New Years Resolutions and Projects for 2006
2005 has been a year of many changes for me: a new home, a new job, new projects, and I've gone back to school (in a fashion.) One of the major changes in my life has been one of perspective concerning my creative life. Making comics is tough, and fitting them into my life has always been a struggle. When faced with that struggle in the past, I've often procrastinated or distracted myself. With a little help (and inspiration) from my friends, and the support of this blog, I've been facing the struggle head on. I wish continue this, and that's my resolution for 2006.
Here are some more specific resolutions:
Make every day a working a day a day, a day closer to achieving my goals. Approach each day with this in mind.
Create a plan to meet my artistic goals. Follow this plan every day. Maintain and adjust this plan a necessary.
Use tools I know work to achieve my artistic goals: creating a plan and work schedule, keeping a record, positive thinking, etc.
Create from a place of inspiration, not guilt.
Don't grade my work against others. Don't compare myself to others (or at least limit the comparing.)
Realize and believe that I am awesome. No more of this low self esteem crap.
Projects for 2006:
Begin pencils on my graphic novel, start inking in July.
A comic for the middle school antho from Penguin Books.
Hey, 4-Eyes! #2 (debuting in April.)
Mini comics:
Matching Jackets (debuts MoCCA)
I Can't Dance (debuts MoCCA)
How about you? List your resolutions and projects here!
posted by robyn @ 1:51 PM
8 Comments:
Awesome Robyn! I think a lot of us could benefit from the "I'M AWESOME" attitude. So long self-deprication! We all RULE. We're Comics artists!
I too have some big changes (Comics-wise) planned for 2006. My goals include:
--Finally getting PHASE 7 #006 finished and printed! (Basewood Chapter 2)
--Script and begin working on Basewood Chapter 3 and work on it "in the background" with no deadline and at no pre-defined pace
--Return PHASE 7 to its short story format, starting with the "Transition Issue" which will be P7 #010
-- Then publish a backlog of completed issues I'm sitting on: My first comic book "Barcode", a sketchbook issue, my art history comics paper from school this semester and my next 24 hour comic (as many as I can afford to print in 2006!)
I think 2006 is going to be a really exciting year for Comics and Self-Publishing. So many of my Comics friends have super-awesome things planned for this year. Woo!
Okay, deep breath...
This year I need to maintain better eating and sleeping habits, tidier work / living area, more physical activity, and manage time better.
Last fall I began a project called Before Sleep where each day I drew a small sketchbook page worth of comix. The idea was to get myself in the habit of making comics every single day, then transfer this energy to my proper projects. I went for a couple months, then fell off. This year I resume Before Sleep, and also begin using some morning time to make comics. I also hope to release the 2nd Before Sleep mini in April, #3 in July, and #4 in October. #5 should follow in Jan. '07, ending the project, unless there are enough unused strips I like enough to release another mini or two.
I plan to release the 2nd issue of my mini Square Dance in February - it will have bits of my Aug. 24-hr comic (some redrawn) and more. Then #3 in spring, #4 in summer, #5 in fall, and #6 in winter. One of these will be my first issue-length story!
I will continue releasing Keene Free Comics, an 8-page free comic I edit, copy and distribute (and of course contribute to) around my area on a monthly basis. Last year I missed a couple months; hopefully I won't this year, but I won't sweat it too much if I do. I hope to get a couple more ads in it so I can stop paying for it. I plan to keep it going 'til at least summer, and will definitely stop doing it when I eventually move out of the area (oh yeah, I'm also resolving to save up $ for a trip and to move).
I will contribute a story to the locally-produced We Are Dangerous mini-anthology in March, and maybe also submit to later issues.
Website tweaks: hand-drawn menu, more links, some re-organizing.
Collaborations: In trying to help keep the ArtForest collective lively, I will, at a minimum, work with Dorothea Lasky on some poem-comix and Morgan Pielli on a split mini or something.
I organize a little group for comix makers in the area which meets weekly. Attendance has been sparse at best for the past few months, and I haven't had energy to promote it. I will meet with some VT people who might attend or found something new, and do some more promoting. If nothing comes of any of that, I will end the "group" and redirect that energy into my other projects.
I will make more of an effort to get my minis into stores and under eyeballs, and my website seen. I will overcome my distaste for scanning and update my site on a weekly basis (which I did just fine when Before Sleep was running).
I will improve my drawing skills.
