My Three Quarter Career Retrospective
Hello again.
As many of you may know, I have the luxury of having a pretty awesome career in design.
It wasn’t always this way. It certainly was not my original intent, but as they say “wanna make God laugh, make a plan!”
If you’ve been following this blog, you have read my thoughts regarding my 1st 10 years in this business, my evolution into a design leader for major consumer product brands, and my recent revelation that some of my fan art had been used 20 years ago in the 2nd Spider-Man movie. I’m not going to re-hash that topic again. I deleted my posts, and I’m done talking about it. I said I’m glad I could shrug that experience off, and I’m officially closing the topic.
That said, I always had a complicated relationship with comics. I have been a fan since I was a child, and I always wanted to draw comics for a living. As I got much older, I realized that “making a living in comics” and “paying my bills and being a grown up” were two very incompatible states of existence.
I 1st began reading comics as a kid. I grew up in Columbia, SC. When we visited our family in Chester, I had an uncle (Charles) who was an avid comics reader. He would buy stacks of them and when he was done, he used to burn them along with the newspapers and trash. When he saw that I was interested in comics, he started saving them for me. So, every other Sunday when we would visit there, he had a shopping bag full of comics for me. He mostly read horror and sci-fi comics that were still around in the 70’s, but one day there was a copy of Spider-man in there. I remembered Spider-man from the Electric Company TV show. I didn’t know he came from comic books. I was also about 8 at this time. I was instantly hooked. Later I learned about Superman and Batman comics. “Those are the characters from Super-friends and that old TV show!” I thought to myself. I didn’t know they were comics either. Between ages 8-14 my obsessions were comic books and Star Wars. Along with Bruce Lee, the Dukes of Hazzard, GI Joe (another comic I would eventually read) and many other late 70’s and early 80’s sci-fi and fantasy stuff. I was a full-fledged nerd (or blerd, aka black nerd as Aisha Tyler would name us).
Somewhere in my early teens I learned that the comics I read were created by people who did that job as a career. I became enthralled. I later became a fan of John Byrne, famous comics creator from the 80’s. I read every comic and interview I could find. I shaped my entire career ideal on Byrne. I even used to sign my name modeled after his signature. I carried on like this unabated for many years, until I went to the 9th grade (for the 2nd time, more on this later) and met someone who would be the biggest influence of my life at the time besides my family. That person was Carolyn Ramsay, the art teacher at WJ Keenan High School. She was always encouraging me, even when I was stubborn, and pig headed about learning “proper technique” in art. One day she had us drawing still life art made of soda cans and leaves. She was surprised that I could accurately re-draw the labels on the cans, even the ones that were bent or warped. She came to me and said “David, have you ever considered becoming a commercial artist?”
I had no idea what a commercial artist was. She explained that the things we buy are designed by people who do that as a career, and they are much more successful and stable than comic artists. I considered what she said for a fraction of a second, determined to make my career as a comics artist instead. Carolyn made it her goal to get me into design, and she succeeded. She managed to get me in front of Renee Ford, then the marketing director at The State Newspaper in Columbia. I was offered an internship in the design area. In that time, I met Doug Gregory, who would one day become a fantastic illustrator. We were both college students and aspiring pros. I interned one summer between my junior and senior year of high school, then four straight summers through college. By the time I graduated college, I knew how to design ads, posters, direct mailers and all other manner of materials. I thought that knowledge would be helpful to me for the day I would self-publish my own comics. All that time I still thought I was going to be a comics artist. After graduation, I made the move from my hometown of Columbia to South Bend, IN. My girlfriend Estelle went to grad school at Notre Dame, and I moved up there to be with her. We got married as I got a job at Kinko’s. I was self-publishing my own comics back then, Stellar Comics (named after my wife).
Jumping back a bit, earlier in the 90’s, I showed my comics pages to an editor at Dragon Con. I was started to get good as an illustrator, but my non-superhero influence was showing. The editor took one look and said, “I like that you can draw, but you need to have a style like current popular artists”. At this time, there were maybe 5-6 “megastar” comics artists like Jim Lee or Todd McFarlane and a host of artists who ripped off their styles to catch the fan wave. I told the editor I wasn’t comfortable doing that. His response was, and this is a direct quote:
"Comics fans are ignorant and stubborn and won’t buy it if its unfamiliar"He then told me to look around the comics racks and find an artist I like and “copy him.” I was stunned. I am proud to say that I never took this seriously, especially after speaking with Brian Stelfreeze. Doug had introduced me to him a year before. Brian is a tremendous talent in comics, and he often gave us aspiring pros a more than a generous amount of his time giving us advice and thorough portfolio reviews. Brian talked me out of even thinking of copying another artist’s work.
