The Glamorous Life
/When you tell people that you make/create/draw comic books, for the purpose of actually getting people to read them, you're usually met with one of three reactions:
- Disbelief
- Admiration
- Confusion
One common theme, I've noticed, is that people are instantly intrigued. Why would you do such a thing? How do you do such a thing? Or (my favorite, as asked by a technician giving me a facial) - How do you come up with ... ideas? The thing that I've always enjoyed is that overall I tend to get positive reactions. It's few and far between that people actually challenge me on whether I can make a living off of it (I can't - yet), or why to even bother putting stories out into the world. Most people are just impressed that you answered their "What do you do for a living?" question with something remotely interesting.
The sad reality of the matter is that, in fact, it's a lot of this:
Late night, post-day job, shunning all other activities to lock yourself in a room and draw as much as you can. It is work. There's no getting around the sheer volume of sweat and sacrifice of vertebrae and hours and hours of time in order to make comics. It is not quick or fleeting. It is balls-to-the-wall, nose-to-the-sharpie work.
But there is one really wonderful thing you can discover when you've finally gotten out of rush hour and arrived home and even though the complete Twilight Zone series on DVD is calling your name and people are pinging you to go to Happy Hour and you're resisting it all to go in that drawing room - you must really like comics. Every time people grill you about why you're wasting your time on that hobby, or telling you you're not a true comics fan because you don't know X, Y, and superhero Z, you can secretly smile. Because you like comics WAY more than any fanboy or hobbyist or collector does. And you've proven to yourself that there is something you love to do.
And hey - another upside - wine!
... Aaand I just found eraser bits stuck to my lipstick.