I don't know where I am on the schmooze debate but I have been thinking alot lately about the unique combination of "wise for their years/old soul" and "forever young" I am really beginning to associate with Aspies.

I didn't say they "couldn't". I rather said the opposite in fact. But what I did say was that as a general rule aspies don't make great politicians or diplomats, even though an aspie who gets the motivation can become expert at pretty much anything.

That's part of the reason why I'm at least currently not focused on the notion of getting my art into any galleries... Alongside the fact that I can't afford to print any of it. Though at least for now I'm also focusing strategically on a particular style of art, comic strips, which while they may not draw in larger pricetags like traditional art, offer me imo anyway better opportunity for branded marketing. And also hoping that the emphasis on tangible concepts that people can relate to and on humor will produce a stronger draw. I could be wrong, but my impression is that abstract art is a harder sell simply because the people looking at it don't have anything specific to compare it to in their minds. Given that, my guess is that the trick with abstract is really just to produce as many pieces as you can and as fast as you can and to get as many eyeballs on them as possible, with no real consideration of who specifically is looking at them. As compared to something like comic strips where targetted marketing actually becomes viable -- like in my case, I put Gary Larson's name on a couple pages on my site because I want to attract Far Side fans as part of my demographics.

In my case, someone who sees the Usual Suspects cartoon for example has an immediate spark of recognition of the stereotype of the gray-boddied aliens, which goes a long way toward its being now my most popular piece on Deviant Art. It's probably very much akin to the fact that people who drink Coca-Cola literally taste something different when they know they're drinking coke because of the brand recognition and nostalgic feelings influencing the pleasure response, whereas if you give them a blind taste test, the same people prefer Pepsi. An abstract piece might be "artistically superior" to the comic strip (more visually appealing than my illustration), but less popular simply because it doesn't produce pattern recognition in the viewer. The downside like I mentioned before is that comic strips are already entrenched in a very different cultural niche with a much lower monetary valuation on them, so where an abstract piece might be able to make me more money but take longer to sell, my strips are likely to sell faster but won't earn me as much return per sale.

I'm probably way off topic here... :) I've been obsessing about my own art-marketing efforts recently, so that's where I'm at. :) This past week I spent several hours improving the SEO on woohooligan.com among other things.