Fame is a strange beast. Hardly news, but the past few days have been a series of reminders of this fact.

I spent the weekend at Further Confusion, a convention where I had previously expected just about everybody to know who I was and what I’ve done. After all, Suburban Jungle was in on the “ground floor” of webcomics, was one of the most high-profile furry comics for years, and ran for a decade. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been going to FC (and AnthroCon) every year for most of that time — and yet, when asked “Do you/have you read The Suburban Jungle?” most of the people who came by the table either hadn’t heard of it, or had heard the name but never looked at it. This has radically changed my view of my status in the fandom … but I am still processing it.

Meanwhile, the navel-gazing loonies at Wikipedia continue their irrational crusade to convince the world that webcomics don’t exist; T.K. Dye was hit rather hard by his discovery yesterday that Newshounds had been declared “non-notable.” Now, Suburban Jungle fell to that particular axe long ago and after two or three put-it-backs and take-it-down-agains, I frankly got tired of dealing with the whole mess and stopped arguing about it. I’m much more interested in being talked up at TV Tropes, where the SJ article is rather sketchy compared to the Newshounds entry, on the grounds that TV Tropes is a place more likely to be frequented by people interested in my work.

Finally, in a much more micro-level, this morning had an odd happening on FurAffinity. Graveyard Greg, who is like the Aaron Spelling of the internet, pointed people to another user by the name of Kadath, whom I’d never heard of. Looking at Kadath’s page on the site, however, I discovered that he had over 10,000 followers.

!!

This immediately led me to two burning questions: 1) how the heck did this person get 10,000 followers, and 2) how is it that somebody could have 10,000 followers but I’d never heard of them? It’s … flabbergasting.

Nothing against Kadath, he’s a fine artist; but unless I’m missing something major, he’s not somehow worlds above plenty of other artists I know. Does he just really know how to work the social media? What’s he doing that hundreds of other just-as-good artists aren’t? I’m not comparing him to myself here — my relationship with FurAffinity has been one of reluctance and so I consider myself lucky to have the ~135 followers I’ve got. But I am thinking of somebody like Chad Krueger, who is GOH of the upcoming MegaPlex and a great artist, but only has ~500 followers. I mean, wow, 10,000? That’s more people than attend AnthroCon.

The second half of the question points to a thought I’ve been wrestling with for a while now, which is, “How are people hearing about these things?” Certainly furry art, like anything, has trends — you can’t go to a con without being hit over the head by Blotch at the moment for instance — but I always feel like I’m the last one to hear about them. And with 10,000 followers, one has to assume that Kadath is well-known is some circle or other — but not well-known to me! So where? Who? I don’t remember seeing any ads or hearing any W-O-M references, and until GG’s post the name “Kadath” to me meant Lovecraftian Dream Cities, not furry art. So where are these 10,000 people hanging out that they all know him?

Obviously, as a producer of comics and art, I want to get my own stuff out there and talked about, but that’s not all there is to it. I’m also a fan — who would put up with all the baggage if they weren’t? Who knows what kind of cool stuff I might be missing, just because I’m not anywhere that it’s being talked about?

-The Gneech

Tracy Butler (Lackadaisy) on expressions!

Verreh nice!

-The Gneech

Some rambling here. If you’d like to skip to the good stuff, there’s art at the end!

For all who stayed…

It’s been a year and a bit now since I wrapped up The Suburban Jungle, and time to check my progress compared with what my plans were for the year.

The first thing that comes to mind is that writing didn’t really go as planned. I did do a short story that I was quite pleased with, and a lot of trying to hash out various novel ideas, but I never could really come up with something that got me fired up and excited, I suspect at least in part because I had so much difficulty making the “concept” behind the book match what was actually coming out when I wrote. That, and my recurring difficulty with plot, which I’ve written about elsewhere. At the end of the day, for just about each project I tried to pick up, I ended up deciding it needed a little more time to bake and that I’d come back to it.

The next thing that comes to mind is how much I missed doing comics. Back in August Arclight Adventures grabbed hold of my brain and shook me around until I caved in and started working on it — only to hit a wall in November called “familial crisis” (le sigh). Fortunately the familial stuff has ebbed again for the moment, and once the seasonal frantic convention prep is out of the way, I can get back on it. Right now I expect Arclight Adventures to run for about eight issues over the course of two to five years depending on how well it goes and audience reaction.

That said, I do miss Suburban Jungle, and I know there’s going to be more of it someday. Just the other night, Tiffany demanded that I draw her, so the characters are still there bumping around in my head, even if they don’t have any major plots brewing at the moment. But it needs some time away, so that I can let the old series become set as its own thing and then start a new story fresh, instead of succumbing to the temptation of just doing “more of the same in a different format.” There are some core elements of Suburban Jungle which honestly were completely played out by the end and would only be baggage now. By having time away from it, and doing different stuff instead, I hope to be able to come back fresh to the new series and give it its own life.

