Blood, Sweat and Tears

It's hard to explain the state of things right now. Part waiting, part stuck in the mud. It feels like all the things I've used to escape in the past are in a frozen status. My art studio has been lifeless and cold for several months now. My computer hard drive is slaved on my parents computer, so I only get about 5 minutes a day to access it. And even my X-Box, has been out of reach for a few weeks. My phones stopped working a while ago. And in general I'm just out of touch. So it's left me with loads of time to think.

Angel Medina - a fairly well established comic book artist in the industry, was explaining to someone at the convention how he was able to muddle through a day-job and still produce comic book artwork. This is a question I've heard asked many times, and I've always longed for a decent answer myself. His response was that drawing comics was his escape. He would get home from work and school each day and escape into the artwork. It was fun! He also said that when he finally started getting paying work, and even when he went full time, that every day was like a vacation. Because what he always did to escape was now what he did full time. I suppose that makes complete sense.

That conversation has been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since I heard it. Because, for all intents and purposes, artwork is not my escape. Not anymore at least. Don't get me wrong, I love to draw, and I often find myself escaping into the artwork. But more often than not it's something I push myself to do, or that I have to do. I remember drawing every night after working a shitty job, and loving every minute of it. I'd work 8 hours, go to school 8 hours and still spend several hours drawing. And I never felt tired. I barely even noticed the job and school. It was the artwork that kept me going.

But round about that time, I started to go to conventions and get feedback on my artwork. And I started to realize how much I had to learn to become a professional, how much work I had to put in to get that good. And there was no one around here to show me how to go about doing that. So I decided I had to push myself. That's when I lost the magic. I became obsessed with "going pro". It was my only option. I worked like a mad man towards the day when I could call myself a "Professional" comic book artist. Then that day came, and I've barely done any artwork since.

There is another factor at work here though, that I need to keep in mind. When I was working that shitty job and going to school back then; I wasn't working under crushing financial debts. It's suffocating how bad things have gotten. And even if I were to look at art as an escape, I'd still feel guilty trying to be a productive artist, when there is so much looming financial irresponsibility. Which brings us to this Path I'm on. This job sucks, but I'm not complaining. The worst part is having to face a new set of my own short-comings every week. Realizing how fucking arrogant I was before about so many things. Realizing how much I've taken for granted. Realizing how little pride I've taken in myself these past several years. And worst of all, Realizing how imposing this financial responsibility thing actually is.

So this little nagging thought that I've been afraid to give a voice for the past 3 months - finally has something to say. "I, Will Terrell, am no longer a professional comic book artist." That's a big statement. One that scares me a little. After all "comic book artist" has been my ENTIRE identity for going on 8 years now. But maybe that's the real issue here. There's much more to me than an artist. I've just lost sight of what else there is. It's frustrating that the more I try to understand myself, the more I find out I don't know to be as true as I once thought. I can only hope that if I keep to it I will eventually understand myself. Heh. That's not likely to ever happen. But ignorance is not an excuse.

As far as the art thing - I'm not quitting art. I'll still draw, especially to escape this weird little job. But I figure I've got a year or so of hard work ahead of me before I can take a dent out of my debt, and become a fiscally sound individual. Starting with paying my bills on time, and saving some money. Once I've got that down I'll start paying debt. No more chasing the higher-paying job. Having more money doesn't make me more responsible. And who knows, there may be a crossroads ahead on this path where I'll change again. I have a feeling more money will show up once I'm doing this right.

--Will

WIZARD WORLD TEXAS - 2004

It's been about a week since we got back from Wizard World Texas. It was a fantastic show. And I had just as much fun this year as I did last year. I don't know if anyone remembers me talking about the show last year,(or even if anyone cares, heh) but it was actually the first time I'd just "gone" to a convention without selling comics since back in '98. I spent most of the show this year (same as last year) just hanging out with other artists and talking. It's a big difference between that and the stress of having to haul a bunch of displays and comics around in hopes that people will pay you for them. So it was fun. Unfortunately, I didn't get many photos because my digital camera (ALSO same as last year) stopped working minutes before we hit the road for the show.

