Make Comics Forever!!

Long time no post!

2009-02-23T19:35:00.001-06:00

Hey gang, it's been pretty quiet around here - I assume you're all busy making comics! Anyway, just thought I'd stop by for a moment to let you know about my new one!

It's called "Angora Napkin" and it came out a few weeks ago. CBR just did an interview with me, you can check it out HERE. We also made an animation pilot for it that will be airing on Teletoon (Canada) sometime in March.

I'll be attending TCAF this May, I hope to see some of you there!

... Now I'm taking a small break before heading back to the drawing board. "Chiaroscuro Book I" took me 5 years to do... It's going to be another long haul to get Book II out me thinks.

Comic Artist Rehab (and more)

2008-02-17T18:34:00.004-06:00

There is a nifty website called "Comic Artist Rehab" out there, which aims to help cartoonists de-slump and become productive. They do this by selecting four cartoonists at a time (from those who have written in for help) and requiring them to draw (and post online) four panels every four days for four weeks. At the end of the program, each artist completes and posts a 5-question "exit interview" in which, among other things, they describe the experience and what it did for them.

Like any exercise, you don't have to do the "official" version. Dragon Green wanted to take part but didn't want to wait, so she decided to do it herself and put out a call on her LiveJournal to see if anyone else wanted to join her. I and two others responded, and the "Comic Rehab Ripoff" was born.

While the exercise isn't a cure-all for everyone's woes, it has been a good experience for me (as I write this, our final round is in two days). The combination of small frequent deadlines and a small audience of dedicated peers seems to do a good job of motivating me. I suppose you could view it competitively, not wanting to be the one to fall behind, though to me it feels like a cooperative enterprise - we are all working together, and I want to keep my end of things up.

Rehab has also made me think about the diary cartoonists out there (like Matthew Reidsma, Jennifer Omand, & of course James Kochalka) who draw four (or so) panels every darn day, on top of other projects. My post-Rehab goal is to draw at least 2 finished panels every day (preferably at least four).

I think a dedicated workspace is also helpful. I replaced my desk with a used drawing table a while ago, and though it took some time before my space was orderly enough to access it, during Comic Rehab I have enjoyed the feeling of sitting down to this special space to produce my allotment of creative stuff (also, the slanted surface is harder to clutter!). I don't think a drawing table is necessary, just a place that is clearly for drawing comics or whatever. It doesn't even have to be strictly dedicated, as I am all too familiar with space constraints, but it should be set up so you have to do little or nothing to sit down and start making comics - no piles of stuff to move, etc.

Don't get trapped into thinking you can only draw in your special place, though, or you'll be working against yourself. Draw everywhere! Brandon Graham says, "I drew for years at a time without owning a desk. Be ready to draw anywhere, bust out your best work anytime. The best thing about comics is that it takes no money -- you could steal pens and paper and make the best comic ever sitting on a dumpster."

Be ready to draw cartoons even when you are Bob Ross preparing for your show:

A plea for clarity...

2007-10-19T18:19:00.000-05:00

Greetings, fellow Imagesmiths...
I've been a long time follower of this particular forum and have a great deal of admiration and respect for the hard working artists whose works frequent this blog... but I've never bothered to jump into the tidepool myself.

While most of my cartooning work has been in the field of children's publishing in the past, I do some independant comic work for Heavy Metal Magazine (I know, I know... CRINGE... but it's the only large circulation venue I've found that doesn't feel the need to over-edit my work) to salve my creative itch. I've been documenting the progress of my latest story on my blog:

Slumbering Giant

I figure that this is as fine a place and as good a time as any to address one of my biggest obstacles to productive comic work...
More and more, I find myself constantly revising and redrawing past story pages in order to make what I feel to be substandard imagery jive more readily with more recent and perceptibly improved page work. Because of this, I'm finding that I could potentially catch myself in a sort of creative mobius loop of continual refinement with no hope of an eventual finished product.

How do the more productive among you comfortably justify preserving previous progress even in the light of current scrutiny? Is there some easier way to simply allow oneself to just "do better next time" in the interest of simply finishing a story?

Thanks for any insights anyone can provide...
In the meantime, I'm grateful to be counted among you in the struggle!

Drawing forever!!

2007-10-10T08:36:00.001-05:00

I noticed the blog hadn't been updated in awhile so I thought I'd take the opportunity to submit a post.
I can report the good news that I got to the bottom of what was causing my wrist pains and it ended up being an irritated nerve in my neck. I still have the occasional ache but as long as I keep up my stretches I can manage it ok, and more importantly keep drawing!
I mostly post comics to my blog if you're interested.

Chiaroscuro HC available for pre-order!!!!

2007-07-27T16:46:00.001-05:00

Previews pg. 312, Diamond code: AUG073757

Hi gang, just letting you know about the book status! Check out the Spotlight in the new edition of Previews and maybe order yourself a copy! (Thanks!)

The next book (Angora Napkin) is chugging along in spite of everything. I'm almost 80 pages into it running about 6 new pages a month. I find the only time I get to work on it is if I get up at 5 or 6 am before the kids wake up. Most people think I'm nuts but we do what we have to do right?

Comics On Handhelds

2007-07-13T12:45:00.000-05:00

This piece was originally written for the 11th Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival.

My experiments with screen-based comics began during my undergraduate years in Montreal, where I read a Wired magazine comic by Scott McCloud that discussed the potential for comics to go digital. This led me to McCloud’s then-current book Reinventing Comics and his already extensive website. A read of Reinventing Comics, a few experimental comix of my own, and a graduate degree later, I received an email from Will Simmons at Clickwheel asking if I was interested in publishing my comics to iPods. I was, despite never having seen a color iPod at that point. Will assured me that my comics looked gorgeous on the small screens, but only when I got ahold of one a few months later did I realize the full potential of handheld digital comics.

It's not surprising that comics joined music and video on handhelds. It was inevitable, given the ubiquity of these devices, the revitalization of the comics medium, and the growing interest in webcomics. And though I have no statistics to support this, I suspect that a healthy slice of the net-savvy, handheld-using demographic is also enthusiastic and supportive of comics, be they digital or printed on paper.

Unlike music and video, comics don't suffer from the need to reduce file size (and thus quality) in order to get them onto handhelds. Quite the contrary; quality is enhanced. It's actually satisfying holding a digital comic in your hand, especially compared to hunching over a monitor attempting to read the small or blurry type that often plagues webcomics. The high resolution of an iPod screen ensures that tiny handwriting is legible, and makes the colors crisper than most laptop screens. Due to the typographic nature of comics, I believe that the quality of other handheld screens will need to meet the standard set by the iPod in order to adequately display comics.

An appealing direction for small-screen comics would be the incorporation of artist-controlled transitions from one panel to the next. Currently, comics can only be viewed on an iPod using its standard photo-viewing interface. The typical transition is a straight cut, which is fine, and the user has the option to select others such as "cube" or "swirl", which are gimmicky and do not enhance reading. Consider, however, the simple gliding panel-to-panel movements used in Daniel Merlin Goodbrey's flash-based Tarquin Engine, which, as an example of an infinite canvas with multi-directional reading possibilities, seems ideally suited for viewing comics on a tiny screen. As touch-screen handhelds become the norm, readers may simply be able to finger tap the next panel in a sequence and see it zoom into focus on the screen.

A crucial step I'd like to see for small-screen comics is a simple way for readers to subscribe to their favorite comic and have it download automatically to their handheld. Accessibility and ease of use will be essential in maintaining the momentum of small-screen comics.

work related injuries...

2007-07-08T03:20:00.000-05:00

Hi every one I just joined this blog recently and thought I’d make a post to introduce myself, probably best to check out my main blog awcomix if you are interested ;)

I also wanted to discuss work related injuries like RSI and Carpal tunnel syndrome.
Earlier this year I started getting pains in my hand wrist and forearms which at first I thought was RSI. A few weeks ago my physio re-diagnosed me with CTS. The treatments I’m doing now seem to be working and I’m hopeful that I’m on the road to recovery. I was just wondering what others experiences are with these things, ie,

-what problems you had,
-how have you dealt/overcome those problems
-and what effect has it had on your work and mental state?

I know it’s probably been discussed before on the blog but thought I’d ask all the same.

For me like I said it’s been a low level but constant pain in different areas of my drawing arm. I am currently wearing a brace at night to sleep and taking B6 supplements with some minor stretches.
At first this was a devastating thing to learn to deal with, having to take a break from drawing (and I was in a personal creative peak too) I’m now feeling a little better and hopefully that I will return to some sort of normal drawing activity in the near future.

Fun challenge

2007-02-10T22:33:00.000-06:00

fun challenge hey everyone...take a look and see if it's something you may be interested in...thanks

Any type of job you want?

2007-02-04T09:44:00.000-06:00

Hey gang..if you had a choice of which field in cartooning you'd take, which would it be? I realize we are all into cartooning and comics itself, but what would it be? Newspapers and magazines..animation..greeting cards and T-shirts..airbrush..album and cd design...or perhaps television?.
Personally, I wanna see my work in the papers. I know the newspapers are in dire straits these days, but I think nothing would satisfy me more than trying to bring a smile to the faces of thousands of readers on a daily basis.My toon is based solely on stupidity and ineptness, and what with living near and working in the greater Daytona Beach area....the potential for a non-stop flow of inspiration is never ending.

I know this topic isn't as ' hardcore' a discussion topic as most of you are use to, but it is a topic for discussion nonetheless.............Thanks

That Driving force

2007-02-03T16:50:00.000-06:00

What inpires you to toon?

Pen-tastic!

2007-02-01T12:40:00.000-06:00

Alright, as I've been working I've moved from Micron Pens, to pure brush work, to washes with some impressionistic brush marks, to the inevitable combination of all of them.

However, I love love love forever and ever love Brush Pens. I can put a faster line down with them and their portability gives me a really flexible work area (bars, friends houses, in front of my TV, my desk, etc...). That being said, I've been using the Faber-Castell brush pens for a while, but the tips don't last that long and after a while, the ink in the pen breaks down really quickly.

Any recommendations out there on some solid, possibly refillable, brush pens? What tools can't you live without?

Carrot & Stick

2007-01-19T11:40:00.000-06:00

Finishing a comics page is of course its own delightful reward, but if you are having trouble sitting down and doing the work, it may help to use extra incentives.

I decided the other day to tie my comics-buying budget to my comics production. For each page I finish, I set aside a little money (amount varies depending on page size & etc.). I am only allowing myself to buy comics with this set-aside money, so if I don't make comics, I don't get to buy comics. You can pick arbitrary amounts like $2 for a mini-page & $4 for digest-size, or set your rates with unnecessary formulas like I did. You can also adjust your rates to help set priorities (more $ for the non-paying piece you promised to someone for a deadline, etc).

I'm hoping this will also encourage me to budget better in general...

Techniques and secrets!

2007-01-12T14:37:00.000-06:00

One thing that I love about artists/comics creators blogs lately is the trend of technique discussion. Lots of "to do this, I do this", and I eat that stuff up with a spoon. With the crowd gathered here for Make Comics Forever!! I think we have a great chance to share some techniques with each other and our faithful readers. Plus it's easy stuff to blog about and can really help all us comic creators out.

Let's pull back the curtain a bit, and I'll start with a post on lettering balloons in Illustrator this week. I've been reading more indy books lately and the balloons in the books are driving me CRAZY. Not a lot of variation in shape, and really awkward arrows. As a designer I guess I'm extra sensitive to that sort of thing, so it's something I can speak too.

You game, gang?

Keeping Afloat

2006-12-21T08:34:00.000-06:00

In response to a question from The Masked Retriever on How do I Keep this Ship from Sinking (in relation to making a graphic novel). I decided to make this a post to give other people a place to chime in and add to the topic.

There are so many different ways to tell a story in comic form, but I can only speak for myself and what works for me. Personally, I hate doing a ton of pre-production. It just sucks the spark out of the work for me. Id rather develop the comic on paper, page by page designing what is needed at the time. It keeps it fresh for me and every new page is a new challenge as well as a surprise. I know people like Craig Thompson who draw every page in a very (almost finished) detailed rough and work out the whole project before hand, and more power to him because his stuff kicks ass.

That being said, I cant do anything without knowing my story (at least in broad terms). Id place myself in box #3 The Idiom from Scott McClouds Understanding Comics for my approach to comics. I start with an idea & the idea dictates the style and tone of the work.

I dont write out the story, mostly because the story lives and develops in my head, fleshing out over time as new ideas and twists crop up. Originally Chiaroscuro was a serial, so I would pen out some rough dialogue and the ideas I wanted to convey in a comic of 20 odd pages. I kept that approach mentality even after I stopped publishing the individual issues, kind of like chapters in a novel. Im not sure if/how that will change for Book 2, which will not be published in segments.

Above all I know where my story is going, it has an end and I know the ideas I want to play with and explore in between. The great thing about the graphic novel though is the room you have to play with tangents and digressions that allow the story to breath.

As for the art, I decided right off the bat to allow that to develop on its own as well. I knew that page five was not going to look like page 230; the overall feel of the story would dictate the look. A comfortable and right look would emerge that would suit the story. I figured its better to draw page one and get on with it than to plan my life away. Its probably also a reaction to working in animation for so many years, the idea of On Model drives be around the bend and is probably the reason Ill never get work at Marvel (Not that Id necessarily want to, Im just saying).

So for me, the idea and the story are the most important. If the art can compliment the tone of the story then in my mind we have a winner and something you can really bite into. If you cant wait to draw issue #4 when youre only half way through issue #1 then I wouldnt worry to much about things going stale, because if youre excited about the work it will come through.

I hope that was helpful, anyone else?

Finished the graphic novel!

2006-12-19T08:09:00.000-06:00

Oh man, it's taken me over 6 years and many many late nights but the bastard is finished.... Well, the first of three books is finished anyway. It's very satisfying to see the work in print as a whole.

I did a 100 copy POD run to shop it around to various publishers and reviewers and I'm very impressed with the quality of the print. Back when the book was in serial form I was getting the printing done at Quebecor, but for a small run like this POD made more sense. I contacted Dream Weaver Press first but found their response time to my emails left much to be desired so I decided to work with ComiXpress. They did a great job; sharp clean print on bright white paper with little bleed through. I'd defiantly use them again.

Now I'm taking a break from this series to work on something a little more loose and portable to fit into my current situation (3 1/2 month old twin girls), but finding the time is a real challenge! Lots of coffee in my world.

Scott McCloud's Making Comics

2006-11-17T12:02:00.000-06:00

I'm getting tired of looking at that stupid video...Maybe I'll take it down...

I bought Making Comics back in September, and I absolutely loved it. I think Scott McCloud is a genius, certainly one of the most intelligent authors out there, contributing modern ideas to our culture about comics and cartooning. I think his ideas about the “Four Tribes” are extremely insightful and he has had me thinking for days (months) about how artists choose to express themselves. This was particularly of interest to me because I wrote a play a few years ago (Daphne, staged in NY in 2001) about an artist who was emotionally wounded by his students and his friends choosing means of expression, which he believes to be contrary to artistic or “valuable” goals for society. It struck me that after reading Scott’s book, that all of the characters in the play were members of the different “Tribes”, and the actual theme of the play centered around the struggle to find some sort of integration within the self, to accommodate the need to express emotions and ideas in different ways…

I’ve been meaning to write to him about this, as I think, although I am not one who typically favors “categorizing” people, it is a very interesting idea, nonetheless. Now that I am working on adapting this story into comic form, and after reading his book, I am rethinking the entire schematic of how these people relate to each other.

