"The common notion about entertainment is that the better the quality, the bigger the audience. There's some truth to that."
I think we have drastically different definitions of quality.
I think we have drastically different definitions of quality.
When Bill Watterson writes about quality and popularity, for instance, he's got a much different attitude, something more like "Popularity be damned: this is my art and I refuse to compromise it." I've seen it in every book of his I've read when he talks about work. He made comics primarily for himself, it seemed: it's why people got so much out of them. Scott Adams isn't nearly in the same league. He's smart, but he doesn't have one of the Great Comics.
Sometimes people like that get popular, sometimes not. (To be fair to Firefly: I think Joss Whedon has had more than a fair share of success, and he has more rabid intelligent fangirls than any other person I can imagine.)