Today, I wanted to help you revitalize your goals. I wanted to share with you a deep, humbling, powerful message that I got from one of my mentors. He was trying to load all the garbage that I am going to have to go through on my way to making a million dollars.

I just achieved a major milestone, So I wanted to help give you a vaccination in your comic book career to keep you going and not give up.

You decide to make comics. You feel good. You are in control. You are going to change your life for good. You are going to be a superstar.

You buy a sketchbook, You buy some pencils, you buy erasers, you maybe buy HOW TO MAKE COMICS by Scott McCLOUD. You buy HOW TO MAKE COMICS  THE MARVEL WAY. You want to learn all you can.

You just can’t make your drawings look like what you want them to. You see them in your head, but you really wish they could be better. You get so frustrated you decide that you really don’t want to be a comic book artist and maybe you’ll be a writer instead. You quit.

Or if you don’t quit….you know that you are missing something, so you keep trying to emulate your favorite artists, you draw how they do, but you can’t see under their drawings and you can’t figure out how to make the final drawings happen, so you quit…

Or if you don’t… you buy some more books, and get some more paper, and more pencils. and keep drawing. You show your work to somebody. You ask them what they think. They say, it’s good. Or worse–they don’t say anything and you just don’t know what to think. You resolve to not show anybody your work ever again and you quit….

..or if you don’t you are drawing when you are watching your shows, you are drawing in class, you are doodling in your own little world, and you really don’t care about what other people are saying about your work, the latest video game comes out you have to play it and figure you’ll get back to drawing eventually…you quit.

Next if you don’t quit– You are going to start internalizing everything. The outside world rarely exists except to bring you food and sleep, otherwise, you are caught up in your own realm of fantasy and figure you can do this forever, and people will pay you for it someday if you are doing what you love. Your drawings still aren’t looking the way you want them to and since now it’s time to go off to school…you quit….

…but you justify it… You figure you’ll get a degree in art and illustration or animation, and spend 4 years at the university. They’ll help you get better. So you drop thousands and thousands of dollars at an expensive art school so their instuctor can set the time aside to teach you how to draw properly, And even though the instructor is one of the best, there is a lot of other people to help and you really don’t get that one-on-one attention you’d like, or worse–you are actually a better artist than your instructor, and you wonder why you are even paying all this money to learn what you already know from this guy. So you quit — and get a job at McDonald’s or waiting tables somewhere and draw in your spare time, but you don’t have any spare time because you have work all the time. And you go through life wishing you could somehow make money from comics.

Or if you don’t quit…You get your own studio show and get your artwork set up in a gallery and people are actually admiring your work and you think that this might be the answer, I’m getting my work shown…but you don’t ever sell any and you put a lot of work into setting up that show and you can’t believe no one wants you, so you quit…

or if you don’t… and you actually sell your first painting and are so excited you know that you have made it, you can do it. This is going to be your dream. But then you don’t sell another painting the whole year and people really have lost interest in what you are doing, but they think you’ll be in style in 5 years and you are just ahead of your time. so you quit…

or if you don’t — you stay in school…and now you’ve got this degree in your hand and can’t seem to find a job. So, now you are really feeling miserable and you end up working at McDonald’s or something and you keep applying for places like Marvel, DC, Oni Press, and other comic book places for work. It takes forever and you quit..

..or you don’t and you finally get your foot in the door and you are so excited. You know this is going to be the best place for you to work for a living. You are doing production for the highest selling books in the comic book world and you love it. But there’s just little things about your manager, or the guy in next to you that you don’t love, but you’re getting a paycheck, so that is good. Even though, you are barely getting by, you like the work. But then the company says they can’t afford you anymore so you get laid off of your job and you figure the comic industry is going to pot…so you quit…

…or if you don’t. You decide to strike out on your own and you get a few leads into a really great company doing freelance work, but the editor is a drunk and always putting you down, but you are still making ends meet. But you aren’t ever getting to work on your own stuff anymore and the hours are insane to meet crazy deadlines and you get sick, but you know if you don’t finish the project, you will be doomed for failure by everyone of your peers…you can’t take the pressure anymore… so you quit…

or if you don’t…you figure you’ll make time to go to comic con and you spend all your money going to con and you get no jobs, no work, no interest…and you quit.

or if you don’t…the next couple of years you go back to the cons, year after year, and eventually someone buys your book and you start making enough to pay for you to attend to the show every year. You figure you aren’t making any money so you quit…

or if you don’t quit…you end up making a relationship with a big comic book company and you get to present at a show and you wonder….is this is really what all the hype is about, you get promoted and you really haven’t earned much of a living at this, you just keep dreaming about when you can make your comic book into a movie or a video game and hope you can make it happen one day…it never happens and you quit…

…or if you don’t quit, your work finally lands in the hands of a publisher and they sell all they can of your books and they get a lot of the profits, so you get fed up with them and you take all your books and threaten to sue them and then you figure every publisher is that way, so you quit…

…or if you don’t quit, you find a publisher that works with you and you put out millions of copies of you book and you can live the life of your dreams that you always wanted. You have massive fans and more and more people love your work and you are an artist that finally is making the big checks, you are in popular demand and everyone wants what you have to offer you retire in style…and you quit…

…and you end up missing the act of creating those things that made you popular in the first place and you go back to creating those things because it gives you life and you can afford to do it now, because you have money coming in from all your creations that people love…..You are happy, you’re fans are happy, and the world is a better place because of you.

How hard has your journey been?