One aspect of the book, which I was amazed by, but also took odds with a little bit, was the section about Facial Expressions. I have for several years in New York City spent a great deal of time training to be an actor at various schools, with various teachers. A large part of this training centers around one’s ability to analyze a script and come up with an objective or action that drives the character forward through the play or story. One strong lesson that I have come away with, that I feel is certainly imperative to good acting, is to not predict an emotional state for the character before entering into a scene. “Here the character is sad”, “here the character is angry”. The reality of the situation carries many complexities which make it necessary to remain open only to the objective of the character. The danger being that if one puts too much thought into the emotional state of the character beforehand, one falls into the risk of simply “indicating” emotions, instead of expressing something more truthful that follows the character’s need to pursue a strong objective and the course of actions that follow.

William H. Macy has an interesting quote on the back of David Mamet’s book about acting, True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor, (a book which is controversial even among actors of various methods, but also very much worth reading). Macy writes, “So much of the acting we see these days is, in my opinion, emotional glop. The actors are not really acting the story, they are acting what the story means. When all is said and done, it’s just indicating.” I think it is very valuable how Scott McCloud has deconstructed the subtle varieties and combinations of emotions that exist within perceived facial expressions, but I don’t believe one should try and pre-determine this emotional aspect at the outset, while drawing. Perhaps that is my own prejudice…

Chris Ware had an interesting comment at his “Master Class” at the New Yorker Festival last year. He said “The first mistake of all real cartooning books, actually, is showing you these pages of faces of smiling… “how to draw a sad person”, “how to draw a happy person”, and I think -- I just recently had a daughter--and I think the only human beings on the planet who communicate this way are babies. They only really use their faces to express themselves, and by about age two, they start to kind of control or lie to you. So, I really think only a child is completely honest in their facial expressions, and beyond that, one of the secrets or tricks to drawing, a successful comic strip about adults, if you are drawing from the outside-in, is to remember that most adults lie with their faces.”

I remember thinking something similar when coming upon these very common pages of “faces” that one encounters when reading books about cartooning. Now, what Scott McCloud has done is something a bit different in that her really peels back the layers of what sort of emotions are really a part of a facial expression into an impressively huge and complex diagram. I don’t know though, if I would give this sort of analysis much consideration in drawing the faces of my characters (at least beforehand). I think it is an interesting aspect to explore when the drawing is done, but in this case, I don’t believe “clarity”, wins out over “truth”, unless your goal as a cartoonist is to exaggerate (certainly a tradition in cartooning-as with the symbolic expressions McCloud provides). Scott even addresses this in the book, pointing to Spiegelman and Ware as cartoonists who use a “limited palette” of expression to convey stories of great emotional complexity. I think he is quite correct in that, understanding these expressions, will help one to “draw with greater control and precision.” But if I were to approach cartooning with an actor’s point of view (and maybe that’s not very appropriate, maybe it is…), I would spend more time thinking about the character’s goal’s or objective, and allow what emotional resonance that offers itself, to guide my drawing, rather than mentally “picturing” an emotion (complex or otherwise) beforehand. When all is said and done, this sort of thing is very subjective, and I certainly don’t claim to be the expert at cartooning that Scott McCloud is. Maybe I’m just an Iconoclast at heart! Perhaps I’ll send this post to him, and see what comments he has. One thing for sure. You guys should buy his book. It is a work of art.

STAND UP!

2006-09-26T18:48:00.000-05:00

I'm having a mini-epiphany tonight: STAND UP AND DRAW COMICS!!!

I have a bad back from 6 years as a scenic carpenter (I'm tall and lanky, which is a bad build for working on your knees all day and slinging around sheets of plywood). And sitting all the time drawing Comics doesn't help that. I do stretches in the morning (sit ups! strengthen those stomach muscles which support your back!) and sometimes I wear a back-brace to help me sit up straight, but I'm still often in a lot of pain. Tonight was one of those nights....

SO. I own an Alvin Fold-A-Matic drafting board, which is just about my favorite thing in the world. It can acheive 0 degrees flat horizontal and 90 degrees straight vertical (plus everything in between) at a range of heights. And I found long ago, that keeping my drafting table "steep" helps me NOT hunch over the board, so my back doesn't hurt as much.

But then tonight I realized I could even adjust the table so I am STANDING UP while I was drawing! It was super comfortable and I drew for 3 hours straight without any back pain. I'm sure after a while it would hurt to be on your feet, but I now know I can switch back and forth. If other people have bad backs, they should give this a try! You can probably rig something up with your boards or with a sheet of plywood or something.

Starting new projects

2006-09-22T23:15:00.000-05:00

So my buddy Marc and I are putting together our next project, and I'm working on my initial effort into writing/drawing my own book.

I work in a very "cart before the horse" method. As a designer, I work up logo designs, page layouts, and design elements before I even touch art. For some reason, this puts my brain in to a certain tone which works its way in to the art of a book.

For example, I'm hoping to convince Marc to work with me on a sci-fi concept he has, so I started playing with logos and research type treatments bases around the central concept. This makes me think of sci-fi and ways to push the design, which makes me want to push my art in various directions.

How do you start up new projects? Do painters start with new techniques? Illustrators do hundreds of sketches?

some thoughts on listening

2006-08-22T18:25:00.000-05:00

Wow! I'm really excited by all the recent activity. I have to admit, I had lost some of the inspiration that fueled me start this blog. I think it was triggered by hearing that Yoshihiro Tatsumi (of Push Man fame) did 50 pages in one night (for the record, I have issues with The Push Man, but I can't deny Tatsumi is one hell of a cartoonist.)
50 pages in one night! After hearing that, why even bother?

But I'm reminded now of a good bit of advice my buddy Alec Longstreth told me: don't compare yourself to other cartoonists. I shouldn't try to be Daniel Clowes, or Chester Brown, or whoever. I should just try to be Robyn Chapman.

My absence was also strengthened by something very practical Kevin Heuzenga said. It was something like this: if you spend all your time writing about how to be a productive cartoonist, when will you have time to draw? It's true, it's true. So I backed off the theorizing, and put the theory to practice (more or less.)

Still, I think this blog is a valuable resource, and I have a lot to learn. I'm beginning to feel comfortable in my own work patterns, but I’m excited by some of the new ideas presented here.

My new obsession: working and listening!

It's not exactly new, I have drawn while listening to books on tape before. I find that listening to engaging audio really helps me put in the hours. Unfortunately, I haven't found a reliable source for good audio books. I had a subscription to Audible.com for a while, but I'm not very happy with their selection.

I've begun to listen to podcasts, which I really enjoy (especially if they're informative or educational: working + learning, double productive!) Again, I'm faced with the same challenge: where do I find good podcasts? I've listened to some pretty crappy ones, I'd like some suggestions.

But my newest thing is chatting on the phone while I draw. My boyfriend is a cartoonist; he lives in New York, I'm in Vermont. We spend a lot of time on the phone, talking and drawing. It can be distracting at times, but it's nice to feel connected and social. Cartooning can be a lonely pursuit! When it comes to drawing on the phone, I definitely recommend buying a headset (a nice one, not a cheap one.)

Use your OTHER hand!!!

2006-08-09T08:28:00.000-05:00

This was getting a bit of action in the comments, so I figured I'd write this up as a proper entry, just in case some people aren't obsessively digging through the comments, or have this blog on RSS feed...

When I started art school (Illustration) in September 2005 my wrist suddenly began hurting like HELL. Drawing all day at school (sometimes for 6 hour stretches at a time) and then coming HOME and trying to draw comics all night finally did me in. My wrist would just SCREAM with pain and I found that I had to take more and more breaks to try and "protect" my wrist.

I've also had a bad back for YEARS, and for Xmas that year my mom got me a book on alleviating back pain. One of the key ideas in that book was that PAIN IS YOUR BODY'S WAY OF TELLING YOU SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT!!!

So back in February of 2005 I had the epiphany that I actually have TWO hands and it is ridiculous to have ONE hand (my DRAWING hand no less!) doing 99% of all my tasks. So I started paying attention to when my drawing hand hurt the most...

1) I noticed that after using the computer my hand hurt A LOT, so I switched my computer mouse to my non-drawing hand. It took about two days to get used to it (surprisingly fast!) and was surprised to see that it helped a TON. I think there is something about that clicking motion which is very similar to the fine motor skills involved in weilding a drawing stylus (using the same muscles/bones) and switching that over to my other hand helped a lot!

2) For me, this goes without saying, but if people are dealing with sore wrists and fingers, YOU SHOULD REALLY BE TYPING DVORK, it helps more than you can imagine!

3) I also noticed that after brushing my teeth my wrist hurt a lot (all of that violent back-and-forth action) so I also switched that over. It took about 2 weeks before I could really do it at full speed, without getting toothpaste all over my face, but it was worth the investment in time!

4) I write a lot of letters and obviously that hurt too, since it was basically the same motions as drawing (though more tight and frantic which hurt even more!) So for a long time there I also switched my HANDWRITING to my left hand. That was pretty "hardcore" and since my pain went away I don't really do this any more, but it's on standby if my hand ever starts to hurt again (maybe when school starts back up again?)

5) Even the smaller stuff can really help! When your drawing hand is in pain, try to keep it loose at your side when you are not drawing and FOCUS on using your non-drawing hand for all other tasks: erasing, opening doors, spreading peanut butter, washing your hair, etc. etc. You have TWO hands! Use them both!!!

Like Liz mentioned, one of my greatest fears is that my drawing hand will "give out," ESPECIALLY since I am investing a lot of time and money into training myself to be a person who's livelyhood will depend on my ability to draw! We are human beings and are therefore incredibly adept at ADAPTING. Sure, it is hard to learn to write with your non-drawing hand, but you CAN do it if you are just patient and stick with it. Go ambidextrous!!!

Unproductive Dog Days

2006-08-08T10:56:00.000-05:00

Holy crap, what a summer.

Rapid-fire freelance design work, an incredibly busy time at the day job, plus an sinus infection that last three months (THREE MONTHS!), has added up to make my comic productivity drop to negative numbers.

3 pages on one Part Time Story (that's 42 pages long), 1 page on another, some sketches on the next print project, and that's about it. Ugh.

Now that I'm wrapping up all those above items, hopefully I can back on track. It makes it tough to get back on the wagon when you fall off though.

Hitting the Home Stretch

2006-08-06T01:19:00.000-05:00

My wrist aches. My ink rag needs replacing. I have denied invitations from others to socialize. Diagnosis? HOME STRETCH.

I always get this way when I’m getting to the last quarter of a book. I spend almost all my time drawing and inking (and the only reason I’m not doing either of those right now is because my forearm and wrist are useless after a full day’s inking – my cross hatching has started to resemble that of an 80-year-old). It’s both the most difficult and the most exciting part of drawing a comic. It’s like the moment right before you kiss someone – the feeling of anticipation. However, once I’m done, well… I’m done! Until the next issue, of course, but I have production and other projects to keep me busy until I start the next one.

Alec posted some great tips below that everyone should check out, but I just wanted to add a few of my own:

1)Don’t do anything to damage or unnecessarily strain your drawing arm, especially when you are trying to keep to a schedule. Last night, I went to a concert and pumped my right arm in the air so much I had trouble finishing the inking I wanted to finish today.

2)PODCASTS, PODCASTS, PODCASTS! I can’t believe I never thought of this before. I get bored with the same old music on my iTunes, and I have one or two podcasts I regularly listen to, but for some reason I never thought of subscribing to more. I couldn’t think of something better to listen to whilst inking! Plus, it makes me feel less lonely, all holed up in my studio for days at a time.

3)Instant Messenger – a blessing and a curse. It’s great to have friends at my fingertips when I get lonely in the aforementioned studio, especially when I have a quick question or just want to share a minor frustration I’ve encountered. On the other hand, the chatting can get out of hand if you get into a heated discussion. That’s when it’s time to turn off your instant messenger and get back to work.

4)Breaks without guilt. I know this has been discussed before, but we cartoonist types tend towards the obsessive compulsive and it’s easy to be hard on oneself, as odd as that may sound. Schedule your breaks, or say to yourself “I will finish this panel in the next half hour and then I will treat myself to a banana.” I have been amazed by the results when I tell myself I will finish something in a given amount of time.

5)Rewards!! This kind of goes into what I mentioned above. A friend of mine suggested to me, when I was stuck in an unproductive rut, that he used to tell himself that once he finished a panel, he’d give himself a whole bag of M&M’s as a reward. Usually, after finishing that panel, he’d end up doing the whole page anyway, plus he’d get M&M’s, so it all worked out. I usually reward myself with a piece of fruit and a 15-minute internet break after each page penciled or inked.

6)Don’t forget about life! Outside of my day job and my comicking, I force myself to do at least one social thing a week, even if I’m in HOME STRECH mode as I am right now. You need it even if you think you don’t.

7)I find this little snippet from Dave Sim super inspirational and I read it whenever I feel like I'm trying too hard to be "perfect." I'm not fond of Sim's rampant misogyny, but his thoughts on comics and self-publishing are borderline genius.

Okay, well I’ve rambled on for way too long already, so I’ll stop here and go to bed. Happy comicking everyone!

Back on Track!

2006-08-05T22:55:00.000-05:00

Like Robyn said, let's get this blog back to its original purpose: tips on COMICS PRODUCTIVITY!!!

I just finished another issue of my comic book Phase 7 and it only took me five months to do it (as opposed to the issue before this one, which took a year and a half, or the issue before that, which took a year). I did 48 finished pages in 131 days, averaging a page every 2.7 days (and YES, I was IN SCHOOL for 3 months of that). What caused this jump in productivity? Well, I approached this issue in an entirely different way, so I thought I'd share some of my ideas, since I think they might be helpful to others:

1) One of the main things I focused on was LOOSENING UP (and/or SPEEDING up) my penciling. I mean really, let's face it, they are PENCILS. They are NEVER going to be seen by the reader! After it's inked, they are gone! So they do NOT need to be that tight or crisp or detailed. The information needs to be there, so you know what to ink, but if you already know how to ink something and it's in the background or something (the leaves on a tree, books on a bookshelf, etc) save some time and just don't pencil it. I penciled my entire issue on the subway train, riding to and from school and that looseness didn't hurt at all. In fact it probably HELPED!

2) I know this will make some of you cringe, but I decided to NOT rule out all of my lettering. Sure, it does not look as clean and "professional" but my handwriting is extremely legible, pretty straight and I can not even tell you how much time this saved me. And actually, after doing a few pages, I decided to do the ENTIRE ISSUE without using any rulers whatsoever. (It's a MINICOMIC, you know?? Does it NEED to look "professional"???) All of my lettering on the cover and in the endpapers, etc. were all just hand-pulled lines, which makes the whole book seem more organic and less cold and robotic. I really think people should try this out. If you can still write your speech bubbles and captions LEGIBLY without ruled lines, it will save you SO much time.

3) My Mantra for this issue was, "No one is going to look at that, keep moving." I think I have a tendancy with my comics to obsess over the smallest details. And granted, in some work that is really important and endearing. I like having at least one project going where I am doing my most absolute precise work (for me, "Basewood") but for this comic, it was just supposed to be a fun, quick read. So I consciously tried to speed up my drawing. Thoughts like, "Well, that's not exactly what that room looked like, I had another bookshelf over here" were shut down. Instead I thought, "The reader is going to look at this panel for a fraction of a second, so don't get overly involved in it. Give just enough information to get across the setting and the characters and the action." I got it to a point where I could pencil a page in 2 hours (1.5 of that was on the train) and then ink it in 3 hours. This down from 10-70 hours pec page for Basewood (!?!)

