I. Engage my work, not my opinions

A response to comic writer JL Johnson, and the soft launch of an ongoing correspondence between us

JL —

I’ve made a conscious decision to become a digital hermit — to share when I have something substantial to share, not just for the sake of engagement and community (if you want to see what that will look like this year, subscribe to Ronin Digital Express and rent*space).

I have my reasons for committing to this approach, but as I’ve written before, a big part of it is a feeling of alienation from the comics community:

You can read the essay, but the Reader’s Digest version is that I’ve just never felt like I was really part of the comics community.

No one can say I haven’t tried. I’ve made connections, I’ve showed up for Kickstarters, I’ve offered pro bono services to fellow indies, and I have a footprint on the podcast circuit.

But I’ve also felt the pressures — to engage for its own sake, to support creators whose work doesn’t interest me, and to take stands on issues I just don’t feel that strongly about.

These kinds of behaviors are de facto requirements for being part of a community, especially a largely digital one. But they’ve always felt hollow to me, because I’ve lacked the bonds of trust which create the conditions for a community to exist in the first place.

All too often, engaging with others in the online community does not feel terribly meaningful to me. It feels perfunctory. Rehearsed.

There’s no mystery or excitement. No sense of getting to know someone, really. To be surprised or challenged, or to find something someone said genuinely insightful.

Instead, it seems to me that I can often tell exactly what someone thinks about almost everything pretty quickly.

The identifying signals and the community language are so well-refined now that I can tell which “faction” someone belongs to, and, amazingly, it’s not all that unfair to make more assumptions after that, up to and including who they voted for in the last presidential election.

People have willfully sorted themselves into neat little boxes for the algorithm. And if you resist being sorted, rest assured that some stranger will volunteer to do it for you.

Only some of these online interactions are openly confrontational and inherently unpleasant. But all of them are tense. I can tell when someone is trying to be a good little helper, and that they wrote their reply with a smile on their face. And yet, I can hear their teeth grinding.

I can’t be part of that. And so, this all leaves me without a sense of community. But it also leaves me without a strategy.

Presumably, an artist wants an audience. Validation from… somewhere.

I’ll admit, I haven’t thought that part through. What does a community-agnostic strategy look like? Especially in such a niche industry as comics?

We know there are readers. Despite the doom and gloom about comic book shops, predatory small press publishers, and a shrinking, balkanized Big Two readership, bookstore shelves overflow with manga, some of which reliably sell in the millions.

Successful Kickstarters and Indiegogos are capable of generating hundreds of thousands of dollars, which, even if you’ve something of a grudge against a particular creator, it ought to make you curious about what exactly they’re doing that’s working.

The medium isn’t dead. But the online community doesn’t provide clear pathways to accessing the readers. Not anymore, anyway. Wherever the readers are, they seem very far away from whatever everyone is bickering about on BlueSky right now.

This brings me to your post Social Commentary.

I found myself nodding along at several points, especially your points about the tension inherent in maintaining an active social presence — it’s very hard to tell the difference between posting that furthers your goals, and posting that is a distraction from what you want to be known for.

Ambulance chasing — that is, posting about trends, controversies, personality conflicts, and politics, making sure that no matter what the community is buzzing about, at minimum, your take is on record, and at maximum, you’re in the trenches fighting the bad ones — is a viable strategy for building an audience.

I’m just not sure that it’s an audience I would want.

Because no one has ever read an inflammatory political tweet and thought, “on the other hand, maybe this guy has a comic I’d like to read.”

Relatedly, how many purchases have you made due to an affinity for the persona someone has cultivated online? I’ve made a few.

All are unread.

As an ambulance chaser, it’s hard to know how many in your audience are what Big Marketing calls “MQLs,” or, “marketing-qualified leads.”

These are prospective readers who might buy your book because they engaged with your content elsewhere. The engagement indicates that they like this kind of stuff. If they have a purchase record showing that they’ve bought similar stuff before, then it wasn’t an accident that they engaged with your content, and you have a highly qualified lead.

But let’s back up — what was the content they engaged with? Excerpts of an upcoming graphic novel? Or did they hate-click your tweet about the Israel-Palestine conflict? Did they retweet your expression of angst over the 2024 election? Did they “like” your post condemning Comicsgate, or “wokeness” in X-Men ‘97?

In the ambulance chasing strategy, this is hard to know. How many in your audience make a purchase and enjoy your book on its merits, as opposed to purchasing out of some sense of loyalty to your online persona?

I would think that in this position, you would have to realize, and make peace with, the fact that sales are sales, and to try and be indifferent to the other kinds of validation you can’t be sure of.

But, I think most people would rather have it all, if possible.

I don’t know if comics are a path to millions for me, but I would like to make money. I’d also like to shake hands with enthusiastic readers at cons, take selfies with people cosplaying my characters, and earn the respect of the industry peers that I look up to.

If that’s the goal, then what’s the right strategy for getting there?

Back to your essay, no distractions is a good place to start.

From there, a strategy starts to come into view:

• Dump “FOMO,” spreading too thin; stick with channels that are working for you.

• Keep your content strategy focused on promo (keep it tidy and manageable).

• Direct the audience to where your work lives, and where to engage with you.

Like you, I’m also committing to a quiet overhaul of the digital portfolio this year. I’m going to wait until I’m closer to sharing new work, but, I’m going to take your advice and point the channels I’m sticking with to the subscription button.

From there, if you’re seeing and engaging with my social content, I’ll know that what you’re engaging with is my work. Not my opinions.

Hopefully, money will come someday. But for now, I’ll settle for subscriptions (and knowing that those subscribers are here for the right reasons).

Thanks for the article. And write me back sometime.

*rent

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JL Johnson and Renton Hawkey are independent comic creators, and friends. They’ve decided to begin a letter-writing correspondence here on Substack. Nothing is off limits, and they will always tell the truth.

If you want to follow along, follow the TCTAE tab in the navigation on either of their Substack publications.

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Jeffrey Johnson Jr. is the writer, creator, and letterer of Ennead: The Rule of Nine and the epic fantasy world of Amashik. Outside of writing, he enjoys time with his wife Jess, their daughter Olive, and their pets Ruthie, Quinn, and Sansa.

Renton Hawkey is a comic creator who publishes the chanbara western webcomic Ronin Digital Express. He also publishes his newsletter rent*space and the forthcoming OGN Fistful of Yen, all right here on Substack. Take a look, and consider subscribing.