Posted on by michaelwconrad

What do I know about immortality?

So here we are, a handful of days following the announcement that I will be part of the creative teams for DC Future State “Immortal Wonder Woman” as well as “Midnighter” and I wanted to share the story about how these things came to be and some reflections regarding them.

At the beginning of 2020, I, like many creators, felt like the future was mine to take. I was to attend several conventions, notably one of my favorites, ECCC in Seattle where I was to meet with a number of upstart publishers that are currently the source of many of your favorite books. I had my foot in the door to work on an IP that is super near and dear to my heart, and I was beginning to think I could wave my hand and make things happen. “Doom Patrol” and our “Tomb of Dracula” story in Marvel’s “Bizarre Adventures” seemed to have captured the imaginations of readers and “Tremor Dose” my OGN at ComiXology Originals was getting more than its share of attention. 2020 was mine to shape and define.

Covid fucked up those plans, as well as the plans of everyone I know. Everything shut down, doors swung closed, and the thing I had spent years of my life striving toward fell into a deep set relief on the wall I had battered myself against. I wasn’t back to square one, but this was a major wound that would take the better part of the year to heal from.

So, I tried to do the thing we all promised ourselves we would do. I made stuff. In the first two months of Covid I made two comics while working on a video game. I was really proud to have done those books but they made it very clear to me that while I had an audience, it wasn’t growing much at all. I spent too much time wondering how one develops and expands an audience. It remains a mystery to me, but I do know that it took a bit of a toll on me creatively. You see, I’m used to this kind of shit. I played music for many years and most of the bands I played with made it RIGHT THERE to the cusp of being something people were aware of. We worked with small labels, toured extensively, recorded out of our pocket, played with bands that would shape the face of music to come and yet… we were always too early or too late, or fate would pull our card and remove us from the equation.

Becky will tell you, I didn’t believe “Doom Patrol” was gonna happen, even after being paid. I’ve been so programmed for disappointment that I figured that surely something would kill the project before it ever made it to the stands. I feared Gerard would decide it didn’t work, or that the editors didn’t want to risk their name on someone like me. When word came that Young Animal and the rest of the imprints over at DC were gonna fold I was gutted. Months had passed and I was sure nothing would come of the work we had done. Thankfully it did happen and I was able to put one up in the win category. That issue of “Doom Patrol” will forever be something that I’m grateful for, it’s quite possibly the moment when I rediscovered my capacity to hope for the best.

I can’t say that hope is always a good thing. Conceptually it works, certainly for folks in dire situations hope is often a critical component to making it through. But sometimes hope will lead to expectation, and expectation is the keystone to entitlement. While I pride myself on being humble (like the most humble, wayyyyy more humble than you could even dream of… so humble it likely deserves an award or a yearly parade), like everyone else I feel like the work I do is often overlooked and marginalized. This leads to bitter feelings and an endless quest to feel seen. I had crossed over to a foul place of feeling like I was due greater attention and more opportunities. I say this in effort to be honest, knowing full well that this is a sickening way to be, but our secret truths are often repugnant and can only be discussed openly when we see how wrong we were.

Hope isn’t the bad guy, but it’s likely to bring along his good homie Ego to the party without asking if it’s cool. Ego will always bring his cousin Disappointment, who in turn will invite his brothers Bitterness and Grief. Before you know it they start bringing in more of their people and what was intended to be a small gathering of good folks turns into the kind of rager that requires the host to secretly call in the cops to break up. We never wanna see the cops, but we don’t want the responsibility of tempering our own feelings and expectations so we put it in the hands of someone else. Editors, publishers, people who should know who I am because I wrote a hell of an issue!

I felt like I was disappearing. I’ve repeated that a lot over the past few months, a kind of fucked up way of displacing the blame. I had gotten wrapped up in my own expectant glory and was gulping down my own cyanide laced Kool-Aid. I was dumb to do so, I had ignored finding balance and feeling gratitude and had lept into feeling due more.

I share this shame as if I was stomping about with big demands, which isn’t the case. These feelings were internalized and I conducted myself in a more idealized manner. I would share the truth about how blessed I felt, and withhold the parts about wanting more. Facing myself now I understand that this kind of thing is very human and very normal. We are all seekers, even with plenty we want more, an overabundance, and even then we will seek. This is a critical element of abuse and if you don’t have moments of reflection such as this you will never be charitable, understanding, and compassionate. You will become a hoarder of emotions and commodities. You will become a dragon nested on a mountain of ill gained wealth and feelings that have been so tamped down they have become crystalline vestiges of the qualities that you have sacrificed in pursuit of the unattainable.