4) I also tried to take out as much cross hatching as I could. This is especially hard for me, because I love cross hatching. But it takes a lot of time and energy, and frankly, doesn't make the images that much stronger. Instead I tried to use more areas of pure black (STRONGER! FASTER!)

5) Rapidographs! I used three Rapidographs for my A) Panel borders B) Word ballons and C) Lettering and that also really seemed to help speed things up. It's a lot faster that dip nibs which you have to dip and clean constantly. Faster! Faster!

Anyways, I was really happy with how the issue turned out AND that I was able to turn it out quickly. In Comics, (as with any other story-telling format) THE STORY is the most important thing. And I don't think my story suffered any from this quicker art approach. If anything, it probably benefitted from it! (Not... so... stiff...) You can see my progress chart and a brief blog entry about the issue over on my site, as well as samples from the issue.

Now get out there and DRAW!!!!

An Explanation

2006-07-31T22:53:00.000-05:00

Ok, I haven't been very present here at MCF. Sorry about that. I'm glad many of you good folk are keeping it lively. To honest, my working life has become too overwhelming. I do regret that, but this has always been a public forum, not a personal blog.
And yes, I have been deleting posts. The posts were deleted for two reasons. One, they didn't meet the criteria of this blog. This is a forum about work habits and the creative process. All posts should relate to these topics. It is not a place for art critique. I feel like there are plenty venues for that on the internet. This is also not a place to post comic news or editorials (unless they relate to work habits or the creative process.)
And two, the posts in question were, in my opinion, disrespectful and in poor taste. Call me a fascist if you'd like, I'll call myself an editor. I want this blog to provide content that is useful, I want the posts to be well written, and I want promote a positive atmosphere. Furthermore, I do want this blog to be somewhat accessible to younger cartoonists. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep that in mind when writing.

And I'd like to end by saying this: I will post again! I've been thinking thoughts in my long absence. I'll share them soon.

Mignola get Animated

2006-07-21T09:25:00.000-05:00

I'm always happy when I see comics adapted to other mediums without getting butchered or watered down in the process, Sin City being a great example. Now Hellboy creator Mike Mignola has a full half hour "pilot" soon to air on the Sci Fi Channel.

Like all sensible people I had my cable cut so I could escape the pathetic state of what passes for entertainment these days and make comics instead, but lucky me (and you!) we can see this fine film on the web! Give Mikey a vote and maybe someday I'll get my TV hooked up again!

...Or not. But still, it's worth checking out!

Greetings from me

2006-07-04T14:56:00.000-05:00

Hello fellow MCF bloggers!

I guess here is where I state my name, rank and serial number:

I'm Troy Little, I do comics (duh). To elaborate I publish a comic series called "Chiaroscuro" and I'm currently at work on a second graphic novel. By day I work in animation, any remaining time I cram in comic work and some freelance.

I'm situated on a small island on the far east coast of Canada where the comic scene consists of me and one other person (to my knowledge). Not really a hotbed of activity. Go into either of our local comic shops and ask for non mainstream comics at your peril.

Anywho, I recently posted a little diatribe on how I go about creating a page from my in-the-works graphic novel "Angora Napkin" on my personal blog which you can check out at your leisure. Then Click on the words "Meanwhile Studios" in the links section to check out my old, way out of date website to see what other crap I've been up to.

Thanks for the invite to the group Robyn!

well, here is....

2006-07-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

Make Comics Forever!!

I wanted to thank Robyn for alowing me an entry into her little circle here, which she didnt have to do. I hope you all take a look at the cartoons I am posting up on blogger and tell me anything which you think, either way. I love comix, of all sorts, and used to look for penthouses as a kid, literally, just to find the dirty cartoons of a brunette named wanda, to try to duplicate on xerox paper I stole from the school mimeograph room. I knew something was up when I spent more time drawing a playmate named Patty Farinelli than I did ogling her, and her image is still in my works. But playboy sold out to the smurfettes with blond hair and fake boobs long ago, as did comics become as dull as frank millers dishwater. Anyway, i am glad to participate here. I will trade books with anybody willing to read my ....stuff.

Circle-T Trade Buttons Are Here!

2006-06-05T22:33:00.000-05:00

Hey guys, just wanted to let all those interested in getting their hands on one or more buttons with the circle-T, trading-friendly logo on them - I got 'em! I'll be wearing mine at all the events and parties and whatnot for MoCCA and I'll be carrying a bunch with me to give out. The idea is that I'm going to give a few to everyone that wants one, so that anyone who wants one can get one for free from anyone else wearing one. You can also stop by my table at MoCCA - I'll be at table A66, in the big back room, armed with plenty of copies of my comic for trade (I'm making xeroxed-cover editions just for trading - my regular ones for sale are of the semi-fancy, silkscreened cover variety). I had 100 buttons made; I hope it's enough!

Pre-MoCCA (Saddle) Stitch and Bitch at CCS

2006-05-30T10:24:00.000-05:00

This month's Social Cartooning will be a special event! Many of us are preparing for MoCCA, a large indy comics convention in New York City. Expect a frenzy of folding, stapling, and screenprinting. Join the fun!

Social Cartooning is a comic drawing party meant to foster good work habits and build community. It is open to the public (age 18+, and RSVP required.)

Please bring your drawing tools and a snack to share and meet us at the Center for Cartoon Studies June 3rd, at 12pm. The event will last till 5pm. The Center for Cartoon Studies is located at 94 South Main St. in White River Junction, Vermont.

For more info, or to RVSP, contact chapman@cartoonstudies.org

Circle-T Buttons

2006-05-22T19:46:00.000-05:00

MK suggested making pins out of the circle-T logo as well. If I was to get 1" buttons made of the circle-T, would anyone else be down with wearing them at cons, or at least MoCCA? They're only like $20 for 100 pins so it's nothing, moneywise, for me to just throw that down to get some. But I don't want to get them made if no one will actually wear them. I was thinking if I had them made, then everyone who wanted one could take about five to give to other people who ask about it or friends who want one. What do you all think?

Trading Sign

2006-05-22T11:17:00.000-05:00

I made myself a little Circle-T as Liz suggested below. Thought I would share...

notes on the importance of trading

2006-05-19T16:01:00.000-05:00

Howdy, all. I was at S.P.A.C.E. this past weekend and it got me thinking about trading at cons, so I wrote a little something about why I think trading is extremely important and everyone should do it. It's kind of long, so I'll just link to it here and you can read it if you like, share your thoughts, etc. I hope all of you are well out there in internet land and getting some work done!

24

2006-05-15T14:49:00.000-05:00

I did my first 24 Hour comic over the weekend and survived the experience. I remember doing all kinds of all-niters back in college, but there is nothing like working constantly for 24 hours straight, taking 5 or 10 minutes here and there for snacks or bathroom breaks. I'm very pleased all in all to have taken on the challenge. Some of the pages turned out not bad at all, while some sucked donk. The story started out as a simple drama, turned to a mystery/suspense thriller, then a pirate adventure, an island romance, and finally a murder story with a happy ending (kinda). It's Archie meets Popeye meets L&R. Kooky. One of my buddies came over and did one as well, and it was good to have company in the trenches so that I wouldn't throw in the towel. I may print a few of these up just to have. Maybe I'll have it at Mocca--not sure. All in all I'm glad I did it, just so I could join the club of the 24-ers. Here are a couple of sample pages:

Social Cartooning at the CCS

2006-04-30T08:36:00.000-05:00

I'd like to invite you all to the third installation of Social Cartooning at the CCS (which will happen regularly, the first Saturday of the month.)
Social Cartooning is a comic drawing party meant to foster good work habits and build community. It is open to the public (age 18+, and RSVP required.)

Please bring your drawing tools and a snack to share and meet us at the Center for Cartoon Studies May 6th, at 12pm. The event will last till 5pm. The Center for Cartoon Studies is located at 94 South Main St. in White River Junction, Vermont.

For more info, or to RVSP, contact chapman@cartoonstudies.org

Influential and Educational Books

2006-04-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

One of the great sources of inspiration that I have tapped into, besides viewing the actual original artworks of artists that I admire, is a library of books I have amassed over the years related to the subject of cartooning and making comics. The very first book that had a significant impact on me in my younger days was a book called The Secrets of Professional Cartooning by Ken Muse, published by Prentice-Hall in 1981. It was a book primarily devoted to the creation and development of a comic strip for purposes of syndication, but it was incredibly thorough and provided very accessible knowledge about the entire process of cartooning--especially for a young person. Ken Muse was the author of a strip called Wayout that was syndicated from 1964 to 1970. It wasn't a great strip, but had its place amongst the strips of the day. The most significant aspect of this book was a section devoted to analyzing the work of other cartoonists such as: Milton Caniff, Charles Schulz, George McManus, Cliff Sterrett, EC segar, and Lank Leonard. It very clearly demonstrated the vast array of approaches to drawing methods that different cartoonists used. I still have my copy of this book, and despite it's old school approach, I still think it has a great deal to offer.

Years later I acquired several other books on drawing and cartooning (thank God for E-bay), such as Andrew Loomis's out of print series on figure drawing, and Gene Byrnes book on Drawing, Cartooning, Illustration and Painting. Another great discovery I made was a complete set of the Famous Artists Correspondence Course volumes from 1954. Again, it was quite dated material but extremely worthwhile reading nonetheless. Shortly after that I managed to acquire copies of the FA Cartooning books from 1967. Also very worthwhile reading.

I was curious as to whether any of you had any significant experiences with any art instruction or "How To" books, as you began your pursuits into making comics...?

Bad Tired vs. Good Tired

2006-04-12T09:53:00.000-05:00

At Newsarama, J. Michael Straczynski has been having a series of columns about being a writer in the industry. It's a very solid read, but this week's is very relevant to the conversation we're having here about being stretched so thin.

Here's an excerpt: "The singer Harry Chapin once spoke of the passing of his grandfather, a painter and illustrator who, among other things, had illustrated Robert Frost’s first book of poems. On his deathbed, Harry’s grandfather noted that there were two kinds of tired, and that now, at the end of his life, he was good tired. “Bad tired,” he explained, “can be a day that you won. But you fought other people’s battles, lived other people’s agendas, other people’s lives, and at the end of the day there was very little of you in there, and when you hit the sack at night, you toss and turn, you don’t settle easy. Good tired, on the other hand, can be a day that you lost. But you know you fought your battles, lived your agenda, your life, and when you hit the hay you settle easy, and you settle easy, and you can say, ‘Take me away.’”"

Here's the column itself.

Stretched Too Thin

2006-03-17T22:55:00.001-06:00

Firstly, I want to apologize for neglecting this blog I started. I have to admit, I experienced a lack of faith. My enthusiasm waned after I heard that Yoshihiro Tatsumi had once done 50 pages in one night. How could I ever compete? Sure he had assistants, but...
Another thing is I have way too many commitments right now. I have two jobs, I'm working on 3 comics and 1 zine, plus I have my community and school obligations. What can I do to get out of this mess?
I know the first step it just say no to new projects. And I try, I really do.
Does anyone have any tips on juggling too many projects? I have a daily planner and that helps.

What's everyone working on out there in TV land?

2006-03-09T12:53:00.000-06:00

So, I figure by eerie silences floating around it means that everyone is wicked busy out there. What's everyone working on, creatively? Not just comics specifically, but also other projects where you're learning things that can be applied to comics?

I'll go first:

- I'm behind on March's Part Time Story, but I'm working away on it. It might be a day or two late, but it'll be up that week at least. April's is going to be a series of short jokes, and May's is all set, so it looks like I'll be able to take a breather for a little while.

- I've beeng getting some really great illustration work with a new magazine in the Northern Virgina area (Northern Virginia Magazine, on stands now) that is letting me do color work and forcing me to edit myself and work within tight deadlines. Both of these things are great, because my next print project I want to do in a monthly and in color.

Your turn!

Social Cartooning @ CCS / Trees & Hills Comic Group

2006-02-27T11:58:00.000-06:00

Just a reminder for anyone who lives near enough, this Saturday (March 4) is Social Cartooning at the Center For Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, VT. It's an informal cartooning get-together; please drop by to draw and help strengthen the comics community in New England... All local cartoonists, CCS students, and curious others are welcome to join us for a day of drawing. Bring your drawing tools and a snack to share. Drawing starts at 1pm and goes till 7pm. RSVP required. Contact Robyn Chapman at chapman@cartoonstudies.org.

Also, if you live close enough to attend, you may be interested in the Trees & Hills Comic Group for cartoonists in VT, NH and western MA. We have a forum here, and a website coming soon at www.treesandhills.org; we're hoping to foster community, discussion, and get-togethers like Social Cartooning in the area.

Take Care Of Yourself

2006-02-19T21:37:00.000-06:00

Important and Sometimes Overlooked Productivity Tip: Keep yourself in good health!

Eat a varied and balanced diet. Move around. Do something that raises the heart rate for at least ten consecutive minutes a day; I felt a bit disgusted when I realized I wasn't even doing that. Get fresh air and sunlight! And SLEEP. It's easy to forget how much more alert the mind can be when it gets regular, proper rest. Find a sleep schedule that works for you, whether you like to rise early or late, and try to keep it consistent.

It's easy to get caught up in creating, but don't neglect yourself! Take your food and bathroom breaks, stretch, breath, and give your eyeballs some rest by moving them around and gazing off into the distance.

It's simple stuff, but fundamental. Everything is better and easier when you're energetic and alert - why subject yourself to the potential heartbreak of careless mistakes?

(This post is definitely made in the "AA" spirit of the blog - I'm trying to change my own poor habits!)

The Paperless Cartoonist

2006-02-14T16:41:00.000-06:00

I was invited to join this blog when I suggested a post about ergonomic and workflow issues while using drawing tablets—specifically pen monitor tablets, such as the Cintiq. Not long after I was joined the blog, K. Thor Jensen posted an article, Wacomics, on his recent tablet experiences. The post covers Mr. Jensen's initial loathing of tablets, through to his eventual conversion and endorsement.

I was an early enthusiast of the digital drawing tablet, asking for one for X-mas when I was 13 so I could draw animations on our Mac—I was such a geek. In university I got a second tablet, a standard middle-of-the-road Wacom Intuos. It worked great. I use illustrator and I liked the brush strokes I could achieve with it. I grew increasingly comfortable with it and used the tablet often for finished comics or illustrations. Eventually I developed the same problem as Scott McCloud—a tingling in my right wrist—and had to stop drawing for a while. It also forced me to think about health & ergonomic issues. In part due to a desire to stop working on paper entirely, along with having read McClouds and various other reviews, I decided to invest in a Wacom Cintiq, referred to as a pen monitor. Essentially it is a flat screen monitor with a drawing pen and thousands of levels of pressure sensitivity.

I spent the first four hours using it chuckling, and often outright laughing. I understood why animation studios are switching to them. There is a massive potential to increase workflow with this tool. And, for the first time in like, fifteen years of doing art on a computer, I actually felt that I was encountering something new. Along with the Cintiq there are already a few pen tablet laptops on the market. Apple is rumoured to be producing some sort of a tablet device. If technology continues to develop as it has, in a couple years from now we should have the potential to make pressure-sensitive sketches on something like an Apple iPod. I've never even used a handheld, but I'm sure they're starting to develop built-in sketching functions.

The pen monitor made me think more about the workflow of a cartoonist/illustrator. I began thinking about the workflow potential of it even more after reading The Pushman And Other Stories by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (D&Q 2005). This book lead me to read an interview between Tatsumi and Adrian Tomine. The interview is long, but extremely interesting, as it's two grand masters of comics talking in detail about their working methods. I just love this exchange:

AT: Yeah. That's always been a mystery to me. How the Japanese artists are able to produce so many pages. I'm sure my publisher would allow me to create thicker comics, but it would just take me two or three years or something like that.