So this show was sort of an outcropping of my whole "following the universe" thing. I told myself that I wasn't going to force it. The event was either going to put itself together and the money would show up, or I wouldn't go at all. And in the end it did. It started with Luis (hey Luis!) offering me to ride down with him and his lovely wife. Which worked out great, it was good spending time with them, and getting to see what the convention experience was like from their perspective. And I greatly appreciate them letting me tag along. There was definitely no way I could have made it down there without them.


Click for Wizard World Texas Pics

Then came an offer from an old friend Brent Wright, whom I've known since Lubbock High. Luis, Brent and I used to fiddle around with the idea of drawing funny books for a living. Anyways, he said I could crash on his/and his girlfriends couch for a couple nights during the show. Which would have been MOST of my cost. So I am indefinitely grateful for that. Plus it was nice to spend a few nights in a plush downtown Dallas apartment. It had a great view of the city and the neighborhood just had a fantastic atmosphere to it. In exchange I got him a free pass to the show. One of the few perks I get for having published work.

Then I somehow magically pulled $100 bucks out of my ass to cover all the other expenses and even had a little spending money to boot. It's funny how it all came together. But it definitely left me knowing who's in charge.

PURPOSE

I don't always go to comic book conventions with a purpose. But this one was by far different. I had only ONE goal in mind for this show, and that was to get the answer to ONE question - from as many people as I could. And that question, which I asked of every artist and editor I could pin down?

"How do you produce a page of artwork EVERY day?"

And of course I got a different answer every time. But in the end, I extracted a single solution. I guess before I go into the answers, I should explain a little bit about the question. I've been making comics for a very long time. And there have been many reasons why I HAVEN'T been productive over the years. And I've tried to correct each one as they came to me. But being an artist is such a complicated and curious thing. You have to learn so much, and in so many ways that you never thought necessary - just to be a half-way competent artist. You have to have talent - but more importantly you have to have discipline. You have to have skill - but more importantly you have to have confidence. And if any little part is out of balance, you quickly fall out of productivity.

In the beginning I couldn't produce because I didn't have the skills, talent, confidence or discipline. I've whittled away at each of those until I'm no longer working in the red - so to speak. Whenever I show my art to editors these days, they don't have major qualms with my work. In fact many of them say I could get work at the level that I'm at. So productivity is no longer detrimented by a talent, skill, confidence or quality issue. But discipline - which has ALWAYS been a problem - seems to be my primary issue these days. And I've suspected that for a long time, but I'd no idea how to fix the problem, let alone what the problem was. Which brings us to the question.

"How do you produce a page of artwork EVERY day?"

I'll start from the beginning.

David Mack - Kabuki, Daredevil artist/writer.


I respect David Mack more than pretty much any artist in the biz. I've seen his growth from gritty, sloppy, indy-comix guy to "fine artist" and he's become a great writer to boot. He's never stopped pushing himself. And most important he's never stopped growing. If you look at his rugged blk/wht stuff from the early nineties, and compare it to the beautiful colored multi-media stuff he's doing now. And his mastery of pretty much every aspect of the medium is the pinnacle of the class to which I strive for. It's fantastic. So what was his answer to the question?

"You just gotta do it."

Needless to say, I was a little disappointed in that answer. He says he works a schedule every day, and works from when he wakes up till about 12 hours later. Then he stops. He's usually working on multiple pages at a time, so he never really knows how long it takes to finish a page. Some pages are quick, some take much longer. And he takes the time needed, regardless. He essentially surrounds the enemy until it's completed. So, no "silver-bullet" here. No snappy mantras to run through my head. No worries. I ended up buying a couple books that he had with lots of prelim, and production sketches and general stuff. Pretty helpful.

