In 1995 Dave Sim spent two days at the Savannah College of Art & Design
(SCAD) teaching sequential art, via workshops, portfolio reviews and
lectures. (He summarised the experience in his essay 'Misunderstanding
Comics' printed in Cerebus #194, May 1995). The text of one of his lectures from that visit appears below and was originally posted online by ex-SCAD student M Alice Legrow from a text provided by SCAD lecturer Mark Kneece -- and thanks are due to Eddie Khanna for bring it to my attention. Before posting it here, I thought it'd be prudent to check with Dave that it was indeed his lecture and I received the following reply:
"Tim, I'm glad you and Eddie Khanna found my talk inspiring. I think in today's political climate -- and even at the time -- it would be considered child abuse and bullying. It might have been delivered at SCAD and would certainly account for why I was never invited back." -- Dave Sim, 4 April 2013
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Cerebus #195 (June 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
DAVE SIM:
(text of a lecture given at Savannah College Of Art & Design, 1995)
I remember just starting out in the comic book field. You know you're
getting old when you start a sentence with, "I remember." Fortunately
I'm not quite old enough to see those days through the rose-coloured
glasses of deluded retrospect. For the most part it was a terrifying
time. I was living under my parents' roof. I was doing some freelance
drawing and writing. I had dropped out of high school. I was virtually
unemployable. I was getting better at drawing but I still wasn't very
good. I was intermittently productive. I was a comic book fan and
collector. I tried every type of cartoon art--political cartoons,
childrens' books, animation, scripting, pencilling, lettering, writing,
magazine cartoons, a weekly newspaper strip, caricatures, super-heroes,
single illustrations, logo designs, storyboards. As I was fond of
saying in the first few years I did Cerebus, no one would let me sell
out to them so I decided to try integrity.
There comes a moment
in the early career of any would-be cartoonist when he or she gets
serious about a career. Or he or she doesn't. It's really that
simple. My moment came in the fall of 1975. I came to the sudden and
horrible realization that I was kidding myself, lying to myself. I was
not productive. My efforts were half-hearted. I was not, as the
football coaches say, giving one hundred and ten percent. I was giving
about ten percent. Sometimes twenty. I was getting out of my fledgling
comics career exactly what I was putting into it. Ten
percent. Sometimes twenty. And I got angry. I got angry not in the
self-destructive way so endemic to almost all would-be comics
creators -- which is to say, angry at the world, angry at the art
directors who wouldn't see my genius, angry at the morons who bought
comics written and drawn by people with talent inferior to my own, angry
at the doors that wouldn't open just because I wanted them to. I got
angry at myself. I got angry at the lazy, shiftless bastard I saw in
the mirror. I got angry at the egomaniac who looked at his third and
fourth -rate efforts and results and contented himself that he was
better than 'a lot of the hacks out there' and expected that that
attitude would carry him, someday, into the pantheon of creators whose
work excited his interest -- Neal Adam, Berni Wrightson, Barry Smith, Mike
Kaluta, Jeff Jones and others. Angry doesn't quite sum it up. Rage
comes close. I raged at myself. I called myself every name in the book.
I looked at every piece of artwork in my basement studio and decided
that, if it wasn't shit it was certainly a lot closer to shit than it
was to anything else.
At that juncture there really are only
two ways to go. You either throw everything out and get a job at
McDonald's or you decide to make something of yourself. The angry me,
the enraged me, the me who was disgusted with every lie and
rationalisation and excuse that formed the underpinnings of my 'career'
ran out of steam. Any level of high emotion can only be maintained for
so long before it exhausts itself. And then, fortunately, there was a
voice inside my head which was cold, dispassionate, cutting to the
heart of the matter with the precision of a neurosurgeon's scalpel.