YT: I've done 50 pages in one night.

AT: What? 50?! Five zero?

YT: Yeah.

AT: How?!

YT: I didn't sleep, and I had four assistants.

A few lines down, it gets even better when they discuss a weekly schedule:

AT: So you were doing 12 pages a week? On your own?

YT: Yeah.

AT: I just can't believe it!

YT: 2 pages, everyday. It's far easier than 50 pages in one night.

Far easier indeed. After reading this I began to wonder how much a cartoonist could potentially produce in a night, using a Cintiq or similar device. McCloud has noted that he produces about a page per day for his new book with his Cintiq. That's 6-7 pages a week. I've managed to do a couple 2-page nights recently as well. They were long nights, though—lots of tea.

I still haven't found the ideal position for drawing on this monitor. I find I'm using the keyboard enough (in illustrator) to position it close to the monitor. I think I'd like the entire table it’s sitting on to be height-adjustable. I still find the best way to avoid getting sore is to regularly stretch, and walk away from the drawing board frequently. The Cintiq is a huge step up from the regular tablets simply in terms of ergonomics. You can lean over it like a traditional drafting table, or tilt it up and work as a painter would with an easel and canvas.

I haven't gotten rid of drawing on paper entirely, not by a long shot, but the Cintiq is a solid step towards the paperless cartoonist. When I have an iPod that I can scratch a few portraits on while sitting on the metro? Now that will make things interesting.

Go big or go home!

2006-02-09T15:13:00.000-06:00

For the next Part Time Stories short, I decided to draw the pages at a more standard "comic book art" size. I usually work on 9 x 12 paper with the comic page ruled out at about 7 x 10. It's a little bit bigger then then the printed page, but not much. I have a smaller scanner, and for a long time moved a lot and just need to adjust my art to my life.

Never again.

I took a 14 x 17 piece of Strathmore Bristol Vellum, and ruled it down to 10 x 15. These pages have no bleeds, so I don't have to worry about that. I'm using Brush Pens, along with Higging Eternal Ink (Black Magic next time), and the work is coming out so much easier.

It takes about twice as long at the moment to draw at the bigger size, but having finished the first page's first round of inks (I pencil, then ink, then erase pencils, then go back to detail and touch up inks) I don't think I've ever been so happy with a page. So now I just need to factor in more time when I draw, which is a bummer, but I figure I'll get quicker as I get more used to it. It only took me a day to ink, now that I think about it. I just takes me more time to do the layout.

I took the basic sizes and style for prepping pages from an interview I read about Paul Pope a few years ago.

POST UPDATE:

Here's the page:

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize!

2006-02-08T22:03:00.000-06:00

After a year and a half of work, I just got my finished comic book back from the printer. I now have 300 copies waiting to be sent out to my subscribers, friends and family. And it is a GREAT feeling.

I know it's like the most simple advice in the world: to work towards a goal. But I think it's easy to forget (especially if your project takes a LONG time to complete!) that it feels REALLY GREAT when you are done. It almost makes you forget all the long hours, working by yourself on your project. Now it will be sent out into the world for people to enjoy!

So I just thought, as someone who has just completed a project, I would put up a little reminder for those of you who are currently in that difficult middle-stretch of a project, that it is SO going to be worth it when you are done! Don't give up! Keep working towards your goal!

And now I get to join the rest of you who are at the BEGINNING of a project! How exciting! The sequence begins again!!! : )

Social Cartooning at CCS

2006-02-07T18:00:00.000-06:00

Last Saturday marked the first of what will be monthly (!) drawing parties at CCS. They will be held on the first Saturday of the month, and they will be open to the public (RSVP required.) I'm going to dub the day Social Cartooning at CCS.
This Saturday we had about 15 participants, many of them members of the New England cartoonist collective Trees and Hills. the group was very friendly, enthusiastic, and fairly serious about comics.

Everyone was self-directed, some working on their personal projects, others working on jam comics. In general, I'm anti-jam comics. "No Jam Comics" was basically the first testament of my former cartooning group (AWP, represent.) But I participated in one that I felt was fairly successful.
When the party ended, I had drawn for nearly 6 hours, not bad. I also made several new friends. I look forward to the next Social Cartooning event. Hope to see you there!

Interesting quote from E-I-C of Devil's Due

2006-02-03T10:51:00.000-06:00

"I think part of the problem is that 80% of our mainstream comic collector audience is getting so old, they've read so many comics, that there's not room for anything new in their life. It's not that they love or hate the new stuff. They kind of just don't care. They have jobs, kids, bills... they want to come in on Wednesday and get their familiar fix. They're old enough to remember all of the failed attempts of publishers past. Kids? Hell, kids want something new simply because it's not what their dad's reading, but those kids aren't in most comic shops." - Josh Baylock

That quote is from a series of articles Newsarama is running on various companies "State of the Union". I've always seen Devil's Due as a very interesting company, mixing creator owned books with a number of licensed properties. They've really seen to manage themselves well, and this quote is spot on to my own opinion.

The thing that makes it tough is that if we takes these numbers it means the rest of are aiming for the same 20%. It's like a bunch of people being forced to take one slice of pie, while 2 others get the rest of the pie plus ice cream.

Now to bring it back in to making comics, it really emphasizes the fact that whatever we as independent creators make, really really needs to be top notch to raise up our status for that 20%. I'm working on the 3rd story for Part Time Stories this weekend and am forcing myself to redraw sketches and panels as many times as need be. It takes extra time sure, but the end product will really be worth it I think.

This is rambley. Wow.

Wacomics

2006-02-01T12:20:00.000-06:00

Those who know me know that I've vented a fair share of vitriol at "Wacom jockeys," that almost incalcuable mass of (mostly) online cartoonists whose work is so obviously completely drawn in Photoshop, gradiented and textured to infinity, computer lettered, and shit up on Keenspace or wherevs. I thought that a digital pen was the biggest piece of shit shortcut fuckface limpdick lazyass tool in the universe and nothing good could ever come of using one. Sorry, Scott McCloud, I love you like an uncle but that's how it is.

And then I got my boss to buy me one for shits and giggles since we needed to spend money on computer hardware for our taxes. I figured I'd fuck around with it, see what I could do, maybe it'd speed my photoshop work up a bit.

Well, I really like it and it has a lot of potential as a drawing tool, surprise surprise. It's still really easy to make shitty drawings on. Because you can't "rotate the paper," drawing straight lines freehand is impossible. A lot of people recommend the Pen tool in photoshop but I can't get the hang of that thing. But it's really good for a lot of things.

Exhibit A. This is the first finished thing I drew with it. It's heavily photo-traced, obviously, but you can see a lot of interesting effects in it. The line width can be set to pressure sensitivity, giving a natural woble and variance to the brush tools. For coloring, you can set the opacity to pressure, giving you an easy watercolor effect. I used a ton of layers on this project - breakdowns, line art, flat color base, modeling, black shading, color shading, white highlighting, etc, which was tough to keep track of, but if you work from a traditional accretive model it gets pretty intuitive.

Exhibit B. Completely drawn digitally. Very satisfying. Did two panels a day. This kind of style is easy. Love the linework on the clouds. The pressure variation thing made this feel really natural.

This tutorial was on Brian Bolland's site until it disappeared. He draws everything with the Wacom, from breakdowns to finished inks. I still can't figure out how he freehand drawns naturalistic human figures, I just can't do it with this thing. I have to slowly work up from skeletal forms and even then it's hard. I think I'm probably just going to pencil normally and scan those if I ever draw a full comic digitally. I'm thinking about it.

You can get a Wacom Graphire 6x8 for like $150. If you do any kind of computer work on your comics, I highly recommend it. Just don't be lazy with it, like with any other tool, and it'll serve you well.

Trees & Hills Comics Party at CCS

2006-01-30T18:20:00.000-06:00

On Saturday, February 4th the Trees & Hills Comics Group, in conjunction with AWP North East will be holding an informal cartooning get-together at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Please drop by to draw and help strengthen the comics community in New England.
The Trees & Hills Comics Group is a collective of cartoonists from New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Several of their members are part of the Keene Comics Group, which has weekly meeting and puts out a free monthly anthology.
All local cartoonists, CCS students, and curious others are welcome to join us for a day of drawing. Bring your drawing tools and a snack to share. Drawing starts at 1pm and goes till 7pm. Local "pro" wrestling to follow.
RSVP required. Contact Robyn Chapman at chapman@cartoonstudies.org.

Some of the visiting artists:
Colin Tedford - http://artforest.org/colin/
Marek Bennett
Tim Hulsizer - http://ignatz.brinkster.net/daily.html
Bill Couture - http://artforest.org/colin/b-bop/
Blake Parker
Daniel Barrow - www.livejournal.com/users/danielbarlow/
Efraim Siounis - http://f-ram.net/

Chris Ware and Seth Comics process

2006-01-27T14:51:00.000-06:00

Greg sent me a link to this great Comics version of a talk given by Chris Ware and Seth which has a lot of in-depth information about how they work and the schedules they keep for drawing Comics. I thought there was some good information in there (as well as being a really neat comic!) so I thought I'd share.

go the distance

2006-01-26T21:18:00.000-06:00

Tonight I watched Rocky for the first time ever.
OMG, maybe I'm an idiot but I think this is one of my favorite movies ever.

What you need to do is:
Watch Rocky. Watch the training sequence twice.
Download "Gonna Fly Now" and Eye of the Tiger" (which I can't really remember being played in the movie?!)
Draw.

GO THE DISTANCE. 15 ROUNDS!

Everything I've learned over the past 5 years....

2006-01-26T16:00:00.000-06:00

Being a comic artist with a fairly constant output while still having a crappy day job I believe I can impart some advice to others.

Not everything I say will apply to your technique or production methods but try and stop me:

-Impose a deadline on every project. Reward yourself for hitting them. Great practice for working under pressure real or imagined

-Sundays are the best for drawing comics, get up early, the house will be quiet and you’ll be surprised how much you can get done. But this will involve an early night on Saturday….

-We’ve all heard it a million times: always carry some drawing equipment with you. I swear by this and always have everything with me, a half hour of frenzied drawing on your lunch break makes all the difference, plus, if you see the page that you’ll be working during the day a few times, you’ll know exactly what has to be done when you get home. I found pinning the page in progress to the wall above my pc in work helps, when you’re on the phone or whatever you’ll end up staring at the page from a distance, giving you a fresh perspective and helping you mentally work things out.

-If you have a desk job, or anything that involves paper you can draw individual panels on loose sheets of paper and add them to the page later. This works! With
a page slid under your keyboard you can secretly work away. I was fortunate that
all the panels in my Mr.Amperduke comic are the same size and would fit perfectly inconspicuous under my keyboard. Your boss will think ‘oh that crazy kid is doodling again’ but little do they know.

-Here’s a crazy one that definitely works and can be applied to other stuff, while learning Japanese I laminated a sheet with all the characters I had to learn on it.
I stuck it in the shower, hence the laminating, so every time I showered I was learning. Scoff as you may but ever notice how you start reading ingredients on a shampoo bottle if its right on front of you? Don’t waste that time, laminate character designs or a tricky page.

-If you work on a pc in your day job here’s a tip, say you have Photoshop open and you hear the door, don’t be left fumbling buttons and panicking. Open up Window Explorer and use the Alt+Tab to jump into it if the boss comes in, it opens so fast and looks legit so you can just click away on files and look busy, I’ve weasled out of getting caught on the job dozens of times with this

-You have a light-box, use it. The cheap and easy way is obviously to tape two pages to a window and trace that way but I’ve found a physically lazier way, open Word or whatever and place your pages over the screen. The brilliant white empty document will allow you trace while still at your desk.

-Don’t throw away used or faded pens, a half dead marker gives a great shading effect

-Clean your ruler at regular intervals, wrap it in a piece of paper and tightly drag the ruler up and down. You’ll be amazed at how much crap comes off and its really satisfying seeing what you’ve just prevented from dirtying your page. Sort of like a Clearasil ad.

-Good backgrounds can make a comic. I find looking at photos really helpful for this, not just for copying scenery but for training your eye. Someone gives you a photo of them at a circus, you know it’s a circus because there’s straw visible, in the background a kid has cotton candy, a shadowy figure has an oversized stuffed animal under his arm etc. Picking up on the details that make a scene easily identifiable is important and since a photo conveys an image just like a single panel you can learn a lot from this. How many times have seen old family photos and recoiled at the 70’s wallpaper? Nuff said

-Multitask. Sounds corny but it’s essential. When I’m pressed for time I put a pizza in the oven, have a shower, study while showering, the pizza will be cooked by the time I’m dressed and I eat while I read my emails. Not a second wasted. A practical comic making application of this is while I scanning a page I’m erasing the pencils on the next page while the computer is tied up

-Print concerns: always allow for bleed on your page. Try work out which page will be facing which when it’s printed, sometimes a layout can look crap when beside a certain page either because the same panel layout is used or a character appears in the same pose/composition on the facing page.

-Speech Bubbles: A common mistake among novices is not to leave room for the speech bubbles so precious art is obscured. Stripping in text by copying and pasting from a Word doc to a graphics programme can really help. Sometimes I’ll letter a page to see how it reads before picking up a pencil. The position of speech bubbles guide your eyes down through the page so use this to your advantage, don’t waste time with intricate backgrounds on a text heavy panel, the reader, however courteous is compelled to move at a steady pace.

-If you hate drawing backgrounds, take at look at how manga artists manage to bang out hundreds of pages in a month. Strong establishing shots then vague backgrounds for page after page.

-The old ‘look at it in the mirror’ trick to try get a different take on the picture doesn’t work for me. I prefer to turn the page over the stare intensely at something unrelated for a few seconds, really studying it so that your mind is reset. Flip your page back up and you’ll see it as something new and be able to judge your work objectively

-I asked a friend before who had just finished a 4 year degree in Fine Arts:
“ Tell me the most important thing you learned” his answer was “ If you’re working on something and you can’t get it right, just leave it and start again, don’t try refine something you’re not happy with”. Hey, its good advice and it saved me 4 years.

That’s all I can think of without getting into technical specifics like inking etc but
I will post something new soon. I really hope that you find at least some of this helpful. My work can be viewed over at www.clamnuts.com.

Thanks,
Bob Byrne

don't go backwards

2006-01-25T18:31:00.000-06:00

Harry Houdini did some amazing things in his lifetime, but one of things that impressed me most was something he said.
"People have sometime suggested that I have a genius for this sort of thing, but I know what I have is a 'sense.' I mean that I am sensible enough to know that when you stop doing your job you begin to go backwards. And I don't want to go backwards."

Welcome back to MCF, and forgive my long absence. I've made some new developments in my work process that I'd like to share. One is that I purchased a daily planner (for $5!) How I got along without it before, I'll never know.

My cute little planner was produced by the Slingshot Collective of Berkley, CA. Birthdays of important anarchists are noted, there's chart to record you menstrual cycle and advise for dealing with the repressive government (NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE, EVER!) Sigh, I still have a soft-spot for well-meaning anarchists.
I really love my planner, which is good, because need to use it every day. I forgot to check it one day and I messed up an important appointment. That's why I taped the word "diligence" on the cover, and vowed to check it everyday.
Another thing I'd like to report on is my 24-hour comic experience. I completed my first 24-hour comic while on vacation in Alaska. A few days after Christmas, I took a nap (three hours) then woke up at midnight (the Longstreth method) and started drawing in my mom's basement. I didn't have a plan, except I wanted to start with the theme of returning home, and I wanted the main character to have ponytails (after a photo I saw in a hairstyle magazine, while my mom was getting a haircut.)

