I've got crushing student loans looming overhead, demanding to be paid. Praise God, my wife has a job lined up, but thus far I have nothing concrete as far as work is concerned. I got generally positive feedback at Wizard World from editors, but aside from being generally vaporous requests to see more samples - which I'm thankful for, don't get me wrong - I don't yet have a reason to think I won't have to hit the bricks and start job-hunting once we get to Los Angeles. And that first job may well be a non-art-related job, just to help pay bills and rent.
The thing is, right now I can't help but feel as though getting anything other than a job working in comics, or storyboarding, or art of some kind, would be a failure. I know that's not necessarily true, but having gone through four years of art school and having to make enough money to begin the long, long process of paying it off, I can't escape the feeling that I should be handed something more concrete than a degree come December. I guess I've always assumed that I would have work lined up by the time I was ready to graduate; I kind of imagined a line of company representatives hovering over the graduating class, sizing up the talent and handing out business cards. Thus far I haven't seen any evidence of that - some of the friends I've made here who have graduated are still struggling to find paying art careers.
I ran into my Foundation Writing teacher today, and she reminded me to check with the Career Center on campus. Completely reasonable suggestion, and yet somehow it totally eluded me. I've also been planning to really hit up my old teachers for connections this semester, in the hopes that one of them might be able to hook me up with somebody. And one of my teachers this semester got work with Target as an illustrator/graphic designer right after she graduated. So who knows? Maybe my little fantasy won't be too far off the mark?
That's the scariest part for me. I don't know. I don't know how this is supposed to work. One of the main reasons I didn't go to art school until I was 30 was that my parents didn't know anything about the art world, and neither did I. I didn't know where I was supposed to look, whom I was supposed to talk to, what I was supposed to have in my portfolio, and so on. I kind of gave up on the whole idea after a few rejected submissions, figuring I'd just have to make comics in my spare time. But that's exhausting - at least, it was for me (though I think it's likely I'm just easily winded). Coming home from the 9-to-5, I just felt too tired to think about being creative and artistic. But that was then. It's possible I've learned a little bit of work ethic since then...
Man, I hope so.
The CCAS was absolutely essential to my education about comics and the comics industry. It's because of the CCAS that I began networking, and it's what really started this long journey into comic-dom. And that was started because I turned to God in prayer and said, "Hey, why don't I make comics that glorify You?" So I guess I'm asking the CCAS to help me again: pray for me, would you?
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