It's not how many times you fall down...

I don't think I'm in any position to give any advice about comics. Whether it's breaking in to comics, or making comics, or selling comics. I'm just trying to figure it out as I go.

As it is right now, I have published a terribly bad first comic, struggled through a webcomic, published two mini-comics that, while not outstanding by any means, were remarkably better than the first comic book I published, and now have two more full comic books out and published. The said two mini-comics and latest two full comic books are the Cutlery mini-comics and Urban Myth Investigators, respectively. And they can be downloaded as my digital comic shop, gumroad.com/imrontucker. *plug*plug*

There are times when I get a little down, and think my dream of becoming a full-time comic book writer and cartoonist is never going to happen (and by "full-time" I mean being able to support myself fully on my creative works). Those times, as far as I've read, seen, and researched seem to happen to a lot of creative souls.

But then I plop myself down at my desk, whip out a pencil, some pens and some paper and just press on. Just keep moving forward, because this is what I want to do.

Getting a little personal here, I'm in my thirties, though many people tell me I don't even look 21. I've come to grips with family life just not being for me. Sure, it could happen, but by happenstance and by choice, I'm single, with no one I need to support but myself. That means, I do have a leg up, in pursuing my dreams, as crass as that may sound. I don't have a wife, or a child that depends on me to feed, or pay bills, or even spend time with. Like I said, I'm come to grips with that, for the most part. Because of the career I want. So I draw. I write. I create.

My current comic book being published right now is Urban Myth Investigators. Currently the first two issues are available to download, and on the website, umicomic.com, is being updated currently with pages from the second issue. I update that webcomic through tumblr, as a means of easy navigation, and more importantly, an easy way for people to come across it and to share it. Today I gained my 14th follower on the tumblr site.

As low as that number may seem, I got that notification today and smiled. After three month of posting pages, I'm slowly building an audience.

And now in the next couple months I will be at two comic conventions, to hopefully keep growing that audience.

There's a saying, that it's not how many times you fall down, but how many times you get up. You have to keep pressing forward. I will achieve my goal of becoming a full-time cartoonist. It will happen. You have to believe. I believe.

There is no try.

Getting close to finishing my pitch for my next project. Still a long ways to go, as I will be submitting to comic publishers and agents, but if all else fails, and no one bites, I'll be publishing it myself, because I really believe in this project.

If I do end up self-publishing it, I'll talk about it more, but for now I'll just tell you it's an all-ages, space adventure with an 11 year old little girl as the hero of  the story. It's awesome! :)

As I'm working on it, I've been listening to podcasts, as I usually do, and I thought I'd link to a couple specific podcast episodes, because the guest on them, just tell it like it is. Making comics can be grueling and is a long process. You've got to cut out all the things that are necessary and focus on the comic. 

One was on Paper Wings podcasts, and one is Comics Are Great podcast, where in both instances, the guests say basically, "Hey, focus! You can't say you wanna makes comics and then go off and play video games or watch the newest episodes of tv shows that are on. You've got to focus."

So that's what I'm doing.

Focusing. Do or do not. There is no try.

With that being said, he's that part of Star Wars, where Yoda deals out that invaluable advice.

See ya in the funny pages!

Gooooooooooooaaaaaaaalllllllllsssss

Today is December 31st.

Yesterday was December 30th and I got hit with a major case of Doubtrify. I just made that word up, but I think any creative person gets it and and it hit me hard yesterday. I woke up, and knew that in two days 2015 would be here, and here I was. Still in my little, cold, studio apartment, working at a place I've come to REALLY not like anymore, and wondering to myself: "Man, how much longer can I do this?"

How much longer can I keep sitting at my desk, not knowing if making comics is ever going to pay-off, working in a job I hate, knowing I'm not really qualified to do anything else, and not only is it a new year in two days, but in 13 days, I'll be a year older. I'm really close to being middle aged (which is a scary thought in and of itself) and what do I have to show for it?

I tried going to the movies to take my mind off of things (the new Hobbit movie is pretty cool), but I walked out of the theater, knowing I was headed back to my little studio, not knowing where my life was headed.

I got home and I pondered. Thinking didn't help, and usually doesn't when you're in that state of mind. So I returned to my unfinished comic and started drawing.I finished the last page of a new comic. I've made two brand new, 19 page & 22 page comics this year. That's when it hit me. I'm not doing enough.

I can complain all I want about where I'm at in life and wonder why it's taking me so long and doubting if things are going to pay off, and you know what? They aren't. Not if I go at the rate I went this year. In 2014 I created 43 pages of new comic work. That's it. That's not even a page a week. That's less than a page a week. Sometimes, you need coddling, sometimes you need a good, positive piece of advice, but sometimes... well sometimes you just need a swift kick in the booty!

