It’s safe to say I’m over-simplifying, and that I have had a handful of real life supporters along the way. (Mostly starting in my late teens.) This includes art teachers, BFFs, family members, and – now, in grad school – classmates… but, by and large, I went through decades of people discouraging me from creating comics. In my family’s case: they felt it was in my best interest because it’s hard to make ends meet with a job in the arts. (Especially one as small and niche as comics. They’ve since come around and are super into what I do. Love those guys.) As for a lot of my friends: it was just general disinterest. (I later moved on to other, more supportive, friends. No hard feelings.)
Discouragement was standard until I started posting comics online, way back in 2001. Webcomics opened up a whole new world for me: I was able to make friends and meet other people with the same interests as me. We could critique and encourage each other. Cross-promote each others’ work and share tables at conventions to meet more cartoonists and readers… For the first time in my life, I felt like I had a community.
I’m trying to say thank you to everyone that reads my comics. Thank YOU for following me, for your ‘likes’, and your reblogs of my comics and art.
I got my first one of these the other day:
Which, naturally, just makes me want to respond the same way:
The fact that people continue to read and enjoy my work means the world to me.
Thanks to the support of readers in the last few weeks, I’ve been selling books from Poseur Ink like hotcakes and have been able to start saving to pay off my ER bill from last month. Without you guys, that wouldn’t have been possible. So I just wanted to make a note to say thanks and let you know how much you mean to me.
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