jammyness
jammyness
Hi, I'm jam. I'm making solarpunk comics! Patreon | Portfolio and Shop | Ko-Fi
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𝕋𝕖𝕞𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕟 𝕥ℝ𝕦𝕖 𝕋𝕠𝕣𝕔
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Some fanart of Tre and Olly because I really enjoyed @bigbigtruck's Shot and Chaser side comic!! :)) There's a few hours left to get a print edition, but digital is also available.
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i'm gymperson now
2024
Patrons got this a month early, you can follow for freeeee and get random autobio too
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Hello please don't be alarmed, I am updating my avatar.
You have probably noticed I've been drawing myself occasionally as this scraggly alley cat, and I'd like to do this more.
ty
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ABOUT TIME!!! for those out of the loop homeowners’ associations in the US 1. suck horrendously in every way 2. were the beginning of the end of urban biodiversity
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This got long, sorry, but I’ve been having this conversation a lot lately and I have a lot to say.
I was incredibly lucky to join that 2010s wave of comics… and it was just dumb luck. Right place, right time. Webcomics back then was a small but supportive community of scrappy DIY-ers. Putting out a comic every week (let alone 3x a week, or daily) was NO small feat on its own and success was never guaranteed. It was hard!! JUST making a comic is hard. We had to rely on each other to navigate setting up our own websites, learning how to make and sell merch, learning how to table at conventions. We had to take our own preorders and update a stupid little thermometer jpg on our website. We linked to each other and helped each other, and (some drama aside) we had each other’s backs.
And it worked! For a time. Nobody was living large then, but some of us could make enough that way to get by. Our communities of readers were (and still are) amazing. Even for a smaller comic like mine, I could get enough reader support to print gorgeous high-quality books and get them in people’s hands. That’s something I’m still incredibly proud of.
When social media came, reader habits changed dramatically. Very few readers would leave their feed. Most readers stopped clicking through to the url (so ad sales imploded), and sometimes the ones that did would just screenshot the punchline and repost it to their own social page without credit. As time went on, fewer and fewer people would share a comic, let alone follow…now most just (maybe) click like and scroll along.
As the barrier to getting your comic on the web got lower, the quality of art got higher - and readers started demanding a much higher standard for an indie webcomic. In addition to this, some artists who gained traction at this time were subject to high levels of writer scrutiny, and that was tough to navigate.
In recent years the costs of shipping merch has gone through the roof (especially outside the US) and even if we could convince someone to buy, they started expecting rock-bottom next-day shipping like you’d get with Amazon. Every single micro service you need to keep a modern webcomic machine running demands its piece of flesh (hosting/domains, shop/payments, newsletters, post scheduling, premium accounts or plugins or whatever blablabla), and there’s less and less flesh to go around these days. You basically need to give it full time hours for the chance of it maybe becoming a part time money. A few new webcomics have found their feet and thrived in the modern era, but no, it’s not the same scene as it was back then. And every service that pops up to help you out has its own rules… rules that are subject to change without notice.
Google Reader was killed in 2013. Then non-chronological algorithms stopped showing us each other’s posts, even if we were following, circa 2015-2016. Then the various social sites stopped being viable at all. These days the mantra is “pivot (to video) or perish”. Or sometimes… just perish.
I’m not blaming the readers for these changes. These behaviours were designed. Webcomics was just one victim, but it’s also happened to a lot of other scenes (music, journalism, blogging...). I’m still learning how to fit into this new paradigm.
***
Yes, in light of these conditions many webcomickers are pushed to quit. But not all. Many of my contemporaries are putting out the best comics of their careers today.
There’s tons of incredible new work that even I’m struggling to keep up with because there are so many amazing comics now.
Some OG webcomickers pivoted into the publishing market which comes with its own challenges: a gruelling schedule, limitations on the stories you can tell, paltry advances and then you still have to do all your own marketing. But they’re still putting out incredible comics, or writing them, or helping them get made. Or hell, printing them. I’m so proud to be part of a community where creatives like these got their start.
Some went into Animation where you live under NDA and big studios can cancel your project on a whim, but they’re still making amazing art.
A couple went to Indie Games, which has to be at least 10x as difficult as webcomics, and they’re making their mark. Others went to a “merch-first” kind of creative practice, and others still got art-related corporate jobs.
And to those of us who have had to tap out or step back, or if you haven’t been able to make it click for whatever combination of reasons… you’re still a part of the community and I’m honoured to have shared a time on the internet with you. There is NO shame in quitting something that no longer resonates with your creative goals, or needing to take different measures to meet your human needs or build the kind of life you want. Stopping under those conditions is not failure. Every single page you put down is a victory.
***
Webcomics is far from a dead scene, it’s just a bit more underground again. You like webcomics? Welcome to the Resistance to the attention-economy. It’s a bit punk to do webcomics again.
We have lots of reasons to be optimistic about the scene:
All the technology we used to make that happen in the 2010s still exists today. RSS still exists. You can still type in a url, or keep a comic links folder on your browser, or use comic rocket to hold your place.
If you wanna make a comic, ComicFury is free. Neocities is free and rarebit is free. Or just put it on social for now! Who cares, just draw comics. Worry about the rest later.
