the-art-cycle
Original: the-art-cycle on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Title: HOW ART GETS MADE:
(Watermark: smbc-comics.com)
The comic is a single graph/diagram. The vertical axis is labeled SELF DOUBT (top). The horizontal axis is labeled NARCISSISM (bottom). The diagram traces a cyclical loop drawn as a triangle of arrows over the axes.
Starting at the top-left point (high self-doubt): a red label reads "CREATION!" with a red star/burst.
A yellow/gold arrow points upward toward CREATION, labeled along its length: "MAKING A NEW THING".
From CREATION at the top, a green arrow slopes down and to the right, labeled along its length: "PEOPLE LIKE THE THING YOU MADE".
The green arrow ends at the lower-right, where a red label reads "SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE IT".
From that point, a blue arrow points back to the left (toward the lower-left), labeled: "REVERT TO BASELINE LEVEL OF SELF-REGARD".
The blue arrow ends at a point on the lower-left labeled in red: "EMOTIONAL CRISIS", which is also the base of the upward yellow "MAKING A NEW THING" arrow, completing the loop.
Votey:
Also:
Science,
Poetry,
Music,
Mathematics,
Lasagna...
(Watermark: smbc-comics.com)
The comic is a single graph/diagram. The vertical axis is labeled SELF DOUBT (top). The horizontal axis is labeled NARCISSISM (bottom). The diagram traces a cyclical loop drawn as a triangle of arrows over the axes.
Starting at the top-left point (high self-doubt): a red label reads "CREATION!" with a red star/burst.
A yellow/gold arrow points upward toward CREATION, labeled along its length: "MAKING A NEW THING".
From CREATION at the top, a green arrow slopes down and to the right, labeled along its length: "PEOPLE LIKE THE THING YOU MADE".
The green arrow ends at the lower-right, where a red label reads "SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE IT".
From that point, a blue arrow points back to the left (toward the lower-left), labeled: "REVERT TO BASELINE LEVEL OF SELF-REGARD".
The blue arrow ends at a point on the lower-left labeled in red: "EMOTIONAL CRISIS", which is also the base of the upward yellow "MAKING A NEW THING" arrow, completing the loop.
Votey:
Also:
Science,
Poetry,
Music,
Mathematics,
Lasagna...
Alt text
A hand-drawn SMBC comic titled "HOW ART GETS MADE:" presented as a single graph. The vertical axis is labeled SELF DOUBT and the horizontal axis is labeled NARCISSISM. A cyclical triangle of arrows maps the creative process onto these axes. A gold arrow labeled "MAKING A NEW THING" points upward to a red burst labeled "CREATION!" at the high-self-doubt corner. From there a green arrow labeled "PEOPLE LIKE THE THING YOU MADE" slopes down and right to a red label "SOME PEOPLE DON'T LIKE IT." A blue arrow then points back left labeled "REVERT TO BASELINE LEVEL OF SELF-REGARD," landing on a red label "EMOTIONAL CRISIS," which loops back up into making a new thing again. The joke: art is made through an endless cycle of creation, mild praise, criticism, emotional crisis, and starting over. The votey panel adds handwritten cursive text reading "Also: Science, Poetry, Music, Mathematics, Lasagna..." implying the same self-doubt-and-narcissism cycle produces all of these too.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.