I have a book on magic, or magik or majik, however you want to spell it. Most of the book is over my head to be honest, but it makes for interesting reading, if only to see how some people think about the subject.
The first article in the book is written by Grant Morrison, who is a pretty famous writer if you're into comics. It's about how to be a 'pop' magician and talks about how to easily integrate majik into your everyday existence. It talks about things like sigils (majikal symbols,) and channelling spirits, but in a very different way to the 'usual' way of talking about these things - for example Grant mentions that if he wants to feel more confident in a situation, he prepares by channelling the spirit of James Bond. It's like majik lite and his main premise is 'use what works', which makes a lot of sense to me. He also talks about doing things like walking in a receptive state - being open to signs and messages from the universe.
To me, majik is similar to a lot of things in life. I don't really believe that when spiritualists channel spirits, they are actually talking to the dead or that people can perform spells as such. I'd love to be wrong, but I see no evidence to support it.
My belief is that majik, along with many other disciplines, like cold reading, fortune telling, apparently psychic abilities etc, work in a different way. I think what happens is that you make a direct connection with your subconscious. The subconscious is a wierd and wonderful place that we really don't understand. Your subconscious, so I am told, never develops past the age of 6. Kids of 6 are full of majik and wonder. I've read some bits about left and right brain theory too - the left controls language, mathematics and reason, the right controls creativity and abstract thought. The right brain works in patterns only and has no sense of time, so when you suddenly think of the answer to a problem three days later while sat in the bath, it's because your right brain has been working on pattern matching in the background while the rest of your brain has been busy with language and how much change you should get from a 20 after buying a round of drinks. (Left and right are terms and do not necessarily map to those sides of the brain in reality.) I think the left side of the brain corresponds to conscious thought and the right subconscious thought.
So, we have a part of our brain, (perhaps 'mind' is a better term,) that has no sense of time, (hence why when many artists are working on a project, they kind of zone out, or go into a trance like state and could not tell you how long they've been working until they look at the time,) and is permenantly 6.
Thing is, because the subconscious works on a pattern matching methodology, it's a very powerful problem solving tool - only the lack of a temporal sense counterbalances this. People under hypnosis have been able to remember events in astounding detail, say for example, the registration of a car that hit them thet they themselves didn't even think they'd seen.
It seems to me that our perception filters are mainly, or possibly exclusively for use with our conscious mind, enabling us to live without getting bogged down in trivial detail, but the subconscious, unfettered by these filters, picks up on many more details and then assembles them into patterns based on previous matches.
Hypnosis is a way of tapping into the subconscious via the conscious mind and I think things like affirmations, positive reinforcement, majik and the like offer a similar interface.
Because we view our world through the conscious mind, which is in turn partly fed by the subconscious, we see patterns everywhere: for example, the two punctuation marks :) become a smily face. It's a colon and a bracket, but we transform that into the pattern of a rudimentary human face. If this is true, there can be no such thing as coincidence, only the value we attach to patterns we ourselves create. This is not to say these patterns are without value, but that they have no objective or intrinsic value in and of themselves, but only subjective value placed on them by the observer.
So anyway, I was in my kitchen yesterday and I was thinking about my recent break up and the situation surrounding it and wondering what to do next. I was in a fairly receptive state obviously, due to being deep in thought. I found a sock of mine on the floor that had fallen there when I had taken my washing out of the machine. It was kind of balled up, so I shook it to even it out.
At the time I was wearing a bracelet of beads that I had bought whilst on holiday in Greece with the girlfriend I had before the last one and it had come to symbolise certain things about that relationship. As I shook the sock, my bracelet flew off my arm and I watched as, seemingly in slow motion, it hit the floor, the elastic snapped and the beads sailed into the air in random directions before bouncing to a halt.
This completely stopped my train of thought as I wasn't expecting it and I found myself just staring at all the beads for a second, thinking about how it had come to symbolise a previous break up and it broke while I was thinking about my current break up.
As I stood there I realised that I didn't know what to do. Should I carry on putting my sock up to dry or should I sort out my bracelet first?
