For those of you who aren’t regulars here, this is Steve Collins, a.k.a. The Victory Streak. He is the title character of my upcoming comic-book, and naturally the protagonist of the story.

I’m going to be posting character designs for this and many of the other recurring characters in the book, with the exception of a couple whose appearance in this blog would reveal a major plot point that I don’t want to telegraph.

I’m leaning toward dispense with the idea of the costume altogether, as I’m kinda fascinated with the idea of a hero who runs around in street clothes. There’s something about normal clothes that grounds a character, at least for me, and makes the fantastic all the more believable. I’ve also thought about using the tee-shirt as a running joke, placing a different logo there in each issue (or at least in each story).

Can I pull it off? Ultimately, I think it will depend on my drawing skills. If my drawings are dynamic enough, I think I can make it work. I think this drawing represents an improvement over the last two I posted. But there is still enormous need for improvement. For example, I did a lousy job rendering the character’s hair, hands, and sneakers. And while I’m getting better at drawing folds in clothing, I still have a ways to go in that department.

I’ll be aiming for completing at least three sketches a week, all of which will be posted here. Feel free to leave a comment below. I’m eager to hear your thoughts!

I have also decided to strictly limit the blogs I visit so I can redirect my time and effort to writing and drawing my comic. It’s not going to be much of a sacrifice, as I’ve gotten weary of the predictably silly sniping that characterizes so much of Internet discourse. I’m going to be updating my blogroll to reflect those blogs I’m still reading and feel good about promoting.

I hope and pray that more of my friends don’t join the blogosphere, because if they do I’ll feel obligated to read their blogs as well at that expense of, say, sleeping. That will of course drive me stark raving mad, causing me to begin going door to door in nothing but my BVDs, asking those who actually answer their doorbells if they have a monkey or a purple hammer they can spare.

Finally, I’m going to try to commit to posting a sketch every other day. That will force me to get back in the regular drawing habit and give you all the chance to weigh in with your opinions about proposed character designs and the like.

I may stray a bit into posts that are only tangentially related to my creative endeavors but for the most part I will remain quite focused. This will have the dual purpose of making blogging *fun* for me again, and motivating me to stay on course with The Victory Streak.

The next time I post, I’ll have some preliminary character designs for The Victory Streak, in “costume.” I think I’ve identified a look that’s distinctive without falling into the cliche of an outlandish spandex outfit. I look forward to your feedback.

Later!

Here he is with a jacket: 

What do you think?

Hey kids, sorry I’ve been gone awhile. To make up for it, here is the first ever sketch of The Victory Streak in action!

I’m afraid the scan is kinda crappy. After I scanned the drawing, I tried inking it and remembered that my inking skills are waaayyyy behind my meager penciling skills. I’m going to “recover” it by tracing over it on a clean sheet using my lightbox, and see if I can tighten it up with a darker pencil that will scan better. If it’s appreciably better, I’ll post it.

Gotta go. I understand a friend is having a crisis of confidence and I need to set him straight.

No. This is about 37 years worth of struggling to get my life together, and my attempt to put a metaphorical stake in the ground and say, “It’s now or never. The battle will be won or lost here.”

37 isn’t that old by today’s standards, but as I approach my fourth decade I’ve begun to realize how quickly time creeps up on you. I’ve been to more funerals in the last three years than I’d care to see in a lifetime, and I know they won’t be the last. I’ve lost both of my maternal grandparents, an old friend, and a beloved pet. My girlfriend’s second cousin died after years of surviving longer than anyone thought he might; and her sister-in-law’s mother died on Christmas Eve of this year. A neighbor who had been living next door to my parents since before I was born succumbed to some awful disease that I can’t name and don’t understand.

Never before has it been so crystal clear to me that my life is finite. Whatever dreams I’ve got, there’s a limited and ever-narrowing window to bring them to fruition.

Concurrent with this epiphany has been a gnawing sense of frustration at my inability to keep my commitments to myself with respect to “The Victory Streak.” I’ve set deadline after deadline and missed every one. Some months ago I set a deadline for the end of this month and I can tell you I’m not even going to come close to making it. I feel like I’ve shot my credibility to hell with everyone else. I know I’ve shot my credibility to hell with *myself.* I see other people’s blogs and Web sites listing me as a “comic-book creator” and I think, “Like HELL!” Right now, I’m not an artist. I’m someone who talks about being an artist. I feel like I should shut the fuck up until I do something worth opening my mouth about.

