I love comics.
Something about them as a form of expression and as a medium to tell a story has intrigued me for as long as I can remember. And why shouldn’t they?
If only real life could be so cool!
How cool would it be if you were bitten by a radioactive spider…and lived. And be able to scale buildings with your bare hands and shoot spider wedding all over your neighbor’s yard as a Halloween prank.
I started working in comics in the late 90s and it lasted about a year and a half. I got frustrated with the money I was making so I stopped freelancing and got a ‘real job’. I made good money but the job itself was toxic.
It was like drinking bleach and wondering why you feel like crap afterwards. Working there felt like being in a room full of teargas but only the managers had gas masks on.
So I got another job and it eventually sucked just as much.
I couldn’t go back to comics, after all, the pay sucked for an entry level stiff like me.
On the other hand working these jobs felt like blood money. I may as well sell crack to elementary school kids or export illegal diamonds from Africa.
Ken Honda has the best philosophy on this. He calls it Happy Money and Unhappy Money. Happy Money is when you make money doing what you enjoy and you’re grateful and appreciative for it.
Unhappy Money is when you grudgingly make or spend your money. Like unhappily paying off debt or paying alimony to an ex-spouse you can’t stand.
The energy behind your money matters. A lot. Read his book Happy Money. It’s an international bestseller for a reason.
Ken Honda’s book book wasn’t around back then but I wanted to earn HAPPY money again. Comics was my closest path but I was still afraid of the market.
There wasn’t enough opportunity.
The pay rates are low.
I had a small network.
I could think of excuse after limiting excuse. Logic told me I should be a realist.
I should do graphic design or make websites or do some other type of art that was hot at that time. I started slowly suffocating my dream and then I came across the blog post that changed my life.
An artist that appeared on my radar back then was Frank Cho. He did a lot of good-girl art, and since that is my jam he became one of my new favorites. I used to read his blog every week to see new art but this post was different.
Cho asked for people to stop asking him for commissions because he was booked for the next 14 months and could not accept any new work.
What!!???
This guy is booked for more than a year in advance!!!?
This…
Blew.
My.
Mind.
I didn’t even know that was possible for a comic book artist. My old paradigm that said comic book artists can’t make money exploded like the helicopter in Mission Impossible.
All of a sudden my limiting beliefs were replaced by ‘what if’ thinking.
What if I could be booked a year in advance?
What if I kept improving my art?
What if I grew my audience?
Those kind of thoughts were were music to my ears and they were WAY more helpful!
I eventually got back into comics but Cho taught me anything was possible. Even in comics.
Adam