Suddenly I heard the answer in my head, (in my own voice I might add,) as clear as crystal. In fact the thought was so isolated from anything else, it was like hearing a church bell in the dead of night when everything else was quiet. My brain is usually a fairly noisy place, so the significance was not lost on me when it said,
"I should pick up the pieces."
and there was my answer. My subconscious was telling me what I should do, both about the bracelet and the current situation. Coincidence? Wierd? Not really. I think we all have our answers most of the time, locked away in our subconscious until such time as it's ready to let your conscious mind know and being in a receptive state, whether through majik, or excercise, or prayer or positive thought can help facilitate getting these answers.
Just a thought.
Wednesday, 1 August 2007
Monday, 30 July 2007
And we're back...
Ok, so it took me two weeks, (and one day,) but the latest issue is finally up. It's a double parter too and we finally get to find out what type of animal Alex is.
It would have gone up last night, but for the fact that it was the birthday of an old housemate of mine. I sent him a text to wish him happy birthday as he now lives up north, only to find out he was actually back for the weekend, so drinks were in order. After an evening of drinking, I got home after 1am, slightly worse for wear and decided it was probably best if I didn't work on the comic in that state.
My last post was one of my philosophical ones, albeit with a slightly negative slant, which was brought on by a bad case of the blues, which itself was brought on by my current situation.
Anyway, I'm feeling slightly better and doing the comic had a lot to do with that as I find it really satisfying to complete a strip and see it go up online.
I'm definitely going to carry on with the comic, because there are so many benefits to it: a sense of pride that I get from completing a strip as well as from being proud of sticking with it, the peace I get while drawing it and many others. Really the only downside to drawing the strip is that during inking, my elbows seize up and I have to take regular breaks to unlock them, but it's a small price to pay.
Otherwise, I'm still busy at work and trying to reassemble some form of social life in the wake of my returning to singledom. I'm going back to my martial arts class this week, (missed that for a couple of weeks too,) I've started to lose weight again and generally things are looking like they have an upward vector, even if the gradient isn't too taxing just yet.
Umm... I guess that's it for now. Enjoy the double issue (unless you're Sam, in which case you won't be reading it, but you will be reading this. Hi Sam.).
Bye.
It would have gone up last night, but for the fact that it was the birthday of an old housemate of mine. I sent him a text to wish him happy birthday as he now lives up north, only to find out he was actually back for the weekend, so drinks were in order. After an evening of drinking, I got home after 1am, slightly worse for wear and decided it was probably best if I didn't work on the comic in that state.
My last post was one of my philosophical ones, albeit with a slightly negative slant, which was brought on by a bad case of the blues, which itself was brought on by my current situation.
Anyway, I'm feeling slightly better and doing the comic had a lot to do with that as I find it really satisfying to complete a strip and see it go up online.
I'm definitely going to carry on with the comic, because there are so many benefits to it: a sense of pride that I get from completing a strip as well as from being proud of sticking with it, the peace I get while drawing it and many others. Really the only downside to drawing the strip is that during inking, my elbows seize up and I have to take regular breaks to unlock them, but it's a small price to pay.
Otherwise, I'm still busy at work and trying to reassemble some form of social life in the wake of my returning to singledom. I'm going back to my martial arts class this week, (missed that for a couple of weeks too,) I've started to lose weight again and generally things are looking like they have an upward vector, even if the gradient isn't too taxing just yet.
Umm... I guess that's it for now. Enjoy the double issue (unless you're Sam, in which case you won't be reading it, but you will be reading this. Hi Sam.).
Bye.
Friday, 27 July 2007
Existence - the real Heaven and Hell?
I'm feeling a bit philosophical today, as I often am and I got reading some articles about the Matrix and some of the philosophy and metaphorical elements to it.
Now say what you like about the Matrix trilogy, but when the first film came out it was a sensation - no question. The effects, the choreography of the fight scenes, the plot... it all added up to a blockbuster. Thing is, if you are a half way intelligent person, it really made you think. If you were a halfway intelligent person with a curious personality or an interest in philosophy, it not only made you think, it made you puzzle over it for some time. What a way to bring philosophy to the masses!
