Over the last decade, I’ve gone from producing one or two comics a year to producing over a dozen comics yearly, along with webcomics, short stories in anthologies, a few graphic novels, and helping produce the very newspaper you hold in your hands. On top of all that, I’m also happily married, a father of three wonderful children, and work a full-time non-comics related job. Before you ask, no, there’s not two of me. In fact, I accomplished this level of productivity by making a few simple changes in my life.
THE COMIC-MAKING TIME
I’ve been making comics for pretty much my entire life. However, by 2016, I was burnt out. My wife, Amy, and I had just had our second kid. Trying to squeeze in anything extra with a baby is hard, let alone time to make comics. My routine at the time was that I’d get a broken night of sleep, being woken up every few hours by a baby, officially “wake up” with my alarm around 7AM, get our two kids breakfast, see our oldest off to the school bus, drive our youngest to daycare, spend the next 9 hours at my day job, drive home, make dinner, hangout with the family, put the kids to bed, hang out with Amy until she needed to go to sleep, and then, around 11PM, sit down at my drawing board and try desperately to stay awake long enough to draw a little bit of a comic before the whole process started over again. Most nights, I’d be too fried to even string two thoughts together, let alone tell a story with words and pictures. I needed a change.
I decided that I’d give waking up early a try. So I started waking up two hours before everyone else in my house at 5AM. I’ve never been a morning person, but I did find that a benefit to waking up early is that the house is quiet. This allowed me to completely focus on my project. The other huge benefit is that I was able to start every day off as a cartoonist. I’m no longer yearning for the drawing board throughout the day. I’ve already been there and can give my full attention to the other aspects of my life.
Now, 5AM worked for me, but it may not be for everyone. The important thing to keep in mind here is that you need to form a routine. Set aside a designated time every day where your only focus will be working on comics. It doesn’t have to be long, it can be an hour or just 30 minutes, it just has to be consistent.
Remember this is a time for you to focus so that means no distractions, be it phone, television, internet, or social media. Give yourself time with just you and whatever project you want to work on. It’ll help if it’s not a time you’re completely burnt out from the day. If you can keep a consistent time every day, you’ll find that you’ll train your brain to be ready for comics at that time, which will make staring down a blank page that much easier.
THE GRAPHIC NOVEL TRAP
Everyone has their epic 400-page graphic novel in their head, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, it shouldn’t be the first thing you try to tackle. Consider this, if your goal was to run a marathon and you’ve never run before, it would be unwise to wake up one day and try to run a marathon. A better first step would probably be something like waking up and taking a run around your neighborhood. Point being, start off small.
A graphic novel can be a challenging task and can take a long time to finish. There are also many points in the process where it can feel like it will never be done. The heftier the page count, the more daunting it can feel. Build yourself up to it.
Success builds off success. There is nothing more motivating than holding a finished book in your hands. With that thought process in mind, I decided that the best way to keep myself excited was to keep page counts down so that when I started to feel the lag of a project, I would be in a place where the project was almost done. To that end, the 8-page mini-comic was the perfect format for me. It has offered me a page count that isn’t overwhelming and an opportunity to serialize my longer stories in more manageable chunks. Best of all, by having a shorter page count, I’m constantly completing comics which in turn has kept me motivated to make more.
DON’T BE PRECIOUS
When I was in art school, my teachers engrained in our heads the saying “Be neat, clean, and perfect.” It was something that would echo through my brain whenever I sat down to draw. It haunted me and eventually locked me up completely for a while. I would fret and second-guess over every line I put down on paper. It got so bad at one point that after five years, I had only 28 pages of progress to show for it.
Here’s the thing, perfection is a lie. Perfection assumes that there is an ideal. Drawing, however, is more like handwriting, everyone’s different. That’s what makes art interesting. Don’t be afraid to show your true self on the page.
At the end of the day, it’s better to have a completed comic than to continually work on something until it’s “perfect.” Everyone is constantly growing and changing and the only way to truly grow as a storyteller is to finish projects. Don’t give yourself excuses to not complete things.
CHANGE IT UP
An excited, engaged cartoonist is also a productive one. Bristol board is not the only way, you can and should make comics on anything. There is nothing more draining than facing the same old blank paper with the same old tools to do yet another comic. If you find yourself constantly making comics on an 11 x 17 piece of bristol board, change it. Do a comic in a 8 x 10 sketchbook. If you’re always using nibs, switch up your tools. Make a comic on the computer or with a brush or a micron pen or even a crayon. If you’re always on a computer, do something on paper. If you’re always drawing in a hyper-detailed style, challenge yourself to do a comic in a minimalist style. If you’re always drawing at a desk, grab a sketchbook and make a comic outside at a park.
On a similar note, there comes a time in every project’s development where you’re going to get tired of working on it. This is why it’s important to work on multiple projects at the same time. This will enable you to always have something else to work on if you happen to not be in the mood to work on your main project that day.
Even more crucial, make sure that the other project is far removed from your main project. In other words, if you’re working on an epic sci-fi geo-political drama that’s realistically rendered and in full-color, make your other project a short, cartoony, black and white affair. The goal behind multiple projects is to give yourself a break while still moving things forward.
By challenging yourself and constantly shifting your approach to how you make comics you will not only be more engaged with your work, but you’ll also grow as an artist. Add new tools to your artistic toolbox and get excited. Watch as projects you never thought you’d get around to are moved over the finish line. Embrace the new and get re-inspired. You may surprise yourself with what you produce.
TIME AWAY
It took me years to figure this one out, but you will actually be more productive if you give yourself time away from the drawing board. The reality is that no matter how much you want to be drawing 24/7, it’s not healthy to do that. Making comics can be a punishing labor. Your body and brain need time to rest, recover, and recharge. It’s okay to take a little breather. Don’t beat yourself up about it.
Take a walk. Read a book. Get re-inspired. Relax. What you’ll discover is that when you spend some time away, the next time you sit down at the drawing board, you’ll be ready to work and things won’t feel as hard. We only have one life to live, don’t forget spend some time to live yours.