Life And Work Update (10/9/20)

Life has gotten in the way of work quite a bit these past few weeks, so several plans for the Patreon have been pushed around. I hope to address that asap.

As many of you know, I've been dealing with an extended first-world nightmare with our new used old car, which, after many hours and more money than hoped for, is at least finally resolved. For the first time in too long, we have a street legal operating safe vehicle we can depend on (knock on wood or any wood-like substance). This is, of course, a big deal for us. But it was a nearly Kafka-esque comedy of errors and financial terrors, between finding, buying, registering, insuring, inspecting, repairing, and other stuff,  so I'm glad that has been hurdled (your support -- and the support of folks on my IG account who have been buying drawings -- helped make that happen, by the way, so thank you). The impact of the pandemic on the NYC DMV certainly didn't make things any easier, my garage has been understaffed (and the owner had recently been sidelined for nine months with Covid), and the car being old caused some difficulties (the parts company sending a broken timing belt didn't help, either).

As some of you also know, I've also been dealing with dental issues that have sidetracked and sidelined me here and there. Antibiotics took care of the initial pain, but I ended up with a bad facial rash from them -- not from an internal allergy but from the effects of antibiotic-carrying sweat on my face. Wearing my mask while walking to the mechanic to finally pick up our car gave me a mask-shaped red, festering and burning rash that turned into lizard skin and hurt like hell for a few days. I was covered in an ocean of calamine lotion. That's on the mend, happily. As far as my big mouth goes, I have had two appointments and it looks like I have at last three or four more. I will be getting some fillings, some gum treatment, a cleaning and possibly will be losing a few wisdom teeth. I', mot really wigged out by al this, it's mostly the time being lost that's upsetting me. But obviously it all has to get done. Life stuff. I try to avoid life stuff but it does have a way of catching up with you.

I've been pushing off setting up livecasts here that I've meant to do because things have been so up in the air. I've done two pre-rash videocasts with my friend Paul that he got together for our horror movie podcast, but I need to schedule some actual Patreon sessions for you folks asap. It's something I look forward to, it's not just an obligation, I enjoy these things once I get past the "camera nerves".

I also hope we can finally get the Marvel villains print uploaded as soon as we're done dealing with our taxes. Beyond that there are some ongoing work things going on behind the scenes I can't discuss, but they've been a drain on my schedule, and I am hoping that situation will get resolved at some point. It's complicated, that's all I can say at this time.

And there's the life stuff going on that I don't talk about, even if I'm pretty open about life stuff because I like to show folks how the life stuff can affect the work stuff. Cartoonists don't usually talk about the life stuff, I mean, obviously, there's stuff no one wants to get into, even if they are open about the behind-the-scenes work stuff. Freelancing gives you less of a road map in life than a steady job and all that can afford (or is supposed to afford, it's becoming less of a road map every year). There's fewer nets, fewer days off (none, really), and everything that takes time takes time away from work and production. I don't know how people push through when serious health issues hit home, because just dealing with the loss of a car or a major appliance or two (or three? The washing machine is in hospice, apparently) or a few dental appointments has thrown my schedule into a tizzy. 

I don't think I've ever typed the word "tizzy" before. I apologize, I'll try not to do that again. 

Work-wise, the freaky thing that's going on is that I'm looking at not having any publishing projects on my schedule for the first time in perhaps...ever? Even when we were working full-time on the Eltingville pilot there were still plans or small comics projects in the works. Right now my schedule is bare of published comics, beyond work already done. The next Beasts of Burden series was written for 2020, but will see print next year owing to the pandemic shutdown. The Bill and Ted collected volume will be out in March, the Marvels Snapshot collection is scheduled for around that time, I believe. 

