I hate living in poverty. I really do. I hate having to rely on the kindness of strangers just to survive when the local HHS offices fuck up and cut out over half of our income for going on two months. (Long story, see here, then here, then here for details.)
But most of all, I hate working on art for over 15 hours a day, trying to get comic book work, and running into closed doors.
What do you do when you have no boot straps to pull yourself up by?
As I said, I've been putting in 12+ hour days, every day of the week for almost a month, now, to get a new comic book project going so we can have more income. I've been drawing and painting from when I get up to when I go to bed. I formatted this comic in a wide format because so many comics are going digital and it would fit the screen better. I produce pages at higher speed than I ever have before. Proud of my hard work, I send off submissions to publishers.
No takers.
The format throws them all off. This is why comics are shrinking and dying - they, like the music industry, see the future but refuse to adapt. When was the last time you saw comic books in grocery or convenience stores? Comic books are now a niche market sold almost exclusively in comic book shops, which only diehard fans go to. How many hundreds of thousands of sales are they missing out on for clinging to a dying model?
But this diary isn't about the comic book industry. It's about the myth that all you need to do is to buckle down and pull yourself up by your boot straps.
I'm severely disabled, my boot straps are pretty damn short and frail. Art is all I've got as far as marketable skills go, and because I don't draw men with bulging muscles and women with gravity defying tits, I'm stuck trolling the indies for creator-owned contracts. If art and making comics was just about telling stories and getting a cult following of fans, I'd do webcomics, but webcomics are free, advertising space makes very little, and there's no money in it. I can't afford to work for free. People won't pay money for webcomics. There are digital comics for Kindle and the iPad, but to get in the e-stores that sell them, you need a publisher. Back to square one.
It's not like things would be better if I weren't disabled. There were over 100 people in line yesterday morning for 2 - TWO - courtesy clerk positions at the grocery store. The job is part-time and pays minimum wage. That's how bad it is out there, as I'm sure many of you know.
So how are we supposed to pull ourselves up through hard work when there IS no work? Or, like me, when you work more than full-time and nothing comes of it? Where are the Teatards and the media when regular, everyday people are suffering?
Arguing about Bush's tax cuts and the 'Death Tax'.
I had to stop painting, tonight, because the rejections and frustration were causing me to rush and do less than my best. I just want to work, and get paid for my work. In a bit I'll draw the last commission piece from a Kossack that I have in the queue (hi Emily, if you're reading this!) and get it finished. I'll have accomplished something, something that paid (and was only delayed so I could finish my comic project proposal for long-term income).
And then I'll go back to tugging at frayed, worn boot straps with my teeth.
Maybe I'll get up, this time.