just a mismatch of intentions between two people. And, you know, one person is approaching the other and they want two very different things out of that interaction. And I think when those are mismatched, you're more likely to have...

21:15.71

Bob

strife or resentment or something like that. I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with the people who are kind of more gaming the system if they're doing it with other people who are kind of also in the realm of gaming the system. It's just finding that match. That like who's trying to do the same thing that I'm trying to do and figuring out who those people are can be a little bit challenging.

21:39.58

Thane

Yeah, for sure. This actually is already connected to the subject of the third question, which is what are some of the common pitfalls that you see or have done when networking? And what's your advice to someone who wants to network without being awkward about it?

21:57.46

Rae

Probably the biggest pitfall I see, that is when someone really only wants to take but never contribute. A lot of times this can be spotted from a mile away and you end up being avoided just because you come off as insincere.

22:19.26

Rae

So you pretty much need to put in as much as you take out of it and make it an actual relationship to get anything out of the networking. Because I'll see a lot of people that their primary interest is getting an audience. So their main thing is to market at you and try to make all their these artists their readership or another thing that i'll often see, especially for the new artists, is trying to find a mentor which a lot of us are working full-time as well as drawing comics we don't really have time for mentoring that's a lot of time and energy but we will often point you to the resources where you can teach yourself

23:15.54

Rae

So I would say the main thing is you need to approach people with sincerity, be willing to listen and ask questions, because a lot of us have stumbled across the same roadblocks that you're probably asking about. And just, just try to help the people after you too. I think that's a big one because once you get more experienced, then you can point out to someone, oh Hey, maybe you should avoid this website. This one's kind of shady, even if it looks nice. You know, just, so just things like that.

24:00.66

Bob

Yeah, I completely agree. Big surprise. I completely agree with everything you said. Especially the so many good points. First of all, it is a two-way street when you're trying to build these relationships with other people, even if it is just you're looking for a slightly simpler relationship where you're maybe just kind of trading reblogs online. There's a particular way that we try to reach readers, which is we put our work out there and the reader sees our work and they're like, oh, this story sounds interesting. Now I'm going to read it and now I'm going to fall in love with this creator. And that's all you want out of a reader slash creator relationship. But the creator slash creator relationship is entirely different.

25:09.66

Bob

One thing that I would say I see a lot of people doing that doesn't necessarily pan out is just putting your work out there and expecting that to be enough for an actual relationship to be built from it. It is a lot like what Rae was saying is expecting other creators to be your readers.

25:30.97

Bob

It's a different relationship because they have their own projects. So you kind of have to be a person and show that you're a person beyond just the work that you're making.

25:42.74

Bob

Because the dynamic between creators is one of equals and it needs to be that. I would say also, as much as I say don't expect other creators to be your readers. At the same time, I think a mistake, if you're looking for a relationship where you can maybe bounce ideas off of each other or support each other,

26:11.42

Bob

Another mistake would be to not read other creators work or to not engage with other creators work. That's another thing where you don't engage with your readers. I personally don't even like if someone is my reader, I'm very likely to never follow them on social media for the specific reason that they are my readers. But again, entirely different for other creators. If all that's happening is they're reading your work and commenting on your work and you're not commenting on theirs, that's not a relationship that's being built or at least not a relationship of kind of equals between creators.

26:51.58

Bob

The other thing is that, you know, it is kind of like, you can't just sit back and wait for Senpai to notice you. Like, putting your work out there will not, it will sometimes catch the eye of another creator.

27:06.55

Bob

But again, we're all, we have our heads down, we're focusing on our own stuff. You can like a person's post on social media every single day, and they might literally never see it because they get so much social media traction that they filter their reply or their notifications to only show responses with words in them. That's something that I have to do on Tumblr a lot of the time. If someone's liking my posts a lot, I probably don't even know it. So another thing I would say on that realm is don't read too much into other people's interactions with you on social media, unless it is spoken in words. Like you don't know what a like means to someone else. You don't necessarily even know what a retweet means from someone else. You do know if they say, i like your work

27:56.22

Bob

That should mean I like your work, or at least that's what they're trying to tell you. So a comment you can generally believe, but just don't read too much into the other stuff.

