Creativity Quote by Chris Ware

There is a sly generosity in Ware calling independent cartoonists "marginal laborers" and "practically medical oddities": it flatters and needles at the same time. The line lands because it refuses the usual creative-world posture of scarcity and rivalry. Instead of treating taste as a weapon ("my scene, my standards"), Ware frames the entire enterprise as a kind of shared affliction. If you're already an eccentric outlier, what exactly are you defending by being cruel?

The intent is community-minded, but the subtext is sharper: indie cartooning is structurally precarious work, sustained by obsession more than profit, often done in isolation, frequently misunderstood by mainstream culture. "Independent" here doesn't read as a proud brand; it reads as a working condition. Ware is pointing at the economics (low pay, low visibility), the social positioning (niche, marginal), and the psychological reality (the odd compulsion to spend years drawing tiny boxes for a small audience) without romanticizing any of it.

Context matters because Ware is both revered and meticulous, a figure who could easily play gatekeeper. He chooses the opposite: a professional ethic of mutual respect among people who are already taking the same risk. The joke about being an "oddity" softens what is essentially a survival strategy: solidarity as infrastructure. In a field where the reward is rarely stability, being "nice" isn't sentimental. It's pragmatic, almost union logic for artists who don't have a union.