"Fine." the voice said. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
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Cerebus #195 (June 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
The
totality of myself was boxed in by the implications of the
question. As disgusted as I was with the lies I used on myself they yet
roiled beneath the surface. I was facing a troika of potentials. I
had defined the problem: lies, rationalisations and excuses. Disgust
with them could serve two purposes -- it could imprison, isolate and
segregate the lies, rationalisations and excuses or it could become, in
itself, another lie (I'm no good, I should just give up), another
rationalisation (Why bother? I'll never be good enough) or another
excuse (since I'm not good enough there's no reason for me to
try). None of these options were, in any way shape or form, an answer
to the question and I knew that. There was an even more dispassionate
me who could view the conflict with the equanimity of Mars surveying a
battlefield. Self-disgust, lies, excuses and rationalisations could
overwhelm Reason. Reason could be wiped out in the nanosecond it would
take for the synapses in my brain to vocalize, "I give up."
We
all know what we should do. No matter how insurmountable a problem may
seem, there is always something we can do. There are always things we
know we should do and yet we don't do them.
Write them down. Make a list.
That was what I did. That's what everyone in this room can do.
There
is not a single good or great idea that cannot be defeated by a lie,
rationalisation or excuse. Let me give you an example. Let's say I'm
you. I'm young and unknown and I want to be in the comic book field.
Let's say the first thing I write on my list is 'do a comic strip on
spec for the Comics Buyer's Guide.' First the lie: I'm not good enough,
they get hundreds of submissions -- why would they pick mine? I hate the
Comics Buyer's Guide. I can't come up with an idea. They'll lose my
artwork. They'll steal my artwork. It's not what you know, it's who
you know and I don't know anyone at the Comics Buyer's Guide. I don't
know where to send it. I don't know who to send it to. It's too much
work. I don't know how to ink. I don't know how to letter.
If
these are the thoughts that go through your head as you contemplate the
first steps in building a career, I've got news for you: the lying,
rationalising, whining part of you is in charge. You're going nowhere,
and furthermore you DESERVE to go nowhere.
Maybe the second
thing on your list is 'do a comic strip on spec for the local
entertainment weekly newspaper.' Again: I'm not good at meeting
people. I don't know who to call. I don't know where to send
it. They'll laugh at me. I don't know what they want.
Probability
is against you. Probability is always against you. Probability is
always against everyone. Let's say you do a comic strip on spec and the
editor looks at it and says 'yeah, this is okay, but we had a guy do a
strip for us for three months and then he quit because he got
bored. You'd probably do the same thing.' This actually happened to
me... one of the first things that happened after I asked myself, "Yeah.
But what are you going to do about it?' So what did I do? Did I go home
and say 'I give up, it didn't work'?
No.
I sat down and
did a year's worth of weekly strips, fifty-two of them, in about three
weeks. If his only reservation was that I would get bored and give up,
there was only one way to prove to him that that was not the case. The
strip ran for two years. I got five dollars each for them.
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Cerebus #195 (June 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
Make a
list. Make a long list. Write everything down that you can
do -- EVERYTHING. Leave no stone unturned. Sure things, long shots,
one-in-a-million chances. Draw sample pages, finished stories,
mini-comics, ashcans, posters, prints. Photocopy them and get them out
to anyone, anywhere with whom you might connect. Five dollars, ten
dollars, free. And when you finish the list, when you've got everything
in the mail to every possible market with a self-addressed stamped
envelope for its return, make another list. Don't sit watching your
mailbox. Forget what you sent out and get on to the next thing. When
submissions come back with rejection slips, pack them up again and send
them out to someone else.
There is no shame in rejection if you
have at least tried. The only shame is indulging in defeatism, lies,
rationalisations and excuses.
