Mission 'Four' The Future... you'll get it later

While I was at the studio today working on pages for Ron Randall I had a conversation with Paul and Colleen over Thai food about my future. Paul asked something like "So you want to do comics for a living right?" and I said yes to which he replied; "so what's your plan?" This is a good question to which I don't have a satisfactory answer. I have tried to progress in a logical upon graduating from art-school but it seems like there has always been something to get in the way or that I misdirect my time/resources. My drawings and ideas seem clunky and juvenile to me and I tell myself "I can do better than this!" It could be a mix of those things, that keeps my dream career floating out on the hazy horizon, but I don't want to fall back on any excuses or into anymore traps.

Colleen and Paul suggested doing modest stories around 4 pages in length about anything that will help showcase my skills. Complete narratives that I can submit as samples but also double as content for Melee.



Nathan and I have a lot of irons in the fire and that is fine because I can still make a commitment to the projects we have started but I know if I want my real job to be comics then I'll have to put some things on the back burner for a bit. Good news for those as yet unexplored projects, in some ways, because when I get around to them I'll do them faster, better and more professionally than I could have if I was just some work-a-day kids art teacher instead of a prolific, working, comics illustrator. I also think it could be good for Melee in the sense that people have short attention spans, we have lots of ideas that never get manifested-this could be the ticket.

I was thinking about calling these little pieces "Ben's Monthly Four" or "Four Weeks-Four Pages" or "Fabulous Foursome Finished in a Fortnight" and that is why Nathan is the writer between the two of us.

Check back in with this blog from time to time and, on the sight (hopefully) for my four page samples, you could watch a hopeful comics dilettante develop into a seasoned pro right here. Stay tuned for "To the Fourth Power!" or whatever Nathan lets me call it.