This is going to make me sound like a jerk, but I’m going to be honest here and tell you…

Why I Might Reject Your Comic Idea (Even If I Asked You For One)

1. It didn’t make sense.
2. It made sense, but it wasn’t funny.
3. It was tonally inconsistent with the site or had inappropriate content.
4. I already had an idea / don’t like you / any one of a number of other minor reasons.

It has happened that people have helped me develop great ideas that I have used. But in the main, when I ask for an idea I’m dimly hoping that the stars will align and you will open your mouth and say something brilliant, something that you maybe didn’t even think you were going to say. If that happens, great! When it doesn’t I go back to thinking for myself.

Part of it is that I’m protective of my work, and don’t really want people telling me what to do. Part of it is that I have an (enormously varied) audience to keep in mind. And part of it is, like the alt-text says, this is supposed to be a journal comic; if I used everybody else’s suggestions (and these happen more often than you might think) it would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? [June 12, 2012]