28:09.73

Thane

It's funny because the sort of the flip side of that being like, you can like somebody's posts every day, but they might have no idea. Sometimes if people are so super focused on their notifications, looking at every single like and follow and whatnot that goes in and trying to read a million things into the intentions of everybody who follows them, I've liked all kinds of things that just kind of passed over my dash and then out again the other side.

28:37.82

Thane

So there's a lot of very superficial kind of noise that that goes on every day on social media and on the internet in general. And reading too much into it can be just as dangerous as not paying attention at all.

28:51.54

Bob

Yeah, exactly.

28:53.11

Thane

Honestly, not paying attention at all sounds great. That kind of leads into part of what I wanted to say about this part of the subject. A lot of my own notes on it are functionally very similar to everything that Ray was saying, which is not the first question that this has happened in. But ah I feel like one big thing that people mix up, especially with the way the internet is right now, is they conflate networking with marketing. And that whole thing about treating other creators as potential readers above all else, it can be so alienating, especially if there's like, you know, say a server that's dedicated to the craft. And a new person joins it. And the first thing that they do is post a million links to their stuff. And then they only ever post more links to more of their stuff without ever engaging with the things that other people are talking about or discussing or they don't answer questions. Like it's only, hey, hey, buy my things. Look at my things.

30:03.77

Thane

I suppose it's technically networking, like you are technically in the most literal sense getting your name out there, but it may not be in a positive way. ah i feel like when it comes to communities, especially discord servers and things like that. To a lesser extent, the wider social media, because it's all such a big soup these days.

30:29.59

Thane

But it's often a good idea to lurk for a while without posting and just feel out the vibe of what a space is like. Say you've just joined a server for the first time, see how people are interacting with one another to get a feel for things before kind of jumping in. And after a while, like especially if you're joining a place because you already know a whole bunch of people, maybe at this point you sort of have an idea of how things are going to go. You don't need to spend like, you know, a week or something not posting anything. But just keep an eye on things. Read like the descriptions of channels.

31:07.58

Thane

One thing that has come up in the ScreenTones community is that we actually don't have a promo channel in the Discord server at all. And this is intentional. But it does come up every now and then that some new person will join and they'll be like, hey, where's the channel that I can put my links? And it's like, we don't, it doesn't exist. You can introduce yourself and you get a link there.

31:29.69

Thane

When you say, hi, my name is this, this is what I do. But there's no... designated dumping ground channel that is just links. And the reason for that is that that community is a space inherently for talking to other creators about this craft, about art, about comics, sometimes just kind of being social and chatting in general, but it's not a place to market to each other It's not a place to advertise because that's a fundamentally different type of interaction. And as soon as you start kind of bringing that into a space, it can start to kind of hurt the way that your interactions go with other people.

32:11.67

Thane

It's one of the unfortunate things I find with social media, the way that it is right now, because as webcomic creators...

32:24.38

Thane

This may not be the case. Some people are firmly in like, I'm only a hobbyist. I don't want to take this too seriously. But a lot of us are doing this, if not fully full time, professionally, sort of semi pro sort of status. Like we're printing things. We have Patreon. There is at least a little bit. There's some pizza money in the game, maybe. And all of these spaces, whether it's like Patreon, Kickstarter, as soon as you make this thing,

32:51.38

Thane

All the common wisdom of how do you make it successful is you got to get the word out. You got to tell people about it. You got to mark it. Make sure to post about it. And where are you going to post about it? You're going post about it on social media and you're going to post about it in Discord channels. And I guess something that is important to do is just be careful of how, where, where,

33:11.10

Thane

where you are posting about these things and how you were posting about these things so that you were not overwhelming people who should be your peers with this stuff. Because it is important to market and it sucks that it's so tough to do it because people might be like, ah, nobody's like, my stuff isn't going viral. And it's like, well, all the people who are following you are just other poor creatorsdoing their own thing.

33:39.51

Rae

Yeah, it's honestly a lot of marketing to other creators is kind of the whole “the same $20 going around the artist alley” kind of thing. We don't all have infinite resources, but we will often buy each other's work. But then you buy the other people's work and it just goes around in a circle. But also a lot of people want more meaningful conversations than, Hey go read my comic. I have been in so many communities where the comic creators will post a link in the promo channel and then just never post anywhere else. And that is…

34:25.40

Rae

I mean, I guess it might technically be networking, but also not really because you're not really interacting with anyone.

