It was spring 2009, and I had chosen a new course.
Two more years of school.
I was graduating with my degree in English a semester late and I had decided that I would stay in school for two more years to get another degree in Graphic Design. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I figured it would pay off in the long run. So far it really hasn’t. (Not monetarily anyway.)
I didn’t know anything about Graphic Design (didn’t really know what the term meant). I figured it would secure me some white collar work so that I could live somewhat comfortably (nope), afford me some spare time, and give me some pretty essential skills in what I did want to do: Make Comics.
That’s why I got the English degree as well. I wanted to get better at telling stories so I figured a degree in writing would help. (It did kinda.)
I was upset because two more years of school meant two more years of living in a small and not at all appealing town (sorry Greenville). It meant two more years before I could really persue my dream and “start my life” as I kept saying. I felt like I hadn’t started anything and that I was somehow holding my wife back. She assured me that I wasn’t, that I was already living, and to stop thinking of myself as stuck in some cosmic transition.
As usual, she was very right.
Taking her advice (and some of her money) I went out and bought a pad of Bristol board, some ink nibs, and some ink. Then I started drawing.
The first thing I drew is the first page in this batch of journal comics.
Actually, this was the first comic I drew with the new nibs.
Being a young writer, the fantasies of adolescence still fresh in my mind, I had no shortage of comics stories to write, but very few skills with which to draw them. Art school, up to that time, had done it’s level best to grind the comic-making bug out of me. It didn't succeed, but my art skills were none the better for it. I needed valuable practice, and I needed it right away.
Journal comics were the obvious choice. It would force me to draw from life (the quickest and most powerful way to improve) using reference material that was readily available. It would give me small short snippets of story to tell at any given time so that I could amass a body of short works quickly (second quickest way to improve). It would keep me from spinning my wheels at a word processor. The biggest part of the writing would be done for me.
The instant I began drawing was the instant my outlook on myself, my life, and my over all mood improved. I started very slowly. I would complete one comic page per week at first, but I was doing it. Finally. I was doing the thing I had said I wanted to do since I was a boy.
One page a week turned into two. Two pages turned into three. In my first year I began to post my comics online in what had become the classical webcomic format. One update at a time with a navigation bar below and an archive system. I managed to update twice a week with multiple pages, and then three times a week. Most of the webcomics at the time followed a newspaper format. Strips of 3 to 5 panels. I followed the comic book format. Pages, with establishing shots, environments (as best I could draw them) and sometimes more than one page to tell the joke/story.
My 3 updates per week goal was ambitious and I began losing sleep. Luckily this was during the time in my life where the loss of sleep was kind of invigorating. I was working hard at something I always wanted to work hard at. I was also a full time student working a minimum of two part time jobs and a maximum of four depending on marching season. (I had minored in Percussion, and I taught high school drum lines.)
Then Megan got pregnant.
It was planned, as much as these things can be planned. We had discussed that we wanted to be young parents and we were overjoyed. I was overjoyed and terrified. No dad is ready to be a dad until they are.
The implications of my humble little journal comic changed drastically at that moment. It became a contemporary document of what Megan and I were truly like as young people in the world on our own. It also became a living document of Megan’s pregnancy. Later it became the document of our daughter’s first year and my first year learning how to be a father.
Megan compliments me by saying I “took to Fatherhood like a duck to water,” but the truth is, Ivy was the world’s easiest baby. She then grew into the world’s easiest toddler, and at the time of this writing, is the world’s coolest kid. But she was still a newborn. I began to lose more sleep. It stopped being invigorating. But the comics persisted.
The first year of results is Linked Here.
Share and Enjoy!
-Gabe D.