Backhanded Compliments

Hi Toonstackers,

Kendra here. 

And today on the show we’re talking about backhanded compliments. 

Look, none of us here on Toonstack are aiming to be the artist who labors in obscurity for years, only to be recognized for their brilliance decades after their lonely and penniless demise. 

It’s just not our type. And if it were, we probably wouldn’t be making a weekly newsletter of our work and sending it to you. 

Which is to say, we DO pay attention to who sees our cartoons and what they think. It’s part of the job. We are constantly calibrating between our internal north stars and the audience we want to reach. And we know our north stars can get pretty funky-weird if left completely to their own devices.

That doesn’t mean we try to please everyone. We are constantly walking a fine line of receiving and ignoring feedback. So this week, here are some of the things we hear but choose not to listen to. 

Ellis Rosen

Oh man, this is a topic I can go on about. As I’ve mentioned before, I love complaining. In fact, I've complained about this very topic before. But I’m taking a different angle this time. 

You see, I love your Instagram comments, I really do, but, also, sometimes I really don’t. Specifically, I don't like mean comments. Mean comments come in different flavors: abusive, rude, pedantic and the backhanded compliment. I have a strict no-reply to the more obvious mean comments, but it gets tricky with backhanded compliments. I truly think sometimes the people who write these kinds of comments think they are being helpful. For instance, sometimes a person will post their own new caption for one of my cartoons. Usually these are posted on captionless cartoons, but sometimes they are cartoons that already have captions. Either way, it’s annoying. Listen, I get it. We’re all having fun here. Having a nice giggle.Joshin’ around, if you will. But when you suggest a new caption what I hear is “I don't like your caption.” 

You don't have to like my cartoons! God knows I don't like all of them. But captionless or not, I'm telling the joke here, and I’m telling it my way. Listen, I’m not going to erase your comment, I'll keep it there for all to see, but I ain’t giving it a little tap of the heart either. Deal?

Jason Chatfield

Oh man, this is a topic Ellis can go on about. Boy does he love complaining. Like the one time I commented on his Instagram? Hooboy, I didn’t hear the last of it.

Anyway, my big kvetch about cartoons is not when people tell others what they think its about; but when they tell me what it’s about. I’ve always lived by the saying, “The response doesn’t belong to you.” Basically, you do the work, you put it out there, and whatever comes back is out of your control. That saying was written before social media existed… and boy is it fun to now read DMs from people telling you exactly what your cartoon is about, and what you were thinking when you drew/wrote it. Thank the lord for the ‘disable comments’ button. Or one better, “Deactivate Account.”

Navied Mahdavian

At the end of Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Daedalus (the titular artist and more titular young man) resolves to follow his calling as an artist and decides to leave Ireland in order to “forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” Like Stephen, I am also a human artist. Unlike Stephen, I rarely leave my home, let alone the great country of Ireland, and I resolved to become an artist less because it was a calling and more out of a crippling desire to be liked. As a consequence, I remember every compliment, backhanded or otherwise. Perhaps my favorite backhanded compliment came from a now defunct website that used to rate cartoons. In their review for this cartoon, which they gave a 3 out of 6, they wrote “High minded? Sure. Funny? Sort of.” 

I stopped reading at “funny.” 

(Also, speaking of the great country of Ireland, my brother-in-law, Brian, is Irish and great, in that he is tall, for which I forgive him). 

Amy Kurzweil

“Your drawing of Where the Wild Things Are is very beautiful,” a woman said to me, right after I finished sharing my cartoons at a Very Fancy Society Event. 

“Thank you!” I said. I am not a trained artist and am soothed by praise of my hard won ability to draw. (I am soothed by all praise, come to think of it. Please bring on the praise.)

“That wasn’t a compliment,” she said. 

“Oh.” My brain did the dance of trying to figure out what, specifically, I was supposed to feel bad about now. Was it something I said? Did I inadvertently insult this woman’s family? Did I forget to call my mother? Is it my outfit? Is there something on my face?

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” the woman concluded

Well, sure, we’re in agreement there… but um… why specifically? I asked with my eyebrows. 

“If the Maurice Sendak foundation found out about this… they could sue,” the woman clarified. 

Ohhh. The ocean of random shame in my chest subsided, replaced by my knowledge of obscure copyright law.

I guess this is a story less about a backhanded compliment and more about a fronthanded insult, but at least we can all learn something from it about transformative use.

Kendra Allenby

I don’t draw heads this circular anymore - too likely that someone will find it cute. 

Because the one compliment I can’t stand is someone calling my work CUTE. For me, “cute” is a 6 year old girl in a pink frilly dress with bows in her hair being asked, implicitly, to perform a stunted version of herself for society for the rest of her life. Sure, this is not how the remark is intended, but for me I am a grown-ass woman creating artwork and if the takeaway is that it is “cute,” then I have failed. Furthermore, people often say cute when they don’t know what else to say, which means they’re not connecting to the work, which means I have double failed. At this point I usually snatch the cartoon from their hands and stalk away to cover it in inky, blotchy, scratchy lines. Metaphorically that is - most people aren’t holding the paper version of the cartoon, they’re holding their phone and it would be rude to snatch their phone and cover it in ink.  

Sofia Warren

MOMS! ARE! NOT! COMPUTERS! SAY IT BACK!!!

Thank you for listening to my important PSA.

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ToonStack News Stack:

• New book alert! Sofia Warren’s Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator is out and available to order here.

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class, and join the next live class!

• Listen to Hilary’s podcast What’d You Do This Weekend?

• Order Send Help! a desert island cartoon collection by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams, out now!

• Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!

• The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!

• See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer

And….Buttons!