The first six hours were quiet, lonely and dark (being Alaska in winter, the sun didn't rise till about 11am.) I came closest to quitting at the sixth hour, I was tired and frustrated with my comic, which I kind of hated. But I took a break and ate some breakfast, and that helped. After that it was a lot easier. At a certain point quitting wasn't an issue, I'd come to far. But I was loosing ground, somehow I gotten off track and was a few hours behind (I was on page 18 and it was hour 20.) I drew as fast as I could manage, while keeping the look of the comic consistent.
I should admit, I kind of failed. At the 24th hour, I was still completing my last page. In truth, it's a 24 hour and 36 minute comic, but I think Scott McCloud will forgive me.
I was always told that completing a 24-hour comic will change you, and to be honest, it kind of did. I felt more confident about myself and my work. I had always thought I wasn't tough enough to complete one. That was something other cartoonists (better cartoonists) could achieve, but not me. Having completed one, I fell on par with those better cartoonists. If they can do it, I can do it! It was a nice way to start the new year.
For the comic itself, it's ok. I'm not good at using pens or working fast, but I think I pulled it off. It's fun. It's about riding bikes, cartooning, and making-out. I don't think I'll post it online or publish it, but I will share it with friends.

14 Days on THE SCHEDULE

2006-01-13T01:26:00.000-06:00

PLEASE NOTE: This post constantly refers to my previous post dealing with a system of 8 and 10 hour SCHEDULES that I developed for drawing Comics. If you are confused by some of my terms, you might need to go read the previous post.

So I just wrapped up two whole weeks of using "THE SCHEDULE." In 14 days I drew and/or inked for 126 hours, at an average of 9 hours a day. I completed EIGHT PAGES of Basewood Chapter Two which is almost 25% of the book. I consider it a very successful outing, and I thought I'd share some of the things that made it easier for me this time around.

I should note that while the main PRINCIPALS of The Schedule (mentally separating WORK time and BREAK time) work for single day use, or shortened periods of time, it was originally designed to be sustained over long periods of time. I know that's REALLY hard to come by. I lucked out, as I am now a full time student and had two weeks off before the next semester began. SO--here are some tips that helped me through it:

1) For almost the whole two weeks I alternated between the 10-hour schedule and an 8 hour schedule (usually the "Even Steven" variation). This was good because I was usually a little burned out after the 10-hour day, so utilizing a less-rigorous Schedule gave me more energy to tackle the NEXT 10-hour day. Previously I just did 10 hours every day, which was a lot harder.

2) Getting out of bed can be really hard for me. But one thing I thought about during this work block was ALL THE CRAPPY DAY-JOBS I'VE WORKED. Namely how I've never been late to a day of work in my life. Even if a job is stupid and mindless and pays poorly and I dislike the people I'm working with, I would still show up on time and work my shift until it was over. So THE LEAST I could do is be on time for drawing Comics! (something that I LOVE WITH ALL MY HEART, you know?) Every time that thought went through my head, I JUMPED out of bed.

3) NAPS. I really utilized naps this time around. I know they are not for everybody, but a short 15 minute nap can really help revitalize you. I usually did one during my first morning break (catching up on that lost morning sleep!) and then one in the afternoon (during the 3-5 break). This also helped me get out of bed in the morning--thinking, "Yeah, I'm sleepy, but I only have to draw for a few hours and then I can go back to bed for a bit."

4) AUDIO BOOKS! I got the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman on AudioBook for xmas this year. It helped me get SO MUCH drawing done. I listened to it mostly when I was inking and I found that I was SUPER EXCITED to get back to the drawing table after my breaks, because I wanted to know what was going to happen in the story next! And the time just FLEW by. More than once I was sorely tempted to keep drawing in my break time (BUT I DIDN'T). You can also get a lot of AudioBooks on tape and CD from your local library. I also listened to a TON of This American Life.

5) Another thing I noticed this time, which is sort of similar to the "start on time" theme, is to work the WHOLE time block! A lot of times I was tempted to stop early. Like the CD I was listening to would end 15 minutes before my hour of drawing was up and I'd think "Ahhh, I'll just stop early." But instead, I'd put on a different playlist of music for 15 minutes or (GASP!) draw in silence and you'd really be amazed how much you can get done in 15 minutes! Drawing Comics is this long and arduous journey, and every little minute of effort adds up in the end!

6) FRESH AIR! After one of these days, I lay down to go to sleep and I realized that I hadn't spoken to anyone all day, or left the apartment (NOT GOOD). So after that I tried to at least walk around the block, or run an errand or two that FORCED me to go outside each day. And it helped a lot, breathing fresh air and seeing other people (that should go without saying!)

I guess that's it. For full disclosure, I should probably also add that I am completely EXHAUSTED. I did take a 2-day "break" in there too, but that was to draw a 24-hour comic (and then the day afterwards, when I only drew 2-hours NOT on The Schedule and caught up on my sleep). This stuff is great for meeting a deadline, or finishing a project, but it's no way to live your life! I don't have a significant other (as if you couldn't tell) and I have very few friends that I hang out with consistently, so it was pretty easy for me to stay THIS focused. I got lonely sometimes (especially late at night) but as always, I gain a lot of strength just from knowing that all of you and so many other Comics artists I respect are in their homes, sitting at their drawing boards, making time to draw Comics as well!

So I hope SOME of that was helpful. OH--and I've had a few people comment to me, and I know Robyn got at least one--so just to set the record straight: I DID NOT START THIS BLOG! THIS BLOG WAS STARTED BY, AND IS THE BRAINCHILD OF ROBYN CHAPMAN. And we're so lucky she did. Thanks Robyn!!!

Part Time Stories

2006-01-12T15:14:00.000-06:00

So, my week off from work to do freelance/comic work was a huge success. I redesigned my own site, launched my T-Shirt line, and the bit I'm most proud of...

I started Part Time Stories, my year long online comic site. It starts with Thirsty, written by Marc Bryant, and will continue through out the year with stories from a bunch of writers.

I have 3 more stories besides this one ready to go (older stories I have had ready for the web since I thought up this project) and 4 more scripts as of today. I have two more stories I want to put together in my head, so that works out to be 9 stories in various stages as of launch time.

It'll be a heck of an experiment to pull this off, but to tie this in with the purpose to the purpose of the blog, it is a large effort of productivity and page creation, with deadlines and whole nine yards

Part Time Stories, one year of short stories. Here we go!

New Years Resolutions and Projects for 2006

2005-12-31T13:51:00.000-06:00

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!

An Advantage to the Holidays

2005-12-24T21:01:00.000-06:00

(Besides a whole lotta food, that is.)

With people out of town (including myself for a few days), it's great to take advantage of the time to draw some comic pages. I get to start the year off with almost 3 weeks of some serious drawing time (along side working on freelance web design), which is a good way to start off 2006 I think.

I know a lot of people stop working completely doing this time of year, but not me. I just relish the fact that people go away for a bit.

Of course, in like 2 weeks I'll probably go stir crazy.

An Interview With Me

2005-12-16T16:20:00.000-06:00

I was interviewed by a middle schooler who was writing a paper on cartooning. Perhaps it’s self-serving, but I think it’s relevant enough to post here.

What are the Pros and Cons of your job?
First, the pros. Sequential Art is versatile medium and its potential seems to grow every day. As a long-time lover of writing and drawing, it's the perfect medium for me.
One of the biggest pros would have to be artistic freedom. While it is difficult, it is completely possible to write, draw, and even publish and print your comics yourself. I like to think of this analogy: when I lived in New York, I would often stumble upon film crews shooting a movie. The amount of equipment and manpower it require was boggling. I would always think to myself "I can do that all by myself, and all I need is some paper and ink."
One of the major cons of being a cartoonist is simply surviving. Like many artistic careers, it is difficult to make a living as a cartoonist. It's not impossible, but difficult. It usually takes years of making comics for little or no pay before one can support themselves on comics alone. That being said, the skills you gain as a cartoonist can be applied to a variety of professions: publishing, editing, graphic design and many more.

What are your duties on a daily basis?
Like many cartoonists working today, cartooning is not my primary source of income. I have a day job, and I have to structure my drawing schedule to fit.
Finding a balance between employment and cartooning is an artform in itself, and it's a challenge most cartoonists will have to face.
Strangely, a lot of the work I do as a cartoonist has nothing to do with drawing. I've co-edited two large comic anthologies. My daily tasks as an editor often include emailing publishers, printers, and artists. It also involves organizing book signing tours and release parties.
A lot of management skills are also involved in my personal comic work. Right now I'm working on a graphic novel, a comic submission for Penguin Books, several side projects, and I'm participating in a gallery show in January. All these projects have deadlines, and all of them require communicating with a variety of editors and art directors. Again, writing emails is a big part of my day.
Another daily task is research. My graphic novel takes place during a specific time and in a specific place. Authenticity is important to me, so I've been dedicating a lot of time to research. I often use the internet for this. I'll look for images to use as reference for background drawings, or I'll check out websites to find out what music was playing during that time period.
And finally, the drawing! These days, my daily tasks include drawing thumbnails (rough sketches of page layouts, a basic blueprint for my comic) penciling in my sketchbook, and inking.

What early influences did have that drove you to seek a career as a cartoonist?
Probably my earliest influence was Bill Waterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes. It was a really artful strip that caught my imagination.
The other influence was discovering alternative comics - comics that weren't about super heroes. When I discovered the publisher Fantagraphics Books, I knew I wanted to be cartoonist.

Who is your favorite cartoonist?
Daniel Clowes. He has created several excellent graphic novels, including Ghost World, David Boring and his new masterpiece, Ice Haven. His comic book is called Eightball.

How long does it usually take to create a comic?
This is really too difficult to answer, each comic is different. Right now I'm working on an 81 page graphic novel. It will most likely take one and a half to two years to complete.

Where do you get ideas for a comic?
Most of my comics are based somewhat, if not completely, on my life experience.
I feel compelled to write about things that have significance in my life.

What are your other interests besides cartooning?
I like the art of bookmaking. In addition to their content, I'm interested in books as artistic objects. I like to explore different types if printing, binding, and folding.

What are some skills and character traits you would need to become a cartoonist?
Probably the number one character trait required is a good work ethic. Making comics is hard, and it takes a long time. For this reason, patience is also important.
Being goal driven and dedicated is important too. It's really hard to make comics part-time. You really have to have a passion for it.

Making A Marvel Out Of A Molehill.

2005-12-16T15:55:00.000-06:00

Marvel has announced its bold plan to conquer webcomics for the third time, and amazingly, people are wondering if This Will Change Everything.

If I needed an argument that the world needs a history of webcomics, I'd have none better than this bald retcon. This is not a "launch." It is at best a relaunch, if not just a renaming. The timeline, in brief:

Marvel joins the Web in late 1996, first with a secret investors-only site, but soon enough with onslaught.com and then with Marvelonline.com. Its early site hawks "cool animation" (check the "alt" tags) and its "Marvel CyberComics" achieve a certain degree of distinction, at least theoretically, by using limited animation and sound. This is enough to attract a license from another website you've probably never even heard of [scroll to fifth item], which gets bought out less than a year later.

Webcomics readers completely ignore Cybercomics. They offer attractive bells and whistles, but the stories read like "Marvel Generica #1-12." Marvel doesn't see fit to pay much to produce the work, nor does it offer much creative latitude, so... Guess what? Spidey's life is tough, and the Hulk is misunderstood!

After the dot-com crash, Marvel starts putting out an all-new "dot-comics" lineup of repurposed comic books. This is hardly the bold new frontier that Cybercomics represented, but it certainly could work if done in crushing volume. Marvel has a huge back-issue archive and it's been proven that presenting comics online, done right, can actually encourage people to buy them offline.

Yet in a surprising reversal of traditional online publishing, Marvel's offerings actually seem to get *fewer* as time goes on. A 2002 review mentions 21 comics available for a single series. But in 2004, the dotcomics section offers "just a few" comics, in fact just exactly a dozen.

And today it has four.

This week, Marvel "launched" its Digital Comics section (though its homepage announces it as a "rebirth," so apparently even MARVEL doesn't completely believe that Digital Comics are qualitatively different from Dotcomics. Also, Marvel still has a "dotcomics" link at the bottom of the site, which redirects to the new section).

Marvel promises that the paucity of material on the new site is a temporary situation. If so, it's a temporary situation three years in the making. They say they're going to get production up till there's a new comic almost every day. I'll believe it when I see it.

Okay, so we've gone down from 21+ to 12 to 4. But what about the quality?

The selection is... not bad. Not the best items Marvel's published, and only one that even resembles a completed story, but if you like superheroes and their universes they're pretty decent offerings...

...wrapped in an interface that simulates the experience of reading comic books, assuming you read comic books by either holding them at fully extended arm's length, or repeatedly slapping yourself in the face with them. And assuming that the comics' art is highly pixelated while the text is clear.

Marvel has the intellectual property and the talent base to well and truly change the face of webcomics. And print comics for that matter. What it doesn't have is the culture.

Infinite canvas could give Spider-Man more room to swing, leap, and kick. The team behind Runaways could pen a magnificent strip in the Questionable Content vein. Marvel could open up a vast database of characters a la its old Marvel Universe and use hyperlinks to clarify its labrynthine continuity. The new genres and styles and ideas of webcomics and the well-established, much-loved creations of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (and their acolytes) could interact in ways that tickled the brain and stirred the heart.

But none of that will happen until Marvel, Inc. sees money in it. And Marvel has a 45-year-old tradition of celebrating its past. It's not so good with the future.

Its own online past is proof of that.

Why Gail Simone Remains One Of My Fave Comics Writers.

2005-12-16T10:24:00.000-06:00

What she says she's learned this year: "That the stereotypical idea that the audience is full of dateless pasty white guys living in mom's basement is a crock of poo. When I go to a con, I see all these creative readers, all colors and sizes and genders and orientations. I feel like some creators are afraid to admit that the audience is cooler than they are, so they perpetuate this myth. It's irritating. Don't speak down to the audience. Don't take them for granted. Do the best work you can every time, and they WILL be on your team, and that's worth a lot, in my book."

Fighting Distraction, Fighting Boredom

2005-12-04T20:08:00.000-06:00

It's tough for me to put in long hours at the drawing board. I get bored, I get distracted, I get depressed. For me, there are three things that are key to maximum productivity: variety of work, variety in setting, and a balanced schedule.

Variety of work:
Doing one task for 11 hours a day drives me batty. It gets monotonous and frustrating. Progress can be slow. I'm most comfortable as a cartoonist when I have several project going at once. If I get tired of thumbnailing my graphic novel, I'll pencil in my sketchbook, or ink my mini comic.

Variety of setting:
This is a step I take towards making drawing a more social event. When I lived in Brooklyn, I would draw at a friend's apartment, or in a coffee shop. Now I live in a small town in Vermont, there is no coffee shop. I've had to become creative. I've gone to restaurants, public parks and bars.

A balanced Schedule:
My weekends are the only time I have all to myself, so I really try to make some progress then. I’ve dedicated my Saturdays to Alec's 11-hour schedule.

Here's how this Saturday went:

11:30 (Damn, I slept in again) I go have some lunch at the Tip Top Café, the only restaurant in White River Junction with a reasonable vegan selection. I get there when they open and order a meal I can nibble on. My mind is most sharp early in the day, so I do work that requires thinking: writing and thumbnails. When I get bored of this, I'll switch to some inking.