By this time, I had gone through the wringer with comics. To be honest, I was completely losing my interest in superhero comics. My own comics were very offbeat; stories about aliens and little girls who built robots. I still liked Batman, but lost touch with the “mainstream” of comics by this point. I got interested in Vertigo, Love and Rockets, Nexus, Bone, Akiko and other non-superhero comics and wanted to make something like that, not Batman or Spiderman. I also read Wizard to keep up with what was still popular in comics and fan-media. By 1997 I closed my Stellar Comics imprint, thinking I would still one day “break in” to mainstream comics as just an artist. In 1999 there was a guy I met on a fan board who was looking for an artist to draw his book. He even had a publisher lined up. We agreed to partner on it, and I started drawing the pages. As I drew the pages, I had a startling realization. I remember thinking to myself, “I’d rather go outside and play in traffic before I draw this book”. I wrote the guy and told him I’m leaving comics. He was confused but understood. I never really looked back since. By this time I completely lost interest in comics as a vocation but was still a fan.
Here is an important distinction I have recently learned that some comics fans can’t understand: by the early 2000’s I was still a fan of comic books by way of movies, TV and video games, but I gave up the idea of drawing them professionally. The comics business was in a lull, so they weren’t hiring anyone with an offbeat non-traditional style like mine. I did illustrations in a sort of comics style for my portfolio but by then I had a stack of paintings and drawings that got me no attention from editors.
2000, I was a freelance artist in Chicago, but I found myself needing money from time to time. By then a new website called “eBay” came into existence, an online auction site. Cool, people can sell their junk, great idea. I also saw that there was a section for “Original Comic Art” for sale. I then noticed that other non-pros like me were selling their own unpublished fan art. I then looked into my closet with my stack of unpublished artwork and started selling them on eBay. I am not ashamed of this nor am I proud. If you are broke you would sell your own blood for food money. Why can’t I sell my unpublished pieces? Over a span of about a year and a half, I sold my artwork on eBay as well as a few commissioned pieces there. I did a series of Spider-man paintings and sold them there. I did drawings of Blade, the X-men, and anything that was current in pop culture to fans. Somewhere some of my fan art got away from me, and the rest is history.
Between 2000 and 2003 I designed consumer products for Unilever, PepsiCo, Kraft and a few other big companies. I was starting to make a consistent enough living doing this, so my eBay art selling came to a halt, and I never thought about it again (until much much later). By 2003 I was offered a job in Cincinnati, OH to design for P&G. I remember that I had almost completely stopped buying comics by this point. I still caught some issues here and there, but mostly I was unaware of the comics “mainstream”. I didn’t even go to the comics store anymore; I bought what comics I could find at the newsstand in downtown Cincinnati. Even though my interest in a comics career was very over, I would still agonize over the decision. Who can just “give up” doing what they loved after almost 20 years of work?
Someone who had to take care of themselves, that's who. There's a quote on the TV show "Spin City" where one of the staffers needed money. The younger staffer asked him "Why don't you ask your parents for the money?". The older dude answered "Because I'm a grownup!" That always stuck with me. If I'm a grownup, I needed to figure out this money thing on my own. I prided myself on the fact that Estelle and I rarely went to our parents for money or support. The early years of our marriage were rough financially, and we barely made it sometimes. We also lived 800 miles away from home, so we didn’t even stop in for food from time to time. We didn't have the comfortable option of sponging off our parents. We were on our own, and I made the smartest choice available to me.
I was entering my 30s and all of my “money” always came from design, not comics stuff. I remember vividly somewhere in 2005 or 2006 I had worked on a Mr. Clean project, and I designed the sticker that appeared on the top lid. I thought to myself “more people will see this sticker than have ever read the Dark Knight Returns” (a famous comic book series about Batman).
By the numbers, I was absolutely right. And average mainstream best-selling book sells about 10,000 – 100,000 copies in its lifetime. More people than that buy Mr. Clean in a week. I would later design for many brands that outsell Mr. Clean. The numbers don’t lie, even though most people would not know who I was. I guarantee, you have bought something I’ve designed in the last 25 years. If you buy cleaning products, diapers, soda, candy, hamburgers, bread, speakers and radio equipment, shampoo, oatmeal, popcorn, toothpaste, laundry products, plastic bags; literally every major brand, you are buying is something I worked on. I had to make myself stop this list; I could keep going. I’ve designed for products around the world in places I’ve never been to myself. Hell, I haven’t been outside the US since I was a kid, yet if you go to stores in other countries, there are things there that I designed. My career has been a tremendous success, and I’m glad to have “failed” in comics to have this wonderful and fruitful path.
I started reading comics at a time that was most traumatic in my life. My mom was getting divorced (he was my first stepdad, and he was a monster), she remarried not long after (to a better stepdad), but I was still doing very poorly in school, thus my 2nd time in the 9th grade. Comics were a place where I could “escape” the real and chaotic world at home. I wanted to draw comics so I could earn my own living and get away from these crazy people! By the time I graduated college, I was able to get very far away from them. I developed my own sense of who I was without their influence, and I grew up into an adult. Along the way, I did not draw comics as a career, but I got what I wanted from drawing comics as a career, which was the ability to use my talent to take care of myself. I could have done any bullshit job for a living, but I was talented and trained in design, so that’s where I made money. Along the way, very big corporate brands happened to agree with me, and I’ve been here ever since.
