Art and Big Bang

[lunabee34]

So as I'm wending my way through the last of the SPN Big Bang offerings from this year, something struck me.

Are the art and the fic treated as separate entities? I never click on the art posts (well except for that steampunk story last year because OMG! so freaking cool); I look at the art as it's integrated into the story, but that's pretty much it. However, I know that there are art communities just like there are fic communities and lots of people who interact with fandom in primarily that way which leads me to believe that people less lame than me *are* clicking on the art posts. So I'm wondering, does the art post ever get a ton of comments while not so much the fic?

And what happens when the story is crap but the art is good? Does the merit of the story predict the response to the art?

You artists on the flist--how do you make art for a story you think is crap? Or that you wish heartily you'd gotten the change to beta? LOL Is it along the lines of writing for a ficathon prompt that you would never in a million years have chosen and that sort of makes your eyes want to bleed a little?

Now I am all interested in the visual art side of fandom. I was late to the "icons are cool" portion of fandom and super late to vids given that this is the first year we weren't suffering with dialup and I'm starting to realize there is yet another amazing aspect of fandom that I haven't yet explored.

Comments

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

Words matter. They matter more than art, though art can provide visual description. Nothing, nothing in the world is the same as the right words, at the right time, in the right context. Pictures can't ever get quite get there.

[ariadne83]

So I take it you haven't heard of comms like art_word, where the picture is an integral part of the story?

Sorry, I don't mean to jump on you but I know a lot of people who work just as hard on their art as I do on my writing. They're two completely different skill sets; I couldn't draw to save myself.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I have heard of that comm; I think I saw it linked to the newsletter or something, but I didn't understand quite what was going on. Tell me more. *bats eyelashes*

[kitty-poker1.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to demean art - I admire artists and can barely manage a stick figure myself - but Lorraine started from the point of the Big Bang, where the artwork is an adjunct to the fic, meant to enhance rather than replace. Without the words, there would be no art, in that case.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I get where you're coming from. I'm not really all that familiar with Big Bang; I've only read the stories, never the rules or anything, but it makes sense that in that situation, the art is a corollary to the fic.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree with you that words matter and I think that I am probably drawn to them much more than visual images. After all, I'm one of those rare ducks that doesn't make pictures in her head when she's reading. But I don't think that words matter more than art; I think art can be incredibly moving and arresting and propelling, just like words. I think they're just two different genres--like music and poetry--each with the power to move.