Next.

Michael Lark - Gotham Central, Terminal City

"I can't afford to NOT do it."

After a while that seemed to be a common theme among artists. Its' their job, and the more you do the more you make. His example was Jack Kirby. Who did an absurd amount of work in his time. When asked how he had such tremendous discipline. He said it never occurred to him that it was discipline. To him it was the more work he did, the more he got paid. I can respect that. But it's tough to think like that when you're not getting paid as it is.

Franchesco - "What If?", Big Blue

Luis and I met Franchesco through Penciljack.com. He's a fellow poster on the site. And in many ways our peer. He's a little farther along the track than we are, but not by much. But he offered some of the best advice of the entire show. His response to the question?

Draw a page a week. After 52 weeks you'll have 52 pages. Don't think about it like meeting deadlines. Don't think about it like meeting goals. Don't think about doing samples for a convention. Just think about doing a page before the week ends. And think that EVERY week. Eventually you'll start getting paid to do it, and you can think about doing a page before the day ends EVERY day. But never look at it like meeting deadlines.

Suddenly David Mack and Michael Lark's answers seemed a little more in context. They work the same shift everyday, and do the same amount of work every day. And they don't measure it in productivity, they measure it in the time worked. This concept was really put into perspective when I talked with...

Angel Medina - Spawn

He brought up Parkinsons theory. "The amount of work will take up the amount of time." If an artist is given 2 months to do a project, they're going to take 2 months to do it. If they are given 3 weeks to do the same project, they're going to take 3 weeks. His "Philosophy in comics" panel was filled with all kinds of fascinating artistic tidbits.

Michael Turner - Witchblade, Fathom, Soulfire



The last panel of the convention was with Michael Turner. He's one of my favorite artists. I remember being the biggest Michael Turner fanboy a few years back. But to this point I've met him about a dozen times, and have had several interesting conversations with him, so the fanboy thing has kind of subsided. Now it feels more like one artist talking to another. Believe me when I say I never thought that would happen. So Turner answers the question before I even ask it. The panel topic just happens to be "Preparing the perfect portfolio." And in the panel he discusses his opinion on producing artwork. Which goes like this... Take as much time as you need to make the pages look perfect. Until you get the job. Then deal with getting your speed up. If it takes two weeks to produce a quality page, then take two weeks. Take longer if you need. Just don't worry about speed. Once you get good, you'll get work, and they'll teach you how to get fast. Quality is ALWAYS more important than speed. Which also explains why his books are sometimes late. heh.

The discussion reminded me of a great quote from Dave Sim - Cerebus. "First you get good... then you get fast. Then you get good AND fast." Pretty straight forward, but that's what it takes.

So after all that, I'm not sure really what I know. I know that imposing so many deadlines on myself the last few years was a great detriment to my productivity. And creating new deadlines to make me feel better only made me feel a hundred times worse in the end when I blew those too. And I need to stop being butt-hurt about all that and start drawing again. Only this time I need to be patient and be happy with a page every week or two.

On another note, Michael Turner really liked my sample pages last year and asked me to do some samples of his fathom character. Sitting through the panel Sunday, I really regretted that I never did that. But it was at the same time that I was doing the proposals for Disney. And now I know that I definitely picked the wrong pony. Live and learn.

--Will

Growing Pains

I'm depressed. I recognize that. And I think it's just something that's going to have to work itself out. I've been trying to follow my life's path, my passion, for a very long time. It has led me on many amazing and exciting adventures. And caused me a great deal of heartbreak and troubles. I'm on a new path now, but this time it's not one I'm trying to force into existence. It's one I believe the universe has laid out in front of me. And though it seems to conflict with all my urges and needs, I will continue upon it. Because I know now, that it's the right thing to do. The Universe will one day lead me to all the things I want and need. But it must be done in it's own unique and amazing way.