2:30 I feel like I'm wearing out my welcome, so walk a block to The Upper Valley Food Co-Op. They have a small cafe area where customers can eat sandwiches or drink coffee. I purchase a vegan cookie and draw for an hour. I switch from inking to thumbnails again.

3:30 Break time! And how convenient, I'll do some grocery shopping, then some errands around town.

4:30 Now back to my apartment – another change of scenery. I work for 3 hours. I listen to various music and audio books to keep from getting bored. I write a little, but then I switch to sketching and inking.

7:30 My biggest block of work is behind me, and I’m not bored or exhausted yet! Now for a big break. I mess around on the computer and call a friend.

9:30 Ugh. I’m not eager to start work. I put in my Ghost World DVD listen to it while I draw in the other room. I do some mindless inking and plough through. When the movie is over it’s almost time for my break.

11:30 Break time, call another friend. I need support.

1:30 This is the tough work block. My brain feels a little mushy. I put on some comforting music make it through. I tell myself I sure am lucky I'm not in relationship, I'd never be able to pull something like this! Yes, very lucky.

3:30 I fall asleep immediately.

Back to the Grind

2005-11-29T08:57:00.000-06:00

Hi, my name is Mike and I make comics.

Robyn added me to the list last week, but I haven't had time to introduce myself because I've been either making comics or eating turkey for the last week. Now that I'm back at work I have some more free time.

My name is Mike Tomasulo. I live in the Boston area, and I have a day job as a software engineer. My immediate comics goals are to produce some science fiction web comics. I'll get to the status of that later.

I figure a lot of us fall into one of two camps this week. Some people, like me, were able to use their vacation time to really get some comics done, and now have to make the effort to find time to work on it around their day job. Other people weren't able to get anything done over the holiday because of travel or guests or whatever, and now need to get back on the horse.

(Other groups of people include those who don't get time off for U.S. Thanksgiving and those who don't have day jobs.)

So, chime in with when you are going to work on your comics next, and if you got anything you want to crow about done over the Thanksgiving break!

I will start:

I'm definitely going to get at least an hour of work done tonight, and I have most of the evening to myself tomorrow, so that'll be a couple of more hours.

I was off from last Tuesday until yesterday, and I was able to get a really solid start on a web comic I'm working on. I scanned in thumbnails and did placeholder lettering for all 16 "pages". I tightend up pencils on about 6 pages, and did first pass at painted colors (in Corel Painter) for 3 pages. It's looking alright. I'm improving with every page, so I expect I'll go back and touch up the early pages once I've been through them once.

And you?

Comics Anonymous

2005-11-17T11:39:00.000-06:00

Hello, my name is Adam. And I am a cartoonist.

I don't know about anybody else, but I tend to suffer from the torment of nonproductivity. It seems late at night between the hours of midnight to 2 am is when it tends to plague me most. When I'm lying in bed in the dark, watching the clock and thinking to myself "If I just fall asleep right NOW, I can still get 4 solid hours!", this is when I become painfully aware of how much time I waste NOT working on my comic.

I am not fortunate enough to be able to work as a cartoonist solely on a full-time basis. Like many others, I also have a full-time job. For most, the full-time job would be enough. Spending 10+ hours battling traffic and angry and uninformed clients before coming home to walk the dogs who have crazy energy to burn off because they slept all day you were gone, and finally cook and eat dinner with your significant other, this should pretty much round out your day. Nothing left to do but load the dishwasher and watch the idiot box until it's time to go to sleep.

Unless you're a cartoonist.

This is now prime drawing time. When the house is slowly winding down at the end of the day, that's when I can sneak away to my space and spend a few hours working uninterrupted on my comics. What luxury! In those few hours each night, I can get a greater sense of satisfaction and accomplishment or plain artistic frustration than all the other combined hours in my week! I draw. Sometimes whole pages, sometimes nothing more than a panel or two, but I'm in my element and I'm doing what I love to do.

Which is in essence why I do what it is I do.

It's certainly not the money that drives me. And although I get a kick out of telling people in business suits that I'm a comic book artist, it's not the prestige that drives me either. It's because I NEED to draw. It's that simple. I spend any and all free time that I can squeeze out of my day into making comics, and luckily for me, my girlfriend is a VERY understanding individual. She readily indulges my obsession.

Anyway, I apologize for the long-windedness of this entry, my next ones will be more to the point, I assure you. Here's my typical day:

5:30 - 6:00 am - Drag my ass out of my warm bed and shower, make coffee, etc.
6:00 - 7:45 am - Work on the comics
7:45 am - 8 or 9:00 pm - REAL LIFE
9:00 pm - Whenever I go to bed - Work on the comics

That's pretty much it. Of course I break it up every now and then, try to throw some change into the routine, but for the most part, I have two jobs right now: Real Life and the Comics. One day I hope to only have one job but until that day comes I'll keep plugging away and look to this blog for inspiration and motivation.

Cheers.

15 Minutes

2005-11-16T19:16:00.000-06:00

I was getting really pissed off at myself for not working on my comic book, PHASE 7. I am only 10 pages away from having #006 totally done, yet I have basically stopped working on it. And it's been more than a YEAR since the last issue came out. Granted, my life is INSANELY busy right now. I'm living in NEW YORK, which is stressful and hard in its own way, plus I'm going to school full time (taking EIGHT classes at Pratt Intstitute this semester). That means I have A LOT of homework, plus I have a healthy stack of side projects and freelance work that I need to keep up on. (Also trying to budget some time for friends, etc. to stay SANE!)

So here is my new idea: I WILL work on my comic book a BARE MINIMUM of 15 minutes per day, EVERY DAY, NO MATTER WHAT, until it is done. I've been at it for about a week now and it has been going pretty well. Usually I have been doing it at the very end of my day, after I've brushed my teeth and right before I get into bed. Because really, what is 15 minutes? (Nothing!) There is no ammount of sleep I'm going to get that I wouldn't give up 15 minutes of it to work on my self-published comic book (read: THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN MY LIFE RIGHT NOW). And twice this week, I got 4 hours and 45 minutes of sleep instead of 5 hours, and it was totally worth it. There is something to be said for just "checking in" with my story once every day, even if it's just to touch the page, tape it down, draw a figure, erase it and then draw it again. Every four nights is another hour of work done!

Anyways, I thought that might be helpful for some people who are SUPER BUSY like me, and are getting frustrated that they never work on their Comics. Taking a small step each day will get you there eventually!

Bill Watterson's Speech at Kenyon College

2005-11-04T10:22:00.000-06:00

Bill Watterson, he of Calvin and Hobbes, delivered the commencement speech at his alma mater Kenyon College in 1990.

It's pretty much a must read.

I went looking for it online today and found it pretty easily.

Read it and let's talk about it.

I seek enlightenment........or at least some comments

2005-11-02T13:28:00.000-06:00

Greetings,
So here's my situation. The 10/9 point cartoonist road to recovery has been absorbed, and is a starting point. My disorganized world is, slowly, being handled. With that, it brings working space & productivity. The reorganization has brought about a little problem........literally hundreds of idea notes & rough sketches. So what's the problem, "Where do I begin !!!"
I draw "gags", and peddle my own wares. Our recent move & the daughter's college tuition were easy to deal with compared to what I'm now facing. It's a classic case of "Sensory Overload." I would be interested to hear from any & all that may have been/or are in a similar position. I've been married, forever, with 3 daughters (13,15, 18), so I"m used to taking criticizms (it's pms everyday, of every week in our house, and I'm always wrong!) ). That passes for conversation to me. However, I would really appreciate a little insight. Thanks !!!

What Works

2005-10-31T07:08:00.001-06:00

Sorry to make the comparison again, but here goes - Alcoholics Anonymous was started by alcoholics. And that how it is with Make Comics Forever. I started this group because I have problems - with productivity and discipline.
I've been thinking a lot about what I need to do to become a more capable cartoonist. I've learned some activities are helpful and some are detrimental. I'm trying to keep a running tab.

WHAT WORKS (for me)
1. Keep a record, make lists (like this one), WRITE IT DOWN. When I feel discouraged or frustrated, I write in my journal. It helps me MAKE SENSE of things. I want to improve. Writing is a tool I can use to understand my problems and propose solutions. It also acts as a RECORD. I can't keep this all in my head.

2. Act from a place of INSPIRATION, NOT GUILT. Guilt can be a motivator, but not a very constructive one. Guilt feeds guilt, and in the end, it can incapacitate you.

3. WRITE IN ALLCAPS when you need to.

4. Be a part of something bigger than yourself. Maybe that's what the Higher Power talk in AA is really all about. I've felt my most productive times to be when I'm working on a project that's important (like CCS.)

5. A little help from my friends. Cartooning is such an isolating activity, I find I need the kinship and support of friends and colleagues. Last week Alec Longstreth and Aaron Renier visited CCS. Drawing with them I felt encouraged and productive.
IT'S EASY TO GIVE UP WHEN NO ONE'S LOOKING. Develop a chain of support. Should we start Make Comics Forever sponsors (like AA?)

6. Work within structure. GIVE YOURSELF DEADLINES. Develop a schedule. You don't have to go hardcore Longstreth style, you're allowed to be flexible. Find out what works for you.

7. Strike while the iron is hot! When you are inspired, when an idea is fresh, work NOW. Write it down in your journal. This is especially important to me. I'm forgetful, I can't trust myself to remember anything. I've made a rule for myself - act when the idea is in your head, or you will forget it.

8. DON'T STOP. I played the flute in 6th grade (I was awful, btw.) I remember when I'd flub up some part of music, I wanted to stop and start over. My music teacher always encouraged me to play through. Then try it again and do it right. This isn't always the right advice, but it can keep you from getting road blocked.

9. When all else fails, STOP. Get out of the house, listen to some music, do the dishes. Take a break. Come back and do more comics.

Music to make comics by

2005-10-30T11:09:00.000-06:00

In the Space thread someone mentioned their music being a part of their workspace.

Whenever I make comics music has to be around, and it needs to be in the theme of the project. Most of the time I'll actually arrange an MP3 list or collect together a bunch of CDs, just so I can have that constant flow of music. Having more the one set CD helps when the scene changes, so that I can keep the soundtrack idea going.

Lots of southern rock went in to making "The Passenger". The Toadies, the Burden Brothers, Mike Ness' Solitaire album...

Anyone else? What music do you usually listen to when making comics?

I'm Mal by the way.

Space.

2005-10-23T18:45:00.000-05:00

A veritable treasure for most of us. I used to dream (still do) of one day having my own studio workspace that was grand and spacious, able to house easels, desks, drawing tables, computers, etc. Let's face it, a decent space to work in is a luxury for many of us, especially if living in a large expensive urban environment like New York City. After getting married and getting ready for a baby, it became even more difficult for me to make a workspace that was functional, and yet provided a relaxed and inviting environment to work in. Even if all you have is a small corner of a small apartment, its possible to make a workspace that invites you to sit down and be productive. This little setup, although small has provided me with one of the best and most utilized workspaces I've had in a long while. Everything I essentially need is close at hand. Its a meager example compared to many others I have seen, but it works for me. I'm curious about your own workspaces. What sort of environment do you strive to create that promotes productivity?

Cartoonist Groups - Pros and Cons

2005-10-16T20:35:00.000-05:00

Hope's "Don't Go It Alone" post got me thinking about cartoonist groups, and the benefits (and detriments) of working within a group. I am a member of Artists With Problems, a Brooklyn based cartoonist group that meets weekly for cartooning parties / drawing sessions. When I lived in New York, my AWP meetings became an important part of my week, and I think the group really helped me grow as a cartoonist.

First, some tips when starting a cartoonist group.

1. Decide what kind of group you want create, before you start. A casual jam comic group, a goal driven collective, a team distro, etc? AWP is a small, members only, goal driven group of peers and friends who benefit socially and artistically from working together. We are focused on our individual projects and do not do jams. For us, this works.

2. Give your group a name. Give your group the right name! Names are so important.

3. Pick a time to meet and be diligent at keeping these meetings. This biggest challenge AWP had in the early days was getting people to attend regularly. But after being diligent for a few months, our Tuesday meeting became a permanent fixture on our week.

4. Pick an appropriate place to meet. In the begining AWP met at cafes. It was always a challenge to find a space with adequate table and light, and that was open during the hours we wanted to meet. Now we rotate between members' apartments. It's challenging to fit 10 cartoonist in your standard Brooklyn apartment. My suggestion: bring a drawing board!

4. Make sure the members of your group are people you like and respect. The whole point of a cartooning group is destroyed if the scene is made awkward our disruptive by incompatible people.

5. Bring snacks, wine, music, anything to make the experience fun without being distractive. Keeping a balance between being social and being productive is one of the greatest challenges of drawing groups.

The pros and cons of working in a group:

Pro: By making drawing events social events, they become more fun and less of a chore.
Con: Drawing in a group, outside your ordinary working space, can be a challenge. In all honestly, 3 hours of drawing with a group of friends is a lot less productive than 3 hours of drawing at home. But cartoonist groups have a benefit far beyond page count. Cartooning is a lonely art form, and working in a group can provide support and encouragement.

Pro: Drawing with a group of peers whose work you respect will challenge you.
Con: Drawing within a group might also make you feel inferior and discouraged. This is why your members should be friends as well as peers. You should feel comfortable with them, not intimidated.

Pro: Working within a group has many practical benefits. You can share tables and hotel rooms at cons, you can share websites, you the cost of art supplies, etc.

Pro: Cartoonist groups offer a great opportunity to share knowledge and experience. Cartoonists have a lot to teach each other.

Give cartoonist groups a try! And, to once again borrow from the wisdom of AA: "Keep Coming Back! It Works When You Work It!"

Don't Go It Alone

2005-10-13T10:10:00.000-05:00

Drawing comics--especially comics for print, which no one will see for months or years--can be isolating. When I started working on my first longer story, I knew my biggest challenge would be to motivate myself in a vacuum. Here are a few ways I've dealt with the solitude of drawing, and made it a little more social.

1) CONSCRIPT AN AUDIENCE

When I start to draw a book, I recruit several friends (anyone with whom I'm comfortable sharing rough work) and give them access to a special web directory. Every few days I upload new pages into this directory, my audience reads through it, and occasionally I'll get feedback. The important thing is for me to feel like I'm drawing for someone other than myself, like someone is waiting with bated breath for the next chunk of pages. In the absence of an involved comics editor, this system works for me.

2) SHARE YOUR STUDIO

I've shared studio space with my husband since last year, and it's definitely helped increase my productivity. If Mal's cranking out page after page next to me, I'm more likely to get to work, and having someone around to see me slack off helps keep me from donig so. He's also great for feedback if I can't get a panel to work, or if I need someone to photograph me while I pose for reference.

If you don't live with an artist, think about renting studio space and sharing it with another cartoonist, or even an illustrator or fine artist. If you're a full-time cartoonist or freelance this makes sense, because you'll be separating yourself from the distractions of working from home.

3) FIND A COMMUNITY

Without the support of cartoonists I've met on the internet, there is no way I'd be drawing comics today. Get to know the locals! Join Livejournal, an important networking tool, and "friend" everyone you know--plus anyone you admire. This is a great way to get instant feedback on your work, and the site allows you to control who sees what you post, so it's more private than asking for crits on a message board. Join or browse a couple message boards, too; you'll probably run into board members again online, or in person at conventions. Of course, the trick is not to let these sites turn into time-wasters.

If you're more interested in meeting cartoonists in your area, consider joining (or forming) a cartooning group. It may not always be intellectually stimulating, but at least you'll get to meet others who care about the minutiae of pen nibs or the properties of different brands of ink.

