-29th June 2025-
Playing in the mud is actually a masterful gambit to counter hesitation
The 24th of June was Make a Terrible Comic Day and I love it. I love the day immensely and I felt the need to gush about it. In the spirit of the day I have just rambled out a blog post. It’s probably so long in the tooth it could be called a tusk. This is its first and only draft. I take a huge ass detour in the last third of this and there are moments where one can go “well that’s probably isn’t true, not everyone must of thought that” because I said people instead of I, please feel free to substitute those moments in your mind if you want to.
Because I don’t consider myself a writer, but I was struck suddenly this year going through the tag. I desperately, desperately wanted to talk about the magic of this day, and share why I am so taken by it.
So here’s a blog post talking about that, like if a semi-truck was plowing through a field of good writing methods to then curling spin out into the centre of something, a point perhaps.
Well, let's see.
Make a Terrible Comic Day was coined by Pseudonym Jones. Announced in 2024 (in tongue and cheek, like it was an already established art holiday where the date would creep up on people) this day asks for your not-mandatory-mandatory participation. Make a comic, a terrible comic, she says in her own post featuring wobbly lines and crossed out words. The several comics talking about the day would drop reasons why to participate both inadvertently and overtly, but I still find the effect so masterful.
In the title itself, it calls for an approachable action - the whole day’s name is reminiscent of hourly comics day or portfolio day, an open call for people to participate with what the day asks of you.
But then the breakdown. Anyone can make art, many can draw - marks on a surface - but many don’t because it will be bad, in their eyes. But hey, this day *ask* for the bad stuff, make something terrible. Being bad is being successful at the call! But you gotta do it on the day (thanks to the “make”+”day”) so you’ve got a deadline to make the bad thing!
But here’s where the magic happens in my eyes - It has to be a comic. It can be short, it can be messy, it can make little to no sense. But it has to be legible as a comic. And I think that's amazing. It makes everyone consider and engage with the form of comics. What makes a comic?!? Does it need panels? Not really? Does it need words? Not really? Can it be just one dude on the page doing some vague thing? Fuck yeah dude. It doesn’t have to be a character at all!
(Exercise: Go through the comic devices library, give it a quick browse (optional: think “oh so that's what they’re calling that thing, huh!”), then go through the tag and note what things people still do and what things people don’t!)
Whatever your idea of a comic is, you do it! And guess what? It doesn’t have to be good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It creates this amazing back and forth, it creates momentum! It creates direction in the open field of the blank canvas where you can do whatever the fuck!
So the pen is on the page. You’re cropping a funny photograph. You’re going, oh god why did I make that line? Fuck it, carry on, it works. And then this thing emerges - “How do I make it good?” your own thought bubble says, to which you correct “No, this doesn’t need to be good” Because the opposite of good is bad, right? Sure, but what you think is good might not be necessary, and what you draw instead might also be good. It could be bad, which in that case task successful, but if it's good then you’re saddled with this new understanding of approaching art. Backed up into experimenting with creation trying to achieve badness.
“If you fuck up and make something that’s NOT terrible… well, some might say there’s joy in that too.” says Pseu.
Even that aside, making art this way (terribly) extracts something interesting, forgotten sometimes even, from the creative process. It unearths Want from the process of making art. Take away the goal of making something good. Okay, now besides that, what do YOU want?
?Many contributors who have shared art outside of this day voiced that this day was an opportunity to execute an idea they’ve had in their head prior to the day (myself included in 2024). “High quality” was no longer in the question - drop the ball, spike it into the ground! Now what remains is the want to execute on the idea, which often led to interesting and…………… egads! Good comics! Fast tracked over blank page syndrome, many people’s developed drawing muscles used that memory of its and took the wheel. The comics arrived not really terrible, only sporting some speeding lines overshooting the trajectory, unconnected lines here and there, use of the tools provided by the drawing program to make a shape (crowd gasps!) and no backgrounds sometimes. (and like, who cares right? Is that really terrible? The day makes us investigate that)
Sometimes the want is just to finish the comic, which provides its own joys seen in the end results. Floating lines resembling a person, use of labels and common depictions of objects and ideas. The bare minimum, the half assed or the outlandish bulldozing through time and mistakes.
