False Start… Four-Week Penalty, Still First Down
I recently was inspired to make a big push to get my comic back on track. For the better part of two weeks I cast everything else aside, hunkered down and plowed ahead. Unfortunately, during that time I neglected everything else: my day job, the housecleaning, everything. I’ve been spending the last month trying to recover. Worse still, I’m not that much further ahead on my comic.
I clearly need a new plan, one that is sustainable and avoids repeating my past mistakes. I’ll be posting about that in a bit. But right now I’m extremely fatigued from three weeks of sacrificing sleep to the overtime monster. I’m going to bed.
October 5th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
One panel at a time, my friend. One panel at a time. If you have limited time, keep your aims small. Aim to get just one panel completed in a session. Or one figure. One arm. Whatever. No matter how little the progress appears to be, it is progress — and eventually you will have a complete page with no loss of life’s essentials.
And, don’t forget, the more you do, the faster you get. Drawing comics is, after all, largely a process of repetition.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Ok…
Step 1) Tell Jeannie to quit school, get a second job and start collecting aluminum cans on the weekends for recycling money. That way, she can pay all the bills when you…
Step 2) Quit your day job.
Step 3) Change your dietary habits. You’re going to have to make that money stretch as far as possible. Baloney, pot pies and tuna are all easy to get cheap from wholesalers. Bread tastes just as good from the day-old shop as it does from the big stores and bananas are just fine, and cheaper, once they go brown.
Step 4) Sell your car. No, not Jeannie’s car, yours. she has to work to support the starving artist in the house. You can always buy a better one later when you get that huge check for the movie rights and, besides, you can get around town by bus or by bike if have to go somewhere. But you don’t. Why?
Step 5) No more distractions. No more TV, movies, dinners out, cigarettes, all night benders, strip club splurges, conjugal visits, comic books or human contact until at least ten pages are done. You stay in that closet with your candles, art board, pencils, ink pens and drawing board and you don’t come out. Jeannie can refill your water and food bowls and you can always use the wooden hangers to keep you from falling over in your sleep.
Step 6) Apply penalties for failure. Get someone you trust to carry out punishment for missed deadlines. Each missed deadline gets a progressively worse punishment. The first deadline missed gets you a cigarette lighter under your feet for one minute (thus, putting your feet to the fire.) The second blown deadline gets your non-drawing hand’s pinkie mashed with a mallet. The third blown deadline gets you taken out of the closet just long enough to be subjected to a Uwe Boll film festival. The forth missed deadline gets a free pass as we figure that anybody traumatized by a Uwe Boll film festival won’t be able to mentally function for at least three days. And that’s only after the recovery from the failed suicide attempt made during the thing. The fifth botched deadline… It gets nasty. But, hey, you don’t want kids so you won’t miss them anyway. After that… Well, there’s a reason that they’re called deadlines. Oh, yeah, that’s right mister. City of the Living Dead, City of the Walking Dead, Orgy of the Dead, Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis, Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave and Hell of the Living Dead in one sitting. Yeah, baby, we mean business.
Step 7) If all else fails, use the patented Rob Liefeld technique. Hey, it’s not copying someone else’s work, it’s an homage.
Step
Send first issue to the printers and await your windfall.
Hey, Allan beat me to the serious post. All I could do after that was go off my meds and see where the post would go. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, but I have to go. The large purple slime monster that lives under my shoes in the closet is getting ready to come after me and these three green elves are telling me to go with them if I want to live.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
In all seriousness, Allan is right. set little goals and it’s easier to get them done. I have a buddy who used to run marathons. I once asked him how in the hell he could run 30, 40 or 50 miles at a go without freaking out after the first ten and realizing that he wasn’t even halfway there.
He said it was easy, he never ran that far. He only ran from the starting point to the “big grey building” a mile or so away. Then he only ran from the big grey building to the park. Then he only ran from the park… You get the idea. He found landmarks to create mini goals for himself, accomplished those one at a time and never thought about the total distance of the marathon until he woke up the next day in cramped agony and moaning like one of Mulligan’s zombies.
Same here. Little goals. Aim for a panel. Aim for a good layout. Go for small but consistently progressing goals.
You can do it. We know you can. I’ve even already got my $3.95 set aside for January of ’08.
October 6th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Don’t know if we’ve talked about this or not, so if we have forgive my swiss cheese memory. Have you thought of maybe reversing the first two issues? I always find it’s easier in a series to write the second one first since you’ve already established the characters in the first one and you can just let them play from then on. If there was one obstacle that hero films generally have it’s the origin story. Burton’s first Batman avoided this by already having the character developed into who he’d be. Dive right into what the characters are, hook the audience with this, then flesh them out more as you go.