Do I still strive toward something greater? Of course! It’s fun to chase this vaporous idea of success, even as it changes form and deceives you at every turn. My father is an avid fisherman and he would be the first to tell you that a bass on the line is only a small part of the allure of it. It’s the ritual, the escape, the mystery of what waits in the darkened waters. The good stuff swims deep as David Lynch says, and the good stuff is only good when it’s rare and elusive. This is true in love and life and most certainly with regard to big creative goals.

Months into the Quarantine I was no longer feeling like I could keep it up. I wanted to keep making things but it felt unimportant. In addition to the disease we were seeing all kinds of dramatic and painful things happening day after day. My little dreams didn’t matter. Comics didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. In many ways this still rings true, but I worked to redevelop my relationship with the process and that continues to this very moment.

Out of the blue an email came through from the most unlikely editor. This editor is someone who I thought hated me, or at least saw me as some kind of abscess. The email specifically asked about me and my interest in writing a Midnighter book with Becky.

This was a no brainer of course, YES I am interested in writing Midnighter! I’m no fool, I recognize that Becky is the target here, but goddammit my name was there too… I was asked for! I felt like a polaroid slowly revealing its subject. I had been seen, however vaguely, and I was again visited by Hope. This time I was prepared and demanded that we meet in a public space and I let my loved ones know where I’d be and if I didn’t return to send help.

Immediately I knew what I wanted to do with Midnighter and I think my enthusiasm was appreciated. After a video conference with some of the other Future State teams I felt validated knowing that these ideas had inspired them to connect with us further to tie the pieces together. Not long after this the Goddess herself presented.

When we got asked to do the “Immortal Wonder Woman” book I was more prepared for the good feelings. I was riding high on Midnighter, and I was ready to simply smile and nod and commit to telling the best damn Wonder Woman story I could. It all came together quickly and since completing it I feel confident in saying it is going to shake people to their core. Between the recent work on Midnighter and Wonder Woman I feel like I have made the most of this opportunity and I have been a valuable asset to the team. I cannot wait for y’all to see what we’ve done on both of those books.

After these things come out I don’t expect anything. I hope that people like it. I hope I have done my editors proud, and that we’ve given the readers something worthy of attention. I hope that I find other opportunities as a result, but these are the limits of Hope this time. I have a healthier relationship with it and I feel proud to have killed that greedy nag that it can become. 

I’m one of several newer voices in Future State and I’ve seen some strange things as a result that I would like to comment on in closing. Something that has kind of bothered me is the way people have responded to some of my peers on social media as if they stumbled onto a loose bit of cash tossed down the street by some zephyr beyond their control. This is strange because getting a job is never like winning the lottery, especially in cases such as this. The folks who have contributed to the strange tapestry of Future State have busted their asses off in ways that some cannot imagine. Indeed, maybe some can, because it is this kind of heartache and soul crushing rejection and radio silence and perseverance required that keeps some from pursuing this kind of work. Even in my case as a co-writer, if what I contributed wasn’t up to snuff I would be cut. Plain and simple, this isn’t luck, it’s the product of a lot of sleepless nights, self doubt, and a willingness to walk through fire; and that’s just to get to the dance. We will only know if the pain was worth it when we are done and our self assessment is balanced against the response of the readership and critics. In the meantime we wait and develop stomach issues. We question our own value, right to the core, bypassing the work entirely. If you don’t like what we’ve done it hurts, I don’t care what anyone else says.

That aside, it’s been really neat seeing people get excited for this event. There is so much good stuff going on and it’ll be really thrilling when January and February roll around and the most important ingredient of the creative process is added. You.

Posted on by michaelwconrad

24 Hour Comic Reflections

This past Saturday, October 3rd, 2020 I did my second 24 Hour Comic and was again successful. My story, as per the rules, was completely unplanned, unprepared, and made up on the fly. It’s 24 pages (and a cover) and this one contains over 90 panels (there is no panel goal as far as I know… just wanted to brag on that bit). I began my quest at 11:30am CST and finished the following morning at around 6:15am CST. During this time I updated periodically on IG Live and spoke with friends who were attempting to do the same challenge.

