#2: Resolutions
Welcome back to Creating Comics! The Art & Craft. Last week I kicked off this series with a discussion of the importance of setting Big Goals. I'm going to piggyback off of last week's column and talk a bit about resolutions. But first, I want to tell you for whom I'm writing this column. Basically, I'm writing this for me...me five years ago.
Circa 2004, I was in a bit of a rut. Undergrad was several years behind me and I had settled into a pretty mundane routine, working forty hours and not a minute more at a job I was long since bored with. Something was missing in my life, and it turned out the void was a creative one. All through middle school and high school I had drawn comics, creating hundreds of pages of stories. Then came college, and the allure of beer and girls and the occasional class or two caused me to abandon the pencils. After graduating, I taught for two years in an inner city school, and as any young teacher can tell you, it's an all-encompassing profession that doesn't leave much time for the funnybooks. But a few years later, I had a job that I could leave at the office when the work day was over. Luckily, I was able to rediscover my passion for creating comics and have been at it ever since.
One thing I've learned since getting back into comics is that there are a lot of mes of five years ago walking around. There are a ton of people who have a creative itch that is not being scratched, and slowly and quietly, it's tearing them up inside. Just the other night, I met someone who had signed up for one of the Creating Comics! classes I teach locally. It was clear after just a few minutes of talking to him that this was a really creative guy just dying to tell stories. All he needed was a little bit of a push in the right direction, and some structure, advice and encouragement to get him moving on bringing some ideas to life. These are the people for whom I'm writing this column.
Okay, now that that's out of the the way, let's turn to the topic du jour: resolutions.
Now you may be saying, wait a minute Ty, goals and resolutions are pretty much the same thing, aren't they? You say tomato, I say potato, no? Actually, there's a relevant distinction. Goals, as I said last week, are dreams with a time-frame, a desired outcome with a plan of attack. A goal is a destination. A target. Lose ten pounds by July 1 is a goal. Finish a 22 page script for a new super hero book in three weeks is a goal. Write an arc of Spider-man for Marvel before I die is a goal. They aren't resolutions, however.
See, most goals, especially the big ones, involve other people in some way. Because of this, the achievement of your goals exactly as you see fit is not entirely up to you. Take my big goal that I shared last week: To have a comic book in every comic shop in America. While most of this is up to me, achieving this goal will still require the help of others. I may need to collaborate with other artists to produce a book of a high enough caliber to have nationwide appeal. I'll need Diamond or another distributor to agree to distribute my books. I'll need retailers to purchase the books from Diamond and stock on their shelves. I'll need fans supporting the book so that it generates enough buzz for retailers to take note. While I recognize that the most important thing to focus on is making high quality comics, and that if I do that I'll be putting myself in a great position to achieve my goal, there are no guarantees.
But resolutions are different. Resolutions are promises to yourself. And as such, they are completely under your control. If goals are dreams with a time-frame, resolutions are commitments to actions and forces of habits that stand a strong likelihood of leading you toward those dreams. The cliche is that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But the experience has shown that is just not true. All it takes is about 30 days of consistently doing something to make it a habit. (This goes for good habits and bad.) So, if you're at the point where you've identified your goals and started crafting your next actions toward reaching them, now is as good a time as any to make some resolutions toward either starting some good habits or eliminating some bad ones.
For illustrative purposes, I'd like to share some of the resolutions I made regarding my creative work at the beginning of the year. Some of these, I've been more successful at than others, but all of them were crafted with the knowledge that these habits will make me a better creator.
- Read every day, Write every day, Draw every week. After several years of writing and drawing my own comic series (Super Seed), last year I decided I wanted to try writing a few new projects and working with other artists to bring them to life. Turns out, I loved it. I love collaborating. Working with other talented creators has made me want to become a stronger writer. Writers write every day. Writers read every day. So I've resolved to do the same. However, I realized that in my enthusiasm in writing these new projects, the dust on my drawing table was getting pretty thick. So, I resolved to also block out time for drawing no matter how busy I was. Well, now that I'm hard at work on Over, an online graphic novel (which debuted today by the way!), I'm certainly keeping up with that resolution. I feel like this resolution is the simplest, yet a tough one for many people. The fact is, if you want to create comics, the best way to do so is to simply resolve to sit your butt down AND MAKE COMICS.
Network, Network, Network. While talent is crucial for success in any creative industry, I am realizing just how important it is to network and make connections in the world of comics. In the past, I've been reluctant to approach people I might want to meet who could give me advice or help me out. But this year I resolved to step a bit out of my comfort zone, having faith that most people in this world really want to lend a helping hand, if asked. So, I have put that to the test in a number of ways. For example, at New York Comic Con, I asked Dave Gallaher and Steve Ellis, creators of Zuda Comics' High Moon, for some feedback on a few projects I had been working on, and they were kind enough to give me some constructive feedback. Turns out, most creators are genuinely approachable and friendly people (who knew?) And so, I've made an effort to meet creators at every comic convention I've gone to or tabled at, and it has resulted in some interesting opportunities and friendships. And guess what? That reluctance to talk to people at shows is pretty much gone. See, habits and behaviors can and do change if you work at them.
- Eliminate the two C's: Criticism and Complaining. I've discovered (or rediscovered, as it were) that criticizing other people or complaining about things out of your control gets you nowhere. Criticizing others seldom does anything but encourage defensiveness and build resentfulness. It certainly doesn't make people change. And complaining is simply a waste of time. Someone else is always going to have it better than you, and a whole lot of people have it much, much worse. I want to create comics books and tell stories. In essence, I want to entertain an audience. Any audience I'm able to build isn't interested in me moaning about my woes or my troubles. And they don't want to hear me put down other creator's work (at least I hope they don't.) There are plenty of Tony Trolls on the internet who take great pleasure in tearing down the work of others, and tons of Negative Nancies who always have something to complain about. I've resolved to not be among their ranks. It's not easy, and I've had to catch myself falling into the trap of the two C's still, but I'm getting better at it.
These are some of the resolutions I've made as I chart the course toward the achievement of my big goal. So, what about you? What good habits do you need to develop to enable you to achieve your goals? What bad habits, if eliminated, would give you a better shot making your dreams come true? What promises can you make to yourself today? At the very least, I hope you'll resolve to think about it.
The past two articles have been written for me to introduce myself, give you a sense of my perspective on things and where I'm coming from, and to encourage you to set some goals and make resolutions for yourself. Now that that's out of the way, we can get into the meat and potatoes of creating comics. I'm going to tackle things first from the writer's perspective, so over the next several months, I'll be exploring my writing process, and dishing out a host of tips and tricks that I've picked up along the way.
Next Week: The Great Idea
Tyler James is a comic book creator who this week launched Over, a romantic comedy online graphic novel that will update every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Additionally, Tyler is the writer and artist of Super Seed, the story of the world's first super powered fertility clinic, and is currently working on a number of other projects that will debut soon. Tyler teaches a series of workshops on creating comics for adults and children, and works as a game designer and content producer for a game company. He currently resides in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Contact Tyler directly at tylerjamescomics@gmail.com, keep up with him at his blog, or follow him on Twitter.
Previous Columns
#1: Big Goals
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