Month: February 2023

A few years ago I was given the opportunity to publish a comic with a publisher I really respect. The owner is a friend. He had distributed some self published books of mine and thought it would be a good for both of us if he published a book for me. I was very excited by the offer but almost instantaneously I felt overwhelmed by a fear of failure. The thing that sent me over the edge was when he emailed me asking what sites and publications I would like my work sent to for review. Suddenly everything became very real. I got really in my head about the idea of reviews. I suddenly had imaginary expectations to live up to. I worked really hard on a couple scripts and then decided they were not good enough. I had published small runs of comics in the past but this project would have a much wider reach and therefore a wider variety of scrutiny.

I felt frozen. I just stopped talking to him about it. Every time I posted a comic project on instagram I felt like he was looking at it and wondering why the fuck I hadn’t delivered on this great opportunity he had generously offered me. I thought I had burned a bridge . The worst part was during this time he published books by a couple friends and THEY KNEW I had the offer. I felt ashamed and embarrassed.

After a year he contacted me and told me he was still interested in doing a book with me. Finally I admitted that I had a lot of anxiety about the project and apologized for the radio silence on my part. Surprisingly he wasn’t upset at all and informed me he works with a ton of “underground cartoonists” who take forever to get work to him and it didn’t even occur to him to be upset about anything. He reminded me that he wants to publish work of mine because he feels it will be good for his company and not to do me a favor. Reviews are a tool used to sell a book not destroy it. He basically said if a book gets sent to someone who doesn’t like it, they probably just won’t review it. The offer still stands.

I’m in school now and barely have time to breath so whatever book comes out of this will happen after I graduate. The plan is to work on it this summer and come back to it with fresh eyes during school breaks, with publishing to come after my second year. Am I still anxious about it? Yes. Yeah. I am. But! I love critiques. I love having a second or tenth pair of eyes on a thing I’m working on. So maybe reviews aren’t that big of a deal.

This week we heard a lecture from SCCA alumni Brit Zerbo. Brit shared a lot about her triumphs and set backs. She talked about working hard and setting boundaries.One of her last slides included the phrase “Hard skills will get you the interview, and Soft skills will get you the job.” Below is a list of my (current) hard and soft skills.

Hard Skills:

Visual storytelling

I’m an illustrator and cartoonist and I spend a lot of time contemplating ways to present concepts visually. This essential quality brought me into the design program and it is fundamental in all the work I do.

Adaptability

This was listed in as a soft skill in the Linkedin article but I’m gonna go ahead and call it a hard skill. I’m currently learning to use seemingly every piece of complex design software in existence. Every week there are several new challenges and the following week I find myself applying the skills I’ve gained through dealing with those challenges to my work. If there is something that needs to happen I will do the research and learn to skills needed to make it happen.

Concept Development

I love brainstorming and transforming a basic idea into a fully fleshed out cohesive project. I’ll do the research, spitball ideas, strategize and find the people needed to achieve the goal

Soft skills

Conflict Management

I haven’t had an easy life. I was raised by one mentally ill parent and another who struggles with addiction. I’ve learned to adapt to and find common ground with all variety of difficult personalities. I have worked hard to detach from my personal biases and accept the strengths and limitations of the people I work with. As a result of the internal work I’ve done in this area, I have found I can now use these skills to deescalate conflicts between others.

Communication

If I have questions I ask them. If I’m working on a group project I want everyone to know what I know and the skills I have up front. This isn’t purely altruistic, I want to extinguish my stress before it happens and by proxy I want to limit the stress of others.

Empathy

You know what? This isn’t a thing I think of very often. I don’t walk around thinking I’m a super empathetic person, but I often find myself in situations where the people involved make note of my empathy. I am of service to others when I am able, and I can set boundaries with kindness. I recognize that I am imperfect and it is ridiculous to imagine anyone else wouldn’t be.

Areas for Improvement:

Hard Skills

Proficiency in Illustrator

Illustrator is the program I will probably use most often due to my skill set. My skills are improving but my taste is greater than my abilities.

Color Theory

My understanding of the relationship between colors is growing but it’s a struggle. I am trying to remain patient as I learn but often feel like I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.

Soft Skills:

Time Management

I am religiously late to almost everything I ever do and I’m always tired.

Self Confidence

Despite everything I wrote above I still mentally beat the shit out of myself and my work. It doesn’t matter what the project is or how good my grade is, I can find a reason to consider it a failure. I’m trying to keep in mind I’m a student, design is new to me, and a lack of skill is an essential requirement when pursuing any sort of education. Despite that I am struggling with feelings of inadequacy. There’s a lot of ego involved and I’m trying to admit to that and be gentle with myself about it but it’s hard.

https://youtu.be/Zhz308yXNhQ