4) GO TO CONS

They're expensive, but they're important. In addition to meeting your peers and fans, and getting your work into the hands of publishers, you'll come home inspired, energized and ready to DRAW. Seeing how many other people are toiling away out there, drawing in their bedrooms and on their lunch breaks, scamming copies and screenprinting covers in their basements, makes coming home to another blank page a lot less lonely.

Good luck! :D

Remember How it Felt

2005-10-08T11:59:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about what I could write for this Blog. What I could write on the subject of productivity- give tips and or techniques. I’m sure that for many, if not all of you, comics were, and are, your first inspiration to draw. Instead of a list of items or methods I thought I would write a little something personal about why I do comics and what I love about them. A little insight into my experience (or as the case may be…lack of), may prove educational, and or entertaining. Perhaps neither…

When I was a kid and through my teens I was insanely obsessed with comics. I loved the Sunday comics: Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, FbofW, Garfield (I know—Shut Up!), & Calvin & Hobbes. I loved comic books: DC & Marvel –all the Superheroes, Betty & Veronica digests, etc… And on my monthly excursions to the Public Library I discovered various “Best Of” treasuries of classic comic strips that would have tremendous influence on me later for years to come: EC Segar’s Popeye (I remember reading this just months before Altman’s movie came out), Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy, Al Capp’s Li’l Abner , and Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie. Nothing gripped my attention more than good cartooning. I loved it.

I was also insanely consumed with finding as many “How To” Books on cartooning that I could find. In Northern Alberta, where I lived this was a little more difficult to accomplish. One of my favorites that was given to me by a cousin when I was 13, was a book called “The Secrets of Professional Cartooning” by Ken Muse. Ken Muse drew a strip in the 60s called Wayout. I didn’t care for his strip or his drawing at all, but I loved this book! Inside it he had interviewed many, many cartoonists and asked for information on their methods of working and the tools they used. In addition to that he analyzed the work of several classic cartoonists, no longer alive, to see what they might have done and used. From this book I set out to learn how to draw cartoons as best I could. I drew obsessively and constantly, and made several good friends who did the same. I continued to collect cartooning instruction. My friends and I made our own comics, and enjoyed our creative endeavors to the Nth. I loved it and was good (I thought) at it.

As I approached my mid-teens I discovered Love and Rockets. The only reason I picked it up was because Alan ‘Swamp Thing” Moore had quoted it as being a superb comic in a monthly fan magazine interview. It was amazing, and unlike anything I had ever read in the comics. The Undergound comix scene of the 60s had not infiltrated my Conservative Canadian environment. This was all new. When I graduated High School, and was preparing for college the comics world was caught up in whole Dark Knight/Watchmen fascination. I was right in there reading those too.

Then a strange thing happened. I went to Art School and forgot about comics. I moved away from home when I was 18, and started College. It was during this stage that I totally bought into the “You Gotta Be Cool at Art School” theme. I hung out with musicians and painters, and not daring to expose myself as the true “comics geek” I was, I left it behind me, and concentrated on learning how to be an “illustrator”, which for whatever reason was more acceptable to the crowd than a comics artist. Comics were not cool, and I wanted to be cool. I wore a leather jacket, shaved my head, and I got drunk (a lot), and even laid (not so much). I graduated College in 1990.

Over the course of that summer I waited to hear back from the School of Visual Arts in New York. I had applied to attend the MFA Illustration program, following in the steps of my good friend Jeff who had gone down the year before. When I arrived in New York in August I felt all the desires to draw comics/cartoons return quite strongly. After all New York was the home of so many of the cartoonists and comics that I had loved. One of my very first illustration assignments for grad school was executed in a very “comics art” manner. It was greeted with unaminous disapproval. “Your drawing looks like a cartoon!!” they said. “Well, yeah…”. “You really need to draw better!”. I was embarrassed and humiliated. For the remainder of my term I was determined to prove myself as a draftsman and illustrator…. I did much better work (in their opinion) throughout the rest of my study there.

By strange coincidence (or so I thought) two students in the year ahead of me were working cartoonists, although they were polar opposites in terms of their methods and approach. One of them was James Sturm, whom I’m sure you all know now as the author of “The Golem’s Mighty Swing”, and as the founder of the Center for Cartoon Studies. I had heard from other students in that year that he had several run-ins with the thesis head over their disagreements as to James’ pursuing a graphic novel (at the time he was working on The Cereal Killings) as his thesis. In the end the head of the dept. granted James his request, and he continued on with full dedication to his vision. Here was a guy who knew what he loved to do, believed in it, and fought for his right to pursue his vision, despite the tremendous misgivings of the powers that be. Years later I ran into one of those same teachers at Mocca, and I asked him “What are you doing here?”. He knew full well what I meant. “I’m learning Cam. I’m learning.” I’m sure James would feel very pleased to hear that.

In the years that followed I took a job in the NY garment industry (doing Disney licensing!) as a means of obtaining a work visa. As a lark when I was 26 I started training in theater arts at night. I fell in love with the process, and as a quiet shy person, I was very pleased at how I was able to embrace this “social art” to a medium success. I continued to study and perform for the next 10 years. One of my directors (and later very good friend) passed me a note after a show saying I was the “best actor he had ever seen.” Not true, I am sure, but it was a tremendous compliment for me nonetheless. Maybe this was what I was meant to do?

Around this time, one of my painter artist friends introduced me to the Eightball comics of Dan Clowes. Stunned. Look at this! How did I miss this? A few months later I attended a screening of “Crumb”. Good God! How could I be just discovering him now? A little later I read Jimmy Corrigan. Fan! Fan for life! Later in Savannah visiting my old friend Jeff, who was a local teacher there, said to me, “Lets go see James! He’s signing comics at the store down the block.” We did, and in addition to his new work (which was fantastic) James recommended several other cartoonists to look at. It was ALL stunning to me. Comics had changed since I had known them. They were becoming a definitive literary presence. I had missed so much: Spieglman’s RAW, the whole New Wave of cartooning that had come in from the mid 80s onwards. I had a lot of reading to do… and eventually, I explored the notion that I would pick up that pen & brush and start making some comics.

In May of 2001 I wrote, produced and acted in a full length stage play called Daphne at the Abingdon Theater on 42nd and 11th. It was positively received by many, and even intrigued the interest of a few potential investors. I was very happy as I had worked on that play for more than three years. But nothing developed. Then came September 11. I was in the middle of rehearsals for another play, and living with a new girlfriend. Everything seemed to change, and would continue to do so, very rapidly.

I spent a great deal more time at home, so I started drawing. I made a seven page story that took FOREVER to make, but I did enter it into a local show of cartoonists work at the Williamsburg Art & Historical Society, and was pleased to see its acceptance… Inspired by James Kochalka and Joe Matt (another new discovery I made), I started keeping a cartoon diary, which I sent out to several people via e-mail once a week. I kept this up, and continued to work on scripts and plays when I had the time (which wasn’t often). I started going to alt comics shows like Mocca, Ape, & SPX. Through a visit with James at Mocca, I met Bob Sikoryak, and have attended several of his “Carousel”(which I love!) shows, as well as dance performances choreographed by his wife, Kriota. I started thinking about the possibilities about combining theater and comics.

Last year my very dear little sister Jodi, passed away from heart disease, and I was brought down to a gigantic emotional low. I abandoned all of my projects. I stopped the cartoon diary I had been faithfully keeping. I stopped drawing, writing, and acting studies. I couldn’t do anything. My only uplifting source was my family and some very loyal and close friends in the city. In New York, your friends can really be a second family. On my sister’s birthday I commemorated the occasion by getting a tattoo of a rose on my arm with the words “Ma Petite Soeur” inscribed above it. By coincidence my friend Dan’s friend Adam (whom he went to art-school with) ran a tattoo shop in Brooklyn. I also knew that Sophie Crumb was an apprentice there, and I knew that it would mean a great deal to me if she would do the tattoo. Thankfully she agreed and it is a truly beautiful drawing, and something I will be very happy to carry with me as a remembrance of Jodi.

Eventually I was swayed to get back to work, and what was my first choice? Comics! After meeting Robyn & Kelli at SPX last year I was prompted to make a story for True Porn 2, (which just came out-Rock!). I just finished another comics story that I’m shopping around and getting positive reaction. I have sketches and plans to adapt my stage play as a graphic novel (why not? I already have the script!), and I hope to pick up where I left off with a play that combines theater and comics craetively.

I recently got married to a very beautiful and wonderful lady. She’s a talented Opera Singer (Opera—who knew it was so good?!!) who loves to read comics (she’s an old Love & Rockets fan), and we are expecting a baby boy next month. We teased each other about naming our little boy Skeezix, and decided that would be for the dog, (if we ever get one) We’ve been braving some serious health concerns with the baby, and are pleased that it looks like she will be able to have a normal, healthy delivery here in NY.

So now, instead of calling myself an illustrator, writer, actor, or cartoonist, I think I will use the term “storyteller” (at least privately). Isn’t that what we all do? I’m very, very happy that I discovered comics again. For one thing I still get that old jolt of anticipation and delight when I pick up something new… (check out The Night Fisher by R. Kikou Johnson!). I often find myself feeling a little jealous of all the wonderful and talented young people I meet who are out now creating comics, embracing and pursuing the form with fierce dedication and talent. But in the end it fuels me to work harder and appreciate it more.

Of course I wish I had the maturity and strength of vision to have stayed with it all along (who knows what I could have accomplished in that time ?), but then again, my experiences in acting and theater have been way beyond rewarding to me. I would never give that up. Someday I hope I can merge these two passions together. You never know… Maybe I could teach “Acting and Scene Analysis for Cartoonists?” With a baby on the way, there are many new challenges ahead for me. I know that my love for comics and cartooning will always be a source of inspiration and determination. Comics were my first real passion. I’m very happy to feel that way about them again… Remember how you first felt about comics, and don’t let the past get in your way. Its never too late to make something good. That’s the best inspiration I can offer…

Fail Better

2005-10-06T10:06:00.000-05:00

Hi. For those of you who don't know me, my name is K. Thor Jensen. I've been drawing comics professionally since I was 17. I just finished my first graphic novel, Red Eye, Black Eye, which is currently making the rounds of publishers and should be out early next year.

I want to talk about failures and fuckups here. We all make mistakes - part of being a fallible human being is recognizing and learning from them. I'm not talking about slips of the nib or clunky lines of dialogue later whited-out and replaced, I'm more concerned with greater conceptual failures - those genius ideas that wither on the vine or in the sketchbook to never see completion. Here's a few of mine - giant monster porno comic, chinese detective story, all-ages adventure book. Or the completed things that never find a home due to rejection, the publisher going out of business, or other circumstances beyond your control. Or the stuff that comes out and looks awful for one reason or another. I am almost manaically productive, so I have a lot of this to deal with.

What do you do with these? How can you redeem all this wasted work? First, you need to figure out why the work was wasted in the first place, and then put together a plan for getting something valuable out of it after all.

PROBLEM

1) REJECTED. Sometimes you just don't hit the target, for one reason or another. I got rejected from the SPX anthology this year (I get rejected every year, really). Five pages down the proverbial drain. And with most publishers, you'll never know why.

SOLUTIONS

1) LIBRARY FILE. This has been a godsend for me. Something doesn't find the home you wanted for it? Keep it in the "library file" and use it for something else. Use it for a mini-comic or send it to another anthology that might be a step below its intended home, just get it out there. It's work, you did it, other people should see it. Don't obsess over finding a place for it, but don't be shy to pawn off your rejects on people. They'll never know.

2) GET BETTER. Well, duh. But there's a lot of aspects to this. When the book comes out, look at the contents. See if you can imply an aesthetic to the editor's decisions and then really evaluate if your work fits into that aesthetic. If it doesn't, you have a decision to make: alter your work so that it does or write the editor off. You're not going to make somebody change their mind about your work by giving them the same things over and over. If it's important to you, don't be afraid to throw some curveballs in.

PROBLEM

2) LOST ENTHUSIASM. This happens to every single cartoonist I have ever known in my life. You'll get into a project, roar through the first three or nine or twenty pages, and then it stops being fun for you and everything just looks dead on the page. This can happen in any stage of the work - from plotting to inking.

SOLUTIONS

1) SCHEDULE. This works better in the later stages of a project, but can be helpful any time. In the impossibly low-stakes world of alternative comics, there's really not a lot of pressure to get your work done on time, because only a couple hundred people really give a shit in the first place. So the decision to let something slack off is hard to break. That's where a schedule can help. I'm not suggesting you go full Longstreth on the bitch, but try to make "drawing" a part of your routine like "bathing" and "brushing your teeth." Those are parts of your routine, right?

2) MIX IT UP. Yes, this contradicts #1, but what can you do? If you're not enjoying the work, do it someplace else, or sometime else. I often find that just taking it outside, to a park if it's nice or a coffee shop or bar if it isn't can work wonders. Being in your drawing space can be very claustrophobic and insular. In public, you can watch people, be exposed to other influences, and still get work done. If you do this, decide what kind of work you want to do before you go. I ink in public but I'm insane. I recommend doing drafts, ruling panel and page borders (I do this on the subway), erasing pencils, et cetera. The second part to this is do something else on the side that doesn't share the aspects of the project that is frustrating you. I've been working on a very tight, precise, full-color project for a few weeks now. To blow off steam from that, I draw Northern Robutussin Comics as loosey-goosey as possible, just for my own amusement.

3) PUT IT DOWN. Sometimes you just need to walk away from something. Maybe you're not ready to do it yet - maybe you don't have the skills. I abandoned the chinese detective story because I couldn't draw cars well enough. It's perfectly reasonable to admit that you can't do something right now, and instead of beating your head against it, you can take some time and learn what you need to learn while pursuing other work and come back to it later, whether it be days, months or years.

PROBLEM

3) POST-PUBLISH DEPRESSION. So something you drew came out and it looks like shit. You're hyper-aware of all the fuckups and ink flubs and poor choices and it's all you can see. The work is ruined for you. You want to go beat your head on the railroad tracks until it goes away. Don't front like you don't feel this way, douche. I know you do.

SOLUTIONS

1) PUT IT DOWN. Seriously, don't look at anything you have put out too much, because the longer you do the more you're going to freak out over. Put it on the shelf for a few months and come back to it with a clear eye. Realize what point you were at in your development and what the work says about you at that point.

2) LEARN YOUR LESSON. What didn't work? Why were mistakes made? What can be attributed to stylistic choices and what was other factors (time, impatience, environment, intoxication). How important was this work to you? Does that reflect in the quality of the work? What from this are you going to bring to your next project and what are you going to leave behind? Ask questions of yourself and your work - all aspects of it. Break it down into individual components - is this story well-written? Well paced? Well laid out? Well designed? Well penciled? Well inked? Find where things broke down to make you dissatisfied with the work as a whole and you'll know what to put more time into next round.

3) TEAR THE PAGES OUT OF THE BOOK AND BURN THEM. For advanced cartoonists only.

A failure can be just as valuable to an artist as a success, if you have the right perspective on it.

"THE SCHEDULE"

2005-10-03T22:58:00.000-05:00

Alec Longstreth here. All of the following will eventually be compiled into a mini-comic I'm planning called "GET TO WORK / TAKE A BREAK!" and includes some of my theories about drawing Comics. I apologize for the horrendous length of this post, but there is some valuable information burried in here!

