Doing comics. Is it a waste of time? Over the years I have experianced times of great output and times of total shutdown. There were times when writing, drawing, and making comics was all I thought about,and times when they were the farthest thing from my mind.
Most of the 1990's I spent pumped up about my hobby. It got me as far as a Wizard review that showed my (crumby) artwork on Holey Crullers. Actually, it was a Troy Hickman interview, not much about me. It was really cool to work with Troy all those years, he's a heck of a guy.
I burnt out though. I was sick of comics and all the hard work they involved. It seemed like I was getting nowhere for the work I was doing. The final cut came when I did issue 5 of my autobiografical comic, Southern Fried. I really pushed this issue. I thought it was the best work I had ever done. I sent out free copies to friends and advertised it everywhere. But when the orders or letters still didn't come in, I was devastated. It made me look long and hard at things I had thought were important and how other people saw my work. I took about a year off from comics. They were always in the corner of my mind though,like a bad penny that keeps turning up.
It occured to me one day that I needed to do comics. Not so much for attention but mostly for my own well being. Really, everything else is just icing. So, if you do your own comics or anything else creative, get your prioritys right. You know what I mean, do it for yourself.
Jerry Smith |
