A major motivating factor lately has been all the good comics I’ve been reading. I’ve spent about two hundred bucks in the last couple months on graphic novels. Collen Doran. Mark Smylie. Will Eisner. Eric Shanower. Harvey Pekar / Dean Haspiel. Guy Delisle. Those Flight anthologies. DVDs on Al Hirschfeld, Colleen Doran and American Splendor, plus the DVD of the panel I was on with Al Feldstein, Len Wein, Marie Severin and Dave Coverly.
The eye-candy has been so good, so luscious that I can hardly get my mind around it. Half the time I read stuff that good, I want to just chuck all my drawing implements down the garbage disposal, knowing that no matter how long I keep drawing, I’ll never have that level of artistic capability. And then, those damn Flight Anthologies. Beautiful strings of polished beads, each a gorgeous little experiment. And half the artists are, like, twenty.
I remember being in college, all crazy for the comics, and not being able to find any way to work them into my course of study. Tried for an independent study — twice — but the one qualified professor got horrible late-stage cancer and passed away mid-term. I was more-or-less stuck at EMU, and it was both comforting and enraging. I was a smart student; paid for my last two years entirely with scholarships, and actually even covered my room and board as well by carefully working the numbers. The professors, and my fellow students, were outstanding, but part of me still wonders what my life would have been like had I gone to RISD or SCAD or someplace arty.
I don’t know that I would have had any better of a time, though. I didn’t fit in with the Fine Ah-tists or Graphic Designers at the blue-collar school where I was — how would I have fared at an upscale art college? I’ve always considered myself more of a craftsman than a Fine Artist anyway, more focused on the process and the function of art than concepts and statements. The friends that I made in college are some of the most awesome, incredible people in the world, and I still keep in regular contact with at least two of my professors from EMU. The experience there was worthwhile — but when I see brilliant webcomickers like Spike and Dylan who are so damn talented, I wish wish wish that I’d been able to get started earlier.
I was so unfocused, trying everything from Childrens’ books to Fantasy illustration. It was all good experience, and I certainly regret none of the times or friends I made in their pursuit. But the work of those who have focussed primarily on comics from their very first art attempts — those artists are really damn incredible, and I so wish I’d been on the bus sooner. And then I saw Scott McCloud speak. Lord, what a visionary. He really, truly gets it. Watching him lecture both energized me and made me sad, for the lack of time I have to put all his brilliant ideas into motion in my own work.
I guess what I’m trying to say with this jumble of thoughts is that I’m really overwhelmed by the amount of sheer unadulterated talent in the current comics field. It’s incredible. The sheer quality of work that’s being pumped out on the web alone is staggering. And sometimes it feels, especially when I’m already down and desperately trying to cram comics into the tiny shrinking holes in my schedule, that I’ll never keep up. I’ll never be able to get up and over the bar that’s being raised on a daily basis by younger and more talented artists. I feel guilty for telling my friends that I want to stay in and make comics, that I won’t be coming to the next music session, that I’ve no time to hang out. And there’s all this brilliance around me and I am still grinding out only my second book in ten years.
But at the same time, it’s an incredible moment in history. Comics are racing toward ever greater heights, and it’s an unbelieveable feeling to be caught up in their surge. Overwhelming! Exhilirating! Scary! So much brilliance, will mine measure up? If nothing else, it’s motivation. Hyah, artist!