The 24 Hour Comics Challenge was created some years back by Scott McCloud who you know from his award winning “Understanding Comics” a book that has informed my understanding of the medium since I first picked up a copy in the mid 90’s, before I ever considered that one day I would be doing this stuff for a living.

I’ll spare you the fine details of the 24 Hour Comic origin and rules, but I encourage you to look these things up as they may inspire you to make your own attempt, or to modify the challenge to meet your needs. When I’ve done this challenge I have been by the book. I see the rules as the definition of a challenge… I mean, any diversion would certainly make it less challenging and what would be the point in that? This said, I levy no judgement on those who chose to modify, some folks are just plain less masochistic and prideful than I am. 

I do take pride in having done this. The freakshow nature of the challenge appeals to me, I live a pretty easy life in many ways and opening myself up to the brutality of a sprinting marathon of sequential art and storytelling is a good shot of the good stuff. As a freelancer I spend a lot of time in my head wondering where the next job is, who will collaborate with me, and what the next story I need to tell is. This challenge answers all of these questions with a dispassionate list of rules and forces me to get going even when the whole thing seems (at times) to be a fool’s errand.

The hardest bit this year was the first few hours. I had stayed up late the night prior catching up with friends on a lengthy phone call; full disclosure, I drank a bunch of beer in the process. I don’t know what it is, I like to drink beer and laugh with friends even when I know it will create another obstacle the following day. I was aware of my choices and I was willing to endure this stuff to be present for my friends.

Thankfully I wasn’t too low energy. I’m used to working on a less than ideal sleep schedule, so I have learned how to rally and know that coffee is my friend. The real struggle in those early hours was determining what kind of story to tell and reconciling that I wasn’t going to be able to draw it the way I prefer to. I’m never super precious about my art, but the nature of the challenge requires that one presses on even when knowing you kinda phoned it in here or there, or should have spent more time working out the composition of a page or panel. This kind of charge toward the goal changes the creative process quite a bit and I learn a lot every time. One of the great lessons, hard as it is to face, is that my best work isn’t too far removed from my bad work. I think this is because I am very much a student of visual art more than I am an artist in many ways. I’m happy with the fact that I become a better artist every day, and I can say in all humility that I prefer my own work to many who exhibit greater confidence than I can muster.

The big hurt is not being able to tell some stories because it would require a degree of precision or research that the challenge time wouldn’t allow. I needed to set my story well away from something recognized as “our world” so that I would not be held to, or hold myself to, any of the rules associated with such a mundane setting. I think I was quickly able to convey this by making the lead character have elven ears- bang! Subtle cue and away we go!

I decided that the best way to tell the story would be for me to quickly write down some notes I wanted to hit and figure out how to make that flow through the 24 pages. I jotted down some blocks and began, without any idea at all of how I would end the story. I knew it was about a guy who decided he would be king. I knew that the story would center on his efforts to please everyone, so he embarks on a journey to collect information from a variety of the inhabitants of this strange world. I didn’t know how to give that idea value, I just knew that at the end I had a few pages left to close out the account and to try to make some kind of statement, or to leave a particular tonality with the reader. I didn’t plan this out because I knew this was where I would get stuck in the weeds and end up falling behind on myschedule.

Plunging into it I HATED it. I was ready to stop, admit defeat, and go play some video games or faceplant on the bed and feel sorry for myself. I wanted to shitcan the whole thing, post to social media that I’m a fraud and a blowhard, and just disappear. Again it was pride or vanity that prevented me from doing so, but I wasn’t happy with what I was producing and I felt woefully alone and exposed.

I came to realize that I do this stuff for a number of reasons. Some are very petty, like feeling somehow elevated because I don’t personally know anyone who has been able to complete this challenge in recent years. Again, pretty weak, but I also like knowing that some see this as impossible, irresponsible, or just plain dumb. With it being October, folks are reminding each other that Inktober type challenges are super hard and that it’s ok to skip days or whatever… I’ve never been of that opinion. YOU can do what thou wilt, but when I take on a challenge I do it, and do it by the book… that’s what it’s all about… not to prove it to you but to prove it to myself.

