This update was drawn collaboratively by me and Mike Holmes! Valerie colored the whole beast. And Gisele did the flats! It’s a real honor working with these folks.
here’s a fun thing about making comics you might not know if you’ve never made comics:
You will be 25% less good at art per page than normal
Probably because there’s so much drawing and figures and scenery going on and you probably have a time limit to how long you can work, and sometimes you just don’t see things wrong with a drawing until you walk off for a few days or whatever, so there’s gonna be some weirdo faces, there’s gonna be a big hand, there’s gonna be a perspective fuckup. You WILL forget to color something.
you just have to be kind of ok with that
Thank you. It’s hard to drive this home to bros who still live in “can’t post anything that’s not a masterpiece, every piece must unequivocally assert the best qualities of my work” la-la land.
I used to feel that way! I get it! I still have problems with it. But it’s a real unhealthy mindset, and a GREAT way to never finish anything. Why? Because it’ll never be good enough.
Sometimes you just gotta take the hit and move on. Tell yourself you’ll fix it later if that’s what you gotta do. Shit.
This. I hate hearing people say that they won’t post their work online because it isn’t ready. It will never be ready.
In 2011, the voter turnout in Canada was around 60%, but only around 38% of young Canadians voted. That means that 62% of young Canadians weren’t represented at the 2011 election. 62% of young Canadians didn’t have their voice heard at the last election, and 62% of young Canadians didn’t have their ideas represented in politics for the next four years until now.
Elections are an opportunity to make the government listen to you and have them represent your ideas. This is an important election, and one where the youth vote could dramatically change the turn out.
Use this election as a way to make the government accountable to you and have them represent your values. Choose your vote carefully, read party platforms, follow their promises, stay up to date on the issues. On October 19th, go to polls and vote for the Canada that you want, whoever it is.
People want to believe that the youth of Canada doesn’t care. But we do care, you all care and you want Canada to be the best that it can be. So show all those people wrong, Go cast your ballot and pick the party that represents you.
okay jesus fuck this conversation has gone far enough so:
hey, so you like bernie sanders! i like bernie sanders too! i agree with his politics! he is doing better than people expected in the democratic primaries, which is cool!
what are you going to do if he loses?
because given the tone of the conversations i hear on this website right now– given the sheer hatred of hillary that’s emerging, given the overwhelming feeling that bernie sanders is amazing and the messiah and the only candidate that’s worth voting for in america– here’s what i see happening in mid-2016:
bernie sanders, who despite his better-than-expected performance still has an unbelievably low chance of winning the primaries, loses the primaries to hillary clinton
the leftist wing of the democratic party (that’s us– tumblr, yeah, but also the whole occupy-black lives matter-third wave feminist-young educated millennials crowd), having spent the past 10 months campaigning against hillary clinton, is overwhelmingly disappointed
while a few people are willing to bite the bullet and campaign for hillary, energy is low, disillusionment is high, and many leftist americans don’t campaign, don’t donate, and don’t vote (or vote for third-party candidates, like the green party or the peace and freedom party)
the republican party wins the presidential election.
(i literally shivered as i typed that last bullet point, btw– i know there are people voting in 2016 who were ten years old when obama was elected, and y’all may not remember much of the bush years. i was only 13 when bush left, but jesus christ– remember when hurricane katrina was overwhelmingly badly handled? remember when the patriot act passed? remember when the housing bubble collapsed? remember when the president said god told him to invade iraq? y’all wanna do that again?)
so what are you going to do if bernie sanders loses?
i need you to think about that now. i need you to not be surprised when it happens. i need you to not put all your hopes in one basket.
you think the gop won’t be pouring all their resources into this election? you think the superpacs and the koch brothers and the oil lobbyists won’t be throwing their money at ballot boxes until they spit out the result they want? you think the rich and powerful and conservative won’t be bringing their best game?
they will, and if we don’t work twice as hard as they do– no matter who the democratic nominee is– we are fucked.
i need you to be okay with the idea of hillary clinton being president of the united states, and i need you to make peace with that before she wins the primaries, so that you’re prepared and ready to campaign for her with all your might if she’s the democratic nominee.
because i honest-to-god believe this country will not survive another four, eight, twelve years of a republican administration.
my hand to god i have seen so many posts on my dash that have been both heartbreakingly optimistic and absolutely mind-bogglingly uninformed (and naive, but that comes with time; information comes with googling the way the government of your own country works. fun fact: not all primaries are open primaries! i know! this is inconsistent! it is also the world that we live in and i don’t think we’re going to get around to redesigning the electoral system before november 2016. just saying) and, like every election year, i have sat down and thought, albeit briefly, about this possibility:
the republican party wins the presidential election.