So what did I do? I looked at a list I made last week. A list of goals I want to complete in 2015 and re-adjusted my thinking. I'm tackling one goal at a time. I'm doubling my efforts. I can't just work when I feel like it, or when I think it's a good time. I have to work all the time. Sometimes, you can't wait for the boat to come closer to shore, you have to swim out and get on the boat yourself. When you do that, you face obstacles. You have waves, and sea creatures, and other people swimming. But the boat is there. You have to swim as hard as you can to make it. Otherwise, there are only two other options for your. If you don't make it to the boat, you either get thrown back to shore or you drown. It is what it is.

Call it a dreamer's mind set, call it naivety, call it whatever you want. But I really believe I can do this. I can make a living making comics. But belief only gets your half way. You have to put in the work, and work hard. Harder than anyone else. Most of the time harder than everyone realizes you're working. But it doesn't matter. Because if you want it, you have to work for it.

This week's quote of the week is...

"There is nothing except this. There's no art opening, no charity, nothing to sign. There's the next mission, and nothing else."- Tony Stark


Having blinders on can sometimes be a bad thing. You have to look outside the window every once in a while, stop and smell the roses, and just precipitate this life. It's healthy and refreshes you. But then there are times when you just have to strap into your seat, hit the throttle, aim for the finish line, and don't let anything stop you.

Tunnel vision is sometimes needed, because if you're like me, you can get excited about a project, but then when the actual time comes around to work on the project you get sidetrack by all the sparkly images on the internet, all the weird tweets on twitter, and all the nonsensical, bad mojo, negativity dwelling in your brain. You have to push it all aside. As Morpheus in The Matrix put it, you have to let it all go. Fear. Doubt. Fear your mind. And in this case, freeing you're mind is actually locking it down in place, ignoring all the other things and Get. The. Job. Done.

Sometimes you just have to focus, otherwise you're never going to accomplish what you want to accomplish and you're always be sitting on your couch, groaning to yourself, "Why, oh why, isn't my comic finished!?" (That's me sometimes)

But really, the answer lies in yourself. It's all about focus. Push yourself. You don't gain muscles by exercising whenever you feel like it, and when you do exercise, just doing the bare minimum. No!! You gain muscles by pushing yourself, adding weights on top of weights, doing more than you did last time, and not stopping till you are where you want to be. 

Whether it's making comics or anything else you want to do (and it doesn't have to be just one thing) you can do it, you just need that drive, and put on a pair of blinders. Block out all the time wasting, albeit fun, stuff for a while, adapt to tunnel vision and, focus on the "next mission". These is nothing else.

Be Awesome.

Failing Forward

*sigh*

I've been trying to writing this blog post for a few days now. And every time I start to write it, I'm just not sure what to say. It's a bummer of a blog post for me personally, but I guess it's a learning experience.

I launched my Kickstarter with high hopes. I didn't wan't to raise funds for printing my comic that grossed in the thousands (though, that would have been awesome), I just wanted to raise funds for a smallish-to-mediumish print run.

Well, it wasn't going to happen. So I closed down the kickstarter page and thought about it. Analyzed what I did wrong. I may be missing something, but I don't think I did anything really wrong. I posted a good description and added a very brief but coherent video and added fair rewards (all of these I guess could be debated, but I thought they were all pretty good). And my goal seemed small enough to conquer.

What I didn't realize, and have come to now, is that I didn't and don't have what I thought a did. A network. I can say I don't have a fan-base either, but I kinda already knew that. I was hoping that with my couple hundred Facebook friends and couple hundred Twitter followers, that good word of mouth might spread about the project.

Wrong. After thinking about it, half of my friends and family don't even know what Kickstarter is, so that's not gonna help at all. And on Facebook, that's pretty much all I had. And with Twitter, well, how many of my 260 followers are interested enough in my work to RT, much less pledge? Not much.

But this isn't sour grapes. This is a learning experience. I'm still publishing my comic book, I'll just have to print a couple dozen at a time, instead of the smallish print run I initially wanted. And I'll still try a kickstarter in the future, but now I know what I need. I need a network. And I need a fan-base. Without those, making headway on a crowd-funding site, where you're reaching out to people doesn't really work, unless of course you're making potato salad. You need people who support your work to share the project and people who enjoy you're work to pledge and enjoy the project. I'm not there yet. But hopefully in the future I will be.

Making comics isn't a sprint, but a marathon.

"Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained." - Marie Curie