Code Monkey Save World

[srdownie]

Oh yeah. Goin’ to the recordin’ session. I figure that’s like goin’ on the cruise ‘cept for I won’t be facin’ man-eatin’ sharks, engine fires, or Legionellosis. Oh yeah.

[AmandaDandy]

Not to be rude and a downer, but I am going to be.

Isn’t anyone just a little bit sick of “Code Monkey”
As a concept? I mean, for the love of God, the song
Came out in like, 2006, didn’t it?

I mean, I know that “conventional” “commercial” songwriters
Can aim for a “hit” and then just live off the royalties ad
Infinitum, but I don’t know how good that really is for them
As an artist. I think it’s great that people are embracing the
Comic novella thing for JoCo, but I don’t want it to lull him
Into some kind of creative drift with respect to his music/songwriting. I mean sure, milk it for all it’s worth,
But if fans are going to support independent artists they
Should also be sure to hold their creative feet to the fire.
Absent a label to do this, doesn’t it kind of fall back on us?
As supporters of independent artists and the music that
They make, I don’t think we should hesitate to be discriminating
And even perhaps somewhat demanding with what we expect
Of them. In the long run, they can only benefit, I think, and so
Will we.

Okay, who disagrees? : )

[villicious]

I’m not a big fan of starting off criticism with things like “not to be rude, but” or “not to be mean, but.” It makes it way to easy to just bypass the work of finding a constructive, polite way of offering criticism by having “well I wasn’t doing it to be rude” as an out.

I also don’t agree with the idea that Jonathan has lulled himself into some kind of creative drift by doing a Code Monkey comic. His latest albums have diverged greatly from the overtly geeky world of spaceships and zombies and code monkeys. He has also already stepped way out of his comfort zone musically in the last couple of years by doing things like recording and touring with a full band, and working in the studio with John Flansburgh. (That is maybe more suited to your comment in the summer festival thread, but I’d rather not have the same basic discussion running in two places.)

And, perhaps most vehemently, I disagree with the idea that being a fan of someone gives people a license to hold their feet to the fire, to influence the choices they make (musical or otherwise), or anything else. Having been on the receiving end of that myself, it sucks. It’s stifling. It makes it next to impossible to go into the studio and do a good job and trust your own creative impulses when an Internet peanut gallery takes it upon itself to try to second-guess and undermine all your creative choices.

I also think Neil Gaiman’s post on fan entitlement should be required reading for everyone who is a fan of anything.

[MJPM]

Pretty much what @villicious stated. Jonathan has not stagnated at all. It only makes sense to use an established staple like Code Monkey for a new medium of art like comics, and its good to finally have Jonathan not only backing the project, but being on board with it and being active in it as well.

But yeah, there’s The Aftermath, Artificial Heart, One Christmas at a Time, and even Red Shirt. The songs are still coming, and I for one am enjoying it all.

[AmandaDandy]

Hey, villicious,

Thanks for your reply and thanks for disagreeing….
And, vehemently, too! : )

What motivated my comment is the phenomena of crowd
Sourced projects in general, I guess. This is a relatively
New way to fund projects among independent artists.
While the link to Neil Gaiman’s article you posted was
Broken, I believe I was able to find the post to which you refer.
It seems a fan wrote in posing a question to Neil Gaiman
On the perceived lack of communication from an author
Of which he was a fan and also a perceived sluggishness
In output on the part of said author. To this Neil Gaiman replied
That the author in question Was not the ” bitch” of the fan who posed the question and referred To the need for creative freedom, etc…

This is all well and good, but it did not appear to me that it was
A crowd sourced project that they were discussing. Once an artist
Appeals to his or her fan base to front the money for any given
Project, it changes the nature of their relationship somewhat.
The artist Is working directly for the supporter and by virtue of the financial support being provided, the artist should have some accountability. I don’t know that I would say the artist becomes the “bitch” Of the patron, but in the cases of crowd sourced projects, I believe the artist has an obligation to fulfill what has been promised in Exchange for the financial support.

