Fame

Fame is a strange status to me. I'm sure it is for most people, but I can't read most people's minds, so I will stick with my own thoughts.

I've never really wanted to be famous. I somehow learned early on that fame comes with a very high price (loss of privacy, for one). As a person who likes his anonymity, the prospect of being followed by people I don't even know is disturbing and creepy. However, as a person who loves having his ego stroked, the idea of being praised by large amounts of people for work that I truly care about sounds pretty nice. It's just a very fine line between those two levels, though.

I've always been perfectly happy to do a job, do it well, and live comfortably, whether or not anybody knows who I am. And yet, I chose a field that requires me to be famous in order to be successful at all. Webcomics put writers as close with their audiences as possible. As great as it is to have instant feedback, it also means that we have to build a connection with them. In order to get them coming back, to get them to care about the comic enough to want to visit us at a convention and buy our merchandice, we have to get them to care about us. Since our comics are extensions of ourselves, it is understandable that this connection needs to be made, but the prospect still scares me some.

Overall, I get the impression that the communities (both of crators and fans) are extremely kind and that nobody is so famous that they will make it into supermarket tabloids. I suspect that the fame I can get from comicking will be just the right amount for me. I certainly hope so, but there is only one way to find out.