Do you need critics?

I wanted to draw attention to something Scott Kurtz wrote the other day:

PvPonline » Archive » Why we insulate

I’m not sure how I ended up in so many tug-of-war competitions with bloggers, where the outcome of our match determines the superior position: creator or critic. But it seems to be cropping up again. There is a strange sense of entitlement, an eerie assumption of an unspoken working relationship that I am happy to inform does not exist. Why we insulate ourselves from the notion that the external critic can EVER be right, is because their critique is moot in regards to the progression of our work.

Scott makes a great point – not just for creators of webcomics, but for all creators of anything creative. In one of Mike Stackpole’s recent podcasts, he mentioned (and I’m paraphrasing here) that you have to believe in yourself as a writer, because nobody else will do it for you.

(And just in case it needs clarifying: “Critics” here obviously doesn’t mean your writer’s group or those you actively seek constructive criticism from. That means all the after-the-fact reviews.)