ting and ting

no real news on the comics front- working and that- finishing off the nice banal pig for that gosh darned obsever/jonathan cape thing, and also i'm now looking forward to the birmingham expo in a couple of months, new jolly bear for that.
i've been reading a lot about the state of the comics industry recently, how marvel and dc and that dont make any money apart from from films and toys, and the independents are lucky to break even. it amazes me how anyone makes a living in this industry. with this in mind, i dont know where my ambitions lie- should i look towards publishing my own (and other's) work on a decent scale. what about web comics? any money in that? or should i branch out- what about animation/films/toys- yeah, nice ones with lots of lead paint made by chinese people*

you need money to make money isnt it? i'd really like to make a book with two colours with really nice covers and all the rest.

i got a few comics the other day- "Hey, Wait" by Jason which is quite an old one of his but has some really nice stylistic touches, although my heart wasnt quite as broken as the quotes on the cover promised. i also got Uptight No.2 by Jordan Crane which is decent enough, and i agree with Tom Spurgeon that the format of the comic works really well and there should be more indies that look like this- 24 b&w pages with a nice colour screenprinty cover, and its pretty cheap- £1.40.

anyway, i'll repeat my request for some paid work- i'm cheap and try really hard, and if anyone wants to make cartoons of my work (for free) get in touch....





*funnily enough, someone from hong kong or somewhere sent me an email asking if i want to make a banal pig action (or should that be inaction?) figure- i'm going to see how much it is.

Frustrations etc

This is what usually happens when i have a bit of time at work- i dont feel like going back, and start thinking about doing something else. Unfortunately, there's not a lot out there for me at the moment.
I'm frustrated because i feel i have got a lot to give in terms of creativity and intelligence, qualities that i have never used in any full time employment, and i dont really know where to start. i'm very envious of people that enjoy their jobs, especially if they get paid well for doing it, and i cant tick either of those boxes.
i know i should be more pro-active but doing what? realistically, i'm not going to get paid well for doing comics for years if ever, but i could have a go at illustration. i'm a creative problem solver, yeah! and i can spell correctly and construct sentences. i can also play a number of musical instruments to a basic-intermediate standard.
on the downside, i dont really have an entrepreneurial spirit and dont particularly like pushing myself forward.

any careers advice would be duly appreciated, cv available on request.

What's going on?

Well, i've gotten in to the swing of doing conventions now, so as you can imagine i was a bit disappointed when there wasnt another one this weekend. I'm trying to find a balance between not doing comics constantly at the expense of everything else and finishing comics in time for the cons without working every single hour in the two weeks before deadline. There's 4 months before birmingham so if i start now with a decent effort i should have a good books worth in time, but if i finish a couple of weeks before i'll have the nagging feeling that i could have done another few pages/comic in that time. I would have liked a bit more time on Ethel Sparrowhawk, but it's always the caase that the cons are the best place to shift a lot of comics quickly, and this was true this time as well. swings and roundabouts.
I'm well bored of my job and would like to just make comics and art full time, so if anyone would like to sponsor me, just send a cheque for £15,000 and that will keep me going for a year. i dont think that's greedy. alternatively, some nice illustration jobs, commissions etc would go down well.
gizza job!