Since artists are increasingly Turning to their fans to fund creative projects, as fans, let’s keep them accountable to the investment we are making in them And encourage the artist, by virtue of our support, to grow and Continue to produce great art rather than recycle old ideas, Procrastinate, or otherwise utilize our financial resources In ways that are less than productive.

I am not an Artist myself. I approach this from the perspective of a fan, one who has been helping fund projects for independent artists for About the past twenty years. Some artists created great stuff and were able to produce for folks in a timely manner. Others seemed to be somewhat filled with empty promises and the results were disappointing.

What is important to remember, though, is that as supporters we do
Now have some influence over what any given artist produces
By choosing whether or not to fund certain projects. Rather than being a passive consumer, why not wield that influence in a way that maintains a high standard of output from any given artist?
To me this approach will be win-win and benefit everyone in the
Long run…

What do you think?

[stevendj]

I think using Greg Pak’s creative decision to impugn Jonathan Coulton’s creative process is pretty lazy critical analysis, that’s what I think.

[Angelastic]

I agree with stevendj; when Greg Pak pitched his idea for a comic book featuring supervillain characters from JoCo classics, it wouldn’t have made a lot of sense for JoCo to say, ‘You know, I love the idea of making a comic book, but I’m kind of sick of all those monkeys, robots, creepy dolls, fancy pants, and other comic-book-style characters I used to write. Come back to me when you have an idea for a comic involving characters from Nobody Loves You Like Me and Today With Your Wife.’ 

Besides, when you are branching out into an entirely new medium, doesn’t it make sense to use songs that most of your fan base knows? It would be fun to think about which other songs could have comics made of them though. Do you have any ideas? Off the top of my head, maybe Neil Gaiman could do something interesting with Dissolve. (Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of Gaiman’s graphic novels, but I’ve heard about them.) Maybe there could even be a comic book in The Lunch Lady. Under the Pines yaoi?

I think it’s pretty clear that JoCo isn’t sticking to his old, popular themes to make a buck. When Artificial Heart came out, Spiff, a fan who helped launch JoCo’s career with his incredibly popular machinima music videos, said that he wasn’t going to make more videos because there was nothing in the new album that really inspired him.

[villicious]

When you give money to a crowdfunded project, one of the risks you take is that the project will be something you don’t like once it’s done. That’s not really something that needs to be changed about crowdfunding. It’s how it works. But, getting an angry  mob of nay-sayers thinking their (probably very small) financial commitment entitles them to some kind of creative input into the project is probably one of the risks creators take on when they crowdfund their work.

[Angelastic]

Further to my second paragraph, I just had an idea for another song that could be made into a comic/picture book or series thereof: My Beige Bear. It doesn’t have a built-in story like The Princess Who Saved Herself, Creepy Doll, and Mr. Fancy Pants, but the characters could be used in a whole series of stories; one for each character perhaps, coming to terms with a problem it has (e.g. being too breakable to touch, thinking it’s not okay to be happy by herself, making trouble due to being sad) and being comforted by Beige Bear. Wouldn’t that be sweet?

Okay, I’m just the ideas girl; who wants to make the books? 😀

(As for the crowdfunding thing, indeed, you don’t get creative input, except on the whole project level of whether it’s funded or not. And if you want to discourage this particular crowdfunding effort because of a perceived lack of creativity, you’re too late.)

[autojim]

@AmandaDandy: As @villicious, @MJPM, @stevendj, and @Angelastic have all said, JoCo isn’t our bitch, he’s not a machine, and we don’t get to dictate how he spends his days (or direct his creative output) (with apologies to Paul and Storm).

Between this and the festival thread, you’re pretty much saying “I don’t like what JoCo is doing, and could tell him how to make me happy if only he’d just ask”.

Don’t forget to eat and bathe while you’re waiting by the phone that won’t ring.

Creative types are going to do what their respective muses lead them to do. Sometimes it meets with commercial success. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes it’s a play to the fan base (Jimmy Buffet is on record as saying he’d be just fine never playing “Margaritaville” live ever again, but he also knows that the fans give him lots of money to play that song, so he and his band keep coming up with new riffs on it live).