that is not a possibility that i can or will accept. i know we like to mythologize our figures here and put them on can-do-no-wrong pedestals, but, for god’s sake, to paraphrase: can we live in the real fucking world here, please? by all means, know that we can do better. by all means, know that we should. but here are some facts:
the us electoral system is not going to change by november 2016.
the notes on your tumblr post about bernie sanders’ ideology are not going to translate to votes.
those votes are not as big a percentage of the voting population as you think they are.
even if they were, bernie sanders is not going to be able to wave a magic wand and:
turn those ideas into policies
get those policies signed into law
get those laws implemented
they aren’t going to be perfect anyway.
can you imagine the reactionary voting in the election immediately following that anyway.
this is not how politics works. you don’t vote a politician into office and then stand back and watch the world fix itself! you don’t get to do that. it takes work and it takes time and it takes, sometimes, the willingness to accept and keep pushing through lowered expectations. i’m happy for your optimism and i’m happy for your energy. we need those! don’t lose them. do, however, remember that there is context to this, because we live, again, in the real fucking world.
And this has an embarrassingly low number of notes.
I know how a lot of people here feel about Hilary. If I had my druthers, I would MUCH rather have Bernie Sanders as president because his politics so closely align with my own. Like, stunningly close. A-breath-of-fresh-air close.
But consider these words from an ancient, jaded, 34 year old fuck who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000…
NONE OF US agreed with Gore. I mean, not really, at least. He was Republican-lite. First off, his wife Tipper was a friggin’ censorship Nazi, Gore was a Southern Baptist who was mum on gay rights, and while he gave lip service to climate change, please note that An Inconvenient Truth had not been produced or filmed, and there wasn’t much in the way of supporting the Kyoto protocols in his platform. He supported the limited military action in Iraq, supported NAFTA, and supported driving our production overseas. There wasn’t much to his platform other than “less scary alternative to Bush”. In other words, he was problematic as hell.
Then there was Ralph Nader, a consumer rights advocate, a proponent of gay marriage before it became a mainstream cause to champion, against NAFTA, spoke out against the military industrial complex, was pro-union, and anti-corporate.
And I voted for him. Proudly. In the general election. My reasoning was that nearly everyone I knew was voting for him (and everyone I knew were fellow college age leftists) so if enough of us got together and enough of us wanted that change to happen, then it would, right?
“Well, we’re talking about the primaries,” I can already hear you say. And yes, we are. But consider this: if Bernie ends up not winning the primaries, and no one turns out to the polls to vote for Hilary so they can “make a statement” or because she’s “problematic”, or turns out and votes Green or some other third Party for those same reasons, then history will repeat itself with disastrous consequences.
Here’s what happened on election night, November 7, 2000:
We waited. We watched Gore lose in battleground state after battleground state by just about the same number of votes that went to Ralph fucking Nader. Bush took all the dip shits who thought he’d be a swell feller to have a beer with. And then Florida and the recount and the Republican Party-led coup that stormed the voting recount, triggered the Supreme Court ruling and handed George W. Bush control of the country.
The first thing Bush did was reverse each and every executive order Clinton had put in place over the protestations of a crybaby Republican Congress, and most of those executive orders were designed to protect the middle class from corporate America and protect our budget surplus from the military industrial complex. Then Bush instituted legalized class warfare: the tax cuts that benefited the wealthy and still do to this day.
Then 9/11 happened.
If you’re 22 right now, then in 2001 you were 8 years old. In 2001, I was 20. I watched friends of mine who had joined the military because there were few other opportunities for them after high school get shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan and get their limbs blown off by IUDs. There are people I knew, people I ate lunch with every day, who are FUCKING DEAD right now.
Torture. Suppression of the press. Siphoning the nation’s wealth to the upper 1%, creating our current aristocracy. Investments made by principle members of the Bush regime in for-profit military-industrial corporations that were tasked with murdering hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Sunsetting the assault weapons ban. The Defense of Marriage Act. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security. The loss of an entire city and fucking nothing done about it as people were drowning and starving to death in New Orleans. No Child Left UnTested Behind. A color coded number system on every day of the news telling Americans how frightened they needed to be that day that hilariously enough coincided with how far Bush dipped in the polls that week. He dipped, we went up to terror threat: orange. His poll numbers went back up. Like clockwork.