So about the time of my birthday last month, I re-engulfed myself into "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelo. Round about that time I had also resolved a few things. 1.) That I will, for the first time in my life, become financially responsible and get myself completely out of debt. And 2.) I will stop making plans for a while and just see what that does for me. 3.) I will figure out what it is that's held me back from doing comic books for a living and remedy that problem (I'll talk more about this one in another post). That didn't however mean I was expecting the universe to do it all for me. Frankly I didn't know what it meant. Or what I was doing it for... just that it needed to be done.

About a week later, Addy and I left Lubbock to go the funeral of a close friend's Mom in Waco. It was at the same time both saddening and surprisingly uplifting. I'd say that when someone has lived their life well, they leave a wake of both joy and sadness behind them. But afterwords, we suddenly had an empty weekend and an open road, we decided to stumble our way to New Orleans. It was a fascinating and exciting trip. One I'll probably write more of someday. But for these purposes I'm merely glancing over it. I've been to N'Awlins before, but never with as good a traveling buddy nor as sweet a lover. It was a very good time. The trip brought my instincts back to me. I felt in 'tune' with the universe once again. Learning to trust myself and the world around me. Learning to "Have a little faith." And to just enjoy every moment. It's been a long time coming.

We finally crept back into Lubbock on a snowy and stormy supertuesday. At about 8:00 in the morning. Too tired to give a shit about the election I'd been so completely obsessed with the last six months. I wassle (remember it was snowing) up to my parents house to use their computer. My intention was to finish an online application for Wells Fargo that I'd not had time to finish before we left. I was of course instantly denied. They said I wasn't right for the job, I don't know how they knew it. I thought I'd lied well enough. So much for easy money for paying off debts. So back in my apartment, I crash into bed next to my zombie girlfriend. And I am promptly roused back to wake by a knock at my door. It's my ex-girlfriend Misty's boyfriend. He's there to tell me about a job working at the little cafe that Misty's working at. They're desperate. How can I pass? $5.50 an hour, to wash dishes 8 hours a day. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count the reasons. So why did I take the job you ask? "When opportunity knocks..." I can't say it's the job I want, or that it's even in the top 10... thousand. But my instincts tell me "This is the job the universe wants me to have." Don't ask me why.

I'll be honest, the job kind of sucks. My feet haven't hurt this bad since I worked in the grocery biz in high school. I smell like sewage, and I haven't been awake at 8 in the morning in God knows how long. So what do I get out of the job? Well there's the free food. Some of the best food I ever 'et'. Free drinks, cakes... mmmmm... cakes. Oh and don't forget the money. But seriously, at first glance, what do I get out of this. Well, I've been humbled. There's no arrogance in cleaning the filth of others. And even less gratuity (so to speak). I'm starting to hate people who don't leave tips(fuck you MR. Pink!). But after a week I'm starting to see something else. One of my biggest personal flaws is that I have a tendency to change circumstances. Just ask anyone that's ever worked with me, lol. But in this job, for the last couple days at least, the circumstances keep changing on me. I feel like a damned pinball. And I realized that I have a LOT of trouble dealing with it. I have a feeling, that if I stick with this job, I'm going to get a lot of practice learning how to deal with that. And God only knows what else is in store for me. I've got so much to learn.

This path, wherever it's leading, is something I feel I'm supposed to take. It's not glamorous. But all the signs are pointing this way. I sure as hell hope it's right, lol. Because $5.50 an hour is sort of counter-intuitive to paying off debt. And slave labor is not the first job I wanted to take after 3 years of being self-employed. But you have to trust the signs. What's the latest one? I finally talked with my best friend Brandon a couple days ago. He had a birthday present for me that he got a few weeks ago. But he didn't get the chance to give it to me till the other day. Guess what it was? "The Pilgrimage" By Paulo Coelo.

--Will

Killing me softly

I just found out that McDonald's has discontinued the McDonaldLand cookies. I just had some a couple months ago. It was just like old times. Look at me, I feel like I'm talking about the death of an old friend. I suppose it's not far off. They're killing my childhood one sugar-coated morsel at a time.