I fail regularly. I’ve become so well acquainted with failure that I am at risk of accepting something as a failure before it’s even begun. I’ve been a frequent victim of a self-defeatist attitude because I put myself out there a lot. I take shots at things I have no business attempting, so I accept failure pretty readily. Like everyone I am far more likely to share the shiny successes over the heaping mounds of ruin that threaten to define my creative life. THIS challenge however was something I could control. I CAN BE ON FOR 24 HOURS. 24 hours isn’t much, we can suffer and push and go and get the thing done. It may not be pretty, and it may not feel good, but this was something that I could show agency over. A 24 Hour Comic has no gatekeepers. A 24 Hour Comic can’t be assaulted by critique because it is, by its nature, something that any critic would likely fail to do. Those who would throw stones would be unlikely to ever attempt such a thing because they’re too busy trying to find funny ways to shit on other people out there hustling.

In these ways the 24 Hour Challenge provides a feeling of freedom and a return to the exuberance and excitement of PURE CREATIVITY that is unencumbered by fears and happens without focus onn impressing anyone, creating a saleable product, or even exhibiting any talent. The talent on display is self discipline and willpower. As I came upon these thoughts I was able to rally in the 3rd or 4th hour and start to feel good about what I was producing and the path that I had chosen to take.

Once I found that peace I was more at ease. I was still not completely confident that I would make something worth all the trouble, but again the “trouble” was the damn point of the exercise. Could I choke down this meal of self doubt and still manage to clean my plate? Could my efforts here inform future struggles about my willingness to grind and to create, to get through tight spots? I didn’t have a clear answer to those questions but I continued on and as I did so I had other strange thoughts that were both egotistical and self deprecating… as ya do.

I can’t deny that the egotistical thoughts included wack stuff like “I’ll show them!” and “Behold my (dumb) might!” and even more thoughtful but equally self congratulatory thoughts like “Maybe this is inspirational for someone?” Along with these thoughts were the negative little vampiric ideas and voices that want to remind me that I’m a hack and an imposter. The voices would say that I lack fundamental skills, and that projects like this are a smokescreen to obscure that. That this challenge created the illusion of progression while ultimately doing nothing but perhaps drumming up some attention. I also wondered if this book would stand up against “The Watts”, my book from the year prior that has quite surprisingly found a nice little audience of folks who seemed to enjoy what I had done.

Discovering a middle ground between self admiration and self loathing is a huge part of my story as not only a creator, but as someone walking the earth. That story is writ daily through my actions and thoughts, and I’m trying real hard to be fair to myself and to the world around me. Completing the challenge would not be a measure of my value, it wouldn’t change the way I am seen or see myself, it wouldn’t legitimize me or elevate me, it was something I was doing because I wanted to see what would happen. What happened was this meditative introspection that no one, my partner included, knew was going on. I was facing myself and all the gross and misguided ways I think of myself and my impact on the folks around me. I was humbled and made stronger, just a little bit, and I was happy to have found something to force me into real self examination.

We all wonder what others think about us. Some of these same egoic factors drive our thoughts, to the same degree of counter measures often find their way into that as well. We feel hated by those who love us and to be loved by those who don’t care. We seek approval from those who would withhold such things, and completely ignore those who think we’re great. This is the silly nature of affirmation seeking that has ruined countless people who would be just fine if they chose to see things as they are.

The way I see it most folks are struggling with their own wounds, and triage dictates that they address this first. Unfortunately from the moment we are able to say “I am.” we begin bleeding and it never stops. We pack gauze into the wounds and petition the great invisible powers to save us, but it’s damn near impossible to take our eyes off of our own desperation. We will withhold care at times in a misguided attempt to not cheapen our efforts, or to protect ourselves from the embarrassment of giving something to an unwilling recipient. We are so fucking scared for ourselves that we struggle to see that not only are we being neglectful of those who need us, but we become so preoccupied with finding life support that we fail to see the forest through the trees. The people who back us up become translucent, sometimes dismissed or explained away with the flawed, damaged logic of someone whose fears have taken the wheel. We lose sight of what we can give and what we’re being given. We can’t expect to be celebrated, the party doesn’t need to be cancelled because it’s already been happening and we’ve been sleeping through it. There will never be enough cake, and when you do get a piece you’ll eat it so greedily it’s as if it was never even there.

