Recently, well-known cartoonist Andrew Dobson announced his retirement from art, citing online bullying as the cause. And, certainly, there was a thriving anti-Dobson community both on Tumblr and elsewhere that didn’t pull many punches. Dealing with the knowledge that people think so little of you has to take a toll on a person. But, that said, a lot of what he perceived as bullying was just genuine criticism of his flawed work; he had a long record of rejecting anything less than perfect praise.
It isn’t my place to say whether or not a person should stop writing, drawing, what have you. I don’t believe in talent, only in skill, so yes I do believe that, with practice, Dobson could have become a much better artist. His work was bad, but badness isn’t an inherent quality a person can’t escape from. You just ask any artist whose work you enjoy what those first few sketchbooks looked like; a bad artist can grow into a good one.
My place right here is to talk about what this sort of thing means, because I know most of you have wanted to quit at some point, or will. Maybe you’ve got a critic, or maybe you’re your own worst critic, or maybe you’re just not moving fast enough for your tastes, but it happens to all of us sooner or later. We figure life would be a lot easier if we could just stop caring so much about pacing that story perfectly, about getting the folds in that costume just right.
But, we can’t. That’s what it means to be an artist, after all. When it hurts that we’re not good enough, we put everything we’ve got into getting better, not just to ease the pain, but because being good at this matters to us.
Dobson quitting is a good thing. Not because his work wasn’t good enough, and not because I don’t like him much, but because art is about struggling to improve yourself every step of the way, and he didn’t. When the pain you feel from the process outweighs the passion you feel for your work, then you owe it to yourself to step aside, because you’re just getting hurt for nothing. (I think Dobson passed that point a long time ago, by the way he dealt with even benign criticism.)
When you care about what you do enough that you find a way to use the pain, then you know you’re going places. Quitting isn’t going to help, not if you really love what you do.
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Current Events - On Quitting
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