Almost dying definitely put my life into perspective. That experience made me prioritize things that make me most happy in life and what I want to do with the time I have left. I went to college for art, but not the art I wanted to do. I wanted to make comics. I had pages of original characters and one-off neat pieces with cute stories in my head, but I rarely talked about them outside of my closest art friends and I knew that would have to change.
Whenever I feel creatively stomped or frustrated I have art meetups with other art friends. During the time I was I got serious about making a comic, it was my buddy M who I would call on most days. M was also an awesome artist with her own style and tons of stories. We would spend so much time sharing our ideas with each other and it would always give me such a rush. It’s amazing to have someone you can bounce ideas off of who really just gets it.
I’m a visual person. So much so that I’d rather talk through pictures than use my words (Emoji’s were my language before they were a form of language). I know that sounds silly, but because of that (and the fact that my handwriting is really bad), I didn’t write many of my story ideas down. When I did, I would have a hard time deciphering them (sadly). Getting that old Acer laptop from my aunty was truly the bee’s knees. I could type over handwrite!
I started off by writing blurbs under my pictures to get myself comfortable with writing to some degree. Having folks engage with my characters and asking questions over the years really helped the boost confidence. It’s one thing to write a paper in school, but putting yourself out there to share something personal is a different animal. Writing blurbs helped, but to make the jump to comics, I would have to write a lot more than that.
Draw a story with your words and write a picture with lines.
-Lady T.