Becky went to bed awhile after midnight. She didn’t want me to go it alone, but was exhausted. She was so sweet and so kind about making sure I had water and snacks and support that I damn near had to chase her from the room. Having ruminated on these ideas of support and ego and all that I was able to see how goddamn lucky I am to have someone who believes in me and is willing to let me know. I really hope that everyone has at least one person like that in their world, it makes all the difference.

As the hours grew small I was going at a much quicker rate. I had figured out where it was all heading, I had found a shorthand for representing the characters, and with the end in sight I found a second wind for that final dash. I’m not gonna delude myself into thinking that the final pages are some great display of my skills, but they work and before I knew it my story was told.

Finishing early is when you can find a new kind of guilt. This is the guilt of calling it done and getting some well earned sleep rather than going back and fixing stuff or adding some more details and background context. I didn’t give myself that hard time, as the process had in fact reminded me to cut myself some slack and to loosen up. I was delirious from the experience and ready to be done with it.

CLimbing into bed I briefly rolled around the thoughts that I had confronted during the process of the 24 Hour Challenge. I wanted these to be the last thoughts in my head as I fell asleep, because I knew without further meditating on such ideas I would surely return to old bad habits. The habits of self celebration over honest evaluation, and negativity over troubleshooting solutions. The habits of feeling invisible and unloved, and of course its ugly bedfellow that doesn’t allow me to celebrate the beauty and talents of others.

This challenge is hard. This thing isn’t for everyone, and I don’t think it’s meant to be. Conversely, it isn’t elite, or exceptionally more difficult than other things… it’s a tool that I welcome you to pick up and add to your personal creative utility belt. There is as much to be learned from this challenge in failing, or in deciding it isn’t for you as there is in its successful completion. I just wanted to put it out there, and to share the relationship that I have had with it.

When I finished the final page I immediately swore I was done with this challenge. I had again proven that I could do it, no need to go for it next year. Here I am just a few days out and I’m already reconsidering… This is why people climb mountains- sure they miss the view, but it’s that incline and the burning pain that brings them back.

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Keep Running.

The past few days have consisted of a bunch of work, work- as you know- is both a symptom of, and the seed of HOPE for freelancers. It’s brutally hard to thrust yourself into the fire when there isn’t much going on and I suspect this willingness is truly what separates those who will succeed from those who continue to wish instead. At my best, I’m the warrior, at my worst I’m immobilized and frozen. It goes without saying that I strive to the former, the diligent worker rather than the milky eyes dilettante with a head full of ideas that find no concrete expression.

I suppose it’s important to once again redefine success. In many ways I am already successful, depending of course on the metric we go by. I have been paid to work for the big ones, and I have earned my pay. I have created successful work, Mirriam and Webster could tell you as much. But, while I do identify as a writer I have the all too human tendency of ignoring conventional definitions and fostering new ones entirely. Sometimes my definitions appear in harsh contrast to those approved by the masses as rote and inherent. In the case of “success” it’s fluid and ever changing, which I suspect is true not just for me, but is instead the REAL definition that the dictionary finds hard to whittle down. Success as a concept demands multitudes of essays and books and TED Talks and podcasts and films and deeper levels of understanding. Success for me is a thing I doubt I have the capacity to attain because I suspect it requires some sense of finality. With invisible goals there is rarely a ribbon to run through at the end, it just recedes into the horizon and we keep pumping on, and that’s where the fear comes in. 

So if success is unattainable, why bother defining it? Well, I would say that in its evolution we can find mile markers of where we are and where we’ve been. With careful meditation one can turn their head in that neverending marathon and see that progress is in fact being made. It’s hard to do because we have to keep our eye on that goal if we are to keep up the pursuit, but if we don’t check the rearview periodically the outcome would surely be madness.  

Right now I have to keep pressing forward and ignore the progress I made in 2019. In the moments when I have reflected too much I have found myself fearful that I won’t have a 2020 that feels more accomplished than the year prior. A great anxiety of mine is that I will slip back down a bit, while this is natural, it’s also something that I hate to consider. I have to keep telling myself that this isn’t a competition (even against myself) without losing my edge. It’s a sad state of affairs when fear and pain are the only gas for the tank.

I’m doing what I love. I have told young folks for years that if you want to be a (insert creative profession here) that you become one by doing it. I’m terrible at taking my own advice, even in the rare instance that it is good or true, so here I am again typing to rewrite the neural pathways that keep me pitching dark clouds up over everything. I love the struggle. The struggle is my choice. I thrive in the struggle. The struggle defines me. The struggle is success.

