The Destroyer

It was a hard day yesterday for Chris the comic book artist. I wanted to destroy every page, panel and piece I had ever created I was so disappointed and frustrated.

This happens every once in a while. I’ll be cruising a long feelin’ pretty good about the comic when suddenly I hit a bump. It usually comes in the form of a panel that I can’t get right, in fact its usually a very simple panel which makes me even more pissed. I’ll erase and erase and no matter what I do I won’t get it right. Yesterday was just a basic profile of a character. I tried it three different ways, with variations on each; I just couldn’t get it. At this point I think I’m just going to stick with the angle I used for the two previous panels with the same character, just a pretty basic close up from the front.

That’s the thing right there that bothers me. I can’t do anything cool. I try to do a basic profile, and then I end up having to do and even more basic close up. No cool battles, no dynamic poses, just two people talking. Which is what I wrote it to be, but I guess I’m having my doubts. I think the dialogue is funny, but does it come through in the drawings? Is it entertaining but also concise? It’s so muddled and grey, its hard to understand why I’m doing it half of the time. I hate, HATE doing things when I’m not 100% perfect at something, so it is absolute torture to put myself through this growth. Its necessary to get better, but I see why so many people give up. It borders on masochism at times for me; I’ll know how much of a challenge a particular page or panel is going to pose and yet I move on with it anyways, I have to. It’s the only way that my expectations will ever come close to equaling skills.