![charlespollardwork:
Munchos [ink, digital, 7.75x6.25”]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/be8dba25f18c0c0907d4722321738a6f/tumblr_mmwrd09Ylx1s2imwzo1_500.gif)
Munchos [ink, digital, 7.75x6.25”]
Fair enough. I assume you mean when I started Dresden Codak? I’ll break down the honest-to-goodness process of the early comics:
- Draw comics in mechanical pencil on the back of my statistics homework (never turned in) and then ink on top of that with a micron pen.
- Sneak into the Honors College study room (from which I was expelled for poor grades) and use their scanner.
- Use a mouse and a bootleg copy of Photoshop 7 to color the pages.
- Upload it to my site, which at the time was flat HTML that I’d written from scratch.
And that’s it!
reblogging this for the reminder that grades and a college degree are by no means the be-all end-all of life.
There’s some truth to this. I’d like to share some further biographical information:
I’m a college dropout. In 2006 I left school after a little over four years because I kept changing majors (physics, anthropology, computer science, then art) and it had reached a point where it was difficult for me to afford to keep going to school (I was paying my own way with various jobs).
The reason I had kept changing majors was because I was terrified that I’d picked the “wrong” career, with most of those academic decisions based around what careers seemed prestigious. I wanted to be an engineer because I liked the idea of being an engineer, then a programmer because I liked the idea of being a programmer, but I was never happy doing any of these things, and it showed. I’d always been groomed to be a good student, and for most of my career I was good at doing what I was told.
I’d always been creative, doing little projects on the side. I wrote a sci-fi novel when I was 19 (never shared it), some poems in physics class, and even some fake news stories about Popeye before I was kicked off the university paper. I also made films with friends for many years. I was told these were “good hobbies,” that once I became a respected and financially stable engineer/programmer/scientist, that I could then do what made me happy on the side. A nervous breakdown during my college career, however, made it clear that “waiting to be happy” was a psychologically unstable strategy. I couldn’t wait for someone else to grant me permission to do what I wanted with my life.
So, in 2005, during a statistics class that I would eventually fail, I started drawing Dresden Codak. I hadn’t seriously drawn in many years, but it’s something you don’t totally lose. They were pretty bad drawings, but I didn’t care. I enjoyed it and decided that doing what I really liked to do now was better than hoping I could do it later. I wasn’t looking for a career at the time, I just realized how much I loved making comics and knew that I should do whatever I could to keep making them. It took about a year for me to decided that being a cartoonist was what I really wanted. I changed my major to art briefly, but eventually accepted that paying for a degree wasn’t something that was going to help me at that point.
After that, in 2006, I took a chance and dropped out. I worked an office job full time during the day while drawing Dresden Codak full time at night. I slept about 3 hours a night, but it didn’t matter. I was doing what I wanted, and it kept me going. Then, toward the end of 2007 I found out, through Topatoco, that I had enough readers to justify selling some merchandise. To my genuine surprise, as soon as we put the store up, I was making more money than my office job (which I promptly quit). From there I packed up, moved out of Alabama and never looked back.
Dresden Codak has been my full-time job ever since. It’s let me travel the country and meet amazing people while making a pretty comfortable living, but most importantly I get to do what I enjoy more than anything else. Ever since, I make all of my life decisions based on maximizing what I really want to do, and so far it’s served me well.
Don’t interpret this as an anti-education/college story or anything like that. I just think often we expect success if we do X, Y and Z, when in reality such a thing can’t be reliably handed to you by an authority. Start doing what you want to do now, because life’s far too short to wait around to be happy.
Twigs “How’s That”
Dean Blunt “I Run New York”
Dean Blunt “The Pedigree”
Dutch E Germ “Becoming Chaina”
Jan Deaux ft. Saba “Escape”
Juan Atkins & Moritz Von Oswald “Footprints”
Every “Comma”
SZA “Castles”
Co La “Baby’s Breath”
Kit Grill “Fireflies”
The-Drum “Sirens”
Jonas Reinhardt…
Gingerbeard James Jamesson and Dale Cooper in Behind the Big Top.
look at that composition! i wish we lived in a world where porn directors actually got any kind of recognition because tony dimarco clearly knows what’s up right here
also dale cooper is the best porn name hands down, well done sir
also i did not know before today that the thanagarian elder god in the justice league episode where shayera and grundy become friends is voiced by none other than rob zombie, which is hilarious
also that episode is pretty great! i always love how ridiculous dr. fate is, and all the subtle (and less-than-subtle) avengers jokes are a real treat. and even though it’s a lot more heavy-handed than the later jlu episode, the shayera/grundy moments are still pretty touching.
anyhow as a side note can i just say how much i love amanda waller? she’s so amazing and it’s incredible that there is an action figure of her and man i don’t usually go in for that kind of thing but i would be pretty stoked to have one!
speaking of netflix cartoons: remember that episode of jlu where shayera is hanging out at dr. fate’s all depressed because she doesn’t know what to do with her life now that she’s out of both the league and the thanagarian military? and inza makes the insane implication that the blood of everyone who dies while she’s out of the league is on her hands? and (spoilers?) she ends up hunting down and killing the re-reanimated corpse of her (i guess) friend solomon grundy because she doesn’t know how to be anything but a soldier? and the episode tries to end on a happy note with her rejoining the league but it all just feels so hopeless and i always find myself choking on tears?
well guess what, turns out that this version of solomon grundy is voiced by none other than bruce timm! i like to think that he was so pleased with how heartbreaking and effective this episode was going to be that he had to make himself even more a part of it than usual. man what a guy!
Yesterday evening, The Needle Drop conducted a live webcam chat interview with clipping. If you missed it, or just want to revisit, the capture is online though! Running over 30 min, I can sum up the entire thing though: clipping. are three dudes taking exactly what they were doing as solo artists and now doing it together as a trio. It just happens to be that the results of doing that are unlike anything anyone has ever heard.
Hey, that’s the hard proof of why you got to just try things as an artist, regardless of what precedent is out there.
Be sure to catch clipping. on tour with Foot Village, starting this Sunday!
great dudes, best dudes
the perry bible fellowship was one of the first webcomics i ever fell in love with // as you read through the archives there are some really nice moments where nicholas gurewitch decides to experiment with different visual styles, often in homage to artists who came before him // this one went on hiatus for a long while but now he’s updating it again every once in awhile and that makes me pretty happy // ps pbf has made me laugh harder and longer than maybe any other comic i have ever read
minus (06-08) was one of the prettiest webcomics i think i ever read! ryan armand has made many other projects available to the internet - go dig around that site, there is an awful lot of treasure
(i still dream of orgonon)
cloudbusting - kate bush
(what made it special
made it dangerous
so i bury it
and forget)
dir. julian doyle
(it’s you and me
daddy)