But I digress… over the past few days the struggle has taken on a different shade. I’m in the process of selling another graphic novel, I’m working on several secret projects with a legend of the comics industry, as well as several other creative pursuits that have promise of coming to life. I’m so much better off today than I have been in years prior, social media has a way of reminding me of this with that “On This Day” function. It used to be that the only potential I had was created strictly by my own grit and financial sacrifice, it’s wild that now I expect money for something that I was doing/would do regardless.

Another big step that I have taken is that I have gotten much better at listening to critique, gleaning information, and not getting a hair up my ass about stuff that might sting a bit. I had a lovely conversation just the other day in which several of my precious little ideas for stories were cast off like befouled wet socks. As recent as 6 months ago I might have packed it in and shut down the whole affair. I would have defended my work with a sad vigor reserved for the hopeless. I would have reminded myself that people can’t understand my genius because they fail to see nuance and subtlety… this is an important skill, but equally important is to remember that most of the time that is weakness and bullshit. I have found refuge in knowing that where these darlings came from are a lot more, and that like ants attempting to cross a stream, these will do so on the backs of their fallen kin. This is a huge step for me.

To close the conversation this mentor gave me something to work with that is more valuable than placating my fragile ego would have ever been. In this instance Senpai told me I was holding back my weirdness and that I was doing myself a disservice by not leaning into that. I had been trying to make stories and build pitches that felt familiar and safe, an error, and an affront to my aspirations to live authentically.

I don’t know when I started to fear my weirdness- I suspect it came during an important pitch on a project that actually happened. I was told that the story was strange, and that it might be hard to sell. At the time I took great pride in this, but it rotted away like an old tooth exposed too only the sweet candies of self assurance and became an infected abcess. I feared my pitches failing because they were too “me” and I’m cursed shine like a mysterious star that no one else can understand- right? Wrong. Ever hear a sad breakup song at the right/wrong time that is almost too painful to listen to because it captures your heartache a little too perfectly? How often did the lyrics-all the lyrics-echo your situation completely? I would guess “rarely” as this has been my experience. The thing that connected me to the artist during these times was a shared humanity. Our worldviews, experiences, values, etc. can be wildly different, but the song itself reverberates off of our longing to feel understood. The magick was in hearing elements of truth in someone else’s engagement with pain, especially when it was an abstraction of my own. I needed to hear that universality isn’t born of being able to speak for the masses, it’s born of sharing the thing about myself that is unique to me that others identify with on their own terms.

So what does this mean for my writing? Well, it doesn’t mean that I won’t consider my audience, but it does mean that relationship will become more healthy. I promise to lean into my own personhood and I promise not to be sad if you don’t see yourself there- but if you do… firstly, condolences, but more importantly I have a lot to share.

Let’s get bizarre in 2020.  

Posted on by michaelwconrad · 2 Comments

A Meditation.

Well, a lot has happened… in many ways it feels like my year is over. Doom Patrol came out and did really well, much better than I could have even imagined really. It seems like our meta love letter was just what the doctor ordered! This fills me with an incredible amount of pride because I know fans of Doom Patrol are outspoken and would have let us know if we made a misstep, but in this case it has left a passionate group calling for more. I know that it’s kind of a long shot, but I’d love to continue to tell stories in this little pocket of the DCU.

Additionally Tremor Dose came out and frankly I had no idea that the book would make the kind of noise it has! As I write this it remains a top seller, and is currently on sale through comiXology for $2.99… which is insanely cheap for 130+ pages… not to mention it’s free to members of Prime, as well as members of comiXology/Kindle Unlimited. If you’re taking the time to read this I would hope that you have read Tremor Dose, as it is the comic that has really defined 2019 for me, and has allowed me to focus on comics full time.

So these things, along with a couple zines, my Tomb of Dracula story at Marvel, and a new online store have all happened leaving me with the obvious question of “What now?”

A few months ago I had strong ideas of what was next. I had tentative work lined up on some incredible projects but one by one these things have dried up. Emails have been slow in coming or altogether unresponded to. I have found myself spending a lot of time wondering if the success has been imagined and I’m just a fucking fraud. I had never heard of imposter syndrome until this year, and even then I had really only heard people use it in the self congratulatory, “Oh my gawd, I’m doing something incredible: IMPOSTER SYNDROME!” kind of way. For me it has been a very real thing, I feel like I can’t trust the positive responses because they haven’t seemed to make anything easier!

