In Videogames, The Play's the Thing

I have a webcomic called November West. I'm trying to get more serious about it. 

It's an old idea. I originally had this idea probably somewhere around twenty years ago and my first attempt to do this comic was short-lived because I had a corporate job and I was basically making ugly jokes about my job and going "I need my job. This looks like a good way to get fired."

I'm not a great artist. I can draw, but I'm not a great artist. That will likely improve over time with drawing regularly, but I'm probably never going to be all about the art.

Someone said to me recently that comics that are all about the art because the author is a talented artist are, in practice or functionally, advertisements for "Hire me as an artist."

There's a comic using stick figures, but I think the author has a PhD. So people are there for the ideas.

So I'm wondering what the webcomic equivalent is for the videogame concept "The game play is the thing." Because pretty pictures per se isn't really the value position.

I have a Certificate in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). That's like Google maps: Map stuff as the output for a database query. If you have ever clicked "directions" on Google maps on your phone, that's what GIS is about.

It's not just a map, so I have training in map design for the Internet environment. Because my Certificate is not about making little print maps.

One of the things I was taught is that big organizations that use GIS internally often have a map shop. In other words, there's a department where their job is to make and print the map someone in the organization requested for their meeting or whatever.

Map shops frequently make terrible maps because they are maps made by lackeys who are not deciding what goes in the map. They are gumbies with day jobs and prettying up the map is the only like agency or creativity they have.

Good maps -- maps that do a good job of conveying information -- are typically described as beautiful, but beautiful maps aren't necessarily good maps. In fact, trying to pretty them up can undermine their purpose.

The same thing sometimes happens in video games when they outsource the art. The artist may do a poor job of drawing it in a way that emphasizes what you should actually be looking at or that conveys other important information about navigation because they are all about pretty pictures and don't have an engineering mindset of the game as a thing you are interacting with.

So I'm trying to sort out what I'm doing. Like what's the goal behind comicking?

Because it's certainly not "Please hire me as an artist."

When I lived in Aberdeen, Washington, the local website guy who charged too much and didn't know what he was doing was also a photographer. He actively encouraged you to hire him as a photographer to add photos to your website as an additional charge on top of doing the website.

His website business was largely a means to promote his photography business. And he wasn't all that talented at either, but I don't know that his photography was flat out a rip off like his website work.

I've had several close personal associates, like relatives and boyfriends, who were photographers. I've read photography books. I took a class in photo development that I failed to finish.

Me being unimpressed with his photography work doesn't mean locals found it useless. Wherever you go, there you are. I don't know how to get perspective on how much I do or don't know about photography.

It's not a con job to be so-so as a photographer, but still worth hiring because it's better than locals could do.

I mean if I ever succeed in creating a clothing line, then theoretically the comic is advertisement for the clothing line. But I don't currently have a clothing line and you have to wonder how a webcomic is good advertising for a clothing line.