And that's all there is right now. I had a new project frozen during the pandemic, but I'm sitting on it because I'm not willing to take a proposed rate cut on it, or lower the artist budget. I know things aren't good and the pandemic has impacted the market, but I'm not willing to take a step back from rates that go back twenty years. I get almost no offers for work from publishers these days, Kurt Busiek hired us for the Human Torch gig, not Marvel. Dark Horse is the only place that calls. It's a depressed industry with an abundance of freelancers and reader options and I'm an older horse in the stable who can't do any new tricks. I don't socialize for gain or push myself on friends, and I don't know as many people in the industry as you might think. I'm not great at networking or asking about work (that's on me, for sure)I don't draw superheroes in the popular style, I'm not interested in writing deep continuity work. There are several publishers I will not work for, there are several publishers who don't pay enough to even consider approaching. I'm not fast enough to consider a viable Kickstarter project and I'm not sure if that's really a way to make money so much as a way to finance a particular project. I'm not in a good position to do that right now, either way. Viable anthologies are a thing of the past, magazines are gutted and modern art directors don't know me, MAD is hobbled as far as new work goes, we haven't had an animation gig of any kind in years and I missed my opportunity to get an agent to try to push on that..  

But, weirdly enough, I'm not panicking. I have one non-print writing gig that may continue when the first project is completed. We have been contacted about another, similar project..  I have the Patreon. I've managed to sell some original pages recently, and I've been selling the little index card drawings here and on Instagram and that's grocery money and some bills right there. And, at least in the short-term, I can make the same money as I did writing/making comics -- or better -- by working on private commissions. It's hard to get it through my head that writing and drawing is my business, not just my passion for making comics, and that it's okay to not be writing and drawing published comics for the direct market as a way of earning a living and supporting my family. 

We get wrapped up in the idea that we're not "working" or making a career for ourselves if we're not making comics or TV shows the rest of the industry takes notice of. If it's not in Previews or on Netflix or Hulu, it's not "real". Like how there are superhero comics the publishers and fans say "don't matter". This is crazy thinking, which I bought into like most everyone. Income is income, creating is creating, work is work.

Making direct market comics, keeping my name "out there" or being in the spotlight -- or the fuzzy edges of the spotlight, to be honest -- isn't doing much for me. Working on comics that don't make me much money isn't worth "being in comics". Not at my age or with my responsibilities. 

That doesn't mean I'm leaving comics or anything like that. You never know what's around the corner -- in 2020 we worked on a Marvel one-shot and a Bill and Ted series and several covers, all of which dropped into our laps unexpectedly. And I still make comics on my own here and online, I'm drawing more than I have in years. I can still take on comics work, but I came to the realization that I can hustle for myself for a while rather than my comics career. I don't have the Marvel or DC pull to just do commissions full-time, but I can definitely concentrate on that for a little while I see how things are going and where opportunities might appear. 

The idea of not being in comics full-time was and is daunting to me. I'm slow to abandon or curtail things that aren't working and I'm afraid of change in general. I stayed with SLG ten years longer than I should have and stalled my career. I kept doing Dork longer than as a single-issue comic when I should have been thinking about doing books. And of course, when you have self-worth issues, you tend to think doing things on your own, putting yourself out there as worth supporting and backing, are non-starters. I'm working on that, and have been working on that, which is why I finally started this Patreon. In many ways, I'm just finally trying to take my own advice to younger cartoonists. The timing could have been better, but, whatever. It's something to try. I might have a great new gig in a month, I might find commissions are sustainable for longer than expected. Drawing Milk and Cheese and Bill and Ted for folks while listening to music and old radio shows and podcasts isn't exactly drudgery.  

So. What I was intending to say here was, "I don't have a lot of new upcoming work, so I'm going to have to start posting more about older stuff". But as is usually the case, I veered off and went through the woods and over a few hills until I made it to my intended destination (probably a comic shop). I babble, but there is usually a point or two to it, and de-mystifying the "life" is part of that. Just because you don't see a name in Previews for a while doesn't mean they've left comics, stopped creating, or are even pining for the fields. I used to think that. I'm still learning, and I'm still making comics. But 2021 might be a slow year for that. And that's okay, as long as things work out all right (he said, perhaps more for his own benefit than anyone else's). 

In the meantime, I'm finishing up some script pages for an online project, I'm writing a foreword for a comic collection, and then I'm drawing a LOT of commissions for people -- the response was greater than I'd hoped for. I've started back on the 2020 list, all the newly commissioned pieces are set for next year, but I'm pretty much going full-time on these for a while so I expect to begin the next batch before the end of the year. I'll be posting them all here (unless I'm asked not too, of course).

Talk soon, post soon. Hope you're all staying safe, sound and sane.