Weekly Blog 6/15-6/21/24

It’s been great to be on Cara. I’ve gotten way more followers than I expected without doing much, and it undeniably feels way better to see other artists liking my handful of posts than random passers-by on social media. Not that it’s about collecting those things, which is really nice. There’s also the insecure part of me, like many artists, that is constantly like, “everyone’s so much better than me!” when I scroll on it. It’s hard not to have that reaction when you see a ton of pros and other amateurs doing such amazing work.

That has me thinking about my own work and what I’m doing well, and I had a realization: It’s so much easier to draw a comic than an illustration. When I think of what I want to draw, it’s a sequence, a story; it’s so hard to put everything I want to say in one picture. There’s also a lot more technical things that are obstacles at my current level in a single illustration than there is in a comic sequence. What I’m good at is expression, action, continuity, visual grammar, and narrative. That’s why I want to keep going with illustrations, because I need that focus to improve my general skills and find better ways to execute on my strengths.

On a wider level, it never really occurred to me that comics could be easier? Like, there’s the Mark Twain quote, “I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time.” And it seems obvious to say that making a comic takes a lot longer than one illustration. Also, the two are put in these very different camps, such that we’re not culturally taught to think of them as related in that way. But I think that’s what it comes down to. What I want to draw typically isn’t a single picture of someone looking pretty or emotional. I have a lot to say about these people, things, and experiences. There’s a talent to saying all that in one image, and it’s not my strong suit. I’d need formal training to figure out how to layer it all together. The reason I say that is because on my own, I don’t really care to. It’s much more fun and accessible to put it in a comic. It’s humanity’s oldest recorded visual art form, and it’s pretty crazy we don’t teach comics to kids in school. Imagine if poetry was something you’d only learn about if you went to poetry shops or had a parent with a poetry collection, right? Comics with no visible panels are very common in classical and street art alike, especially in murals, and they record history all over Egyptian walls. But yeah, no, there’s proper art, with single still images, and then there’s that pedestrian nonsense for people with no serious taste. That’s the healthy, nature, and responsible way to approach art, creativity, and basic human expression.

On another note, I scanned in a page of comic strip yesterday, only to find out that the panels I mass printed are crooked. It’s so incredibly frustrating. I just checked the file, and that looks vertical, but the printed pages look crooked against my ruler, so it’s probably the printer as opposed to how I placed the page on the scanner glass. I realize this sounds like a minor issue, but it’s a huge demotivator for me. Since this series is a comic strip, it’s all the same panel arrangement. This was supposed to be the simple, easy thing I could do that would make the whole thing roll along smoothly. When things like this happen, it feels like I’ll never be able to do anything right. But, it feels good knowing it was the printer at fault, and I can look for fixes. I just need to go back to Office Depot, test out the printer, and ask the people there if there’s any way to align it properly if it prints off kilter again. I really need a new printer.