The worst part is they've replaced them with fresh-baked chocolate chip cookes. Those bastards.

--Will

"Just a one-fingered victory salute."


I have to admit, I don't really know what to think. I'm not really angry. I'm mostly... broken. I guess I just don't care anymore. I think I have been more naive than I could have imagined. I was blind-sided at how many people adamantly support this guy. It's especially bad since I don't understand how anyone can think George Bush is a good person? I'm not trying to be combative here. This is literally what I think. It's as clear as fact to me, and I only assumed that in time everyone else would see it. I mean I literally cannot fathom how someone could look at the same person that I'm looking at and hear the same things coming out of his mouth, and see the same actions... and think "Now this is the guy I want in charge." How is that possible?! Please someone, for the love of GOD, explain to me how ANYone can think that George Bush is a GOOD human being! Let alone the Fucking President of the United States!

The only thing I can imagine, comes from the little experience I've had being confined in a small office with two other guys listening to am talk radio from 9 am till 3pm for a few months straight. Hearing Sean Hennedy and Bill O'reilly and Rush Limbaugh every day for 3 months, listening to them "SPIN" every word and event to run through the pipeline. Then seeing these same two guys "lather, rinse, repeat" preaching this same party line relentlessly/mindlessly. Without ANY real evidence to support what they were saying. Speculation, spin, and fucking half truths. That's all it was. I don't really consider myself liberal, but compared to these two guys I guess pretty much anyone that thought for themselves would be considered liberal. And I think that's really the difference between "conservative" and "liberal". Every "liberal" I've known, seems to be someone that actually researches for themselves. Not just reads the headline on drudge report, or whatever tripe Limbaugh is venting that morning. Anytime I hear of some event, I look it up, I research it, I read it in at least 5 - 10 sources. And EVERY thing... EVERYTHING... I've ever read has shown another side of George Bush. But these two guys only had what Am radio gave them. No REAL proof.

Could that be it? Is it just from lack of truth that so MANY people are so fucking blind to this?! Please someone tell me. Is there just something I'm not seeing here? Is there some secret club that I've been left out of? I want MY decoder ring? Because right now I am so fucking lost I can't even think straight. It doesn't' help that I only know four people... FOUR people out of my 200 some odd circle of friends that voted for Bush. So I have almost no perception of WHO it is that's supporting this guy, and WHY the fuck they think the way do.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. It's the same way I feel about being Christian. You can't make someone find God, just like you can't MAKE someone find the truth. But if you WANT to find God/Truth, you have to be persistent, YOU have to seek the truth, YOU have to ask lots of questions for yourself and for christ's sake you can't let someone else feed you the lines. If you only voted for Bush because you think he's protecting you, you need to do some REAL research about this war. If you only voted for Bush because of what the talk radio has fed you, you need to look at a LOT more sources. Because they've got an agenda. And it sure as hell isn't you. Unless I'm wrong, and I'd like to admit I am. So please SOMEONE show me the light here. Because I'm sick and tired of the way things are going.



By the way, I got a job today... I'll be making $5.75 an hour. I haven't made that shitty a wage since I was 14. But for the first time since I started working as a sacker at a grocery store in Junior High, I can't find a fucking job. I have a great work history, I've got tons of experience, and references, but this is the shittiest Job market we have seen in a very... very.. long time. My parents see that day in - day out - working at the unemployment office. I tell you, I'd rather have a decent job than be "safe" in George Bush's care.

--Will

disclaimer. I realize this is a lot of piss and vitrol. It's not my normal way. But I'm very upset, and to be honest, bewildered; and I've always had a hard time hiding my feelings. I'm also aware that it's a little too biased to get "real" feedback from the other side, but if you can wade through the pissyness, I'd really like to understand why people feel the way they do about supporting Bush.