Between 2001 and 2005 us leftists who thought that there was no different than center-left Democrats and right wing Republicans got hit by a giant clue by four and watched the fucking Republicans dismantle our safety, economic security, and our entire way of life. No, the centrists are not the same. THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE NOT THE SAME. One faction sort of listens to us. The other doesn’t give a shit about us and actively promotes policies designed to kill and silence us.
So please Support Bernie Sanders. Support him because if enough leftists make their voices known through his candidacy, then NO MATTER WHAT it will influence the DNC platform next summer. Support him because we’re all passionate about returning America to a thriving, working democracy and flushing out the corporate lobbyist corruption that has held our entire government hostage for a decade.
But if he doesn’t win the primaries then you need to support Hilary Clinton. And I’m not kidding, I’m not being hyperbolic. If the Republicans win, then you need to start preparing yourself for life under a fascist state.
Hint: it will help if you’re fundamentalist Christian, wealthy, white, straight, male, and cisgender.
Otherwise, you’re fucked.
All of this. Read it. I also lived through the Nader debacle. Vote for Bernie in the primaries if you agree with him. I like a lot of his politics too. But then you MUST SHOW UP FOR HILLARY IN THE GENERAL ELECTION OR WE WILL END UP WITH A THIRD PRESIDENT BUSH.
Three Supreme Court Justices are very old and may die in the next Presidential term.
Sometimes you fall off the wagon for months. Sometimes you tell yourself you’re gonna start fresh on Monday and by Wednesday you’ve already fallen back off. Sometimes you have to restart a 100 times and it’s frustrating. But it will be okay. You can do this. One day at a time
You’ve probably heard of the Sam Hiti death scare. You probably saw it as a hoax. You probably saw it as a call for help. Sam is alive, but his condition is private.
I don’t know what’s going on in Sam Hiti’s life.
I’ve only know that the past year has been difficult for him. Clusterfucked with illness, accidents, and a creative absence. I miss his presence, his studies of Claudia Cardinale and musings yielded by thick brush lines, and, most of all, his fierce independence. A lot of what I know from others and have experienced with comics has bothered me about this news.
Comics is a cancerous profession.
An overwhelming amount of people struggle with comics and it spreads them really fucking thin. A lot of people will come off jaded, ignorant, or morose, if not completely alone. It shows. It’s contagious. Its demand and time consumption won’t flow when the effects of production on personal lives destroy motivation and productivity. Especially when publishers try to get you to work at wholesale prices without the benefits you need to keep yourself healthy, support a family, and insure that if something happens to you, you have something there for you and your family to fall back on.
I don’t want to be pessimistic or “realistic” about comics. Comics at its best is one of the most nurturing communities I’ve known. But, as a career, judging from the people I know who struggle from depression and have expressed suicidal thoughts, it has the ability to have the creator running breathless with hooks digging deep into their backs.
Brandon Graham says that his job is “staying excited about comics.” This is important in looking at the self and comics whether it means focusing on yourself so you can continue to be healthy for comics.
But, the best advice is “don’t go into comics.” If you find yourself never quitting, you’ll have a Socratic virtue fulfilled, but at a cost greater for some lesser for others.
It’s okay to quit.
If comics has taken so much from you and given so little and you feel that you need to escape, you should. Trust your intuition. Even if you end up coming back to it a week later, months, years, or never. You are more important than comics.
Respect the people who choose to quit or take a long time to finish a project. Comics are demanding.
Those of you who know me, or follow my personal tumblr, probably know that making comics was one of the only things I was hanging on to when I was trying to kill myself last year. I shelved the project after being hospitalized. In that situation comics made things worse. I’d have panic attacks while inking. I started posting cryptic Work In Progress shots of a skeleton dude and cryptically alluding to plans for my death. I wasn’t healthy and comics were contributing to that sickness.
The tortured artist cliche is bullshit. Never tell someone to use their pain to create. It’s a bad route for them to take. Make sure they’re okay.
When you’re affected by the realities, depressed or sick, you might be incapable of stepping outside of yourself to stop yourself from doing something that will cause pain to yourself or others.
The way Sam Hiti announced his death today was really disrespectful to the people who know and love him as a person as well as his work. A lot of hearts skipped a few beats.
Don’t be angry. Don’t say that this is a hoax to sell books. You’re failing to empathize with a person who obviously is trying to process their future.
Empathy is one of the most important qualities a person can have, and it lacks with the omnipresence of the internet. If you encounter someone who has done something terrible, is going through the shit, or isn’t aware of themselves, know that you can never change a person, but empathy is still the best thing you can offer them.