October 6th, 2007 at 7:44 am
Well Bill, I’m the last person to give you any advice about time management. But, if you have a good story to tell — and you do — than that’s what you should focus about, wanting to tell that story, and then see how to find whatever time you can.
Since you have to work at present, you can’t devoat all your time to it. That’s a fact. It seems to me better to find a way to fit your creative work into your routine on a regular basis rather than focus all your energy on short bursts of intensive work. Like Jerry said, it’s a marathon. Even if you make little progress once, twice a week, at least you’re making progress. Even better, your comic is routinely on your mind (2nd to Jeannie of course), even if all you’re doing is daydreaming a scene on your way home. But of course, what do I know?
October 8th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
My friends, thank you for the advice.
Thank you also for voicing such faith in me. It means more than I can say.
October 9th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
I still think step 6 is the best.
October 10th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Potty training is going to be an interesting experience for Ian, I see.
October 10th, 2007 at 10:31 am
What? If he poops or pees in the wrong place, you just rub his face in it and tell him he’s a bad do… baby. That’s the way everybody else does it, isn’t it?
October 11th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Uhm, yeah, Jerry. That’s…that’s just how everybody else does it. I heard that whole Dr. Spock book was, uh, diagrams, yeah, diagrams off how to do that. Good job, Jerry(get the thorazine, guys)way to take charge of the (get the damn Thorazine) situation and show us how to rear a (for the love of God where’s the damn thorazine) a healthy, happy child….
October 11th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Sure… And the next thing that you’ll try and tell me is that you’re not supposed to clean the kid’s butt with the garden hose and then let him air dry on the cloths line after he’s messed his diaper. I mean, it’s not like you can pull the wool over my eyes about this topic. we’re talking child rearing, not rocket science. It’s all about the judicious application of common sense.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Jerry, have I mentioned that Jeannie works for Child Protective? Because she does.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
What?!? I use the good wooden cloths pins when I hang him up to dry and not those el cheapo plastic ones that you can find at Dollar Tree. He’s not going to fall down.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Yeah, Bill! Come on, cut the man a break! He uses the cheapo plastic ones to keep him from crying! And I see that he didn’t post the “again” after the fall down line. Wise man, Jerry. Our of curiousity, and the interests of Ian’s equilibrium development, is this a straight clothesline or one of the spinning ones?
October 11th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Bill
Try telling your story to someone who has never heard it before (me if you can’t find someone closer). We tend to ask dumb questions that get you thinking in different directions.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Gentlemen
Should you ever like to know the truth of how sappy a daddy a certain blogger is…feel free to email. I have plenty of black…er…videos I’d be happy to send.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:05 am
Jennifer, I saw your post and your e-mail. I just haven’t had time to respond to either until now.
I believe you when you say your offer to let me run my story by you is sincere, and I intend to take you up on it. Also, if you have anything showing Jerry’s sappy side that I can post in my blog, please forward it to me.
October 12th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
My sappy side!?! I’ll give you my sappy side. Watch your inbox.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Great, sticky e-mails flying around, Bill’s going to get stuck in one, fossilize, and then in 65 million years someone’ll clone him, PAD, John Byrne, Chris Clairemont and Irving Forbush and they’ll run around an island eating people and sneezing on them. See what you’re responsible for?
October 12th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Hey, I just had a thought, and BOY, am I tired. Anyway, Bill’s had MY script for some time. Any of you other types wanna see it?
October 12th, 2007 at 7:32 pm
Okay, yes, that reminds me, I NEED TO READ EVERYONE’S STUFF! I’ve hooked up my printer. No more excuses. I’m printing them tonight and starting this weekend. You are a talented bunch and I am expecting to be very entertained.
October 12th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Oh, and Jerry, I got the sappy picture from Jenn (in other words, a photo of the real you), and your sorry attempt to look badass. I will post both photos so people can all see that you are really a softie trying to look tough.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Sure, Sean. send it any time.
October 12th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
My wife LIES! That’s all I have to say on the matter or about Bill’s photoshopped fakes.
October 13th, 2007 at 8:23 am
I’d love to see your script Sean. And Bill, I still owe you some comments on your work.
October 14th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
Over 48 later and counting after the big threat.
Yah got NOTHING!
October 14th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I hate screwing up things like that. Just kills the effect.
________________________________________________________
Over 48 hours later and counting after the big threat.
Yah got INOTHING!
October 14th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
I quit.