I'll be assembling the monthly events calendar (print version) for Flywheel.
Whew! It's a lot for me, and I'm sure more will come up during the course of the year, but I can do it.
I can do it!
Holy Crap Colin Tedford!! Have we met? I'm really sorry if we have and I forgot, I'm terrible about this stuff. But I can't believe there is dedicated and enthusiastic cartoonist who has a weekly cartooning group and a local mini in Keene, New Hampshire which is like, just over the border!!! Well, I looked it up and it's about an hour away but still. We have met, right? You do know there's a cartooning school in White River Junction, right?!
Anways, we should talk.
You guys have a full plate for 2006! I'm worried that I have too many deadlines before April but there's nothing I can do but put on the Rocky soundtrack and work like a maniac. Yes Alec, this is the year I get awesome. I've been telling myself, "This year is all about Robyn Chapman." It's something I stole from Thien Pham. Apparently last year was all about Thien Pham, Global Hobo even printed "I Love Thien Pham" t-shirts to commemorate.
I've been thinking about Thien's mini "Air" which means I've also been thinking about the theme to Rocky (Gonna Fly Now, and Eye of the Tiger.) Air is all about air hockey, but it's also about getting strong and getting good. Thien knows!
Man, I've gotta rent Rocky now.
At a recent Christmas party, a fellow artist friend of mine took me into the other room and gave me a big lecture on how "awesome" an artist I am and how I need to stop putting myself down. And of course, this attitude I have usually does come from comparing myself to others. So as of right now I'm making those two resolutions as well... :0
My other resolution is to write something on my new comic every day. (Even if it's just changing one line of dialogue...as long as I do SOMETHING every day...I discovered that I enjoy typing script on my laptop while sitting on my bed...that seems to make it easier somehow) Augh. Yes. I'm still writing. It just doesn't come easily to me. I need someone to collaborate with or something, someone who knows more about writing than I do..
Robyn, no worries, we haven't met - though I am a TP2 "also-ran". I came up to CCS for the "Grand Opening", but unfortunately no one who wanted to come along was able, so I milled about awkwardly, got some neat sketches & snacks & left. I might have seen you around there, but I didn't end up conversing w/ anyone (alas!). I decided to buckle down & make comics in 2004, got rolling pretty well in '05, and hopefully this year will be full of good developments & productivity.
We have a couple other cartoonin' folks down here - Marek Bennett of Marlow does a weekly strip that appears in maybe 4 papers in NH, plus he runs week-long "Comics Camps" for kids and is putting together some other workshops on things like making historical comics. Tim Hulsizer of Keene hasn't headed to print yet (except for KFC), but he's been doing the The Daily Grind, which is pretty impressive and dedicated. A couple folks in Peterborough (another 1/2 hr away) are trying to start an anthology (one of them is Ryan Wilson of children's magazine Moo Cow Fan Club.
Maybe we can get together some kind of 'field trip' up to CCS for an event, or if we're lucky maybe the Brattleboro Museum will have another event to tie in with their comics exhibit.
Also, a fellow named Dan Barlow who works for the Rutland Herald has been talking to comics people around VT and trying to encourage mingling; I don't know if you've encountered him yet, but if not I will dig up his info when I get home.
Blah-de-blah-de-networky...
Thanks for putting up this site, it's a great idea!
That's an impressive group, Colin! Yes, you should take a field trip over here. We can have a comic drawing party. Most of the students are away, so you might want to wait till late January.
I'm surprised that there's a poet named Lasky that I've never heard of before. My name's Lasky, and well, I'm a poet (though admittedly a bad one). I make poetry comics from time to time...
My resolutions are many, but among them is to make a comic in collaboration with poet Noel Franklin, who has been waiting something like 5 years for this collaboration to occur...
I also need to clean up my cluttered studio so I can get some serious work done...
Up for 2006...
-Cut some regular work time out for working on comics, but make sure I spend planty of time with our new baby boy Joss (Born in December!) I'm reading to him from the large Little Nemo book. (Which is unbelievably beautiful by the way.)
-Write and mail a check for a table at MoCCA (done!)
-Start 2 new stories that I have been preparing for a while, do the artwork Extra-LARGE size, with handcolored originals...
(already finished the lettering for page 1 and inked a panel)
-Prepare the 2 minis I have completed for summer, plus produce one more...
-Get my website up and running (Realisically by March 1)
-Make 2006 a year that kicks ass!
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