Sometimes an in between occurs. Going from wanting to just get to the end goal before stopping, the car slowing down as you think to yourself “I want to draw a dog, or a cake on the table, I can add my favourite band on the t-shirt.” Those little detours can appear partway, satisfying yourself and your own wants. Providing more joy than expected.
There’s an energy that emerges from browsing the works labelled for this day. Art made for creation's sake. Whatever byproduct created from that is a keepsake the creator is left to figure out how it fits into them. But I think the phenomenon that occurs when you observe this tag is also fascinating!
People go into this tag for what it presents and purposefully engages with creations. Expecting the terrible, they’re met with an aesthetic that is not commonly seen passively in the social media stream. Visitors faced with a variety of scrawls may be taken by a certain piece, and then the name of the day dawns on them. Terrible comics - is this comic terrible? Maybe the visitor actually thinks the comic is not terrible. This can lead to questions like “Do I think the author thinks this is terrible? Why?” “What about this is terrible? Or how could it be seen as terrible?” “What about this do I like?”
The day puts a bubble around these artworks and allows the space to ponder these questions, the way I think sending a beautiful “terrible” comic down the river of social media wouldn’t on any other day in such a specific way. For the “terrible” comics you see in the tag may not survive to meet other peoples gazes on any other day, unless it strikes upon a certain idea permeating the online space (+ get lucky)
(For example, the common recurrence on tumblr which I find delightful: users describe a person they saw in real life being interesting in some way and instead of invading their privacy and taking unsolicited pictures of them, they redraw the person to the best of their ability or to personal want. Which can vary in approaches and can be distant from certain qualities we expect from art online, but can surprise us in its legibility and delightfulness)
This day draws the contributors to a common collection of aesthetic landmarks as all reach for and play with the idea of terrible. But the people who are called towards this exercise are coming from different relationships to comics and the visual arts! Pseu noticed this herself here, which I found out after outlining my own list, but I’m gonna share mine nevertheless!
Amazing! Incredible! I love love love seeing someone who barely draws or haven’t drawn for years draw something for this day! (I think one of my favourites is this one from 2024) It’s hard to describe how warming and genuinely great these works are, even if they are trying to make something terrible. To see someone step into the waters and play nevertheless!
Of course a comic day would attract cartoonists, comic creators and other visual artists. Who doesn’t of such ilk peek at such a trend just to know what it’s about at the very least. And seeing what things they usually exhibit in their work get amputated, stripped away or garbled for the exercise is fascinating. A notable amount reach for an amateurish factory setting that those who don’t draw often exhibit. But sometimes you can see twitches of their muscle memory, their tells peeking through, their style, even, remaining.
(Sometimes it is hard to tell that a work here belongs to an established artist though, and it's fascinating to see. The tell is like spotting dust in a dark room, but it dances nevertheless)
Often it is in a way reminiscent of kids' gross out humor, which I can appreciate, going for those vibes. Other times it leans heavy into the shitpost vibes, which I can also appreciate. Part of me has quite a bit of respect for this realm of comics created for the day. It feels very thinking outside the box, despite the initial box of a prompt pushing against what you expect from artforms anyway. Where I believe the instinct is to not overthink the process in order to produce something (one thinks would be) terrible, these comics put thought into a subject that would be bad and intentionally execute on it (often in a quality one may label as “terrible” to boot, but there’s also the legibility of the terrible concept in question, so perhaps it ends up Not As Terrible in that regard.)
I do harbor a recoil at the proverbial possibility of a terrible comic that sports a type of terrible subject matter though. I feel like speaking this out loud may draw the things I worry about to the space. However I am, as of typing this, 1605 words deep into the 1st and one quarters draft which I am probably gonna ask someone to check for the glaring mistakes and then post. So here I go.
Terrible is broad. Many things can be terrible. A terrible thing can aim to chase a person away from a space, for a reason that is unfair. I can be apprehensive at these displays, the potential of a display, that is at the expense of a person who already pays expenses trying to live every day without fretting and threat. (At the forefront of my mind, I speak as a Black person, but many things come to mind that relate and are relevant to me, and also hurt to brush against.)