I also lost the need to “connect” with the fantasy world of comics. If it wasn’t a movie or TV show or video game, I have no modern reference to what’s happening in comics. I used to know a guy at the little corner shop in Cincinnati who would tell me what was happening in comics. He recommended stuff that he knew I would like, like “Sex Criminals” or “Saga”. I bought a few of the trade paperbacks on Amazon, but to this day I have not finished either series. I even bought a bunch of back issues of Love and Rockets that are still on my shelf, unread. Comics don’t hold my attention anymore, I’ve don’t need a fantasy world, as my real life is pretty awesome. Over the years I’ve tried to rekindle my passion for drawing comics, but it comes and eventually goes, with years in between attempts.
In 2010 I got close to coming back. By this time, I dusted off an old project I drew in college. It was still non superhero but close enough to that type of genre. I re-drew the pages, designed a nice package for it, and was going to re-christen my Stellar Comics imprint. I reached out to a digital store and sent them a pdf of my book, asking if they would sell it. The guy got back to me and enthusiastically agreed to sell it. Then I suddenly realized I didn’t want to get back into the business again, I just wanted to draw a comic. I told him that I changed my mind and will not solicit my book after all. He was confused, he said “I said yes to you, why are you backing out?” I just didn’t have the passion anymore. I’ve not even come close since.
There are those who can’t believe that I am talented enough to draw comics but lost the passion for it. For those people, I will only offer this advice: ask yourself what it is you love so much about this work and what is the opportunity cost for being a comics artist? I’m not saying it’s bad to draw comics, but how many of your conceptions of the comics business come from just the perspective of a fan vs. the reality for comic book professionals? Over the years I’ve come to know many in the comics business, some are close friends. I don’t know of a single comics professional I would trade careers with. Everyone…, except one: John Byrne. TODAY’s John Byrne, not the superstar from the 80’s.
Let me explain. I want the career that John Byrne currently has. Byrne has made so much money from his superstar days and has a core of fans that follow him on his fan site, so he just writes and draws stuff and puts it up there. No publisher, no editor, no influence of money and most importantly because he damn well wants to. Someone at Marvel even offered to publish his recent X-men story and he turned them down. Why? Because he doesn’t want to get back in bed with Marvel, even though he himself is an X-men fan.
Ask yourself why would be just “turn down easy money like that”? Because there is a cost that you can’t see if you’re blinded by being a fan. Every job has an opportunity cost. Some are much higher than others. If you are a professional comics artist, the opportunity cost is exchanging a more lucrative career for one that has no steady income, no insurance, no retirement and an unsecure future… but it’s a fun job. As if you can pay your bills in “fun”. And as we get older, having insurance and retirement become life or death serious. How many comics artists have gofundme pages or other fundraisers because they have health issues, and NO way to pay for it? My wife had cancer a few years ago. We have insurance, they treated it. She’s fine now. If I didn’t have insurance, she would have probably died by now. That’s not a joke. I gave up having “fun” for a living because I realized that I needed to be able to pay for my life and be an adult. Design can be a lot of fun as well. AND I also have workdays that end. I don’t have to do commissions or have to fly to comics shows on weekends to sell my pages to make up extra income. I’m not knocking those that do this, but almost none of them come to the end of their careers with an outlook that doesn’t involve losing life or a limb simply because they don’t have money. This includes every comic artist and creator you know, except John Byrne. He happened to make so much money he doesn’t need to work in his golden years. And just like I turned down that e-store, Byrne picked his love of comics over his need to make money from them. There’s something so very pure about doing that.
In my mind, that’s why artists make art. Because something compels you to, outside of the need to survive. I’m not at that point in my career yet. Maybe one day I will be. And maybe then I’ll start drawing comics again after I’ve made enough money that I don’t need to worry about making “income” from my fan dreams.
I just watched an interview with Tunde Adibimpe, lead singer of TV on the Radio. He’s also an artist, cartoonist and animator. He spoke about being a young fan and considered drawing comics. He learned what comic artists made, and was like “that’s back breaking labor all day for like $100 a page”. He stopped trying to draw comics. He was not wrong for that decision, and neither was I.
I’m very fortunate that I get to make a living doing something that I have passion for and gives me back a great living in the process. I am off work this week; I get paid vacations. Estelle and I are heading back to Cincinnati to meet up with our friends; a trip that’s already paid for. My job at its worst is still better than my dream of a life as a freelancer at its best. I’m proud that I have the ability to choose what I want and to close the “comic book” chapter once and for all.
I’m looking forward to the last quarter of my career and what possibilities can transpire. I am the design leader at a major corporation, leading creative initiatives for a billion dollar plus brand. Again, my work lives in places and spaces that I may never see. Yet no matter how far I go, I always considered comics to be my “ex-girlfriend”.
Goodbye to my ex.
I hope you are well, but we are NEVER getting back together again.
David