34:33.69

Bob

Yeah, and I can understand the impulse of why someone who even does want to build a relationship might feel like the logical place to start is to share their own work. And I do think that you should, like, you should share your own work with other creators.

34:46.69

Bob

Like, that's definitely not what we're seeing.

34:46.99

Thane

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

34:48.49

Bob

You shouldn't be hiding your work away so that no one sees it. But I think for a lot of artists, it's easy to use your own work as an icebreaker. So then people get a sense of who you are, what you're making. And that's important because then people who will create in the same genre as you can see and be like, oh, there's another partner in crime that I can potentially talk to about, you know, tropes or this or that or whatever that you might have in common in your work, but you just don't want it to get into that cycle of where you're just dropping your work and asking people to give you feedback on it. Because one of the things that happens is that actually people might not know how to talk to you about your work because they don't know you as a person. They don't know what type of

35:37.05

Bob

feedback might get a negative response from you. They might be nervous. One thing that I'm often nervous about when I comment on other creators' work is like, I probably don't remember, even if I've read it, I probably don't remember what happened two chapters ago in their work. And it's like, am I going to say something that reveals that I have forgotten an important plot point in their work you know two chapters ago? And that's another thing. I hope that people give me grace on that because again, I'm a fellow creator and not not one of their readers. But this is just, you know, one of those things where you want to put yourself out there

36:13.69

Bob

Beyond just your work, you want to give a sense of your personality and maybe your communication style so that people do feel more comfortable initiating a conversation with you because then they kind of have felt you out. They know you're approachable. They know you're not going to bite their head off for asking a simple question. And I think that's as important, if not more important than just showing your work.

36:41.21

Thane

I really feel like this is one of the places where the old internet was kind of superior because like spaces like that where anybody can walk in and ask a question at any time, regardless of whether you have a pre-existing relationship or are like a known quantity, like these big open communities, they used to just be forums. And you could just stumble into them from your web browser anytime without needing an invite or to be in the know. Like you could just search up, like, is there a space where I can get critique on this thing? And it'd be like, yeah, go here. Like, you know, make you can see what people are doing before you've ever made an account.

37:22.39

Thane

You could just read it all and then you sign up and then you can ask it. And there's no big strings attached. There are still spaces like that. There's Spider Forest actually still has a forum, in fact, although it's starting to get a little more like there's a lot of sections that you have to be logged in in order to view, even though you don't need to be a collective member, but they do accept applications for critique on that server. And there's like a whole process for, okay, what level of critique do you want? So you make sure that you're not going to be super harsh on somebody who's like, I'm just getting started. and I'm very nervous versus ah someone who might be like, tear me apart, please.

38:06.77

Thane

Be as brutal as you can get. And you can specify kind of what sort of things you're looking for. And the community there is very open and willing to give these types of feedback to basically anybody who walks in, as opposed to like a closed space where most Discord only communities kind of fall into that. You have to know about it. You gotta know.

38:30.58

Thane

And I kind of miss that about the old internet.

38:33.75

Rae

Yeah, I would say one of the benefits of, say, the forums or even some of the live journal communities way back in the day were that they were very subject-based.

38:48.79

Rae

And I do think that did help several parts of the networking because, oh, so you have a forum that ah forum that's just for a promotion. Well, each post on the forum would be essentially that subject. So, Hey, you posted your comic, all the comments under that will be about your comic, rather than a channel on discord where it's like, Oh, you posted a link to your comic. Oh, well, someone just posted five seconds later. You might as well never even reply to that anymore cause that's old news.

39:31.83

Rae

And live journal, there were so many comic communities and communities on making comics. So you may, you post your page for the day and all the comments. Yeah.

39:46.10

Rae

about it could be constructive and it's a lot and it was a lot more back and forth back then so you could get a lot out of it um and I do think that was some of the better parts about the old internet some were not so good.

40:07.83

Bob

That's interesting because one of the other things about the old internet and forums is that it was also skewed much more heavily toward hobbyists because just back in the day, you couldn't really easily make a living from webcomics quite as easily. and I think...

