Challenge Renewed!

Hey Friends, how’s it going?

So last week, after wrapping my independent studies and prepping for my summer break, which we’re now in, I posted on BlueSky how I would teach myself comics making if I were to do it all over again. And naturally that got the gears turning. So let’s talk about it!

The intentional practice I talked about reflected a bit of how I’m learning flute: start with learning how to make a sound, then make those sounds intentionally using the right keys, the right breathing, lip shape, and finger movements. String all that together into scales, and turn scales into practiced patterns of music. That’s the path I’m going to follow with comics for the rest of the year.

So what’s the sound of comics? Really, it’s drawing. It is the impulse to draw, making characters, scenes, moments, ideas. The first challenge then is the Daily Digital challenge. Keen observers will remember I tried this already last year, and lasted just 25 days before I called it quits. A lot was happening then, with me, personally, and with the wider world, and I couldn’t keep up with it. But I’m ready to come back to this now for two main reasons. The first is that I’ve gotten a little more perspective of what I want to do with this challenge, and how I want to go about it. The second is that I’ve cleared a lot of other stuff off my schedule so that I could. In both ways, I’ve given myself room to breathe to just create. For one hour every day, for as many days as I can do it, in a string or not, the goal is to sit and draw. And it doesn’t have to be digital! I have sketchbooks to use, one for each of my current stories, and I can use the practice. But they’ll likely be digital mostly. In any case, it’s time that I’m giving back to myself to make some sounds, and learn some intentional practice at using the right keys, the right techniques.

Next, a weekly and a monthly challenge. As I’m learning to play flute, I challenge myself every day with etudes, little musical studies that test my abilities in sight-reading, finger-movement, timing, tone, and technique. I’m going to approach my art in a similar way. So every week, I’m going to challenge myself to create a one-page, self-contained comic story. Can be about anything. A dream I had, an idea I encountered in talking with friends, or something that struck me while doing anything else. I want to write an idea, sketch out a layout, and put it all together into a single page of something. I’d love for this to be something else that I can spend and hour doing everyday, but I only have so many hours in the day! So I think this is better served being a stream activity. That and…

A monthly scene. I really want to test my scene and story-writing skills with a “short-story.” It’s an expansion of the weekly project, but the goal is to take more time to put together just a four-page scene. Still a skills test, but I’m given more time and an expanded use of my composition skills to create something from start (scripting and layout) to finish (published) with a monthly timeline. It’s also something I can look forward to doing and completing every month during streams. I’m calling both of these studies, and they are named Weekly Work and Monthly Miniature, respectively (I like the alliteration). It also keeps me on a schedule, and you know I love my schedules!!

While the next escalation would naturally be a fully complete, 32-page book by the end of the year, I’m already working on that: Espermarch #2. It’s still in progress, and I’m going to spend more off-stream time working on that where I can. The big push for me is to finish a project, and publish multiple works in a year. But I’ve got to train that muscle, just like I have to train my breathing and endurance in performing a piece. Espermarch is the current thing and I don’t want to take away my focus on making that the best story it can be. From the start of July to the end of November, that’ll be the work in progress. Ideally, I’d like to complete an issue 2 in less time than five months, but I know me. There’s going to be lots of other things I’m going to want to do during all that, and I’m not going to want to work on it every single day. That’s even true for my daily, weekly, and monthly challenges.

Believe me, I’ve given thought to a long-form graphic novel, but again, I need to build up my endurance to take on some thing like that. Same with trying to manage four concurrent comics titles that are barely out of script phase that are also in-progress. I’m giving myself a break and cutting myself a little more slack. For now, the four are taking a long route to completion. I think spinning them into my daily, weekly, and monthly challenge will help me build more in the way of lore and skills, and give me the chance to tell those stories even while working on the six-issue mini-series that is Espermarch (the plan was always six issues). Imagine getting to see a page of Nightingales come together while I work on a scene for Black Crown? Or a sketch from Hedge Kingdom while I figure out that week’s Warsaints?

All this to say, “Yeah. Pace yourself.” There’s so much breathing I need to do right now, so much more intentional, intelligent practice. There’s no shortcuts to take, it simply has to be one day at a time. So that’s what I’m going to do. Plus there are some other monthly art challenges that I never get to do! And I want to try a couple this year! I also have some other comic experiments I want to run, and playing around with making zines and… truly, I have a lot of ideas I want to play around with. I think it’ll be fun to share those on-stream, and making streams more approachable and open-ended and less highly structured will be good for me.

This month, I’m on Summer Break. I had mused with just being offline for the entire month, but I think I want to hang out a bit where and when I can. I’ll play more games this summer, show off more musical things I’m working on, show off more art things, for sure. There’s a convention happening and I want to treat myself. More comics to read and I want to dig in (I’ve got a two big stacks of unreads and three stacks to board and bag). Plus it’s my birthday month! Mostly, I want to spend this month enjoying full free-time and prepping for the second half of the year when I go back to focus mode on these goals. At the end of the year, we’ll assess and see where I land, come December.

Good talk!