People do really stupid things to deal with their paint. Some do it to themselves with substance or to others, whether their using people or sexually assaulting them. There are really terrible things people are capable of that you’d be surprised by. Shitty circumstances breeds shitty people more than it breeds great ones. Some of those people will put their trauma on other people and let the infection grow. It’s important to know that we’re all capable of changing ourselves after seeing ourselves as we appear.
I believe Sam Hiti is dead. This isn’t figuratively speaking. Sam Hiti, the cartoonist, has said goodbye, and by the looks of it, this was something that happened a while back. Comics were a part of his being to himself and others, and now that he recognized that has past, that person has passed on. Whether he’ll resurrect and make comics again is up to Sam Hiti, the person.
Also, note: I do not know what is going on in Sam Hiti’s life, nor do I want anyone to believe that’s the reality of his situation until he says something formal, if he does.
Empathize with others as you would yourself. Accept and seek out the help of others. You are important as other people and other people are as important as you.
I’m saddened and going to greatly miss Sam Hiti. I wish him and his family the best.
Art is something we experience and appreciate perpetually. It’s everywhere and more often offered for free. It is taken for granted. I know there’s a lot of preaching out there about supporting the arts, but seriously, support the arts. Send artists you love money and praise, buy their products, go out and see them when there are events close to you. Keep them going because keeping yourself excited about comics involves everyone. For someone to go about that task alone, either they’re endowed with a great spirit or crumbling slowly.
Hoax or not, I bought Sam’s goodbye package. I suggest you all consider showing him the final support and respect his decision to kill the cartoonist and join him in sending himself off.
Hey guys, I’m getting a lot of asks about the same things, mostly questions about how to make comics, how to “break into comics” (haha, oh dear), working with publishers, that kind of thing. I’ve done some blogging on many of the subjects, so instead of repeatedly replying in private with links to those posts, I’m going to do a master post thingie with links to all my blogging about how I work. Hopefully some of you will find some helpful nuggets in there! I remember when I first started trying to transition into making comics for a living, and there wasn’t much information about that online. I spent a lot of time wailing about it on a locked livejournal. XD But anyway, I hope my blogs help a wee bit.
Disclaimer: these blog posts are all based on my own personal experiences as a cartoonist, and the advice therein might not work for everyone. The most awesome thing about comics is that there is no one way to make them, nor is there one direct route into becoming a full-time cartoonist. The more pro cartoonists I meet, the more it drives home how different our methods and origin stories are.
Anyway, here you are! (With all of these, scroll past the placeholder image at the top of the post.)
Okay, I think that’s it! Whew! The remainder of the Friends With Boys blogging archive is here. It has some other bloggings that aren’t advice-related (mostly ramblings about comics I like), if you’re interested. If you have any other comic-related subjects you’d like me to blog about, feel free to drop a suggestion in the ask box.
I hope this was helpful. Share and enjoy!
Updated 08/12/15
I added some of the more recent blogging I’ve done on making comics to my Making Comics Master Link List (1A, 14, & 15), and tossed a couple of dead links. If there is a comic making related question you’d like to see me write about, drop a question in my ask box.
Hey guys, I’m getting a lot of asks about the same things, mostly questions about how to make comics, how to “break into comics” (haha, oh dear), working with publishers, that kind of thing. I’ve done some blogging on many of the subjects, so instead of repeatedly replying in private with links to those posts, I’m going to do a master post thingie with links to all my blogging about how I work. Hopefully some of you will find some helpful nuggets in there! I remember when I first started trying to transition into making comics for a living, and there wasn’t much information about that online. I spent a lot of time wailing about it on a locked livejournal. XD But anyway, I hope my blogs help a wee bit.
Disclaimer: these blog posts are all based on my own personal experiences as a cartoonist, and the advice therein might not work for everyone. The most awesome thing about comics is that there is no one way to make them, nor is there one direct route into becoming a full-time cartoonist. The more pro cartoonists I meet, the more it drives home how different our methods and origin stories are.
Anyway, here you are! (With all of these, scroll past the placeholder image at the top of the post.)
Okay, I think that’s it! Whew! The remainder of the Friends With Boys blogging archive is here. It has some other bloggings that aren’t advice-related (mostly ramblings about comics I like), if you’re interested. If you have any other comic-related subjects you’d like me to blog about, feel free to drop a suggestion in the ask box.
I hope this was helpful. Share and enjoy!