That said, at this years North Carolina Comic Con, a show I attended last year, I felt like a proper comics pro. I was able to sign some copies, and for maybe the first time ever feel like I had a voice among the creators we spent evenings with. I felt like my true identity, that of a peer, was acknowledged and that felt wonderful. This is a big thing for me, I don’t know if it’s from years of struggle, not only in comics but in creativity in general I’ve always felt like the odd man out. Feeling like I’m finally getting somewhere is outrageous because I’m so hardwired to expect so little.

I spent a few days after the show laying on the couch. I didn’t know what to do, and then one day I just started typing. I wasn’t exactly churning it out, but I was back in the fight and beginning the process that I have known was the only move… to write and write and write and expect nothing. I’m rebuilding, that little success proved toxic in a way, but now I’ve learned that a bit of success isn’t a magic wand and that I am still in the trenches. I suspect that some who have been following me over the course of 2019 have this idea that I’m a Made Man now and that I can call up DC and say “Hey, I have an Animal Man story that is gonna light the world on fire!” but that just isn’t the case for most freelancers. I have to strap myself to the desk and grind and do what I’ve always done best, which is to make the things that get me off and be pissed.

Being pissed doesn’t require blame. I don’t blame those editors who haven’t written back, or those polite rejections. These are busy people who need to be really careful with what they get behind, a safe bet succeeding or failing in the marketplace isn’t what I can offer. I will always tell stories that are outside of the norm, and to take something like that on and to have it fail can really sink things for an editor who is under a lot of pressure. I understand that as much as some of them would like to take risks, those risks will be reserved for folks who have earned that kind of privilege and I am a loooooong way from that.

Being pissed doesn’t mean kicking the dog, being a cold partner, being mean to yourself, none of that; it means arming yourself and going to war with those bullshit ideations of ego and self loathing. It means not feeling like you’re owed a fucking email, or that you deserve not to get one. It just means that you have to accept that this is part of the war, and it’s how you perform on each battlefield that will determine your longevity, your growth, and maybe even your legacy. Being pissed is what gets you back on your bike and pushing when the hills are many.

So those good things don’t count right now. The bad things are imagined, because in truth things are better today than they were yesterday. I get to sit down to write knowing that I have proven some things to myself that I once doubted, good medicine for someone who has used “imposter syndrome” in a very clinical sense. It means I can take myself seriously and know that if I fail it is not because I lack the fundamental skills, it’s because I haven’t done THE WORK.

Right now THE WORK is to continue to put myself out there, and most importantly to work on things without great expectations. I’m 25 pages into a longform story with my Tremor Dose collaborator Noah Bailey, and I’m loving it. What I’m writing is something that if you told me I would be working on even 2 weeks ago I would have laughed you out of the room. We’re taking a giant swing for the fences without any deal in place, no safety nets, no publisher signed on- just like when we started Tremor Dose. The big difference now is that we have been here before. We have faced this fear and we have learned the mantra. 

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 

Only I will remain.”

Really though it’s more like the immortal quote of Miyamoto Mushashi “If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” In this case the way is simple, accept that there is a ton of work to be done and that is the way of the creator. We are all pushing that stone up the same imagined hill thinking that we are gonna have it easier next time, and perhaps it should be because our metaphorical bodies are becoming hardened to the rigors of the task. But, we keep lumping more and more expectations and fail to notice that in doing so our stone gets bigger and the hill remains steep and full of obstacles. The obstacle we have the greatest control over is our own inner voice chanting insults and self doubt and entitlement. We’ve gotta kill that voice as much as we have to make sure to do the other stuff to secure work and development.

Wow, this has been a rambling one, I guess it’s more of a meditation than a blog post this time around. I don’t know if any of this served the common good, but it’s been important for me to continue to work this stuff out. Come tomorrow I may not even agree with huge portions of what I’ve committed here, but for now this is my truth. These ideas are what’s getting me going again and keeping me motivated to make 2020 a productive and positive year. I look forward to the coming year and it’s great mysteries in part because in that uncertainty is a depth of potential that wasn’t present when I had confounded myself into buying into an illusory idea of what the hell I would be up to.

Live in the mystery.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M