Crowd-funding a creative project, at least the ones I’ve chosen (and there’s a key word: “chosen”) to back, carries a little risk to the people doing the funding – sometimes you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. Amanda Palmer’s mega-huge “Theatre is Evil” Kickstarter was a risk: you don’t know what the album is going to sound like when you choose to support, you don’t know what the songs will be about, and all you can do is go off the examples of the artist’s prior work, then choose a support tier that a) you can hopefully afford, and b) seems like a good value for what you’ll get for your money.

Note that NONE of the options there are “influence the creative direction of the project”. Even in the Code Monkey Save World reward tiers that involve your image being drawn into the comic, you don’t have any influence as to what your likeness will be doing or how that background character will be treated (me, I’d go for a glorious, horribly messy death. That’s the most honorable thing that can happen in a Tuckerization). The creative control resides with the writers and artists making the comic.

They’re not your bitch, even if you contributed to their Kickstarter, unless they offered (and you half-ponied, half-monkeyed up for) a “We will be your bitch” reward level.

Don’t hold your breath waiting on virtually any creative type to offer such a reward tier.

Because then it’s no longer their project. It’s yours.

This isn’t a new thing: more than a few professional, published, do-this-full-time authors I know talk about how often (enough that it’s featured prominently in the FAQs on their websites) they get fan mail that is basically a thinly-disguised “offer” to “collaborate” — “I’ve got this great idea, I’ll give it to you, you write the book, we split the credit and proceeds”. Every single one of them — without exception — shoot that down. If you’ve got a great idea for a [book, comic, song, album, musical, videogame] — develop it yourself! Get it out of another artist’s playground, flesh it out, and make it your own. Is it easy? No. But then it’s all yours. It may be horrible-yet-wildly-popular (see: “Fifty Shades of Grey”), it may receive critical acclaim and nobody reads it. But it’s *your* project.

Ah, but how is this different? Fundamental reversal of the labor: Greg Pak (already an established comic writer) mused that JoCo’s song characters would make a great comic. JoCo pretty much double-dog-dared him to do it. And *Greg* did the work: outlined the story, lined up the artist, colorist, and letterer. He didn’t tell JoCo he had this great idea that *JoCo* should do, he sought permission for a derivative work and then did the actual work part himself. This isn’t unusual since JoCo operates on a Creative Commons license that encourages this sort of thing; see all the music videos and the JoCo adventure game for examples of derivative works already complete.

Which points out another fundamental difference when dealing with JoCo: that CC license. There’s an implicit non-commercial use agreement in place. If you make a concert video and put it up on YouTube, that’s cool. If you monetize that video, that runs afoul of the non-commercial clause of the CC license. I’m sure, in the case of the comic, that lawyers and contracts and licensing agreements were involved, because it’s a commercial entity.

And it hinged on JoCo being amused and intrigued enough by the idea that a known player in the comics world thought he could pull this off, that JoCo said yes. He could have said no, and that would be the end of it. Greg Pak would likely channel that creative impulse in a different direction – it might have involved a put-upon programmer and a mad scientist and their respective love interests, but it wouldn’t have been Code Monkey and Skullcrusher; Greg would have created his own universe. Or, he wouldn’t, and he’d go on to something else entirely.

But, to get back to the original point: You seem to have a lot of ideas for music. I would suggest that, instead of dictating to an established artist how he should go about his business, you channel that creative energy into your own project and figure out a way to make it happen. Bonus points if you say “Fools! I’ll show them all!” and follow through with it.

[maletero]

I posted my thoughts in the festival thread. Not sure if it’s better suited for this discussion, though. 