Updated 08/12/15
I added some of the more recent blogging I’ve done on making comics to my Making Comics Master Link List (1A, 14, & 15), and tossed a couple of dead links. If there is a comic making related question you’d like to see me write about, drop a question in my ask box.
kryspixable: hi, just a curious query for your 'Making Comics Master Link List'. do you have any advice/have read anywhere on how to promote your work if you live in a country that has little to no industry and is very hard to get into? Im Australian, and we dont have a lot of cons or anything in my part of the country. so just interested to see if you knew anything, if not, all good :)
You’re in luck: you may be physically far from the major comic book industries (Japan, France, the US), but you have the power of the internet at your disposal. The internet, email, etc, has made it possible for people who live far from the North American comic book industry to promote their work or break in to comics. As for the best way to promote your work online, that’s kind of a mystery to me as well (if anyone has any good article links or wants to share wisdom, please do!).
I tend to follow these three covenants:
1) Make good work
2) Post it online
3) Make your contact info easy to find (this is so important)!
That’s how I broke into comics, and how I promote my work.
A few years ago I was at a dinner with a bunch of people I knew casually. They all worked in the arts, mostly in animation. I was the only one who worked full time in comics, although other people did comics in their spare time. One guy who I didn’t know started talking about how he went to the Joe Kubert comics school in New York, but that it never lead to any paying work in comics.
“You have to live in New York to work in comics,” he said. I was like, no, you don’t. I work in comics full time and I don’t live in New York. I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia from 2005-2015 (I just moved to Vancouver for my boyfriend’s work last month). During those 10 years, I started getting comics published. I had 10 books published in about 8 years. For the most part, I’ve found publishers don’t care where you live. If your work is good, they’ll hire you.
Also, with the internet helping to broach geographical distances, I personally haven’t found conventions to be the key to breaking into comics, although they can be helpful. For years I didn’t go to conventions, mostly because I was shy and poor and lived in Nova Scotia, a plane ride away from most good cons. I was extremely socially awkward for many years, and the idea of going to cons to “promote” my comics was terrifying to me. So I focused instead on making a lot of comics and putting them online. That turned out to be the right thing for me, and eventually publishers noticed and started hiring me.
I didn’t start going to conventions until I started getting published, and then it was very few. My first convention was in 2007 (when my first book was published), and I’d do one or two a year until about 2013, when I started getting invited to conventions, which was super cool!
I’ve never done a portfolio review or chatted up an editor at a party. I’m bad at parties, and the idea of having an in-person portfolio review is terrifying to me. Those methods of breaking into comics don’t play to my strengths as a cartoonist and a person.
I have another dumb story. In 2008 I went to San Diego Comic Con. I was very broke at the time and spent (for me) a huge chunk of money. At the Con, I got to talk with the editorial director at First Second Books, and pitched him my graphic novel Friends with Boys. A month after the convention, First Second bought the comic. I was thrilled! I was so sure that being at SDCC in person had tipped the scales for the book, that my publisher had bought it because I was so winning while pitching it. It was my great shining moment.
In 2013, I brought up this moment to Mark. This is what happened:
HE DIDN’T EVEN REMEMBER THE MEETING.
The moral of the story is: sometimes being physically in the same place as the people who publish comics can be a very good thing! Sometimes it doesn’t matter one bit. :P
This is the sex ed video I wish my school had shown. Growing up in a religious school environment only taught me to be ashamed of my body and sexuality and I’m still unraveling it as an adult years later.
Artistic burnout is a problem many artists experience at some point in their career. If you’ve never experienced it, then consider yourself lucky. But if you have, I wanted to talk a little bit about it as someone who has been there.
Let’s be honest, art is a pretty awesome career. We’re extremely fortunate to get paid to do something we really love. It’s a wonderful thing to be able to turn a hobby into a career, and something I am truly grateful for. But like any career, sometimes it’s stressful and difficult, and it requires a lot of effort. It can be frustrating when that thing you used to do for fun in your free time becomes the thing that is causing you stress. It’s the one unfortunate side effect of turning your hobby into your job. Sometimes you’re just not going to enjoy it.
Hi, I'm Tim Lai! I'm a cartoonist living in Ontario, Canada. I like drawing cute and colourful things. This blog is a hub where you can find all of my Tumblr, DeviantArt, Flickr, Blogspot, and other posts in one place.
About My Work
I write and draw Lemon Inc., a comic about a seven-year-old who wants to be a business tycoon when he grows up. Until then, he runs a lemonade stand. You can read it at www.lemon-inc.com.
I have done some professional web and graphic design work, including designing the website for the webcomic, Just Joel. I'm also a member of the webcomic collective, Ink Bomb Comics.
August 22, 2015 01:46
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octopuspiecomic:
This update is a brilliant work of art.