Yeah, I’ve never had much compassion for myself. Never was that brought into sharper focus than when I participated in a thread in Colleen Doran’s blog around the topic of what gives you insomnia or something like that. I posted about my own lifetime of struggling with sleep disorders, and Colleen opined that what I described sounded like “hell.” I rejected the description, pointing out that there are people in this world without food, without medicine, without any measure of safety against violence. Colleen scolded me for ignoring my own suffering. And I realized that, yeah, for 37 years I really have suffered. I really have.

All my life I’ve struggled with inattention and lack of focus. It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). I’ve tried numerous medications, and while medicine has helped it’s not a cure. It’s a daily struggle, a war with and against myself. My mind races off in a seemingly infinite number of directions, unbidden by me. Words come tumbling out of my mouth before I have a chance to think about them, even for a fraction of a sliver of an instant. I’ll be in the midst of a riveting conversation, wanting nothing more than to listen to what someone is telling me, only to realize that my brain has shifted gears and I MISSED IT.

I also spent much of my 20s in the grips of a severe depression. I needed years of therapy and medication to pull out of it. I look back on that time and I can see a big, smoking crater where years of my life should have been.

It doesn’t end there. I mentioned sleep disorders. I suffer from Restless Legs Syndrome, which causes an overwhelming urge to move one’s limbs to the point where they’ll twitch on their own if you don’t give in. It’s always worst at night, which makes it hard to sleep. Add to that a case of sleep apnea I didn’t know I had until it was diagnosed two years ago, and, yeah, I’ve spent most of my life severely, cripplingly sleep-deprived. Hell, there were times when even the stimulants I take for ADD couldn’t help me keep my eyes open at work.

Sleep deprivation even robbed me of the ability to read effectively. Reading relies on an ability to scan words and sock them away into short term memory until “batches” of them can be processed. When your short-term memory is impaired by a severe lack of sleep, well, that gets a little tough to pull off. Also, the act of concentrating on a text often caused me to, you guessed it, fall asleep.

I’ve had a shitty time of it, and it’s high time I admit that to myself and cut myself a break.

These aren’t the only things that have gotten in the way of me pursuing my artistic endeavors, of course. There’s also my ever-present fear that I’m not, have never been, and will never be good enough.

Over the past few years, however, I’ve begun to realize each of these battles can be won. I’ve conquered my depression; I’m learning to live with ADD; my Restless Legs condition is now controlled with medication; and a CPAP machine has me sleeping more soundly than I ever dared to dream possible.

Having won these battles, I now know it’s time to fight the biggest battle of all: the war against the currents of time. Because you can get swept up by those currents and let them take you in random directions, or you can learn to navigate them so you end up where *you* want to be.

I realized that my lack of focus and direction has in part a result of having ADD and sleep disorders. But recently I’ve also realized that treating those medical conditions isn’t enough. That has merely created a situation in which I *can* learn to acquire discipline, focus, and direction, but I still must *choose* those things.

I recently found a book called Getting Things Done by David Allen that has been of great help. “GTD” (as it is known to its enthusiasts) has a reputation of being a bit of a cult. Well, it’s not. It’s a simple productivity methodology that I’ve begun applying across all aspects of my life, and the early results have been very promising.

The other good news is that during this last period of letting my artistic abilities lay fallow, the plot for the first issue of “The Victory Streak” has come to me in fragments of inspiration and today, without fail, I am going to begin to write it. I feel in my gut that this will be the best story I am capable of writing at this time — and that with time and effort my skills will only grow.

I am also eager to put pencil to paper once again. I recently bought a book called Working Methods in which numerous comic-book pencilers explain their process from start to finish. Reading it was a bit of an ephiphany, as I came to realize that most artists don’t simply lay down a piece of art board and begin drawing. They sketch designs on scrap paper, and often do a rough version of the drawing which they then place beneath the final art board and, with the aid of a light box, use as a guide to creating the finished drawing. So now I’ve got a lightbox and hopefully my days of erasing and redrawing until I ruin an expensive piece of Strathmore Bristol are over.