I believe that subjective experience is all we have and that all of the subjective experiences and the associated emotional and rational responses we had to those experiences form our personalities to the greater extent. The word for this is Weltanschaaung, a German word that basically means the 'world view', or the summation of your life's experiences. This is distinctly different, but at the same time, intertwined with memory. Your Weltanschaaung is obviously held in your memory, but it's not just 'memories' in the traditional sense. It is your memories of everything that has happened to you and your responses to those incidents. It is the starting point for any new experience - your brain first refers to your Weltanschaaung to see if you have encountered something like this before and if so, how you responded as a point of reference.
It has been said that the only constant is change. People tend to think of themselves as unchanging - that I am me, no matter what happens to me. If I were to lose an arm, I would still be me. Obviously this has to do with the seperation of body and mind, but there is an argument to be made that the two are intrinsically linked - if the body dies, so does the mind and vice versa.
However, people do change, both physically and in their personalities. Tastes change in food, clothes, friends etc. Every ten years you effectively grow a new skeletal system, due to cell replacement. Every month your topmost layer of skin in completely replaced. You form new opinions based on new information. You may have a discussion with someone and come to ally yourself with a point of view they have, in which case do you assimilate a part of their personality? If this is the case, and we are creatures of flux, how can we define ourselves as constant, individual personalities?
The power of the mind is awesome, in the literal sense of the word and can affect a person's day to day experience of the world. People with cognitive disfunctions will experience the world in a much different way from someone without those disfunctions.
There is a culture, (and I'm sorry but I cannot remember which,) that believes that Heaven and Hell are real, but exist only in the minds of everyone. They believe that you pass through Heaven and Hell several times per day and that these concepts of Heaven and Hell are not places, but states of being - joy and misery. Everyone has the power to decide to be happy or unhappy - to let things get to you or to let things go, but it's not always easy to do so.
Strangely, I've never really done much thinking on the concept of Heaven, but I have thought a lot about Hell - again in more abstract terms than thinking of it as an actual place to be transported to after death.
My thinking is along the same lines as above - that it is a state of being that can be influenced by outside events but ultimately exists only in the mind of the individual.
However, I did think about what I would do if I were given the task of creating a human Hell. For me, Hell would not be about fire and brimstone or sulpherous boiling lakes. It would not contain demons engaging in painful tortures.
My Hell would be about frustration. To me, frustration is a far more insidious feeling than pain. Pain can be ignored or treated and is always transient at best. Pain will break people, but frustration is what sends them mad.
My Hell would be a place whereby the average person would be set upon by desirable enticements, (which could be a range of things, from money and possesions, to small amounts of power, to love...) designed to foster longing, only to be thwarted by other societal issues. My Hell would be a place where there was a great disparity between those in power and those without, but that those in power would knowingly foster hope in those without, whilst being safe and comfortable in the knowledge that 99% of people would never achieve what they hope for. This would be achieved by allowing people certain, small rewards which are completely negligable, token gestures to those in power, but which to those without represent the possibility of becoming one of the elite and therefore fosters hope.
Hope is the key to my Hell because without it, people would give up. If there is truly no hope left in a situation then people have no choice but to give up, but if even the tiniest glimmer of hope exists, they will work and fight and die in order to achieve the unachievable.
So, in short, my Hell would be somewhere where you work for things that are either ultimately trivial, or at best, transient whilst being constantly frustrated by your lack of any real power to change things, but being spurred on by the hope that one day you will be able to. Sound like anywhere you know?
Taking all that into consideration, I can honestly say that the last month of my life has been Hell.
Now say what you like about the Matrix trilogy, but when the first film came out it was a sensation - no question. The effects, the choreography of the fight scenes, the plot... it all added up to a blockbuster. Thing is, if you are a half way intelligent person, it really made you think. If you were a halfway intelligent person with a curious personality or an interest in philosophy, it not only made you think, it made you puzzle over it for some time. What a way to bring philosophy to the masses!
