No Pain, No Gain?
Getting out of my comfort zone, again.
Yesterday after much thought I decided to register to attend the National Cartoonist Society’s Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio in early August. Now thoughts of imposter syndrome start to bounce around in my head. I find that I push myself into uncomfortable situations for personal growth. As I posted earlier, in 2009 I started a webcomic through a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship. What I didn’t say was over the years I had met some of the judges, one came to me after I found out I had received the fellowship to let me know how much they had championed my proposal. That they had pretty much pushed to get it approved. For someone (like me) with low self-esteem, who already feels they aren’t worthy of any accolades this hurts a bit. It also made me feel the need to prove myself worthy. I’m not sure how many Lilly Fellows can say that they are still working on their project 17 years after it was awarded. After I had been publishing online for a while, listening to podcasts and reading whatever I could find about webcomics. A year into diving into webcomics, I had the opportunity to attend a session called “Webcomics Bootcamp” at New York Comic Con. This was putting myself in an uncomfortable situation since the panel would actually critique your comic in front of a live audience.
In school I had an art teacher whose catch phrase was “Great! I love it!” No matter how bad your work was. This teacher had learned at some point that honest constructive feedback upset students (and therefore parents) and turned kids off to art, so she did the opposite. Everything was amazing… even when the student knew it wasn’t. Throughout my schooling I was looking for feedback on how I could improve, and all I usually got was “Wow! That’s really good.”
I had to keep this in mind at Webcomics Bootcamp. My Geek Odyssey was early on in the panel and I was nervous. I had raised my hand when they asked whose work this was, I then sat and listened. The first few comments dealt with my website and how it wasn’t set up to be profitable. The layout wasn’t conducive for advertising. (This was a pre-patreon and paid subscription world) I wasn’t worried about this since that wasn’t why I was drawing the comic. I had a job and I was doing this to keep myself sane, so those comments were easy to take in and file away for later.
Next came the comment that, at the time hurt, and in front of a crowd was a bit embarrassing. “Lettering is an Art” and it was something I either needed to work on or I should just download a decent font and move on. I was flabbergasted. I taught handwriting! Of course I look back at those strips and agree that the lettering was awful. While this was just the kind of advice I wanted, it hurt when I first heard it. There were other comments, many positive, but also constructive on panel layout and dealing with how characters were interacting in each panel. I learned a lot, but it also was a bit painful. Being early on in the critiques usually means your work is the example for a multitude of sins and while other pieces may have similar issues the critic doesn’t want to keep repeating themselves. I understand that, but it also makes those initial people feel like their work is the worst of the bunch since so much was said about it. I shutdown at first, especially since I had to sit through the rest of the panel seeing other webcomics and not hearing much else except replaying how “bad” my strip was.
Once I calmed down and thought about how this was exactly the advice I had wanted. I then came up with a plan of action. The first thing I did was find a few fonts to try out and figure out which one I felt worked best. Comicraft became a good friend and their New Year’s Sale made it so I didn’t break the bank.
In August I push myself and get to dive into imposter syndrome pretending I am a “professional” cartoonist in a room full of professional cartoonists. Yes, I draw a comic strip, published in two countries. Yes, I’ve been at this off and on for 17 years. What do I hope to get out of it all? I’d say “networking” but I’m probably going to play wallflower, run away from people I admire, or fold up into a fetal position in the corner of the room. Like with many conventions I attend I guess I’m going to see if this is my tribe. I am not a NCS member (If you can’t tell, I’m not that confident in my work). I’m actually attending on a “Sessions Only” badge so that means I’m avoiding most of the social activities like the Reuben Awards Banquet and meals (introvert superpower activated). I hope to learn something and push myself out of my comfort zone. Maybe gain some confidence and hopefully get inspired to actually draw more and maybe feel worthy enough to actually apply to become a NCS member. Then again, maybe I’ll just get home and pet my cats after a good cry.