Then, there’s the issue of conventions. Now, I love conventions, but there are problems I’m going to have to come to grips with moving forward. MammaLlamaDevil, who has been my superlative business partner for the past (mumble) years, is gettin’ out of the convention biz as part of a major life-restructuring. While I wish her nothing but huge success, that does put me back where I was in 2001-2002, having to create merchandise, wrangle vendors, and work the table more or less on my own. She’ll be there for Further Confusion, thank goodness, but for AnthroCon I’m going to have a half-table solo. Sirfox and I have requested to get the same table, which should help, but I will still have to face my worst nightmare: i.e., trying to handle money, interact with people, and keep drawing all at the same time. It may sound fatuous, but I know from experience it’s going to be tough going! Fortunately, Mrs. Gneech will be at Confuzzled, which will be a big help there. I have enough trouble with US dollars — I can’t help it, math is hard! — I don’t want to know what trying to deal in pounds will be like.

Speaking of Confuzzled, I did promise at the top of the post that there would be art at the bottom of it! So here you go: convention mascot Brok the Badger gets tough with a goon! (Click through for larger view.)

To be honest I suspected my GOH days at conventions were probably over, so to not only be invited again, but to be invited overseas, still blows my mind. It has also been a major source of inspiration for me to keep going on the artwork. I don’t do it for the money, obviously — I do it for the fans. And to know that it still means something to people is huge.

So what are my plans for 2011? Right now they consist of finishing off the unfinished business of 2010 (i.e., Attack of the War-Cats and No Predation Allowed), getting Arclight Adventures off the ground, and to continue trying to make the writing work. That ought to keep me busy for at least a week or two.

-The Gneech

For anyone who’s not on the Suburban Jungle community feed, here’s a riff on Tiffany’s first big gig, all the way back in 1999. Done purely to get the artistic juices flowing again! If there’s sufficient interest, I’ll offer this one as a print. Enjoy!

-The Gneech

I have officially adopted a new comic project. I spent the balance of the weekend putting in some heavy development work on it, with some assistance from Sirfox and the usual beta-reader team, and have begun scripting out the first issue. There’s not a lot of it that’s ready for the viewing public yet, but I can let out a few teasers:

• It is a fantasy/adventure comic, not a “comic strip.”
• It is a “new franchise” of my own creation, not directly related to previous works, although I’m sure a lot of the “standard Gneechian elements,” whatever those might be, will be in evidence.
• There will be anthropomorphics in it, although it is not strictly a “furry” comic.
• I will be the primary artist, but I’m hoping to build an “art team” of like-minded folks who can take on sideline stories, bonus items, and so on. I’ve already contacted one or two, but until I have some folks definitely on board, I don’t want to name names. (If you’re interested in getting involved, drop me a line!)
• It will follow a web + print model, posting one or two pages a week on the web and releasing printed comic books (and trade collections) two or three times a year. It does not have a website yet, as I haven’t firmly nailed down a title yet. I expect there to be one before the end of the year, however, and probably the first issue to start publication late 2010 or early 2011.

What effect will this have on my other projects? It varies. My hope is that it won’t impact NeverNever at all, which should also start running again sometime this fall. (We’re building a buffer before we launch it again.) On the other hand, it will probably put the kibosh on any new Suburban Jungle comics for the forseeable future. There just isn’t time for me to do both and keep a day job — and there’s no way I can afford to do without a day job at the moment.

As for my writing projects (such as B&G), that’s harder to say. I haven’t been making much progress on those, though not for lack of trying! But for whatever reason, all of the book ideas I’ve been noodling around with have languished. However, this new project (assuming it’s a hit) may very well scratch my writerly itch, as it’s a very flexible framework. It’s not the wild and crazy “Throw everything in and see what sticks!” flexibility of Suburban Jungle — you won’t be seeing song-and-dance routines or ninjarazzi here — but it is a setting that will allow for drama, mystery, high adventure, and silly humor, all on an as-needed basis.

In Other News…

The other main thing I achieved this weekend was finally getting some real work done on the second edition of Childproof the Unicorns. The new edition is going to be in a larger format with three strips to the page instead of two, and will be available, barring catastrophe, at Further Confusion. My dream schedule also puts Attack of the War-Cats (the long-anticipated second volume of NeverNever) on the table at FC as well, but I’m not making any promises there.

Anyway! It was a great weekend, and I’ve gotta say it’s really nice to be excited about a project again. Watch this space for teasers and development pics as time goes on!

-The Gneech

A bit of random silly fun. Click through for full-size image.

-The Gneech