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My Maker Mantras: ‘If It Doesn’t Make Dollars, It Doesn’t Make Sense’

My Maker Mantras

If It Doesn’t Make Dollars, It Doesn’t Make Sense

Nerdvana presents Small Press Saturday – aka, Lessons Learned Self-Publishing Comics

As I write this week’s mantra, thousands of artists around the world are participating in “Inktober” — a daily drawing challenge throughout the month of October. Dozens, maybe hundreds, of daily drawing prompt lists pop up on social media in September, preparing artists for what to draw every day. Like many things of import, Inktober began in Arizona, as a local renowned cartoonist sought to improve his inking skills. It’s now become a global phenomenon . . .

. . . and it’s the antithesis of how I define comics.

Inktober is creating graphic art. Making comics is creating graphic art in the service of narrative. One is drawing pictures; one is telling a story. I’m not placing a value judgment on one over the other, but the distinction is important in the context of how I spend my time as a cartoonist. 

These past few weeks, I’ve been talking about creative time management — specifically, my threefold strategy on how to effectively manage your creative time. Last week, I talked about education, and next week I’ll explore the concept of distribution. Today, I’m talking about production.

Production might be the “well, duh” aspect of my time management strategy. If we’re talking about how to use your time to make things, and production IS the act of making things, then of course you spend most of your time IN production . . . right? 

I can spend all day drawing pictures, maybe the best pictures I’ve ever drawn, then I can post those pictures on social media. Those pictures would get likes, and that would feel like the fruit of worthwhile labor . . . but, after those likes, I have nothing more to show for the work. That’s the shallow feeling of being producTIVE. It has little to do with my pursuit for producTION.

Today’s mantra comes from something I heard years ago, working in nonprofit after school programs. Artists are a lot like nonprofit organizations, really — we operate in the interest of social benefit. In after school programming, we couldn’t afford to waste our time in pursuit of monies or resources that didn’t directly benefit the kids in our care. One day, while brainstorming community outreach opportunities, one of my coworkers said:

If it doesn’t make dollars, it doesn’t make sense.

I’m not suggesting that money should motivate an artist’s use of their time, nor am I suggesting that an artist shouldn’t create for fun. I draw for fun all of the time! I just don’t mistake that drawing time for when the REAL work begins — when I craft the stories that become my comics (which, incidentally, is when I have the most fun of ALL).

Making comics is a process that includes character design, scripting, dialoguing, page layout, penciling, inking, coloring, lettering, formatting, and editing. Engaging in any of those steps is an effective use of my production time, because it contributes to my product — the COMIC BOOK — that I’ll eventually exhibit at a comic con or art show to sell. For money. So each of those steps makes sense.

To be clear, Inktober is the cartoonist’s equivalent of the mechanic that spends the day working at their shop, then works on their own car at home. It’s a personal exploit of professional talent. Of course, I know many artists collect their Inktober drawings into anthologies that they can sell, and that’s awesome. Those collections just aren’t comics. 

Like any discussion about time management, production is a matter of understanding where your priorities are. If I were an illustrator, Inktober would be my bread and butter. As a cartoonist, it’s just the loaf, sans spread. I value storytelling most of all. I LOVE drawing, but if it isn’t in service of the story I’m telling — the car on my lift, to further my earlier analogy — it can be as much an exercise in procrastination as re-organizing my studio for the umpteenth time, or scrolling through social media “for inspiration.”  

This week’s mantra, in its mentioning of money, may seem crude, but consider what the money represents — an exchange of value between creator and consumer. What makes your art VALUABLE? What do you want your audience to GET from your work? Obviously, that’s how you should prioritize your production. If you’re the car’s mechanic, your audience is its owner — and they’re ready to go for a ride.

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