A few years ago Jerzy Drozd and Rob Stenzinger started the Art Soundoff Challenge. Creators would take maybe 15 minutes to record an audio or video blog, a “micropodcast” I think is the term, and share it with everyone using the #ArtSoundoff hashtag on Twitter. It was a good way to share comic creating perspectives, go over what creators are thinking about, and just interact without actually sharing a stream. It was and still is a good idea.
I decided to join in the fun, and it was a good experience. I learned, got to share my point of view as critic and writer plus my experiences trying to improve my limited drawing skills. I took part every year, including the year I was out of commission for most of the year. I even dragged Jake and Max into it with special Art Soundoff editions of Jake & Leon from the perspective of comic strip characters who also make their own comics and art. (Jake and Max are art buddies, and that’s how Max was introduced to the comic.)
Last year I was the only participant. Actually, I think colorist Owen Jollands did one, but otherwise just me. Even Jerzy and Rob didn’t do one that I recall seeing. On my final Art Soundoff of the year I was questioning if I would even do one this year. This article is my answer, and the fact that it is an article instead of a v-log may already hint at my answer.
First off, I’m not saying I won’t do anything. According to the rules of the Challenge:
1) Record a 5-10 minute audio journal. Consider as a topic option one of the 30 daily prompts listed below or any reflection on your art day.
2) Choose to post your recording or not, either way you’re still journaling. If you do share on your platform of choice please use the hashtags #artsoundoff #artsoundoff2019.
3) Explore what others are sharing. See what’s happening related to #artsoundoff on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Twitch, Audioboom, and Anchor.
Technically you don’t even have to share it. You can even just do the one and call it complete. However, it’s more fun to share the information of your journey, what you’ve learned from it, and learning from the struggles and successes of others. It also causes a small sense of unity between the various participants and makes for a small community.
So what happened last year? No, really, I’m curious. Last year outside of Owen’s one contribution I was the only one doing anything. Look at those links to searches for the hashtag. It was mostly me. The other participants, including the two who started it, didn’t come back. It could be they all had other things to do or simply forgot about it. That’s all possible but it isn’t as fun when I’m doing it by myself.
On the surface it’s not a lot of work. Record, render, upload, share. It’s the middle two that take up the most time, especially if you’re doing it v-log style because you don’t have an audio host since it’s the only thing I’d use it for. I could, if WordPress still does it, call a number and make an audio post to the site that way, but that’s actually a bit of trouble and I need a plan to upload my own audio and video productions. An article doesn’t seem right even though that’s what I make most of the year. So I have to set up the webcam phone, open a video program, record my thoughts, possibly transfer it from the phone to the computer like the ones I did on the wood deck last year, render it to a format YouTube likes, write up the post description, and then put an embed on my site while scheduling both for the morning. It actually takes more time than the 10 minute post. Since I have nobody to talk to about this stuff I tended to take more than 10 minutes because it was nice to speak on the topics.
However, all of that was fun because there was a lot of interaction between the participants. Something I would say might invoke a response from the other, more experienced creators, and vice versa. It isn’t the same as a live conversation, and I kept hoping someone who can get a shared livestream working would do a post-Soundoff gathering (it had been discussed) for all the participants but that never happened. Still, it was interactive and that’s what made it fun for me.
It’s no fun doing Art Soundoff by myself. Owen did respond personally to me at one point last year and did one video of his own but that was it. Otherwise I was a lone voice in the wilderness, and I already have that with my articles.
So will I do any Art Soundoff v-logs at all? I’m debating. If I do one the challenge is technically met. If I see someone else taking up the banner I’ll be more inclined to take the time but I’m not as popular as Jerzy and Rob were so I can’t drum up the same level of participants. As things stand if I can spare the time to do one or two I’ll give it a shot. Otherwise it looks like this challenge is over, which is too bad. It was a great experience and losing out on it will make me sad. It’s just not worth the effort when I’m on my own since I can easily do an article on the topic and make my deadlines here. We’ll see what happens but otherwise I think this year I’ll focus on other projects, like Captain Yuletide or the usual reviews, commentaries, Jake & Leon, and The Clutter Reports. As for next year? If I can drum up a response besides me I’d love to return to it. Like I keep saying, it’s just not fun doing it on my own.
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