I believe that subjective experience is all we have and that all of the subjective experiences and the associated emotional and rational responses we had to those experiences form our personalities to the greater extent. The word for this is Weltanschaaung, a German word that basically means the 'world view', or the summation of your life's experiences. This is distinctly different, but at the same time, intertwined with memory. Your Weltanschaaung is obviously held in your memory, but it's not just 'memories' in the traditional sense. It is your memories of everything that has happened to you and your responses to those incidents. It is the starting point for any new experience - your brain first refers to your Weltanschaaung to see if you have encountered something like this before and if so, how you responded as a point of reference.
It has been said that the only constant is change. People tend to think of themselves as unchanging - that I am me, no matter what happens to me. If I were to lose an arm, I would still be me. Obviously this has to do with the seperation of body and mind, but there is an argument to be made that the two are intrinsically linked - if the body dies, so does the mind and vice versa.
However, people do change, both physically and in their personalities. Tastes change in food, clothes, friends etc. Every ten years you effectively grow a new skeletal system, due to cell replacement. Every month your topmost layer of skin in completely replaced. You form new opinions based on new information. You may have a discussion with someone and come to ally yourself with a point of view they have, in which case do you assimilate a part of their personality? If this is the case, and we are creatures of flux, how can we define ourselves as constant, individual personalities?
The power of the mind is awesome, in the literal sense of the word and can affect a person's day to day experience of the world. People with cognitive disfunctions will experience the world in a much different way from someone without those disfunctions.
There is a culture, (and I'm sorry but I cannot remember which,) that believes that Heaven and Hell are real, but exist only in the minds of everyone. They believe that you pass through Heaven and Hell several times per day and that these concepts of Heaven and Hell are not places, but states of being - joy and misery. Everyone has the power to decide to be happy or unhappy - to let things get to you or to let things go, but it's not always easy to do so.
Strangely, I've never really done much thinking on the concept of Heaven, but I have thought a lot about Hell - again in more abstract terms than thinking of it as an actual place to be transported to after death.
My thinking is along the same lines as above - that it is a state of being that can be influenced by outside events but ultimately exists only in the mind of the individual.
However, I did think about what I would do if I were given the task of creating a human Hell. For me, Hell would not be about fire and brimstone or sulpherous boiling lakes. It would not contain demons engaging in painful tortures.
My Hell would be about frustration. To me, frustration is a far more insidious feeling than pain. Pain can be ignored or treated and is always transient at best. Pain will break people, but frustration is what sends them mad.
My Hell would be a place whereby the average person would be set upon by desirable enticements, (which could be a range of things, from money and possesions, to small amounts of power, to love...) designed to foster longing, only to be thwarted by other societal issues. My Hell would be a place where there was a great disparity between those in power and those without, but that those in power would knowingly foster hope in those without, whilst being safe and comfortable in the knowledge that 99% of people would never achieve what they hope for. This would be achieved by allowing people certain, small rewards which are completely negligable, token gestures to those in power, but which to those without represent the possibility of becoming one of the elite and therefore fosters hope.
Hope is the key to my Hell because without it, people would give up. If there is truly no hope left in a situation then people have no choice but to give up, but if even the tiniest glimmer of hope exists, they will work and fight and die in order to achieve the unachievable.
So, in short, my Hell would be somewhere where you work for things that are either ultimately trivial, or at best, transient whilst being constantly frustrated by your lack of any real power to change things, but being spurred on by the hope that one day you will be able to. Sound like anywhere you know?
Taking all that into consideration, I can honestly say that the last month of my life has been Hell.
Tuesday, 24 July 2007
Where's the damn strip?
Sorry there hasn't been a new episode of Exotic Soup for a couple of weeks - I've been ridiculously busy at work. We've been moving premises and I've been responsible for setting up all the IT for the new site. We've bought all new servers so I've had to plan and set up an IT infrastructure from scratch, which is something I've never done before.
