Purveyor of sheer awesomeness.
Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy Award nominated writer of graphic novels, animation, video games, film, and television, including:
THE LIFE AFTER, THE BUNKER, PUNKS, ELK'S RUN, TUMOR, ECHOES, KING, PACIFIC RIM, THE ULTIMATES, I, VAMPIRE, and JEFF STEINBERG CHAMPION OF EARTH. He's also written television including MAX’s YOUNG JUSTICE, NBC's CHICAGO MED and NETFLIX’s AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.
The whole point of life as a creative is to surround yourself with people who are smarter and more talented than you. It helps you be better, and they cover your ass when you fall short. When you find great people, hold on to them for dear life.
Waiting for inspiration to hit is for amateurs. It’s for wannabes, and cry babies. It’s for a non-professional looking to make excuses.
It’s also for each and every one of us who create for a living. Some days the tap is on, and some days the tap is off. What separates the pro from the amateur, is the frequency of the outages, and the ability to force the damn nozzle open.
That doesn’t mean you can always actually do it.
Coming off around six weeks of sickness and half speed work, I can vouch for how hard it is to get going again from a standstill. So I start small. I’m working on the shortest, easiest thing I have on my docket. Get that done, and then move on to something bigger, and bigger.
This all comes back to setting realistic goals. Know what you’re capable of, and then over-reach SLIGHTLY.
“There are writers who will do whatever they are told regardless of the circumstances — these are called ‘hacks.’ Your job isn’t to make life difficult for your editor. But once a piece of crap goes out with your name on it, it is gone forever and will haunt you…”
Could not agree more if I tried.
People will say all sorts of things about you when you put art out into the world. Some nice, some not so. The approach I’ve always tried for is fingers in ears. Yes. I see it. Yes, I know it’s being said, But “LALALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU.”
I’ve lost almost a month of time to sickness. I am a good two weeks behind on most of my work. Most of the work that pays our bills. And because, well, life, all three of us have the flu right now.
But, despite the injuries and the illnesses, I’ve worked every day, gotten the emergency stuff finished, and, am finally getting caught up. You never stop grinding if you want to keep surviving.
The amount of work that a freelancer has to stack up is one of the hardest, scariest parts of everything. Especially after a slew of health problems (like I’ve had this month) knock you down. So, what went from a breezy one or two scripts a week, is now up in the total meltdown of workarama.
Part of that is because I’ve been overloaded the past few months, and, well, miss a couple days, and you’re a couple days behind, miss a couple weeks, and, it’s infinitely worse.
So, part of coping is realizing that some stuff has to go. The way I’ve prioritized it is the work that gives me the biggest long term benefit. That means that a lot of my work for hire is going away, and I’m focusing on the stuff that I own.
Making money is a constant issue, don’t get me wrong, but, it’s become increasingly clear to me the past few years that the real way to fix that is not taking jobs to cover tomorrows costs. It’s about creating opportunities to pay NEXT YEAR’s costs, and the next TEN YEARS after that.
There’s a point in every freelancers life where they start playing the long game. This is my year.
If you enjoy this Tumblr, may I suggest pre-ordering my newest creator owned series, THE LIFE AFTER from onipress. Final orders are due this coming Monday. Tell your retailer, they’ll do the rest.
Some good tips about comic lettering from Nate Piekos of Blambot.com
I frequently talk about how important lettering is for all aspiring comickers. Here’s a great couple of tips you can use.
I still whole heartedly recommend Richard Starkings’ LETTERING THE COMICRAFT WAY which is the best nine bucks you can spend when trying to break into comics.