Introverted... moi?
There was an interesting article over at The Webcomics Examiner about 'Introverted and Extroverted Webcomics' by Joe Zabel. A fair bit of hoo-haa ensued in a number of webcomic commentary blogs around the bitpass/payment part of the article. To be honest that was where I started skimming. Sorry, Joe! But before that I read every word... I even pondered them a bit.
As far as personality goes I verge into introvert territory, although I can be an outright extrovert if the mood takes me... and it doesn't need to involve alcohol either! Given that I spend hours of my life producing webcomics I'd have to be at least a bit introverted to not go nuts from spending all that time in my own company! The article caused me to think about where my comics might fall in the spectrum...
Zabel lists a few characteristics relating to introverted <----> extroverted. Although there is a fair bit of 'teh drama' in Magellan I like to edge it with humour where possible. In that vein, my comics are more boisterous than quiet... even though they all have their quiet moments I try to move on as quickly as possible. Not much romance in my comics and they're not all that political... although I suppose some folk might suggest they suffer from political correctness. More engaging than reflective. Probably somewhat derivative but hopefully imaginative too from time to time. Somewhat more perceptive than intuitive, although I do change story points because I feel it's not working at some level... but I don't know if that is the former or the latter! Certainly more idealistic than skeptical - I'm not a big fan of comics that paint negative views of the world... of course I don't subscribe to some rose-coloured view of the world either and certainly less so now than I used to. Neurotic? Manic? I'd say it's more manic although I do like to play around a little with neurotic characters.
So on the basis of the above I'd say that my comics tend to be more extroverted than introverted, which kind of surprises me. Maybe that extroverted part of my personality lives vicariously through my webcomics. I need a release somehow I suppose!
(BTW, the scarcity of posts this last 10 days has been due to me going back to full time employment... so less time for cartooning and for blogging... cartooning comes before blogging, but I do hope to get more stuff in here on at least a weekly schedule.)
As far as personality goes I verge into introvert territory, although I can be an outright extrovert if the mood takes me... and it doesn't need to involve alcohol either! Given that I spend hours of my life producing webcomics I'd have to be at least a bit introverted to not go nuts from spending all that time in my own company! The article caused me to think about where my comics might fall in the spectrum...
Zabel lists a few characteristics relating to introverted <----> extroverted. Although there is a fair bit of 'teh drama' in Magellan I like to edge it with humour where possible. In that vein, my comics are more boisterous than quiet... even though they all have their quiet moments I try to move on as quickly as possible. Not much romance in my comics and they're not all that political... although I suppose some folk might suggest they suffer from political correctness. More engaging than reflective. Probably somewhat derivative but hopefully imaginative too from time to time. Somewhat more perceptive than intuitive, although I do change story points because I feel it's not working at some level... but I don't know if that is the former or the latter! Certainly more idealistic than skeptical - I'm not a big fan of comics that paint negative views of the world... of course I don't subscribe to some rose-coloured view of the world either and certainly less so now than I used to. Neurotic? Manic? I'd say it's more manic although I do like to play around a little with neurotic characters.
So on the basis of the above I'd say that my comics tend to be more extroverted than introverted, which kind of surprises me. Maybe that extroverted part of my personality lives vicariously through my webcomics. I need a release somehow I suppose!
(BTW, the scarcity of posts this last 10 days has been due to me going back to full time employment... so less time for cartooning and for blogging... cartooning comes before blogging, but I do hope to get more stuff in here on at least a weekly schedule.)
Labels: webcomics theory
posted by xmung at
11:28 pm
5 Comments:
I heared some authors speak on this topic.
They spend weeks and months, like a monk in their cell, all alone with their typewriter/wordprocessor, then it's done and they have to go out and promote the book.
So they are intraverted for a while then have to be extroverted for a while.
By
JohnO, at 4:32 am
yes, and that's where my particular brand of extroversion let's me down big time. i'm alright teaching cartooning to a group of students but when it comes to trying to sell myself i'm rather useless.
in regards the essay on introversion vs extroversion, i was thinking that the lettering and dialogue would be a very big give away. shorter sentences/ lots of exclamation points (!)/ big and and colourful sound fx (CRASH! BOOM) would equal extroverted, whilst the opposite - lengthy dialogue/ ellipses (...)/no sound fx - would indicate a more introverted comic. on that scale, my comics still tend to be extroverted!
By
xmung, at 7:12 am
Introverted/Extroverted is like a lot of measures of personality - the interesting question is whether you find it a useful way to think about things, not whether it is a 'real' way of looking at the world. In a lot of cases it is a matter of how it is useful to try and 'slice up the world', to think about it, or talk about it. I sometimes wonder just how much 'hard science' suffers from this problem! [grin]
Incindentally, there seems to be a circular links problem in the last few posts of the 'Bare Pit'.
- Dreamer
By
Anonymous, at 5:39 pm
no doubt if one becomes introverted enough they suddenly become extroverted and vica versa!
thanks for the heads up on the navigation problem - i think it must have only just happened. i've put in a tech support request with WCN - hope to have it fixed soon (it was probably caused by something dumb i've done!)
By
xmung, at 5:54 pm
A full-time job, eh? Congrats!
I think your comics strike a nice balance on the intro/extro scale. Mine, I think, tend to be a little TOO inner-directed at times.
By
Anonymous, at 11:41 am
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