But the idea of terrible things bleeds into the idea of things that are adverse, deemed taboo topics, which makes the idea of making a topic about a terrible thing interesting. A comic about something adverse or taboo doesn’t make the comic terrible/bad inherently, it can lead to an investigation as to what it makes the comic since it feels similar at first brushes. It can feel arresting, stark and jarring, alienating, and make you uncomfortable. It can harm you, but it can unpack you. Let your guts spill out in front of you and leave you to reassemble the pieces. People may not like it, their instinct is their own, but that doesn’t make the comic terrible on that merit.
I think about where outsidewolves’ comic ended up for this day. A comic about what it calls “A terrible source” which lays out a biography of Miroslav Tichý who pursued art that raked against common decency and crossed charged lines. And then asks you to consider his words. I think it was an interesting example of a terrible comic of this type. It’s interwoven, theming bound together that feels good to turn around in your head and consider.
Those are the contributing types I want to highlight, but I wanted to talk about these figures in the make a terrible comic day sphere:
Pseu highlights this with a frustration expressed through the day’s mascots (and anticipated it at this day’s creation) and I too hold a frustration with these remarks. Discover something about yourself, don’t aim for good! Roll in the muck, start digging!!!!!!! I understand the want for connection through your work, for your time to be recognised in the structures placed on these platforms. But you must understand, social media is a crapshoot and people sorta are too. Like ok–
Like ok, ok. Come close, unsolicited advice coming up. I think I’ve said this partially to people but I’ve never said the full thought. I roll it around in my mind a lot though so I’m gonna say this fully and we’re gonna see what happens, I wanna help you out here.
You’re taking bets against people's existing interests if you’re trying to garner their interest with your own work. People don’t often come out of their shell, they don’t stick their neck out. They can hold internal nice thoughts, and maybe share it in private conversations. But that doesn’t trickle back to people interacting with your work directly (with the common side effect of the number going up online).
If you strike at a person's interest wholeheartedly, the person emerges saying “Oh wow I’ve spent so much time looking at this subject, I love how you’ve done X”. Issue is, you’re not a mind reader, and if you were the means to get it in front of the right person would be extremely difficult to get. So I say you gotta strip back, step away from an idea of an audience for now. Think of yourself as your own audience, what do You want out of your Own art. Get a reaction out of yourself, draw something that’ll make you laugh. Draw a thing you’re interested in, preferably something no one else you know is! Be your own audience, satisfying yourself. Be a sicko with your own work. I want you to fulfil yourself firstly.
Social media and its common user experience (in my opinion) is now predicated on the instinct that things which gets shared without comment must either align strongly with a depiction the user can near unequivocally stand behind due to its relationship to a subject the user feels strongly about already or hold information the user finds so important that they believe that it's something others must see if they were to cross by their allotment of the web. A thing online a person only likes parts of is often not going to be shared by the user without comment. And including comment harbours its own nuances and issues one may worry about.
Methods of comment like the bsky quote posts and tumblr tags don’t evoke enough of a preface to those who would look upon their page. Many social medias are like a highway, people glance at post formats and adjust their engagement from that. The method of comments above has (mostly) the larger element be the original post and then the user sharing their comment above/below it. It is still prominently on display on the person's profile, it still stands on its own and the comment is simply tagged on, unaltering the perception of the post unless the onlooker stops and investigates its engagement with one another. And comments formatted like that are public forward facing, and the comment contents wants to be directed towards the original poster while still existing in a online public space if it does want to dissect and investigate the original post with the work, where onlookers can opt in to see this discussion.
Now those type of comments can exist in forms such as direct comments and replies on these two platforms, but it does not push post discovery and sharing as much as direct sharing. Plus the hesitation of fearing one will come of being in bad faith, accused of being a bad actor, misconstrued.
Look I’ve already gone long on this. Social media sucks with catching numbers from people in who aren't 100% into what you’ve made but can appreciate what you’re doing, and actual work manoeuvrability is abysmal as it's tied to if people are all in on your work. A person may not be all in, but they can appreciate something and that can do more than expected if you let it be. The Numbers On The Post and peoples feelings of your work is not a true representation of one another.