The weekend just gone was my first day off in 3 weeks and I've been working long hours, so it's been difficult to find time. In fact the only reason I got a strip online a couple of weeks ago is because I already had it drawn and scanned so I just needed to upload it. I should've done a strip last weekend but I needed the time just to relax and catch up on some sleep!
In addition to this, my girlfriend and I sadly called it a day last week. She has a new job in a different city and between the distance and both our busy schedules it became apparent that we would not be able to spend much time together - if any, for the next 6 months or so, so we decided to just be friends. As far as break ups go, it was all very amicable and we're still good friends so you could call it easy, but break ups are never easy so this last week has been hard.
I promise I'll have one up for this week and we will finally find out what type of animal Alex is! Stay tuned.
The weekend just gone was my first day off in 3 weeks and I've been working long hours, so it's been difficult to find time. In fact the only reason I got a strip online a couple of weeks ago is because I already had it drawn and scanned so I just needed to upload it. I should've done a strip last weekend but I needed the time just to relax and catch up on some sleep!
In addition to this, my girlfriend and I sadly called it a day last week. She has a new job in a different city and between the distance and both our busy schedules it became apparent that we would not be able to spend much time together - if any, for the next 6 months or so, so we decided to just be friends. As far as break ups go, it was all very amicable and we're still good friends so you could call it easy, but break ups are never easy so this last week has been hard.
I promise I'll have one up for this week and we will finally find out what type of animal Alex is! Stay tuned.
Sunday, 1 July 2007
A little dinosaur!
As always there are things I'm happy with about this week's strip and things I think I could have done better. For example, I've just remembered that I ruled one of the panel borders too long and didn't fix it in Photoshop. That's going to bug me now but I'm going to leave it as a reminder to tidy up my work for future.
Drawing a strip is a weird kind of process. I start out with the pencils and sometimes leave things a bit rough if I know what I want to do and sometimes tighten the pencils up so I have a definite line to follow while inking. Then you ink it and almost always it comes out a little different than you expected. Sometimes better, sometimes worse and sometimes just different.
Usually the dialogue will change right up to the point where I write it onto the finished panels. If I think something can be said more succinctly or if a line is the slightest bit ambiguous, I'll reword it.
It's a very organic process, much as I hate to use that amazingly pretentious term, but it fits.
Anyway, I have to thank my Mum for the 'little dinosaur' quote regarding Alex, which if you've read the strip over at web comics nation you'll see I have done.
I was going to do a double issue this week, to celebrate getting to double figures, but time was a factor and also because I already have next week's strip drawn, (actually it was the first strip I drew, but more on that next week,) and it looks like I'm going to be working thte next couple of weekends, (I'll be going to work today for a few hours shortly,) so I can just post the strip without having to worry about it this weekend.
I think that's about it for now, time is against me this week.
Enjoy this week's strip - Ka-spoot!
Drawing a strip is a weird kind of process. I start out with the pencils and sometimes leave things a bit rough if I know what I want to do and sometimes tighten the pencils up so I have a definite line to follow while inking. Then you ink it and almost always it comes out a little different than you expected. Sometimes better, sometimes worse and sometimes just different.
Usually the dialogue will change right up to the point where I write it onto the finished panels. If I think something can be said more succinctly or if a line is the slightest bit ambiguous, I'll reword it.
It's a very organic process, much as I hate to use that amazingly pretentious term, but it fits.
Anyway, I have to thank my Mum for the 'little dinosaur' quote regarding Alex, which if you've read the strip over at web comics nation you'll see I have done.
I was going to do a double issue this week, to celebrate getting to double figures, but time was a factor and also because I already have next week's strip drawn, (actually it was the first strip I drew, but more on that next week,) and it looks like I'm going to be working thte next couple of weekends, (I'll be going to work today for a few hours shortly,) so I can just post the strip without having to worry about it this weekend.
I think that's about it for now, time is against me this week.
Enjoy this week's strip - Ka-spoot!
Monday, 25 June 2007
Exotic Soup - the blog...