Learn as you go along. Learn not
only how to pencil better, how to ink better, how to improve your
lettering; learn how to take rejection in stride, learn how to deal with
clients and intended clients in a calm, rational, reasonable
way. Learn how to push yourself to work harder, work better, work more
effectively. In the last half of the twentieth century most of the
population expends most of its efforts in trying to find the maximum
return for the minimum effort. Learn to get over your disappointments
in the shortest possible time. If not in seconds, then in
minutes. Have the same attitude with your successes. Time wasted in
celebration is the same as time wasted in needless
discouragement. Enjoy the moment of achievement, the letter of
acceptance, the unexpected cheque, the opportune windfall for exactly a
moment and no more. Unproductive exhilaration is a wasted resource. A
spirit of optimism above the norm should be fuel for the creative fire
and the fire of career ambition. Don't sit thumbing through a comic
book you've been published in, daydreaming of being the guest of honor
at some future comic convention. Go down to Kinko's, get it photocopied
and have it out in the mail to every possible market within forty-eight
hours. Use every small success to generate other small successes and
then larger successes. Be reliable. Whatever they want done, however
unreasonable the deadline, push yourself past your perceptions of your
own limitations. Build creative muscle instead of feeding the flab of
lies, rationalisations and excuses.
Deep down, deep deep down
inside of you in the guts of your creative instincts, how do you think
you're doing? Are you giving a hundred and ten percent three hundred
and sixty-five days a year? Or are you giving seventy-five percent of
your best efforts for a period of a week or two and then five or three
or NO percent for a month after that? You were sick. That's a lie and
you know it. You had a cold for two days that you stretched into three
weeks. Your spine wasn't broken. You had a cold. Draw with one hand
and blow your nose with the other.
From the home office in Sioux City, Iowa, here's a list of the top ten lies, rationalisations and excuses.
Number 10: Writer's block or artist's block.
This is a failure of will,
compounded by fear of failure, centered on laziness. Shut up and draw
something.
Number 9: Strategy and development of a concept.
Stop doodling in your little sketchpad and produce something useful.
Number8: Recharging your batteries.
Failure of will, compounded by fear
of failure, centered on laziness as an excuse to read comic books and
watch television all day.
Number 7: Communing with other
artists.
Bitching and whining with other lazy, unproductive people and
sharing their lies, rationalisations and excuses as well as a few beers
and a joint if any of you are holding.
Number 6: Getting
organized.
Shifting piles of useless letters, comic books and fanzines
from one side of the room to the other, one at a time so you can read
them all and avoid doing any drawing.
Number 5:
Collaborating.
Having someone to talk to after you've read all your
comics, about pages you aren't drawing until your television show comes
on.
Number 4: Consulting/[Critiquing].
Showing the three
pages you drew six months ago to the fortieth person and asking them
what they think so you won't have to draw the fourth page until
Christmas.
Number 3: The Telephone [or
Internet].
Productive artists don't have a phone or if they have a
phone they unplug it. Unproductive artists take a phone call no matter
what they're doing, from anyone. Really unproductive artists take phone
calls and MAKE phone calls. The hopeless cases have call waiting so
they never have to hang up, swinging from caller to caller through their
work day like Tarzan moving up the jungle.
Number 2:
Heartbreak.
Get over it. You will get laid again. There are a lot of
fish in the sea, blah blah blah blah. Right now, you're right. No one
loves you. Lucky you. Get to work.
And drum roll please---
The
Number 1 lie, excuse and rationalisation: Electronic media.
Computer
games, computer nets, video games, radio, CD players, and the Galactus
of electronic media...television. Video games and computer nets are
abominable time wasters. They accomplish nothing. They are the black
holes of intellectual and creative life. That giant sucking sound you
hear is time and attention disappearing into the ether. Take a short
cut and strip mine your frontal lobes by shoving an industrial vacuum
cleaner up your nose.
