Of Human Bristolboardage

A cartoonist posted a link to this James Sturm piece on Facebook, calling it the cartoon of the year. I'm not going to go quite that far, but it's certainly an excellent, important commentary on art and life and striving.

And, for cartoonists and other aspiring artists, perhaps it is the best aimed piece of the year.

Since the Nib posts multipanel cartoons in single panels, it seems a bit unfair to cobble them back together, so you'll have to go read it there.

I'll wait.

(hmmm-hm-hm doo-dah-doo) Ah, you're back!

The reason I chose that particular panel to highlight is that Sturm's Center for Cartoon Studies is about six miles from where I'm sitting and that coffee shop looks suspiciously like the place a cartoonist in White River Junction would go for a cuppa joe.

And the reason I chose this particular cartoon in its entirety is that, while artists are prone to posting things about how they need to be paid for their work and (perhaps then ironically) complaints about the demands of their paying clients, this strikes a much deeper chord about recognition and reward.

The ironic twist here being that Sturm riffs on "sponsors" who help people maintain their determination to quit when they are tempted not to by positing a sponsor charged with precisely the opposite mission.

For my part, I don't feel bad about being a "failed novelist" because I did put some years into trying, so it's not like I didn't give it a shot, and because, while there are a lot of good writers who -- like presumably but not assuredly the cartoonists in Sturm's piece -- can't break through the mysterious barrier, I was not a very good novelist after all.

Yes, a lot of novels that sucked more than mine did were getting published, but the fact that my novels sucked somewhat less is not a particularly compelling argument for publishing novels that suck at all. 

I finally shipped the second one off to a critic who had savaged a similar-but-published work in the NYTimes Book Review and asked him to let me have it, insisting that I was tired of bland encouragement and needed to find out what was holding me back.

And he sent me back a half-dozen typed pages of Hard Truth, a memorable line of which was (paraphrasing from memory, since it's buried among my souvenirs) "Writing all this is making my teeth hurt." The gist of it was that, while I clearly could write, it wasn't clear to him that I could write fiction and that what was clear to him was that this specific novel was nothing anyone would want to read.

Which he explained in (literally) excruciating detail, bless him. I needed to hear it.

It didn't instantly turn me off from trying, but he was spot-on and, after an attempt or two to rewrite along the lines of his criticism, I finally let it sink in that this wasn't my deal, that I'm a good writer but not that kind of writer.

The critical issue in Sturm's concept is that this support system must consist of honest people and people who care enough about each other and about their art form to be frank when frankness is called for. And he's delightfully open-ended about the extent to which that is the case here.

They also would have to be perceptive enough to recognize the difference between someone who is not good yet and someone who is never going to get there, which is a large part of what makes the ending (You did read this, right?) so powerful and crushing. And funny, though not in a laugh-aloud way.

It takes courage and self-confidence for a good artist to keep going in the face of the world's indifference, but it only takes an immature, blind ego for a bad artist to do the same thing, and it's probably easier to wrongly discourage the former than it is to righteously bludgeon the latter into giving it up.

I've often quoted Catherine Hicks, a schoolmate who told me in an interview years later that, while a lot of people want to be successful actors, not many of them have to be, and that, in addition to talent, "you have to have to have it."

That same applies to cartoonists, novelists and artists in all media: It's all well and good to dream of being a cartoonist or a novelist, to imagine what you will say on talk shows, to imagine how you will handle critics, to deliver your acceptance speeches in your mind as you walk the dog, but it's not enough to want it and it's not even enough to be talented.

Having sent you off to read Sturm's cartoon at the start of this rant, let me send you off at the end to read Somerset Maugham's "Of Human Bondage," which, despite what Hollywood did to it, is not much about Bette Davis or Kim Novak, and whose strong plot element of a character bullshitting himself about an appealing romance that will never pay off is much more in line with today's comic.

 

Lest ye forget

(Bruce Plante)

 

Comments

[Brian Fies]

I loved Sturm's comic (hit close to home) but think I interpreted it differently, if I'm reading you right. I don't see Casey's sponsor, Alan, dealing any hard discouraging truths, except maybe for the "good cartoonist" slip. What I got is that Alan's an old guy who doesn't realize how the business has changed, and his old pep talks don't work in the face of hot young things earning six figures in ways he doesn't understand. In the face of that, all he can do is throw up his hands. He can't help Casey anymore--doesn't know how to begin convincing him not to give up--and in fact is ready to give up himself.

I recently had an exchange with a Facebook friend who wants to illustrate children's books, as far as I can tell has the artistic chops to do it, but isn't getting anywhere. She wondered if she should just give up. Others were giving her boilerplate encouragement; my take (after promising bluntness) was maybe she should give up, or at least try a different angle. "Winners never quit and quitters never win" will only get you so far, and a lot of people keep banging their heads against brick walls that will never move. Don't spend the next 20 years frustrated and miserable. Only she could decide if the effort is worth it. I'm sure you've heard me mention an old interview I read with Angela Lansbury in which she said "Settling is underrated," meaning she'd seen a lot of wannabe actors waste their lives striving for stardom when they'd have been happier and more productive going back to Cedar Rapids and doing community theater.

So I dunno.

To the extent I "made it" (and I don't really feel I have), it only happened after 25 years of not making it but continuing to try. Meanwhile, I had a couple of careers and built a happy family. The balance worked for me.

And I don't understand this newfangled artistic economy either, and am envious of kiddies with (from my POV) little talent getting six-figure Kickstarter payouts, and wonder what's the point, too. So there you go.

[Mike Peterson]

It occurred to me later -- that is, while taking the dog to the park, by which point my rule is to let it stand -- that my own description of harsh counsel had overshadowed his character's encouragement. As I said, in order for the idea to work, there needs to be frankness and some patience with those who will get there but aren't there yet.

So what I'm seeing is that he's very encouraging, but then, at the end, his young protege goes off feeling okay and he is confronted with the suspicion that, if keeping at it were a good strategy, he wouldn't be sitting there at this stage of his career feeling like he'd missed the boat.

That's also why I pointed out that Sturm wisely leaves their actual talent open-ended. It's critical, if the cartoon is to leave a memorable hole in our souls, that we not know whether these are two genuinely talented guys simply bypassed by recognition, or whether they are bullshitting each other.

Which is essentially the question he's about to ask for help with at the end.

Brilliant stuff for just that reason. I will say that, in Maugham's book, the distribution of actual talent among the various characters is more clearly delineated, but their lack of discernment and the unfairness of the outcome is equally troubling.

Somewhat in contrast to Jake Barnes in "The Sun Also Rises," who runs into objectionable contemporaries in a bistro but, being a Hemingway doppelganger, is clearly, himself, among the genuinely talented.

Which is why the older I get, the more Jake and Brett and company begin to feel like characters in Seinfeld -- fascinating but unlikeable.