Of late, photography hasn’t been doing so well. Newspapers are firing their entire photo staffs. Desperate shooters are manipulating images, subjects and audiences. Morale isn’t very high right now.

We need a hero. We need someone who can stand up, voice all of our hopes and fears. We need someone who can speak truth to power and make us laugh in our most self-serious of moments.

That hero is a duck — a cartoon duck. We need him more than ever.

What the Duck began in July of 2006, gently poking fun at the type of prospective clients that photographers often deal with. Bold and fearless, the duck said the things we were all thinking, and even the things we never wanted to admit.

“I started it on a lark,” says creator Aaron Johnson. “I intended only creating five days worth of strips but by day three, I had hundreds of emails in my inbox telling me to keep it going. I went into it thinking it would be a comic strip that only four people would read and one person would actually laugh at.”

Photographers can be serious, sometimes too serious.

We agonize over making the perfect image and we grit our teeth in debates about image-toning. It took an illustrated comic, not a photograph, to peel back the layers of the uppity, anxious and self-important navel-gazing within the photo-industry. It took a comic, not a photograph, to make us feel human again and allow us to laugh at ourselves.

“What Dilbert is to cube-dwellers, What the Duck became to those of us with more creative professions,” says Johnson.

It sometimes feels like Johnson is in your brain, transcribing your thoughts, but he isn’t a photographer full-time. By day, he’s an animator, graphic designer, and occasional jazz bassist.

“For me, photography started out as a hobby and a means to document the lives of my children,” says Johnson. “Through the years, the equipment has got bigger, heavier and more expensive. Luckily, my experience got me to a point where I could do it professionally to help support my habit. I’ve freelanced over the years doing commercial photography but I still like to think of it as a hobby … or a black hole for my money.”

WTD has nearly 59,000 Facebook fans, and hundreds of dedicated followers have sent in WTD “fanpics” of their drawings, photos with their Duck plush dolls, and more. The rest of the world can have Daffy and Donald, but photo nerds stand strong with their unnamed, camera-toting, just plain duck.

“The fans have been extraordinary over the last nine years. I really owe the success of WTD to them and the to power of word of mouth. It’s been an honor to entertain so many over the years. I’m always surprised at how well the international audiences have responded. To this day, I still receive at least one request, each week, from someone asking permission to translate the comic,” says Johnson.

The most recent strip finds the protagonist haggard and worn. There are dark circles beneath his tiny duck eyes. He has so many shoots, and so little time, he laments to a construction duck. “Sure beats working,” the construction duck replies, completely oblivious to his faux pas. This feeling is a familiar, and the reader can’t help but wonder if Johnson, too, is just worn out.

More than a thousand comics later, our dear ducky hero seems to be MIA. “A new year and still no new WTD in the last 135 days. I guess it’s over. It was good while it lasted,” a commenter posted on January 2nd.

There’s hope for us yet.

“I miss it too. No, it’s not over,” says Johnson. “Yes, I’ve been busy. I spent most of last year training for a 50 mile ultra marathon. My kids are active and busy, thus making me active and busy. As much as I enjoy writing the strip, I have other passions calling me too. I have a file of scripts and ideas waiting for me. Once I’m ready and have found that right balance again, I’ll be back with more.”

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