If you really want to you can still get a domain and fairly cheap hosting (though it’s a bit dicier now, and idk who is doing the best WP comics plugin now) but then FileZilla is free, VsCode is free. All in it's probably ~$300 to self-host, unless you got a friend who can hook you up.
Software for making comics has never been more powerful or accessible than it is today. Tablets and scanners are cheaper than ever. Clip’s affordable, Krita is free.
Information on how to set this all up is easier to access than it ever has been
It’s never been easier to access vendors for low-minimum-quantity but high-quality custom products.
Shop services aren’t perfect, but the barrier to entry of selling something to someone online has never been lower, except for maybe when people were willing to use a Paypal html Buy Now button
And I can’t emphasize this enough – there are so so many diverse and unique creatives making their most incredible work RIGHT NOW.
If you want to make comics… if you have a song still in you… don’t give up! Do what you must to stay safe and well. Do what you can to make your best work and share it. You don't "have" to do anything that doesn't feel right to you.
Go make a zine and give it to your friends. Go to a convention and meet a local artist. Go join a local collective, or start one. Print a sticker at home and sell it for a few bucks. Join the cooperative, or a webring or two, or hell just tell another artist you think their work is neat.
Dear reader, if you want to see more webcomics that get to their conclusion? The only thing missing is YOUR. CHOICE. Choose to read webcomics. Most of us put them up for free, we're just delighted for you to read them. Go click around a few links and find something weird and cool. Choose to use RSS, and share the comics you like with your friends, and teach them RSS. Choose to kick us a few bucks when you can, buy our books and give them to your local libraries if you can. Choose to let comics be challenging and weird, choose to let artists be messy humans who are growing and learning just like you are.
The attention-economy game is boring, but this one is still here for those who want to play :)
In your view/experience. is the rate of "incompleteness" among webcomics more or less the nature of online personal projects as a whole? Or is there something specific to webcomics like laboriousness, audience expectations, relative medium infancy or whatnot?
well for one thing webcomics has changed significantly in the last ten years. it used to have a much lower barrier for entry, just get a smackjeeves account or set up a website with a wordpress plugin. starting a webcomic when i started my webcomic vs starting a webcomic now are totally different experiences.
so i can only speak to people who started their webcomics roughly ten years ago. and roughly ten years ago a lot of us were a whole lot younger with a lot more time and energy to spend on a comic for free. this part is probably still somewhat true for new artists.
but then you get older. your ideas change. your skill develops and the old stuff isn't as good. or you don't have as much time, you got a day job. unless you're one of like five people on earth your webcomic is not paying your rent. you need to make money. your shoulder hurts. you're 30 now. you're struggling to make updates on time between whatever else makes you happy and what else you need to do to live. you wrote this story when you were 21, you don't relate to it anymore, you have different ideas, you've grown up, your audience has noticeably dropped off from the peak, social media managing is hard, you have to go to work, you're so tired, all the time.
it's a lot of things.
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2020
Was anyone else just super preoccupied with cleaning during the pandemic? I didn't used to spend so much time at home and it's remarkable how much debris accumulates in a tiny apartment even after a day
(the dancing was a Truly Decentralized Dance Party which was a nice evening but something I felt too embarrassed to keep up with tbh)
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Here's everything I posted to Patreon in February ✨ Patrons are helping me devote time to the development of my next webcomic Skuttleboat Cove, but did you know you can also join for free and get new comic pages early 👀... did you know I'm just one or two free members away from 300 followers over there? Neat!
I have really been enjoying your likes and reblogs here on tumblr, that type of support goes a long long way, THANK YOU so much for following and reading my comics 💜
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May, 2020.
I cracked my tooth and I had to go into dental surgery in the middle of the worst of the pandemic and it was so bad?? 2020 was so bad?????
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an AMA comic from 2020. Patrons get to ask me questions every June :)
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2024
my higher self is a jerk -_-
Patrons get comics early :)
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the unexpected joy of the worst summer of our lives by christine mi for vox
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Can vouch for Late Bloomer and Pottery Throwdown (so wholesome!)
My additions:
Sort Of - CBC gem, recently wrapped, 3 season series. Stars a nonbinary second generation person of Pakistani descent. Very emotionally complex series with a lot of diverse queer characters. A lot of themes of identity across gender, culture of origin, and even class. Really interesting, I wish more people would watch this one.
Shoresy - Crave - this is a Letterkenny spinoff but God it's so intense. It's very deep in hockey and deep in East Coast regionalism. It's not going to be for everyone, but I've never seen anything else quite like it in terms of Canadiana
It's always a little frustrating to watch a good canadian tv show & know that basically no one outside of a niche canadian audience is ever going to see it. such a disservice to storytelling the way everything is filmed here under an american facade but none of our stories get exported.
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2024 is already a year of just...
relearning the romance of making art?
I picked up traditional pencils (I usually use mech pencils) again and it feels SO GOOD. And kneaded erasers are superior?? I'm breaking my brain going back to old school tools and just to find a specific bliss with them. I've also been using 5.5"x8.5" sketchbook for YEARS and started messing around in a full sized book and I feel like I can just go wild.
Anyway, artists don't forget to explore, have fun, make some marks
MAKE BAD ART
ART ISN'T CONTENT
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Hourly Comic (Or "The Way Life's Meant To Be")
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