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  On childhood idealismOct 19, 2013 2:13 PM PDT | url
 
Added 1 new A* page:Things have been going pretty darn good in A* land lately--since I started putting the original art for the new inked pages that began with page 21 up on eBay--right over here--only one of them hasn't sold! And a few just here in the past few days even had some pretty feisty bidding going on. I really had no idea how this would go when I started throwing the new originals up for auction with a low starting price, and was a little worried at first, but I'll be darned if it isn't looking like this might work out after all--and I mean maybe that it isn't impossible that this could turn into something that would allow me to work on A* pretty much forever. I guess being excited about the prospect of working on something for a really really long time might sound nutty, but--even though I complain about how it keeps keeping me up late and stuff--I actually really just love being able to sit down and create a new page each day. Might be the best darn job ever in that regard--certainly the best I've ever had!
 
And I don't usually get a whole lot of messages from readers, but I've started to get some nice little feedback messages from bidders, and one person even took the time to write me a thoughtful note saying that they'd been going through a very tough week, but then they found the comic and just having it to read through and take their mind of things for a while was a big help. That really blew me away, that this little thing I've been working on actually made a difference in someone's life. And it wasn't even for three or four days after that as I was still thinking about it that I made a connection way back to when I was a kid, standing outside on a nice day, looking up at little white clouds in a blue sky, and thinking yeah, I'm going to be an artist and I'll get to draw things that make people happy--realizing that the real purpose behind this whole thing I'd figured I'd do with my life wasn't just making pictures, but making a positive impact on other people. Nowadays I know that there are innumerable ways in which people in all walks of life can make other people happy, but back then as a kid it seemed to me my best shot at doing that would be through art.
 
And in the ensuing decades of trying to figure out what the heck being an artist was about, and how you could actually make it work, and not seeing a way to pull it off exactly and trying other more job-specific stuff like graphic design, web design, and game design, and also seeing so much great art from incredible artists and almost despairing of ever making anything anyone could possibly get excited about, it was easy to forget that little childhood notion. But despite all that and after all this time I guess maybe I somehow actually succeeded at that old idealish notion at least once, and it's like that little note that reader wrote me has turned back the clock 25 or 30 years and I'm standing in the grass looking up at a sunny sky and am very excited about the future.
 
 
 
 
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