I’m not sure it happens too often in other careers. I imagine it does, but this is my story, and my career, so we’re just going to go with it. That being, the fact that often you have a role model. Someone who got you into the business you’re pursuing. Someone who stood out to you. 

Maybe that person is someone you could identify with. Maybe you look at them and you see yourself in a few years, if you can just keep trying. Or maybe they have a way of thinking that you really admire, or they do their job so well that you’re always amazed.

So maybe you put them up on a pedestal. Not a REALLY high one, but more of a tallish one that you look to sometimes, you know? For inspiration, when times are rough. You remind yourself why you’re in this business or why you’re trying so hard. I mean, this isn’t such a hard thing to identify with. It must happen a lot.

For me, it’s a few people. Those who follow me on twitter already know that a lot of the reason I got into this was the coloring work of Sonia Oback, and Laura Martin. But aside from that, I have to say that I really really looked up to Mike Choi.

Mike Choi’s way of penciling is not the normal Standardized Western American Comic Art style. And I LIKE it that way. I look up to him for that. For drawing the way he wants to, in his style. For getting jobs IN comics doing that, when people told him he never would. And I admire - most of the time - his way of thinking. Sure, it’s true that anyone who used to follow his twitter antics saw his more abrasive side. But the man had a lot to say about comics that really resonated with me. He had good tips, and he had things to say that, when I read them, I would say to myself “If he can do it, then so can I” or “See, it can’t be that bad, he still thinks this business is worth it despite all the bullshit”. He stood up for his work, and it seemed to me that he always thought more about what his fans thought of his work than what ‘comic pros’ thought.

It’s actually because of him that I discovered Emily Warren’s artwork, and Christina Strain’s coloring, both wonderful artists who I have become a huge fan of, and who I now get to work with regularly. It’s because of him that I kept going last year when I really really thought about quitting. It’s because of him tweeting about quitting his much higher paying job JUST to work in comics that I DO this for a living at all.

My style of coloring is not … Standardized Western American Comic Art style. I never wanted it to be. I see what the more Fine Arts approach to comics can be, I admire that style, and I want to bring that style to every comic I get to work on. Which I’ve said before. But you, as the reader, have to understand that this style keeps me up at night. Every time I color something. Every SINGLE time, the critique of it is held against a style of coloring that I cannot abide. Even my best piece to date has fallen flat because of this. 

I don’t have a day job. I’ve been off the market for so long now that even if I desperately needed one, I could never get one. I don’t even have references I’ve spoken to in 3 years. Money is a HUGE issue, as you can imagine. I am allowed to live here paying no rent because I told my in-laws that I was going to be making money off of this eventually. Flatting barely brings in enough money to pay my student loans. A lot of times I miss paying them at all. 

What am I trying to say? I’m trying to say that I am scared to death I am never going to make money off of this. And why am I this scared? Why has the wind been shot out of me? Because Mike Choi isn’t nearly as popular as he used to be.

I just found that out yesterday. Apparently everyone hates his art now that Sonia isn’t coloring him. I’ve seen his pencils before she colors them, and I always liked his art, regardless. But he isn’t popular anymore. He ragequit his career. Comics was something he quit a high paying job to be a part of, and now he hates it, apparently. 

And is that going to be me in another 5 years? There has never been any guarantee that I would make it, but he gave me hope. He told me I could accomplish my goals, just … through the fact that he accomplished some of his. And now I find out that he wasn’t nearly as loved as I thought. What am I supposed to think now? The pros don’t even like my work as it is, so will I ever make money off of this?

And if I do, will what happened to him happen to me? And now that I know what I know, can I even let him inspire me anymore? And who will put the wind back in my sails? Does anyone who works in comics ever retain their passion for it?

I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know.