The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.: Guess who's pathetic?

8.27.2008:

Guess who's pathetic?

9:27 PM

I design for a living.

I have been turning in sketches and comps of layouts for websites, applications, logos, magazine ads, press pages, and all kinds of other crap for nearly 10 years.

I still can't bear the thought of anyone - including my wife - looking at my character sketches for a comic book. It SERIOUSLY makes me want to vomit to think about it.

It's always been this way. In fact, believe it or not, it was that way with my writing for a long, long time. Andrea really helped, as did people's interest in some of the stories I emailed around back in the early part of 2000. But even now, I get nervous when I post stuff to MI (especially if it's been a while, like now).

But with the comic book stuff... Yeech. It borders on a phobia, honestly. And its specifically comics / comic strips that get me this way. Want me to do a character rough for a logo or ad or storyboard? Fine!

Want a comic panel or page penciled? Puke.

Pathetic.

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3 Comments:

CallieMo said...: Joe, Joe, Joe. Please don't tell me you get performance anxiety in the bedroom too!?!

You've got to find a way to stop worrying so much about what others say about your work (constructive criticism aside)or you're going to totally squelch your creative juices. The arts are very subjective things, so you've got to get it into your head that you're not going to be everyone's cup of tea every time. There's no artist/writer/musician that appeals to 100% of people, so you're not going to be the first person for whom someone doesn't like their works.

The important thing is to get the works out there to be appreciated and to garner some constructive criticism along the way to make your works even better.

You've more or less gotten past some of that squeamishness with MI (a new story would be nice now and then, hint...*thud*) so you have it in you to get past it with your comics as well.

I know you can do it.; 8/28/2008 12:44 AM
Lizerati said...: It's because you truly care about your comics.

You like your job, you're good at it, etc, but it's not your passion. Letting the public in on the thing you care about the most in your creative life is scary as hell because all your insecurities and doubts jostle for the seat closest to your ear so they can scream at you.

I have no solution to suggest, but here's an observation: you managed to share your writing and look how THAT turned out. Imagine if the same thing happened when you shared your comics?; 8/28/2008 8:39 AM
DarkAngela said...: I have an idea on how to not be so nervous about posting on MI. Write lots of stories and show them to Andrea. Then let HER put them up. And don't ever go to the main page. That way, you don't know what's being posted when.

Or you could just put 5 new stories up all together for a vote, and only suffer the nausea once. :P; 9/09/2008 2:13 PM