Websnark wrote about this Yirmumah today, but I wanted to draw attention to this recent installment where D.J. Coffman recounts his earliest memories of wanting to be a cartoonist. Of course nothing turns out as we envision it as a child, particularly what we might have imagined as the glamorous life of a cartoonist.
If you are making comics, when did you first think “I want to do this” and what are you doing now?
No one’s actually answered the question. When did I decide?
In 1976 I was facing the trauma of suddenly being forced to stand in line for lunch at my high school instead of arriving at the cafeteria with lunch in hand. I came up with the bright idea of drawing a four-panel comic strip, on blue-lined hole-punched notebook paper, to leave on the table to save my place while I was in line. I recall part of the rationalization for my action being, “It’s good practice in case I want to draw for the newspapers one day”.
Was that when I decided to Be A Comics Creator? Was it when I kept up the practice the next year of high school, and the next, and the year I was in college, and on and off for years afterwards? Or was it in 1998 when I decided that I ought to draw instead of merely writing the weekly fanfiction story chapters I was putting on my website, or a year later when I abandoned continuity and drew daily fanfiction gag panels instead? Or was it 2003 when I’d got the paperback Megatokyo Chapter 0 for Father’s Day and I realized there was a whole webcomic culture out here and I couldn’t resist becoming a part of it? You decide.
If you like those comics, check out The Yirmumah mini comic – The Truth About the Comic Book Industry – featuring “How to make it in the comic book industry” and “Crap is king!”, a perfect two-step primer to a lucrative career as a comic book sellout!