Lecture Time For Young Cartoonists

A rambling, unedited reply to someone on my Tumblr that I thought I'd repost here:

It doesn't matter if drawings are the best or anything, honestly. No one should apologize for their art, it will become a bad habit (I say this from decades of experience and therapy, trust me on this one if nothing else). I read something recently that I wrote down, I should have written the source. But it was saying that you have permission to be messy. PERMISSION TO BE MESSY. Meaning, don't get hung up on perfection or anything like that. You're not drawing for a client or to gain entrance to art school or win a contest. Even then, sometimes you should permit yourself to be messy. To fuck around and find out what happens on the page when you attack it with a pencil or pen or marker or paint. Have fun and play with it. They say you have to draw thousands of bad drawings before you start getting good. And even then you have to keep working to improve.

My early work SUCKED. It was HORRIBLE. Messy as anything. I had no real formal training, only an anatomy class and a class in drawing for animation in college. I was accepted to NYU's art program not because I was great but because someone saw potential in me. And they offered me a scholarship based on my dopey monster drawings and messy, awkward still life art from high school (unfortunately, I was applying to the wrong school for animation, I applied to the film program and they took anyone who could pay. And no scholarship for me).

You never know how your art will be seen. You never know what style, what writing, or what characters you come up with will be accepted or rejected by others. I managed to get into comics while my drawing was spirited but estremely crude, because the black and white market exploded and any monkey who could hold a pencil got hired to fill pages. Go look up the black and white explosion and the black and white bust from the 80s. The art is almost all garbage, like mine was. But I held on and got better and lightning struck when I made a Milk and Cheese comic. Which looked like dogshit, but made people laugh.

Which is a longwinded way of saying, draw for fun, draw for a hobby, copy the artists you like, as you get older if you get more serious about drawing expand your horizons, look at all sorts of art, work to improve your skills, check out different art supplies, look at tutorials online and check out instructional books and resources, draw from real life. But still have fun. And still be as messy as you want because you're learning. No one becomes amazing in a month. Or a year. I didn't get "good" until I was in my 30s, and I didn't get "better" until my 40s. Look at the first Eltingville comic and then compare it with the last two or three stories.

You (all) have permission to be messy in your artwork (and writing, and whatever). Just in case it's something you need to hear. I still need to remember it. And don't apologize for being young and drawing for fun and not being perfect. No one's perfect, even the artists who look perfect. Draw and have fun.