(I typed this out so much that I'm now saddled with an idea of how to curb this problem from a web design point of view. Hrm, anyway-)
Saying your stuff sucks on a public stage tends to shoot yourself in the foot and everyone scatters because that's not a baseline people are often willing to engage with as a new relationship and often creates a barrier with engaging with your work. If you don’t like it, will you be responsive if I say I like it? I don’t have the specific words to say why I like it, will they actually believe me? If this is the only thing I like from them, how would they feel?
(I do want to chime in here and say that are exceptions to the rule, investigating your dissatisfaction with your work does not chase people away in itself, but brandishing it like a badge can make it harder to approach you. Identifying aspects of your work *you* feel dissatisfied with provides more of handhold so if someone online is to spot that call into the web, they could better direct a conversation and potentially give advice on what you want to achieve)
However - here’s the paradox - someone who is enraptured wholeheartedly by the thing they create often draws people to engage with them, or at the very least you don’t realise the time that passes until someone engages with your work frequently, or openly starts a conversation with you. If they do like it, you’re making the stuff for yourself (sicko) and that other guy (sicko)
And that’s amazing
Is your work terrible? Idk, social media is a faulty metric to track that by. Ignoring what you think that says, do YOU like your work? If not, could you like it? How could you achieve it?
But it's Make a Terrible Comic Day so forget about what I just said. For that day forget about allll that! Play in the mud, dig about for the worst! It's not a common thing people ask for. Clock in, empty your impulses onto the page and maybe keep an eye out if anything that interest *you* appears that you may want to pursue on a different day. And then go from there!
Because one of the things that I wish from this day is that there was a way to hit random for posts in the tag and I’m 100% sure it's possible with bluesky, and potentially so with tumblr. Truly going down the tag, past the people who accrued numbers in the hundreds and down to people who’s comics only have a handful of likes exists some delights. Amusing, funny, charming, interesting, experimental, cool, curious, cheer-worthy. It has the same feeling as going through a collection of Shortbox comics. Make a terrible comic day turns one into a kid, feet raised, eating candy, looking at the newspaper comic strip and your brain churns and twinkles at what they see. Art made purely, unabashedly, art given a go, art thrown at the ground, art attempted.
I think other art principles should consider having “a make a terrible” type day, or nondescript period of time. Game jams exist to mind and they imply a level of roughness being in the games due to the conventional 48hr time limits. But I think people still expect to make a good thing in the end. Not the same type of good if you had longer to make it, but still good. Explicitly saying no, the thing you are making should be bad invites more exploration, removes that expectation and gives participants permission to do the bad thing. Play with what the medium could be! Have fun with it.
I truly truly think this day is great, it's just so exciting to see in action. I’m happy this is in our mental calendars now. A whole school of us swimming against the current, and seeing art approached and made in a different light if we really speculate on it. Abandoning the idea of making good things, which often gets tied with making it good for others, in others eyes. People don’t want to see terrible things from my art. I don’t want people to see that. But the day tells you to step away from that thought, and places you in the space to make art, giving permission to try a bad thing, removing the pressure of making it good. It makes a new jungle to explore every year, a new beautiful terrible gallery spawns.
Everyone just close your eyes, and make bad comics and then we’ll all open our eyes and look at it okay?
3, 2, 1
Thank you for reading if you made it down here! There’s a few more things I wanted to mention or highlight so here’s some extra things.
These were linked in the blog but I wanted to give them their own space:
Good Writers Are Perverts Manifesto - I think the spirit of this manifesto would resonate with this day. A lot of work ppl who make art on an online social platform get tangled in the web of good = What Works™ and curbs their own desires in service in that. This explains why that can hamper your art.
The Creator's Guide to Comics Devices - A cataloguing of elements seen in comics and how they are used. Very much my jam as I love works that navigate mediums like this, really analyse the anatomy of this craft thats come together. It is still a comic day so it's fun to use this magnifying glass on the works made on this day.
(This led me down the rabbit hole of the webmasters own personal page, https://reimenayee.com/ as the comic device site overtly expresses an interest in the wider scope of comic academia and practition and her personal webpage holds more! The words she has shared in the blog and other pages have resonated so strongly with me.)
Make a Terrible Comic Day Works!
Hopefully you should be able to view these without an account, but here are some of the comics I’ve reblogged and shared on my tumblr: Make a terrible comic day 2025 // Make a terrible comic day 2024
That’s it, thanks for visiting!