(For some reason this post refuses to appear in bold, no matter how I edit it...)
Ok, so it's been a while since I posted. Obviously I've been a bit busy - at work, at home and just generally. Mostly I've been working on my webcomic and the accompanying website, listed above.
Previously this blog was just a place to vent my metaphysical spleen, but it was a bit aimless and that's no way to run a blog, dammit!
So, what with the comic being a serious ongoing project of mine, I've decided to post an accompanying blog to the comic, so from now on I'll post once a week, as I do with the comic, although maybe not at the same time, but probably pretty close.
I did get part of the name for the strip from the blog - the 'soup' part sounded great with the word 'Exotic', which at one time was all I could think of for the name of the strip.
So this blog will be mostly about the comic, which is good because I'm keeping to my once a week updates schedule on the comic, (a fact that I am proud of,) so I think I can manage a once a week blog post too, and having the comic as a main topic will give me something to write about if I get stuck.
I may still wander off into topics of personal interest and debate, kind of like Scott Adams, (of Dilbert fame,) does with his, of which I am a regular reader.
By the way, I remember that Scott had a thing set up whereby if anyone mentions his name and the word Dilbert on a blog, it sent a message to his blackberry telling him, so if you're reading this Scott - Hi! I'm a big fan of the blog and cartoons. Please check out my webcomic if you have a couple of minutes spare. There's only 9 strips so far, so it's still in it's infancy and won't take long to read. Thanks.
For anyone else reading this - Hi! Check out the strip! Leave comments on the strip or blog or email me: mike at exotic soup dot co dot uk - I'd love to hear your feedback.
Until next week: Ka-spoot! (If you've read the strips, you'll understand...)
Ok, so it's been a while since I posted. Obviously I've been a bit busy - at work, at home and just generally. Mostly I've been working on my webcomic and the accompanying website, listed above.
Previously this blog was just a place to vent my metaphysical spleen, but it was a bit aimless and that's no way to run a blog, dammit!
So, what with the comic being a serious ongoing project of mine, I've decided to post an accompanying blog to the comic, so from now on I'll post once a week, as I do with the comic, although maybe not at the same time, but probably pretty close.
I did get part of the name for the strip from the blog - the 'soup' part sounded great with the word 'Exotic', which at one time was all I could think of for the name of the strip.
So this blog will be mostly about the comic, which is good because I'm keeping to my once a week updates schedule on the comic, (a fact that I am proud of,) so I think I can manage a once a week blog post too, and having the comic as a main topic will give me something to write about if I get stuck.
I may still wander off into topics of personal interest and debate, kind of like Scott Adams, (of Dilbert fame,) does with his, of which I am a regular reader.
By the way, I remember that Scott had a thing set up whereby if anyone mentions his name and the word Dilbert on a blog, it sent a message to his blackberry telling him, so if you're reading this Scott - Hi! I'm a big fan of the blog and cartoons. Please check out my webcomic if you have a couple of minutes spare. There's only 9 strips so far, so it's still in it's infancy and won't take long to read. Thanks.
For anyone else reading this - Hi! Check out the strip! Leave comments on the strip or blog or email me: mike at exotic soup dot co dot uk - I'd love to hear your feedback.
Until next week: Ka-spoot! (If you've read the strips, you'll understand...)
Monday, 14 May 2007
Comics!!!
When I was a kid and adults asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, my answer varied from week to week and depending on who was asking. I guess that's like a lot, if not most kids - one week I wanted to be a policeman, the next an astronaut. At one stage I even wanted to be a footballer!
As I got a bit older I found myself completely bemused by the whole job thing. I remember thinking that there were certain jobs I could see a clear path to - like doctor, lawyer, pharmacist etc. For these types of jobs, you kind of had to have decided by the time you were 10, (or your parents decided for you,) and you had your life mapped out for the next 10 or so years.
