Milt Caniff on being aware of your audience

SABA: You seem to have always worked, first of all, primarily from an awareness of whatever the audience is going to want or receive. I gather from that that you, in your considerations of what to do, it's usually been from the point of view of what the audience wants. You're not an abstract theorist of the comic strip.
CANIFF: No, and I feel very strongly about this. It'd be great to be able to force something down the audience's throat. But that's not the deal, you're out there to give them what they want just as if you were selling oranges. You don't give them rotten oranges because they're rotten people. You give them oranges that they'll buy. If it comes down to that, it's not that mercenary, it's simply realistic. You'll be stuck with a lot of oranges if you don't give them good oranges.
SABA: A lot of younger cartoonists today- and, I must admit, like myself-work primarily from what we want to do. What we think is the best artistic way to do it. Which is what you might call the "art for art's sake' approach.
CANIFF: It's dangerous.
SABA: Commercially dangerous.
CANIFF: Not just commercially dangerous. It's dangerous in terms of your career. And of course, this comes down to being commercial. If it doesn't sell, you'll finally have to do something else to make a living. But, it's dangerous in the sense that then you're getting into the missionary attitude about what you have to say. Who's to say you're so damn smart, you know? Maybe you're wrong. The trick is to feel your ways, like a couple of boxers, feinting around until they find what they hope is the weakness in the other guy, and then letting him have it. And the same way, encountering what he has to offer you. The public can do you in so quickly by ignoring you. We used to have a year. Give a new strip about a year to succeed. Now you've got about two weeks. And I mean two weeks. Then, zoom, you're out of there, because the editor has about 200 things to choose from, and he's got 10 slots in his comics page.
SABA: Do you not feel there's a danger of compromising what you would do by feeling what the audience wants?
CANIFF: No, I don't regard it as compromise at all. It's a matter of getting your hold. It's like getting on a horse, and the trick is to stay on the horse. And you don't say, "You should obey my bridle." The horse has his own ideas. So the trick is to combine the two. And you must be a good rider. You must have good, strong saddle muscles, or off you go. And he's not going to ask any questions. He's going to throw you, that's all. He's dumb anyway, and you're a big deal about being a hero figure on top of Lochinvar's horse, it's not going to work. You've got to go along with that horse and do it his way, to a certain extent, and your way to a certain extent, and then you end up in a statue.