I draw comics REALLY SLOWLY. Most of my pages usually consume an average of about 40-80 hours of work. For a long time I just "worked as hard as I could" which, when I drew all day, usually ended up something like this:
--Wake up whenever I wake up (10am?) and start drawing
--Keep drawing until I got REALLY tired/hungry (2pm?)
--Eat lunch, get distracted by something else (movies, email, friends, etc.) and then start feeling really guilty that I wasn't working on my comic
--Force myself to sit back down and draw, pushing myself even though I wasn't really into it (IE, NOT doing good focused work!) My mind wandering somewhere else
--And then REPEAT. Get distracted, feel guilty, force myself to sit down, not into it until I I would finally just GIVE UP for the night

I suspect the maximum output I could draw in this way is MAYBE 6 hours a day. And there's no way I could sustain it for more than a few days (if I could GET a few days to draw).

The past 5 summers though I have worked in the University of Washington scene shop as a scenic carpenter/welder. And they work 10 hour days. Over the past 20 years, the boss, Alan Weldin, has continuously refined the work schedule, until at this point it is almost FLAWLESS. The concept is simple: Start with the largest block of WORK. Then have the shortest BREAK. Then, as the day progresses, DECREASE the size of the WORK blocks and INCREASE the size of the BREAKS. It sounds simple, but it really is an amazing concept, when applied to Comics.

When I moved to Portland, I had some savings, plus I was totally unemployed. It took me FOUR MONTHS until I found steady employment so for that entire four months, seven days a week I drew TEN HOURS A DAY using "THE SCHEDULE" totally completing PHASE 7 #004 ( @ 40 hours per page). It breaks down like this:

THE SCHEDULE

8am-Noon DRAW
Noon-1pm BREAK (lunch)
1pm-3pm DRAW
3pm-5pm BREAK
5pm-7pm DRAW
7pm-10pm DRAW (dinner + movie / friends)
10pm-midnight DRAW

Just giving myself the STRUCTURE of a schedule totally revolutionized my work habits. Now, in the morning, in that first killer 4-hour stretch, when I would start getting burned out I would be able to think "Yes, I'm tired, but in another half hour I can take a BREAK! Hmmm... what am I going to have for lunch?" THE KEY with "The Schedule" is that when you are on break, you are NOT ALLOWED TO WORK!!! If you work on your Comics during your break you will be totally burned out when you sit back down to work! DO NOT WORK ON YOUR BREAKS!!! It is your chance to read or see your friends or talk on the phone or eat or whatever! But keep an eye on the clock! When it's time to draw--GO DRAW!!!

This also really helped my non-Comics friends understand the time commitments involved with Comics. Whereas before they would bug me to go do something and I would say, "I need to draw" and they would say "but you're ALWAYS drawing!" I could now say, "I can hang out at 7pm on my dinner break" and we would go eat or see a movie and then I'd just have to be home by 10pm to get in my last two hours. Also the afternoon break was good for running errands (laundry, groceries, post office, etc.)

"THE SCHEDULE" in its original iteration has a 10:6 work-to-break ratio. That is A LOT of drawing. As I gained more commitments and started working again, etc. etc. 6 hours was often not enough time to do everything I needed to do (especially if I stuck to The Schedule on weekends). So I developed a few 8:8 work-to-break ratio schedules, because really, getting EIGHT HOURS of drawing in is still pretty good! These really provided a lot of flexibility for various situations (needing to sleep in, needing to get all the drawing done early on in the day, or all at night, etc). So I could just wake up and decide which schedule I was going to use. Here they are with the names I gave them and some of my notes:

SCHEDLUE #1 - "Book-End": Crams drawing into the MORNING and NIGHT, leaving a gigantic 7-hour chunk of time in the middle of the day.

8-noon DRAW
noon-7 BREAAAAAAAK (!!?!)
7-9 DRAW
9-10 BREAK
10-mid DRAW

SCHEDULE #2 - "Sleep-In": As the title suggests, gives you more time in the morning to sleep in. Good to use after a schedule that ends at midnight ("I'm going to bed late tonight, I'll implement a schedule tomorrow that lets me sleep in")

8-10 SLEEP
10-noon DRAW
noon-1 LUNCH
1-3 DRAW
3-7 BREAK (!!!)
7-9 DRAW
9-10 BREAK
10-mid DRAW

SCHEDULE #3 - "Night-Off": A rigourous morning schedule that allows the artist to completely stop working by 6pm.

8-noon DRAW
noon-1 LUNCH
1-3 DRAW
3-4 BREAK
4-6 DRAW
6-mid FREEEEEEE!!!

SCHEDULE #4 - "MORNING-OFF": An expiremental schedule (a reversed "Night-Off") which might be useful for morning tasks, etc. Allows the artist freedom until 2pm but then occupies the rest of the day with a pretty heavy drawing schedule.

8-2 FREEEEEEE!!!
2-6 DRAW (is this actually possible?--WORST time of day!)
6-7 DINNER
7-9 DRAW
9-10 BREAK
10-mid DRAW

SCHEDULE #5 - "EVEN-STEVEN": A mathmatically-based schedule with two-hour shifts oscillating between drawing and breaks. Good for days around the house, running errands, doing laundry, working on other projects. Allows the artist to go to sleep early. (Can easily be switched to the "reverse Even Steven" by starting with sleeping in from 8-10 and oscillating in the opposite direction!)

8-10 DRAW
10-noon BRUNCH
noon-2 DRAW
2-4 BREAK
4-6 DRAW
6-8 DINNER
8-10 DRAW
10-mid sleep!

SCHEDULE #6 - "Business-Hours": Perhaps the most balanced schedule, allowing an extra hour of sleep in the morning and a good-sized 5-hour break in the afternoon to allow the artist to visit businesses during their 9-5 hours.

9-noon DRAW
noon-1 LUNCH
1-2 DRAW
2-7 BREAK (includes dinner)
7-9 DRAW
9-10 BREAK
10-mid DRAW

I also developed one 11:5 hour work-to-break ratio schedule for a particularly hard crunch I had before moving to New York to finish off PHASE 7 #005 and get it to the printer. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS SCHEDULE EXCEPT FOR EXTREME EMERGENCIES!!! I only maintained it for three days, and most of my breaks consisted of exhausted sleep or staring at the wall, trying not to CRY. But for all the masochists out there:

SCHEDULE #7- "Hardcore": The utterly ridiculous 11-hour work day. EXTREMELY RIGOUROUS.

8-11 DRAW
11-noon LUNCH
noon-2 DRAW
2-3 BREAK
3-5 DRAW
5-7 DINNER
7-9 DRAW
9-10 BREAK
10-mid DRAW

So that's that. I've only tested these theories on MYSELF (which worked great!) and with Aaron Renier (which ALSO worked great--probably DOUBLING his productivity through the last 50 pages of Spiral-Bound). The main thing to keep in mind is that when you are in a block of WORK time, you need to be sitting drawing, NO MATTER WHAT! If you get distracted by something, block it out and remind yourself "I can do that distracting thing ON MY NEXT BREAK which is __ minutes away!" AND EQUALLY IMPORTANT when you are on your break DO NOT work on your Comics! This is NOT "being productive" or "getting more done" all it will do is suck out your energy and BURN YOU OUT for the next block of work. If you REALLY take a break on your breaks, you will sit down refreshed and energized for your next block of drawing. Remember! Drawing Comics is not a sprint--it's a MARATHON!!!

Also, I should say, that for the last year I have been living in New York, working full time as an office temp. So I have not had much of a chance to draw 10 or even 8 hours a day. But the BEDROCK PRINCIPAL of "The Schedule" still holds fast! If you come home from work and you have 5 hours until you have to go to sleep then break it down! An hour to eat, two hours to draw, an hour off and then one more hour of drawing before you go to sleep. It helps SO MUCH!!!

One last thing I should mention is MATH. YOU CANNOT BEAT THE MATH. I really think it is CRUCIAL that you chart your progress, or at the LEAST, write down on a calander each day that you complete a page. It is the only way you will be able to tell how fast you are drawing and whether or not you are improving. The more you keep track of your page rate, the more accurately you will be able to determine the completion dates of your projects and your ability to meet deadlines! If you chart your progress for a few months and you are getting 2 pages done a week CONSISTANTLY, then you will be able to very accurately project when the story will be done (assuming you know the number of pages). The Schedule and Math go hand in hand!

There are other things, but I need to save them for another post. I gotta get to bed, I've got the day off tomorrow and I want to get my 8 hours of drawing in!!!

Setting Goals and Priorities, Even When it Really Hurts

2005-10-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

(For those of you who don't know me, my name's Mikhaela Reid and I draw a weekly political strip, Boiling Point.)

So my first question to you other cartoonists is: what are your goals and priorities, and what do you do when they conflict with each other?

If you're anything like me, you have a full-time (non-cartooning) job. Not to mention friends, family, pets and other interests competing for your precious, precious time. And there are so many comics you want to draw, sketchbooks you want to fill, and drawing and lettering and coloring techniques you want to study. You want to learn silkscreening and bookbinding skills to make pretty covers for your mini-comics, but it's hard enough to make time to draw the comics to go between those covers in the first place. So you you grit your teeth and make some painful decisions.

I used to be an even worse procrastinator than I am now, drawing a cartoon once every few months or years. But once newspapers starting paying for my weekly strip, I was forced to get my act in gear. There's a lot of room for improvement, but I'm getting there. and it always hurts to realize I can't do everything I want right this minute, but whenever I start to feel crazy and overwhelmed, I try to focus on...

My long-term goals:

ARTISTIC: Draw the best weekly political comic strip I can--push the envelope, make people think, change the world, avoid doing hack work. Although someday I would like to do short stories and even a graphic novel, I don't really have time for much of that right now. (ouch! pain! hurts!)
BUSINESS: Make a full-time living off of cartooning/illustration. I suspect that may take up to 10 years if it ever happens at all. Patience!
SOCIAL: Stay sane and happy, spend time with friends/family and make time for doing the non-cartooning things I love (cooking, sewing, etc.) Unfortunately this often comes into conflict with my first two goals, but I'll save that for another post.

I assign every cartoon-related thing a priority based on balancing those goals, and I try to be as ruthless as possible and not just agree to do everything. It's not the most scientific system, but, as Robyn said, "whatever works!":

1. THINGS I MUST DO CONSTANTLY OR FACE DIRE CONSEQUENCES

Draw my weekly political cartoon and email it to all my newspaper and web clients ON TIME. If this means not sleeping, not eating, drawing while near-unto-death with the flu or turning in a single-panel cartoon that I drew on typing paper during my lunch break, then so be it. If I miss a deadline, I'm toast.
Send out invoices, pay bills, etc. I hate doing this crap but it's key.

2. THINGS I DO REGULARLY

Consume newspapers, blogs, and radio like the crazed news junkie I am.
Update my website with my latest cartoons. When I'm busy I sometimes don't get around to it, but no big deal.
Keep a running "whip" list of ideas broken into categories (political, non-political, autobiographical, etc.) in my email. So even when I'm not actually drawing all those ideas, I'm letting them percolate. SOOOO helpful.
Take paid illustration gigs. I don't go looking for them but I never turn them down, stress and sleeplessness or no.
Attend cartooning, political, and newspaper conventions. It takes lots of time/money, but this is the main way I've picked up paying clients and made good connections, and it combines socializing with cartooning, yee-ha!
Read other people's cartoons and comics.

3. THINGS I DO WHENEVER I HAVE THE TIME

Blogging. This may sound like procrastination, but it actually helps me get cartoon ideas. When I'm crazy busy, the blog goes silent.
Draw in my sketchbook. In high school I'd fill 1-10 pages a day with colorful doodles and sketches from life of friends done while socializing. But I've had to scale back to keeping a bite-sized sketchbook mainly just for ideas--though I still draw from life when I remember to (which is NEVER enough).
Put together and sell mini-comic collections of my cartoons, usually for conventions.

4. THINGS I REALLY REALLY WANT TO DO BUT NEVER GET AROUND TO EVER

Non-political comics projects--cartoons that (a) are more than 6 panels (b) actually tell a story and (c) involve characters other than Bush/Cheney. I haven't done an actual story-telling comic since I was 15. That SUCKS. Maybe being a part of "Make Comics Forever!!" can help me change this.
Redesign my website. Set up a much more user-friendly store to get people to buy more stuff.
Make T-shirts and buttons. I've been approached a number of times about making T-shirts based on my cartoons, and another political cartoonist told me he made $15,000 from T-shirt sales alone in a year, but it's just not as important as drawing comics.
Try to acquire more clients (sending out emails and packets). I really gotta get on that if I'm ever going to make a living off this.

5. THINGS I USED TO AGREE TO DO BUT HAVE LEARNED NOT TO

Draw cartoons for worthy causes for free, even if it seems like it'll be quick. I've got a full-time dayjob, friends, family and a cat, after all--not to mention all of my own projects that I don't have time for. I do still sometimes let cool organizations use work I've already done for cheap/free, but I've stopped doing random pro-bono stuff, because I never actually get around to it, and then EVERYONE loses.

I could go on forever, but I've got a cartoon due at 8 a.m. tomorrow that I haven't started AT ALL.

So that's how I keep from overwhelming myself, usually. How about the rest of you?

"My name is Robyn, and I'm a procrastinator."

2005-10-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

I see Make Comics Forever! as a 12 step program for the procrastinator and the productively challenged. I didn't know what the real 12 steps of AA were, so I looked 'em up:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.

2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Hmm... Maybe these steps won't work for me. I’m not big on tricking myself into believing in god, even if has results (no offence, I'm just not a believer.) But I'm interested in prayer and meditation, as long as there's no deity attached. Something to explore. Anybody who has experienced improved productivity due to faith or prayer, please add your thoughts.

Ok here's my 10 step program. What’s yours?

1. Admit you have a problem. Address the fact that you are not living up to your potential as a cartoonist.

2. Admit that you do have potential. With a little confidence and a lot of labor, you are capable of making great comics. Believe this, and be excited by it.

3. Dedicate yourself becoming more productive. Understand this means changing your behavior and initiating new work habits. Understand that this is very hard.

4. Create a master plan to improve your productivity.

5. Commit this plan to paper.

6. Share this plan with your friends and colleagues. Create an open dialogue with your colleagues about productivity and work habits. Our shared wisdom is one of our most useful tools.

7. Integrate your plan into your daily schedule.

8. Keep a regular record of how you implement your plan. Chart your productivity.

9. Assess these records and find out if your plan is working. If it is not working, create a new master plan.

10. Share your failures and successes with your colleagues.

Maybe it's a little dorky to make plans like these, but I'll do what it takes to get better!

Do It and Screw It! (what's your motto?)

2005-09-27T20:15:00.000-05:00

"Do it and screw it" is a phrase I heard from my friend, super-cartoonist Vanessa Davis. I think it comes form her mom. It just means stop worrying and get on with it! Do it!

Also there's "When in doubt, black it out." That's from my former professor and current boss James Sturm. It's just a practical recommendation when designing a panel. James would probably agree that Tom Hart's "When in doubt, use tracing paper" is more helpful. Tracing paper"s such a great tool, it can save you from ruining a drawing.

Then there's "Make every moment a working moment." That's from K Thor Jenson. Thor has been producing comics steadily since he was a teenager. He's an advocate for drawing whenever you can, like on the subway. Your sketchbook: don't leave home without it!

Welcome to Make Comics Forever!!

2005-09-27T16:43:00.000-05:00

This blog and it's name are inspired by a speech my friend Alec Longstreth gave when he accepted his Best Mini Comic Ignatz Award. Alec's philosophies on work and productivity have been very inspirational to me. I want to work harder and I hope this blog will help me. I hope it will help you too.
In the spirit of NOT WASTING TIME I'll stop writing now. But please, share your ideas here!