Ça sent la bière!
Jul. 27th, 2004 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseMF was making me laugh yesterday with a list of supposedly true comments from employee evaluations. One of them was, "He has the whole six pack but lacks the little plastic thingy that holds it together."
But you know, that comment has me thinking about my skill set vis-à-vis (I'm all about the accent grave today) my new comics career and wondering what the little plastic thingy is that will hold it together. I think I have the cans of beer nicely lined up now (a good story, the basic ability to draw it, the web skills, the dedication, the finances). The plastic thingy is probably the support of friends and experts that I must actively seek out and request. I need my team.
One of my biggest frustrations at the moment is that Snake cannot be the support I want him to be. He supports my desire to make art and does not begrudge the time I want to spend making it; but he cannot get behind my dream of actually becoming a creator and eventually leaving my day job for a life as a creator. This inability stems from two things: he's watched me do a lot of pie-in-the-sky dreaming in the past and watched me fail to make a career in theatre happen and then a career in music happen. So part of him thinks this is just a new enthusiasm which will burn bright and then dim.
I'm not sure why this is his problem and not mine, but he will not get invested in this type of dreaming. Also, he just doesn't get this whole "artist" thing. He finds it pretentious and self-important. Admittedly, it can be, but it's also important to think of yourself as some kind of shaman when you're preparing to create. How else will you perform the transformation? The conjuring?
But I do need my cheerleaders. I've gotten some great support from my LJ friends. Thank you. I will try to be unafraid to ask for and accept this support in the future. Oh, and btw, if you don't like what I'm creating, that's cool. I mean, I only like a fraction of the artists in the world and it would be quite a coincidence if my work happened to push all of your buttons.
I handed in the next draft of the hagaddah yesterday. I'll put this behind the cut in case you are bored by the whole topic. I know I am.
Today the editor bitch and her husband the publisher dweeb head off to Argentina for two weeks, so I was determined to get it to her by yesterday morning. I did so and encouraged her in my letter to put it into the proofing loop while she's away. The fact that she agreed seems to indicate that she thinks we're getting close. Not that she would say so in so many words.
In the long letter I drafted to her, I pointed all the changes I made from her wonderful suggestions and then defended at length the Red Sea illustration she wanted removed:
"On page 14 is the drawing of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. Although I have not completely finished the colouring, I think you will now have a better idea of what I was aiming for. First of all, so as not to confuse any child who may have a Catholic parent, I have replaced the Inquisition Cardinal with a picture of Haman. Looking at the drawing as a whole, you can see that the looming villains are rendered ghost-like and that Moses is the focal point. He is resolute and unafraid -- a literal interpretation of the words the children are reading on the page: "No matter who your enemies are, the Jewish people will always survive.
"I believe it will be an inspirational picture for the children because the Jewish people have survived all these great villains and even more. The picture also speaks eloquently to one of the central lines of the Hagaddah: "In every generation one must look upon himself as if he personally had come out from Egypt." Passover must be understood as not only a celebration but as a remembrance of history and a story relevant to Jews today who continue to fight for their survival as a people."
She's mailing me a marked-up manuscript. I will plunge ahead as if everything is fine as it is and finish colouring and tweaking the whole doc. God! I want to be finished this.
But you know, that comment has me thinking about my skill set vis-à-vis (I'm all about the accent grave today) my new comics career and wondering what the little plastic thingy is that will hold it together. I think I have the cans of beer nicely lined up now (a good story, the basic ability to draw it, the web skills, the dedication, the finances). The plastic thingy is probably the support of friends and experts that I must actively seek out and request. I need my team.
One of my biggest frustrations at the moment is that Snake cannot be the support I want him to be. He supports my desire to make art and does not begrudge the time I want to spend making it; but he cannot get behind my dream of actually becoming a creator and eventually leaving my day job for a life as a creator. This inability stems from two things: he's watched me do a lot of pie-in-the-sky dreaming in the past and watched me fail to make a career in theatre happen and then a career in music happen. So part of him thinks this is just a new enthusiasm which will burn bright and then dim.
I'm not sure why this is his problem and not mine, but he will not get invested in this type of dreaming. Also, he just doesn't get this whole "artist" thing. He finds it pretentious and self-important. Admittedly, it can be, but it's also important to think of yourself as some kind of shaman when you're preparing to create. How else will you perform the transformation? The conjuring?
But I do need my cheerleaders. I've gotten some great support from my LJ friends. Thank you. I will try to be unafraid to ask for and accept this support in the future. Oh, and btw, if you don't like what I'm creating, that's cool. I mean, I only like a fraction of the artists in the world and it would be quite a coincidence if my work happened to push all of your buttons.
I handed in the next draft of the hagaddah yesterday. I'll put this behind the cut in case you are bored by the whole topic. I know I am.
Today the editor bitch and her husband the publisher dweeb head off to Argentina for two weeks, so I was determined to get it to her by yesterday morning. I did so and encouraged her in my letter to put it into the proofing loop while she's away. The fact that she agreed seems to indicate that she thinks we're getting close. Not that she would say so in so many words.
In the long letter I drafted to her, I pointed all the changes I made from her wonderful suggestions and then defended at length the Red Sea illustration she wanted removed:
"On page 14 is the drawing of Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea. Although I have not completely finished the colouring, I think you will now have a better idea of what I was aiming for. First of all, so as not to confuse any child who may have a Catholic parent, I have replaced the Inquisition Cardinal with a picture of Haman. Looking at the drawing as a whole, you can see that the looming villains are rendered ghost-like and that Moses is the focal point. He is resolute and unafraid -- a literal interpretation of the words the children are reading on the page: "No matter who your enemies are, the Jewish people will always survive.
"I believe it will be an inspirational picture for the children because the Jewish people have survived all these great villains and even more. The picture also speaks eloquently to one of the central lines of the Hagaddah: "In every generation one must look upon himself as if he personally had come out from Egypt." Passover must be understood as not only a celebration but as a remembrance of history and a story relevant to Jews today who continue to fight for their survival as a people."
She's mailing me a marked-up manuscript. I will plunge ahead as if everything is fine as it is and finish colouring and tweaking the whole doc. God! I want to be finished this.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-27 09:02 am (UTC)