I still fell this gnawing fear that I’ll once again let myself down. That I’ll once again make a fool of myself with this sweeping, grandiose declaration that is followed up with nothing. But I don’t belong to my fears. They belong to me.

There is one fear I *will* allow to motivate me. I do not want to go to my grave wondering what might have been.

To any of you who made it to the end of this torturous post… thanks.

I need to thank Micha in particular for helping me to identify the “hook” around which I can structure the first chapter of the story. You have a good eye for story structure, Micha, and I’m grateful for the help.

(Jerry, Micha, Sean, and Bill Mulligan [who I haven't heard from lately -- I hope that's because he's busy filming "A Fistful of Brains!" and not because anything's wrong]): I will include you in the acknolwedgements in the first issue of the comic. I am also going to give each of you an original Victory Streak sketch. I wish I could give more, but I am a man of limited means at the moment.)

The issue of story structure is one that has confounded me for years because I have steadfastly refused to outline or otherwise plan my stories. My rationale was born of a fear that outlining would in some way cramp the spontaneity that I believe is the wellspring of my creativity. In other words, I’ve been just plain bullshitting myself.

What finally knocked the blinders off of my face was a remark made by Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist of the rock band Rush, in a documentary about the making of the new album, “Snakes & Arrows.” Peart said it’s emotion that moves him to write about something, but it’s craft that allows him to turn that passion into usable lyrics.

Okay. I get it now. I feel passionately about The Victory Streak. That’s a given. But I need to structure my story so that it accomplishes what I want it to, and that’s an issue of craft. The things are not mutually exclusive.

A final note: for those of you who are interested, I am experimenting with something called “mind-mapping” software from a company called MindJet. ”Mind-mapping” is a form of two-dimensional outlining that is supposed to better resemble how the human brain actually works. I’ll let you know the results. 

I’ll be posting progress updates frequently for those who are interested, by the way. I’m also bringing a sketchbook with me wherever I go, and I’ll be posting the best of my sketches here as well. I’ll try to post every couple of days at the very least, so don’t be a stranger!

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.

If you’re one of those people, do NOT even bother trying to tell me it’s not a big deal. It is a matter of honor. I am going to make the time you made for me. It’s that simple.

I need about a month.

Oh, and Sean Scullion, if you’re reading this, I lost the file for your script again, damn it! Would you mind re-sending? This time I will PRINT IT OUT. Paper doesn’t crash.

Before anyone decides to try talking me off the proverbial ledge, you might want to make note of the fact that I’m not ON that proverbial ledge. I believe in myself, and I believe in this project.

But I shouldn’t have posted that script to begin with. That’s what I did in January 2006, when I initiated this project. It was a mistake to post the first version back then, and it was a mistake to post this latest version as well. Both times I was giving into a deep-seated fear that I would never finish the comic. I wanted to get everyone’s attention with what little I felt I could do.

Well, I am through repeating the mistakes of the past. The only way this will work — the only way it should work, and the only way it CAN work — is for me to do things in this order: pencil, ink, letter, post. Repeat 24 times and I have an online comic. Send those 24 files to the printer, and I have a printed book.

Really simple.

I know exactly what was wrong with the script I posted, and how I can fix it. And NO, I am not wasting time tinkering with adverbs as a way of avoiding finishing this comic. If that’s what you think, well, you’re entitled to think that but you’re just plain wrong. I know that the best script I’m capable of writing today is going to look like junk to me a year from now. But when I finish the script and five minutes later realize it’s not REMOTELY close to the best work of which I am capable, yeah, I’m revising it.

It doesn’t hurt that this is an amateur, self-published venture and I have some grace time.

Well, except for that $250 grant offered by Colleen Doran. I have to have something to show for by September 15. And I will.

If anyone wants to read the script and comment about it here, I would certainly welcome the input. But the script is behind me now, and my sights are set squarely on the finished project.

In between finished pages, I’ll probably post the best drawings from my sketchbook. I think that’s legit. “Real” comic artists do that all the time.

Thanks to everyone who has supported this project so far. Please understand that without that support, I don’t believe any of this would be possible.

I am now going to bed.