A Cartoonist's Secret Ingredient

To sort of continue last week's theme of proving Instagram's worthlessness. I'd like to submit the following evidence to you, the jury. Before doing so, allow me to try to be relatable for a moment.

Even though I have the capability of using logic and reason, I still can't say with complete honesty that a like or a new follower on Instagram doesn't feel good. It's like getting a compliment from a stranger, "Hey, I like your shirt!" or "Nice shoes." But what the earlier stages of IG did to my psyche is make it to where when I get up in the morning, I pick out an outfit specifically hoping to get compliments. Instead of just wearing what I would wear, I was looking for shirts that could possibly get comments. If I got one, great! If I got 15, even better! And then, IG got to a point where I got 100 compliments a day! Whaaat!?

And then they changed the algorithm. Which took me back down to 15 or 20 or 30 compliments a day. Which-hello-isn't as good as 100 a day, right? So what does that mean? That means working even harder to try to get those compliments. Posting more often or posting more stories or really, whatever experts of the algorithm would say best practices are. Pretty soon, I'm spending all of my time jumping through hoops and not just existing.

It's been a while since those days, and the hearts and follows don't mean as much anymore. I mean, I still appreciate them, but I no longer exist for them. And one of the things that really make me feel good is looking at the social media accounts of other cartoonists that I hold in high regard and realizing Instagram fame doesn't equal actual fame-or success. Accomplished and successful cartoonists don't always have huge social media numbers. And if you're thinking those numbers is where it's at I've got something to show you.

Award Winning Cartoonists' Instagram Follower Count

The following are a random list of cartoonists I'm a fan of, or who've made a significant mark on the cartooning world...and their IG follower count.

The NCS (National Cartoonist Society) just crowned Hilary Price 2023's Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. Her comic is titled Rhymes With Orange and she mainly creates very funny single panel comics. Her IG follower count: 1329. Her last post: 6 days ago.

Leslie Stein is an award winning cartoonist who's authored 8 graphic novels and is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. Her IG follower count: 5845. Her last post: 6 days ago.

Sarah Anderson has 3 collections of her webcomic Sarah Scribbles. She has a book collecting another webcomic titled Crytid Club as well as a stand-alone collection Fangs. Her IG follower count: 4.3 million. Her last post: 1 day ago.

Scott McCloud wrote the book on how to make comics. Literally. He's got 3 books about the subject: Understanding Comics, Making Comics, and Reinventing Comics. His follower count: 3398. His last post: June 25th, 2024. How many posts has he made on his account total? Four.

Jeff Smith is one of my favorite cartoonists. He's a poster child for successful independent comics and an example of old-school, grass roots, word of mouth comic making. His follower account is 16 thousand. His last post was a day ago.

Since we started with an Outstanding Cartoonist Award Winner, lets end with one as well. Ray Billingsley won his award in 2021 for his comic Curtis, which is syndicated in newspapers across the country. He was the first person of color to win the reward and I remember reading his strip Curtis in the newspaper when I was a kid. His follower count? 1122. His last post was on June 30th.

And not for nothing. Probably the two most successful cartoonists ever, Jim Davis of Garfield fame and Bill Watterson of Calvin and Hobbes. Davis has an IG account with 126 followers and Watterson doesn't have an account at all.

So what's this all about? Why go through the trouble of listing this information? To communicate two things: 1. There's more than one way to be successful as a cartoonist. 2. Success doesn't mean Instagram-or social media-fame. Plus it makes me feel better to see proof that the numbers don't mean a thing. Those numbers may rise with success and notoriety, but it doesn't guarantee anything. At the end of the day it all goes back to making the best comics you can, hard work, and perseverance. And even then there's no promise of success-which leads me to the final secret ingredient to making comics: do it because you love it.

Hey yo! I'm back this week with another comic strip that I'm adding to a page for Book Two. Actually, these are the last panels needed for Book Two. Well, at least before we edit the book. So, there might be one or two more in the future, but for now these three panels are the last hole to plug. The panels don't work alone, you have to have the context of the entire conversation everyone's having to get it, so I'm posting all nine panels below. The last three being the new ones I've added.

New Comic Review

I wrote up another comic review this past week over on Substack. It's an adaptation of a short story by Stephen King's son Joe Hill. The story and the graphic novel adaptation is called Rain. Read the review here.

One Last Summerween Fling

For those newbies out there, back in June I got excited about celebrating Summerween-some online idea where you incorporate Halloween vibes into Summer. I first heard the term "summerween" on an episode of Gravity Falls and really just loved the idea of a spooky summer. I started a series of illustrations fueled by the inspiration of Summerween, slasher summer camp movies, and spooky summer aesthetics. One such series imagined the Universal Monsters-y'know: Frankenstein's Monster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Woflman, etc.-as staff members of a summer camp. I had cast the Wolfman as a camp counselor, The Creature from the Black Lagoon as a lifeguard...but never finished the series. I hate leaving a project undone and so returned to it this week to round out the series a bit more. Below I give you: Frankenstein's monster as cook, the Bride of Frankenstein as camp nurse, and the Phantom of the Opera as music leader.

What's Making Me Happy This Week

• Rhea and I are still squeezing what's left of the remaining days of summer here in Texas. Last week we saw some cooler temperatures move in (though it's back in the 90's for a few days this weekend), and though it's not like we're not read to move into Fall (our Halloween decor is already up!) there were a few things left on our summer list we wanted to scratch off. One of those things is to visit Free Play, the all-you-can-play arcade we have in town. And, wouldn't you know it? we found out they were also hosting a movie watch party on the roof. So we enjoyed some games, some drinks, and watched Spaceballs on the rooftop. I know a lot of people aren't a fan of summertime, but c'mon! You gotta' admit this sounds fun.

That's it for this week's newsletter! As always, thanks for reading! If you aren't subscribed to this weekly newsletter, consider doing so! It's free and it's the best way you can keep in touch with what I'm up to. Have a great week you guys. See you next Sunday.

~b

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