40:24.85

Bob

it's more complicated now by the fact that you have a broader mix of people who want vastly different things from their webcomic experience. Like you do have people who are purely hobbyists who don't ever want to do anything professional with their work. And then you have people who are just really, really hardcore professional, like downvoting other people on Webtoon to try to get that contract and so on. And that's where I think it's also helpful, not only to find other people who maybe draw in your same genre, but to also find people who kind of have similar goals and motivations as you. And because I think there are a lot of conversations that I can have with someone who is also doing this professionally that might even be a turnoff to someone who's a hobbyist or like we just wouldn't be communicating

41:20.92

Bob

with the same intent and with the same goals in mind. So our advice isn't necessarily relevant to each other. And we're more likely to kind of miss each other on that, I think.

41:35.86

Thane

Absolutely.

41:34.90

Rae

I think the funny thing about that is, I know a lot of people back in the communities I was in that may have been hobbyists then, but are not anymore.

41:48.06

Rae

Even in Gaia Online, the comic creator forums there, I know at least like five people that were hobbyists that aren't anymore.

42:01.75

Bob

I mean, that's even me..

42:03.22

Rae

oh yeah Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember because we knew each other on LiveJournal and Gaia,Oh, LiveJournal.

42:01.75

Bob

Just live journal, I think

42:12.14

Thane

And I knew you both from DeviantArt, Ahay.

42:12.41

Rae

Okay.

42:12.74

Bob

Oh, yeah.

42:13.19

Rae

Goals can change. A lot of them were hobbyists before, w ere happy being hobbyists and they're pro now. Some have their own spot in the bookstores even. So goals can change. You can share all that information. and a lot of these people still talk to each other. I don't talk to a lot of people I know on Gaia or LiveJournal anymore, but I just still do for some.

42:48.82

Rae

Like Thane. And Bob.

42:53.78

Bob

I think the element of having that shared history where you don't have to have the same goals if you know the other person and vibe with the other person. You can definitely have a relationship with someone who doesn't want the same thing out of their webcomic experience. But I do think that having an assortment where at least some people are kind of in it for the same reasons or wanting the same thing, I think that just kind of helps, patch over some some misunderstandings that you might have in other cases. But being able to meet people on a more personal level first, I think is always a benefit. I mean, that I have to say, even as someone who rarely goes to in-person events,

43:37.37

Bob

My feelings about someone I've met in person are just so much more comfortable than someone I haven't because I just feel like I've known them or met them on a different level and I get them.

43:49.38

Bob

I've you know rotated them in my mind like you rotate blorbos. Like, I understand them better.

43:56.95

Thane

Yeah.

43:57.30

Bob

And I think that that helps a lot, especially these days on platforms, you know, social media where everything is so mysterious because people have so many ways of kind of pseudo communicating with each other without actually communicating that the clearer you do communicate, I think the better it is.

44:23.16

Thane

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I love and cherish all my comics friends, but I also love and cherish the friends that I have outside of comics entirely because the more different experiences you have out there, I think it's just valuable in general. And I can meet someone who is like not even in this world at all and still have delicious pizza together or something.

44:51.29

Bob

And those relationships are really key because I think if there was one other thing that I would say is just… if you approach these spaces being yourself, then you will automatically attract other people who vibe with you and who are compatible with you. And then that's a win-win because you're not you're not trying to play any games. You're just putting yourself out there honestly and people can see who you are. And then whoever is attracted to that, whoever likes that, they're going to gravitate toward you.

45:31.03

Thane

Absolutely. I think that the networking side of things, that space, there's all these like potential you know professional or webcomic benefits. And then there's friendship benefits. These things can be separate or they can be together depending on the interaction.

45:50.94

Thane

And that will be a wrap for this episode. I'm going to call it a goat cheese and roasted red pepper wrap.

46:04.15

Thane

Thank you so much for listening. I have been your host, Verathane, and you can check out my work at wychwoodcomic.com and chirault.sevensmith.net.

46:13.30

Rae

And I've been Rae and you can check out my comics at empyreancomic.com and Overlord of Ravenfell is on webtoon.

46:24.06

Bob

And I've been Bob, and you can find my webcomics at intothesmokecomic.com and demonoftheunderground.com.

46:34.97

Thane

all on social media, which is where all of life happens, the only important things in the world.

46:40.26

Rae

Gotta yell into the void.

46:44.28

Rae

Are we networking with the void then?

46:45.02

Bob

See you.

46:45.18

Thane

Ah! We'll see you later, slappers.

46:47.35

Rae

okay

46:48.41

Thane

Maybe.