That thought scared the hell out of me. I've always been a bit of a 'live in the now' type of person. Planning for the future does not come easy to me, so planning the next 10 years just seemed like lunacy. What if I decide I don't like it half way through? Is all that training and planning wasted? Of course this exact thing happens to many people; they have their career decided for them by their parents at an early age and then half way through they quit and their parents are disappointed and angry because their child has a mind and tastes of its own. Some even finish the training before deciding it's not for them, others still work at it for years before quitting to do something that makes them happy. The most unlucky ones wait for retirement.
Anyway, there seemed to me to be an awful lot of jobs that I'd maybe heard of but didn't know much about, like quantity surveyor, radio DJ, event organiser etc, that I had no idea how you would get into a job like that and these jobs were probably in the majority when you looked at it.
I now believe that a great proportion of people are in the jobs they are in by accident, or if not accident, then one thing led to another and one day they woke up and they were a wedding planner or someone that fixes LED's in aeroplane cockpits or something.
So I was overwhelmed by the possibilities as a child, worried that in all these weird and wonderful sounding professions, there might be one that was perfect for me, but how would I know what it was or how to get into it?
Of course people first ask what you are interested in. "Well, what do you like to do?" they say, "do you like Maths? Be an accountant! Do you like English? Be a teacher? Do you like problem solving? Be an IT technician or engineer!" and so on.
It's funny, but although most young boys profess to want to be a fireman or policeman at some stage, no one ever asks, "Do you like dealing with violent offenders and being abused? Do you like incredibly hot plasma and extinguishing it?"
So by the time it came to do my GCSE's, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had sat in front of the careers teacher a year or so before and told him I was interested in art. He smiled, quite genuinely and told me he liked art too, and had I ever thought about joining the army?
Even at 10 I was resolutely unimpressed with him. I think that the army leaflets were close to hand, or perhaps every boy got an army leaflet that day, (maybe he was on commission,) or maybe he was just a realist and knew that the likelihood of a young boy from the North of England ever making a living from art were somewhat akin to the chances of a hedgehog crossing a 50 lane autobahn filled only with fast lanes containing turbo charged steam rollers.
I once told my stepdad that I wanted to be a cartoonist and got a similar response. Don't get me wrong, I love my stepdad to bits, but he again is a realist and told me I should think about getting a proper job. I'm all for pragmatism, but I'm also for nuturing the hopes of the young, unless they want to get famous from one of those god-awful reality talent shows, in which case, you're on your own.
The two don't have to be mutually exclusive though - many writers and creative people hold down day jobs to be able to afford to live and work on their passions in their spare time.
I did this myself for quite some time when I wanted to be a 3d artist, working in the day, then experimenting with 3d art in the evenings.
So a little while back I remembered my cartooning dreams. Along with my writing and 3d art dreams, they've been going for quite some time. I dug out some old ideas I'd written down for a comic series, and also went through some material I'd written for a sitcom and long story short, I started my comic. After reading 4 books of Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho, (if you are the slightest bit interested in the funnies, pick them up,) I decided on simple, 4 panel strips. I could tell a short gag, or else have a running story over several strips, but most of all I could handle drawing 4 panels. Not a whole graphic novel that sounds like a great idea but you get bored of after only roughing out the first page, but just 4 little panels.
I liked the snappy pacing - obviously I can have more than 4 panels or less or whatever, but 4 works well for most things and it forces you into the realms of brevity, which of course, is the soul of wit.
So, I get to write, (I think I've got about 20 or more strips written so far,) and draw, and try to be funny, which is something else I enjoy.
The web has allowed me a home for my new opus, called Exotic Soup, (keeping the soup element of this blog,) on webcomicsnation.com, which is a great little site that has everything in place, including RSS feeds, email lists... blah blah. I'm proud to say that despite my tendency to not follow ideas through to completion, I now have 3 episodes online! Hit the link to see them.
Who knows, I may end up earning my living as a cartoonist yet.
As I got a bit older I found myself completely bemused by the whole job thing. I remember thinking that there were certain jobs I could see a clear path to - like doctor, lawyer, pharmacist etc. For these types of jobs, you kind of had to have decided by the time you were 10, (or your parents decided for you,) and you had your life mapped out for the next 10 or so years.
