(no subject)

haikujaguar (of whom more in another post) linked to this post, which is one I have been awaiting for oh so many years. These are the things I've been trying to say, handicapped as I am by having no faith of my own to defend (among many other handicaps). And she says them better than I can. Please do read.

Three Jaguars

I have been enjoying haikujaguar's Three Jaguars webcomics, in which the trials of an artist trying to make a living are wittily and charmingly dramatised by splitting the protagonist into three separate personalities--Artist, Marketer and Business Manager. I love the drawing style, and the characters are fun, and there's useful stuff here for anyone trying to make money by being creative.

There's just one thing.

As the strip goes on it's become increasingly clear that Marketer and Business Manager are the adults in this family, and Artist is the little girl. The latest one is captioned "Why Artist Is Never Allowed To See The Budget." The previous storylines have almost all been about Artist saying something childishly naïve and Marketer or Business Manager grupsplaining to her exactly how and why she's wrong. The other two have mature arguments in which each side has a point of view; Artist contributes nothing to these discussions. They get coffee; she gets chocolate. Her position seems to be somewhere between bratty daughter, cash cow and kept fool. There is nothing she has to teach the other two, nothing they are "never allowed to see." From time to time, through some process that doesn't matter, she pops out a novel or a picture or something that they can use; if not for that, they could manage so much better without her.

This bugs the heck out of me. I'm an artist. I don't handle money as well as I might, and I know sod all about marketing, but I'm an adult, for gods' sake. I've been through fifty-plus years of life and that experience informs my art. If I had a Marketer and a Business Manager inside my head, I would by all that's democratic expect to converse with them as an equal. And if I were splitting myself into three, my Artist would not be the childish part of me. For one thing, I didn't get anywhere near adequate as a writer till I was already grown up.

As with early nuWho, the problem is not that the strip is bad, but that it's so nearly good that the slight failing irks more. I love it and I hope it will continue, but I'd be ecstatic to see a gesture towards redressing the balance a bit. Otherwise, it comes over like my dad; art and writing and music are all very well as a hobby or a game, but you can't be a real grown-up person unless you've got a proper job.