Monthly Archives: August 2008

Permission to suck

As I've continued to ponder the "Community-driven comic book", I've been forced to confront once again the creative person's greatest foe -- the fear of sucking. People talk about various artists being "courageous" and I always that that was a load of steaming horse puckey. And believe me, living in Texas with four horses and seven donkeys, I know me some horse puckey.

But there's certainly a nugget of truth there. When you're trying something you haven't done before, I think the fear of failure, of being really bad at it, is the biggest obstacle to actually getting it done. People might laugh, you might be exposed as a fraud, you might find out (as so many aspiring singers do on "American Idol") that you aren't any good at something you thought was your strong suit.

What most people forget, though, is that all of the greats in history have been failures at many points in their lives. Edison had many, many more failed inventions than he did light bulbs. To succeed, you have to give yourself permission to suck. You aren't going to be the best right out of the gate, but hopefully you'll improve over time, eventually getting to the point where you don't suck any more.

You're definitely going to suck for a while, though, and that's pretty intimidating.

So that's sort of where I am on this whole thing. I've done illustrations for gaming products before, I've gotten paid for drawing, and I've put together a successful Internet product, and I sucked at all of them in the beginning. I've sucked at every job I've ever had, at least at the beginning. Eventually I got better, but I really hate sucking. Hate it. It brings up all of the feelings of being a failure from childhood, of being judged as lacking by friends and family, of making me question my value as a human being.

And the fact is, I don't know how to put together a good comic. I don't know how to ink a whole page of different panels so they work well together, or maybe even how to craft a successful single panel. I don't know how to pace a plot in sequential art, and I don't know how to remain consistent throughout a story. All of that would be completely new to me, and I'm almost definitely going to suck at all of it. At once. On the same page, there will be multiple avenues of suckage.

So the first thing to do, before I even start down the road, is to decide to give myself permission to suck. Because success isn't an option unless the failure is, too. I'll let you know if and when I get there.

Random Panel: Shouldn't that gas cloud be green?

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Gay Batman or Vampire Liberace? We report, you decide!

I'm not sure what exact number it is, but somewhere on the "Big List of How To Make a Bad Super Costume" is "Make the whole thing pink and purple." For any questions regarding this vital tip, I point you to either Hawkeye or Dr. Strange's brother, the vampire:

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Now, in his defense, this guy was being mind-controlled by an immortal voodoo queen at the time. But still, even mind-controlled voodoo vampires have pride, or ought to. Besides the ghastliness of the color scheme, you have to wonder why a vampire -- who, let's not forget, can actually turn into a real bat! -- would need to dress up as a bat when in human form. Because if he wanted to look like a bat, wouldn't he just, you know, turn into a frigging bat?! The giant fake ears, the giant fake wing/cape, it's all unnecessary. It makes you wonder if, in his bat form, he wears a tiny little tuxedo and Count Dracula cape. "Look at me!" he would squeak, "I'm a human!"

Maybe the outfit is supposed to stun his victims, who would be torn between horror at the creeping undead about to consume them and convulsive laughter at the pink and purple big-eared Mardi Gras costume it was wearing.

Random Panel: And all the smokes'll be hand-rolled, if you know what I mean

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Caption Contest 24: RAID!!

On HeroMachine, that captions check in, but they don't check out! Come up with the best caption for the comic book panel below and, if your entry is selected, you’ll win your very own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like (within reason) by yours truly.

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As always, the rules are simple: Only three entries per person, put your dialog in the comments to this post, and keep it relatively clean (as in, appropriate for a broadcast TV sitcom).

Good luck everyone!

Caption Contest 23 Winner!

The winner of Caption Contest 23 is ... Danny Beaty!

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For that great entry Danny wins a custom black and white illustration by yours truly of whatever he likes. Other honorable mentions from this round in my opinion were:

Syzyx:
Balloon 1: With the might of the Lens of Opti-Max I will never be mocked again!
Balloon 2: I’m still your hat and you are still talking to me.

Xstacy:
Balloon1: Dude, I can’t believe how many Jager bombs we–
Balloon2: What’s this thing on my head?

Dude:
Balloon 1: Talk about your custom frames from Lenscrafters!
Balloon 2: Talk about your custom head from Headcrafters!

Runt82:
1. Balloon 1: Okay, everybody stop what you’re doing…
Balloon 2: I’ve lost my contact lens.

LiveWyre14:
First bubble: They will all scream for…
Second bubble: EYE-SCREAM!!!

Many thanks to everyone who entered, they were fun to read! And I think Marvel or DC ought to seriously think about putting out an EYE-SCREAM action figure. That would rock.

Random Panel: Clubbin' Doom style

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Mashup 24: The Bride of Xemnu!

I knew the weekly Random Comics Mashup this week would be a tough one when I saw three issues each of Marvel's Airplane-like book of silliness "What the --?!"; the Jackson Guice soft-core-porn-inspired "Doctor Strange"; and the "John Byrne is on acid" run of "She-Hulk". Add in the fact that one of the guest stars in one issue was Santa Claus, another was perennial "Bad Super Costume" favorite Razorback, and yet a third featured zombies fighting vampires, and I sat down at the scanner with a really bad feeling.

Hopefully this will all hang together, and by taking one (and only one!) panel from each of the ten randomly selected issues I can bring you an entertaining tale!

Continue reading

Random Panel: Why I'm glad I am no longer a "Food Service Professional"

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Poll Position: Fatherhood

Not all fathers are super, but not all supers are good fathers. I'm not sure what brought it up this week, but I got to thinking about what makes a good father, and what makes a good super-hero, and whether there was much overlap between the two. The fact is, we don't have a lot of examples of comic book characters who are also parents, the notable exception being Reed and Sue Richards and their son Franklin. So here's our question of the week:

{democracy:37}

I included some villains in there too because hey, some people want to inherit the Evil Empire, you know? And I added a caveat that you won't inherit their powers because otherwise the question becomes basically "Whose powers do you want", which I've done before. I wanted to instead get you thinking about the qualities of fathers and supers and where the intermix.

From a purely mercenary perspective, of course, there are some people who would answer based on financial considerations -- why get Peter Parker's kitty full of nothin' when you could be the King of Latvia, after all? But then, you have to consider what Victor Von Doom would be like as a day-to-day dad.

I look forward to hearing what you all think about the choices, and why you choose what you do.