A Decade Of Making Comics - Part V
And you’d think I would have learnt something…here I talk about the true path my second half of the decade laid out for me.
“I been in the game for ten years making rap tunes comics!”
Last time, I wrote about my big break at Dark Horse leading to success, but also some pretty decent failure.
I needed to figure out my place after BEAUTIFUL CANVAS dropped. We got good reviews, I loved telling the story, but I had no idea what would come next, or what should come next.
I think I was still in the mindset that everything had to be bigger, better, stronger, further. But it didn’t seem to be going that way.
I loved working with Black Mask and they were happy to hear more pitches from me. On the back of success, I built the roadwork for ETERNAL with Eric Zawadzki and EVERFROST, wherein I’d tricked Sami Kivela into working with me yet again.
This was in 2017. Life seemed pretty fresh. My comic writing hobby had seemed to grow in many positive ways - comics had come out, the publishers I could work with had expanded, I was getting a bit more money, reviews were strong, I was having fun, and I had prospects on the horizon. NEGATIVE SPACE won two Aussie awards, I was liaising with DC, and I got nominated for Teacher of the Year 2 years in a row, with the second time rating as a top 3 finalist. And I went back to Seattle for ECCC and had a blast selling comics, meeting up with old friends, seeing new ones, and solidifying a few industry relationships with editors and people I really respected.
But then things just didn’t keep escalating. So my brain read that as complete implosion. I’d peaked, and it was all downhill. I don’t think I clocked it at the very moment, but I did in reflection a few years later. From this point, I really started sweating it all.
ETERNAL took about a year to come out after this. It was definitely worth the wait, Eric’s art in that book with Dee Cunniffe’s colours are a triumph. A genuinely stunning and stellar piece of work. But while I waited, it felt like nothing else was happening.
I’d written all of EVERFROST, but Sami being the titan he is also got some offers for some great books and collaborations so while he did ABBOTT with Saladin Ahmed and MACHINE GUN WIZARDS with Christian Ward, we waited. Now, I’d wait a lifetime just to work with Sami, and I definitely understood that all work would only assist our book’s profile, too. Plus, whenever there was the slightest pause, Sami would blast through another page or some designs, or something. Sami is the very image of what you think a delightful and hard working collaborator could be.
So I waited, and was excited for both books to eventually land.
During that time, I was pitching and pitching but nothing was landing. So I took to Kickstarter over the years to keep myself in the joyland of making comics. I successfully funded 4 one-shot comics throughout 2016-2019 and I find those campaigns a huge business endeavour, but always a joy. Two were all ages one-shots: INK ISLAND with Aussie legend Craig Bryun, and EIR with Alfie Gallagher, and both books are so much fun, full of beauty and meaning, and they continue to sell well at cons to today.
I got to collaborate with Alex Cormack on STAIN THE SEAS SCARLET, a dark sci fi tale of colonisation and anger. I really think we did something special with this one, and I continually hope to work with Alex again.
Then I put together SKYSCRAPER with another Aussie phenom, Mitchell Collins. We made this weird history of a building one-shot newspaper sized so we could really open up Mitch’s art. I’d always wanted to do a comic at this scope, and while it took me ages to line up the right printer to get the paper and print quality we want, it was worth it in the end. This thing is exactly what I wanted to make.
Thankfully Kickstarter paid us all, and covered printing, but the printing options meant I could go one of two ways [Note: all numbers made up to prove a point, but the point is definitely in these made up numbers]. We could print 300 copies for $4000 or 3000 for $4000. I did what anyone would do and now I have a garage wall full of boxes of a comic that’s all paid for, but I need to slowly move through conventions, and such. No ragrets.
While I did all of this hustle - and Kickstarter is a hell of a hustle just to keep your mental insanity and love of making comics afloat - ETERNAL came out. The reviews were glorious. Probably best in show for me, and the book hit #51 on the international graphic novel sales chart.
This OGN - with glorious paper stock and a spine and a $7.99 price point - felt like the point where I was going to level up my game. I thought that meant fortune and endless opportunities and some kind of Altered Beast level up moment.
Instead, I’d spend the next 3 years feeling in limbo and having to completely reprioritise my efforts, my expectations, and my output.