That thought scared the hell out of me. I've always been a bit of a 'live in the now' type of person. Planning for the future does not come easy to me, so planning the next 10 years just seemed like lunacy. What if I decide I don't like it half way through? Is all that training and planning wasted? Of course this exact thing happens to many people; they have their career decided for them by their parents at an early age and then half way through they quit and their parents are disappointed and angry because their child has a mind and tastes of its own. Some even finish the training before deciding it's not for them, others still work at it for years before quitting to do something that makes them happy. The most unlucky ones wait for retirement.
Anyway, there seemed to me to be an awful lot of jobs that I'd maybe heard of but didn't know much about, like quantity surveyor, radio DJ, event organiser etc, that I had no idea how you would get into a job like that and these jobs were probably in the majority when you looked at it.
I now believe that a great proportion of people are in the jobs they are in by accident, or if not accident, then one thing led to another and one day they woke up and they were a wedding planner or someone that fixes LED's in aeroplane cockpits or something.
So I was overwhelmed by the possibilities as a child, worried that in all these weird and wonderful sounding professions, there might be one that was perfect for me, but how would I know what it was or how to get into it?
Of course people first ask what you are interested in. "Well, what do you like to do?" they say, "do you like Maths? Be an accountant! Do you like English? Be a teacher? Do you like problem solving? Be an IT technician or engineer!" and so on.
It's funny, but although most young boys profess to want to be a fireman or policeman at some stage, no one ever asks, "Do you like dealing with violent offenders and being abused? Do you like incredibly hot plasma and extinguishing it?"
So by the time it came to do my GCSE's, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I had sat in front of the careers teacher a year or so before and told him I was interested in art. He smiled, quite genuinely and told me he liked art too, and had I ever thought about joining the army?
Even at 10 I was resolutely unimpressed with him. I think that the army leaflets were close to hand, or perhaps every boy got an army leaflet that day, (maybe he was on commission,) or maybe he was just a realist and knew that the likelihood of a young boy from the North of England ever making a living from art were somewhat akin to the chances of a hedgehog crossing a 50 lane autobahn filled only with fast lanes containing turbo charged steam rollers.
I once told my stepdad that I wanted to be a cartoonist and got a similar response. Don't get me wrong, I love my stepdad to bits, but he again is a realist and told me I should think about getting a proper job. I'm all for pragmatism, but I'm also for nuturing the hopes of the young, unless they want to get famous from one of those god-awful reality talent shows, in which case, you're on your own.
The two don't have to be mutually exclusive though - many writers and creative people hold down day jobs to be able to afford to live and work on their passions in their spare time.
I did this myself for quite some time when I wanted to be a 3d artist, working in the day, then experimenting with 3d art in the evenings.
So a little while back I remembered my cartooning dreams. Along with my writing and 3d art dreams, they've been going for quite some time. I dug out some old ideas I'd written down for a comic series, and also went through some material I'd written for a sitcom and long story short, I started my comic. After reading 4 books of Liberty Meadows by Frank Cho, (if you are the slightest bit interested in the funnies, pick them up,) I decided on simple, 4 panel strips. I could tell a short gag, or else have a running story over several strips, but most of all I could handle drawing 4 panels. Not a whole graphic novel that sounds like a great idea but you get bored of after only roughing out the first page, but just 4 little panels.
I liked the snappy pacing - obviously I can have more than 4 panels or less or whatever, but 4 works well for most things and it forces you into the realms of brevity, which of course, is the soul of wit.
So, I get to write, (I think I've got about 20 or more strips written so far,) and draw, and try to be funny, which is something else I enjoy.
The web has allowed me a home for my new opus, called Exotic Soup, (keeping the soup element of this blog,) on webcomicsnation.com, which is a great little site that has everything in place, including RSS feeds, email lists... blah blah. I'm proud to say that despite my tendency to not follow ideas through to completion, I now have 3 episodes online! Hit the link to see them.
Who knows, I may end up earning my living as a cartoonist yet.
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