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Cerebus #195 (June 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
Now here's where I'm going to alienate
everyone in the room. Television is bad for creativity. So is
music. Not small 'b' bad. Capital 'b' Bad. A professional golfer does
not catch up on the Young and the Restless while he walks up to the
fairway to take his second shot. Football players on the sidelines are
not listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon on their
walkmans. A concert pianist does not listen to Terminator 2 while he
practises a concerto. If you would even suggest such a thing to any of
these individuals they would tell you that you're two fries short of a
happy meal. Divided focus is no focus. All of you disagree with me but
that's okay, because I'm right and you're wrong. Divided focus is no
focus. Focus precludes both companionship and the illusion of
companionship. Isolation, silence and the training of all of your
faculties so that all that exists for you is the feel of the pencil or
the pen, the subtleties of pressure of that pencil point or that pen
point, to the exclusion of all other stimuli, is a universally ignored
but self-evident route to improvement. It's not easy at first. Nothing
worthwhile is ever easy at first. But the inner voice that craves
instant gratification, stimulation, diversion and distraction is a
destructive voice which is better contained than capitulated to. 'This
is a cool song. I wonder what's on TV? I wanna read a comic book. I'm
hungry. I'm thirsty. Yay! The phone! I wonder who that is? Wrong
number? Wah! I wanna phone somebody I wanna phone somebody. I'm all
alone. I need someone to talk to.'
With the phone unplugged,
the radio, TV and CD player off, with all stimuli apart from the page in
front of you eliminated, you will focus better and you will see better
results. The inner voice which craves instant gratification will do one
of two thing after it stops whining and crying. It will drift off to
sleep leaving your creative aspects to do their work without distraction
or it will join in the focus. It will derive its gratification from the
perfectly executed curve of the brush stroke. The innovative
development of a new page design. The gradual and gratifying emergence
of a "personal best" page. A page which represents a quantum leap from
your previous personal best into a new, unexplored and exciting realm
which is the clarification, the refinement and the spontaneous next step
on the ladder of creative improvement that is yours and yours alone to
climb.
There is a difference between the artist who constantly
challenges himself or herself, who experiments, who is always focused on
that painful lifelong climb up his or her personal ladder of
achievement...and the artist who hits a peak and then retreats to
workmanlike efficiency and then declines into bad self-parody. And you
wonder to yourself, why is that? Why was it that this artist got better
and better and better and then just seemed not to care enough to keep
climbing?
Two words.
Divided focus.
Something else
became more important to them. Could be the wife and kids. Could be
the fame. Could be material possessions. Could be a film deal or
merchandising. Could be drugs. Could be alcohol, an affair, sickness,
death of a friend or family member.
Or it could just be that they
learned how to turn out a passable product competent enough to satisfy
enough people to maintain their income. When they were climbing, maybe
ten percent of their attention was on the television or the music in
their studio and ninety percent on their work. Maybe now, it's fifty
percent on the TV and fifty percent on their work. And in those moments
when they look back at their old work, they have a sudden pang of
recognition and they tell themselves a lie (my style just changed a bit,
that's all), invent a rationalisation (I've got a lot more obligations,
I can't spend a whole day on a page anymore) or find an excuse (the art
materials have gotten worse, I just can't find a decent india ink
anymore).
The war on lies, rationalisations and excuses is
lifelong. They are the enemy of every novice, every journeyman, every
veteran in this or any other field. Once you give in just a bit, it's
that much easier to give in the next time. And the time after that.
Be
honest with yourself. Always push yourself to climb that next
run. Never take a step down or cut a corner knowingly. When you take a
break, indulge your need for gratification. Reward yourself for
pushing the boundaries of your limitations. And then get right back to
pushing the boundaries of your limitations.
In the short term,
you can achieve a great deal with a divided focus, intermittent bursts
of energy and enthusiasm, luck, natural talent and knowing the right
people. But in the long term it's only through relentless dedication,
hard work and always testing and expanding the boundaries of your
limitations day-in and day-out that you will have even the remotest
possibility of becoming a Jack Kirby or a Will Eisner or whomever you
consider to be the person who climbed the highest, produced the best,
achieved the most and shined the brightest.
Thank you.
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Cerebus #195 (June 1995)
Art by Dave Sim & Gerhard |
