I received a bunch of messages in this vein, but yours didn’t have any political screeds or racial epithets so you get a response. Congrats.
When it comes to writing blog posts about making comics, I’ve always tried to make it clear that I am not a guru and don’t have anything close to all the answers.
Maybe that’s okay.
Survival bias is a state where people concentrate on only the most exemplary subjects and try to emulate them, not realizing that they’re the exception, not something typical.Â
If you try to figure out how to be a “huge successful writer” by only looking at superstars and big moneymakers, you’re almost certainly going to fail. Don’t get me wrong, every creative person has tremendous hardships and rejections in their careers at different points, but the level of success a J.K. Rowling, Stephen King or Robert Kirkman now have is highly unusual and not something you can reproduce.
Maybe it’s a good idea to get a bit of advice from someone currently in the trenches, someone slowly building their name bit by bit who’s honest about what worked and what didn’t as they go along.
I’ll admit, there’s still survival bias involved in my career (many people pitch their ideas to Image, many more want to work at Marvel), but I try to temper my optimistic advice with reality wherever I can. It may not be as impressive, but it’s certainly more realistic.
I’ve known friends and colleagues who wanted their creative careers to appear like Athena,
a perfect armored warrior-goddess instantly striking awe and fear into all around her, who sprung fully formed from the forehead of Zeus. (Seriously, that’s the legend. Mythology is fucking weird and awesome).
It doesn’t happen that way. It never will. The people I’ve known who acted that way about creativity quickly burned out on top of a pile of half-baked concepts and unfinished work. They wanted blinding inspiration and success or nothing and nothing was what they got.
If you make things you will struggle, screw up, and hate the choices you’ve made at times, but if you stick with it you will also learn and grow. Sometimes it won’t be about money. Other times that, and keeping a roof over your head, might be your only concern. Everyone’s journey is different. You can learn a bit from other people but in the end you have to go out there and do it yourself.
If you’re spending your time staring at my little bar charts shaking your fist about my success or lack thereof, you’re using way too much energy in an unproductive way. Go make stuff or go looking for Athena and see where it gets you.
Let’s talk about losers.
I know a loser who couldn’t get a book picked up by Image Comics to save his life, so he self-published a bunch of comics until he finally had a series approved. Then his first five or six launches there all failed. He threw a hail mary, but then the book barely cracked 7k on its first issue – a total dog. He’s open about once laying on the floor, face down, and thinking his career was over (not to mention being tens of thousands of dollars in debt). His name is Robert Kirkman. That “total dog”? Walking Dead.
There’s this other loser who had actually had a hit early on in his career. He had some decent runs since then, but eventually, he was scraping by doing anthology stories for a sub-genre which was rapidly dying. Dude was given the opportunity to do a book any way he wanted when he was in his mid-40s, and things finally started kicking off for him. Jack Kirby. Fantastic Four.
Outside of comics, there’s this one loser who never ever had a hit in his lifetime. In fact, every single book of his flopped sales wise while barely maintaining any praise outside of a couple of peers. He poured all of himself into one book in particular, but it was yet another flop. He died never seeing a modicum of success. His name was F. Scott Fitzgerald and the “yet another flop” was The Great Gatsby.
There’s this loser who received some decent attention in his late 20s. However, beyond an award for debut author (which is nice, but doesn’t pay bills) every one of his books received tepid, “loser”-level sales until he similarly threw a “hail mary” debuting a new character of his when he was in his mid-40s. His name is James Patterson, the character is Alex Cross, and Patterson’s the number one selling author in America, possibly the world.
Don’t get me started about yet another loser whose first book sold so poorly his publisher immediately handed back his rights, so dude struggled to find another publisher who would even look at his work. Paulo Coelho, author of the Alchemist, one of the best-selling books of all time.
The world’s built by losers who didn’t stop when they lost and kept on losing. There’s certainly no point in any creative pursuit without failing, learning, and improving. To go one further, “losing’s” not just inherent to the process, it’s the fuel. It’s how you grow, it shows you’re taking risks and trying new things. You need to lose to develop your voice beyond what you already know.
So, take it from Zub, Kirkman, and Kirby, or Fitzgerald, Patterson, and Coelho. If writing, painting, race car driving, or whatever-gets-you-going is something you desire pursuing, you better hope you’ll lose. Otherwise, you’ll never learn to win.
You’re a fucking loser with indy books barely making money. Who gives a shit what you think about making comics.