[AmandaDandy]

Thanks for your thoughtful replies, guys. I read them all.
It is quite clear to me that you are all passionate supporters of Jonathan Coulton’s work. Believe it or not, I am too or I wouldn’t
Be posting here. My interest in posting here is in reaching out to other JoCo fans and supporters of quality independent music in general and to say, “hey, as supporters of independent artists we have some pull here. Perhaps this particular project is veering off the path of music making and toward the path of opportunism.”
That is more or less how I see it and that is not going to change.
When an artist appeals to a fan base for support of a project, and include a forum like this on their website, fans should be allowed, and even encouraged, to discuss and speculate on any given project. It’s part of being discriminating about the investment you are making. That is just good consumerism. You want to make sure that your return on investment and the overall outcome is going to be satisfactory to you. It’s different from tracking down artists and making special requests for special projects. For me, it’s more about being a discriminating consumer. We are all entitled to our opinion and that is mine. : )

[maletero]

I disagree that we have much pull on the front end of the creative process. Yeah, I think we are encouraged to discuss and speculate, but don’t expect to have any direct influence on what comes next. If I don’t like it, I won’t buy it. If enough people don’t buy it, and yes, complain here on the forum, things might change. Then again, they might not, and that’s okay, too. It’s his music. 

I’m delighted that I’ve liked it all, so far. . . well, close enough, anyway.

[AmandaDandy]

Hey, maletero,

I guess what I was getting at but didn’t come right
Out and say is that we have influence over crowd
Sourced projects in the beginning stages when we
Choose whether to fund them or not. Sometimes
I’ve chosen to fund an artist’s project that I don’t
Particularly like because fundamentally I believe
In the artist and want to support them. Other
Times, I’ve chosen not to fund certain projects
Because either I didn’t like them, didn’t feel that
It was a good use of time/resources or other artists
I like had more interesting stuff they needed support
In and my resources are limited. My post is really an
Appeal to the fan that becomes a supporter by
Choosing to fund an artist’s creative process.
Before choosing to fund a given project, it should
Be okay to question and even debate the merits
Of the project. Fans don’t have to choose to
Fund a project an artist has proposed just because
They are fans, though some might choose to and that
Is okay. We aren’t JoCo’s bitch either.

Frankly, I see the new relationship that is created between
Artists and fans via crowd sourcing to be exciting. It
Means that fans can be somewhat empowered and engaged
With artists in the creative process to the extent that artists are
Receptive to what fans might like to see/hear them produce.
I don’t see it as being a hierarchical thing where anyone is
Anyone else’s “bitch.” I just see there being an opportunity
For more discussion and engagement to take place in the
Creative process. That means MORE CREATIVITY.
Shouldn’t that be a good thing?

[Angelastic]

It seems to me that if people didn’t want the book, they wouldn’t have funded it. There’s no need to remind us to only fund things we want to happen. Okay, so maybe some of us (um… yeah, me) would fund anything JoCo did but even without that it looks like it would have been funded, and I can’t help being curious about the result of this.

Yes, it veers off the path of music making. But we’re well used to that, what with all the fan-made things featuring or inspired by his music, and also things like the Artificial Heart level 4 package, and the cruise (and concerts, for that mattter) which fosters a community of all kinds of creative people even when there’s no music playing. I think it’s nice that his music can inspire things in so many different fields, and there’s no need to restrict him to just doing music or just supporting collaborations that involve music making (which, by the way, this one does. We’ll get a new song and a new acoustic album out of this.)

Actually, now I’m a little confused about @AmandaDandy’s point. JoCo shouldn’t stick with the comfortable old Code Monkey for the sake of money, and should hold his creative feet to the fire and embrace other kinds of songs (and music festivals) that don’t necessarily play the geek card, but in all that broadening of horizons, he should not dare veer off the path of music making when an opportunity to be involved in something new and different (because this is something new and different. It’s not as if you can feed a song or two into a machine and a graphic novel will come out without any creative input) presents itself? Sure, with their combined fan bases and skills it was pretty much guaranteed to be funded and is pretty much guaranteed to succeed (more so than a comic book about Nobody Loves You Like Me would) but he’s still going out of his comfort zone here. Opportunism? Sure! What’s wrong with taking opportunities if they seem interesting and will stretch you creatively and give you a chance to learn about a new medium?

[Author]

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