Thanks to everyone who stopped at our table this weekend! It was so good to see you, shake your hand and give you a button or a comic! If you are in the mood for some fun posts, read some past ones. This little one is a little on the heavy side.
Over the weekend I had an injection of comics culture. It had been over half a year since my last comics and indie art convention, APE, and so much has happened to me since then that I felt a little off balance. When I went to APE I had one freelance job for sure and two maybes that quickly became yeses. I had been doing HCE for only a few months and hadn’t yet gotten into the flow of characters or lines my pocket brush could make on paper. Now I have a full time job making comics and illustrations for a company an hour from my apartment and I barely have the energy to make my own deadlines with HCE and Rarebits.
To put it another way: I felt like a loser.
Ok, I feel like a loser a lot of the time without much cause, but hear me out. The passion and joy in the eyes of all cartoonists I met and hung out with over the weekend in New York spoke of a hunger they had to see their work on screen or on paper. They lived for their expression. Comics were life, love and limb for them. Even those who had to suffer the so-called “asteroid field” of freebie tables were there for the love of comics. It reminded me of something TMNT creator, Peter Laird said to my CCS class in 2007, “If you don’t absolutely love comics and what you are doing, you won’t make it.”
I couldn’t be prouder seeing my fellow Rarebits cartoonists share their work with old and new fans. My joy on Sunday night when I read that Billy the Dunce was on the shortlist for best comics of the con was only matched and exceeded by Jen Vaughn and Kyleen Flynn. Their drive and love of comics and comics culture was evident all weekend, it was an inspiration to me.
I’ve toyed with the idea of stepping away from publishing comics on and off again every month or so. I ask myself if I love what I am doing. A conversation I had this weekend was about that very thing: if your heart isn’t in it, then it will show and not be worth it for reader or cartoonist. I am NOT at the time stepping away from comics, but it seems like I’ve been stuck in the undertow of life and can’t get back on my drawing board.
Next year, for MoCCA I hope to have something worthwhile to show. Something I’ve poured more into than the few reserve drops of creativity that constitute the majority of what I did in HCE volume 1.
And for all of you out there making comics or art, I will say this: NEVER stop doing what you love, even when it sucks. You will regret it more if you walk away. I’ve done it once, I won’t do it again (more on that some other time).
BTW: The new MGMT album is so good, NOTHING like the last one. If you are a fan of music, pick it up. Mind blowing. Truly.
Keep it going!
(reread the 2nd to last paragraph again, you’re telling yourself something!)
Sam, I think you rock and you inspire me and I’m sure many many others.
I had an image of you flying in an undertow, inflating a life vest that takes you back to the surface and then you start riding your drawing board down the river like a surfboard.
Oh, man, if you only knew all the times I felt like this – I don’t know what more I can add – you’ve described this inner artistic conflict so well – all you need to know is that you can do it. Sometimes work and life and fear make it seem out of reach. But if you keep going, you’ll make something of it. You’ve made it this far, I think you must love it.
Also, yeah, the new MGMT album is sweet – so is the cover art!
Thanks for the comments everyone. My next update will be a fun one. Really. Not so whiny…. Oh, vey. Sorry everyone!
You say sorry too much.
And HCE is a great comic because this is precisely the energy and conflict you pour into the character of Emerson. It does and will continue to resonate with readers because of that.
Sam, you are a “talented young cartoonist”!
SAM! You’re an amazing cartoonist and the fact you doubt yourself or struggle just means YOU CARE. We all hit that wall and you will pull yourself over it. We know you love it and you’re going to see it too.