Punany Conquest of Space by Dylan

[Originally published in Skim Lizard 7, September 1994]

I'm in a bad mood. I try and write whenever I'm pissed cause it gives me a lot to draw on. I'm pissed now cause people are fucking lame. I'm pissed cause the world is set up so that people who do things, anything, get beat down till their will is gone; why try cause it won't work anyway.

It's been happening all week to me. The more I try the more people fuck with me. It's frustrating, but I don't mean to whine, I hate whiners. I'm just saying that trying to do comic art for a living is fucking hell. and I have a whole fuck load of respect for people who are doing it and making it work.

It's a war against mediocrity. Most of my non-creative friends are only non-creative cause they've let all that negative reinforcement get to them... They say, "I can't do that cause I'm not like that" or "You do it you're the CREATIVE one." That mentality is so fucking alien to me. What the fuck is the point of living if you're fucking swimming up stream to die. You have a brain, use it.

Where is this going, I'm not sure. This past week I found out that a good friend of mine thinks I'm going nowhere, I had another friend make fun of the fact that I value the fundamentals of drawing rather than the surface technique. I've had a series of friends and acquaintances tell me I can't write. I had a job where people have been telling me, for two and a half years, that I should just be doing what they tell me and stop taking things upon myself. Yeah I get that shit all the time in my life, but then I'm sure you do too. We all get that shit. Like they say "that's the way of the world."

I guess the thing I'm learning now is the value of telling people what you honestly feel. esp. about their art work. Not putting them down, telling them what's wrong and what works and above all NOT PIGEON HOLING PEOPLE.

"I DIDN'T JUST MAGICALLY GET TO BE AN ARTIST. I DO NOT ONLY DRAW ONE WAY OR DEAL WITH A FINITE AMOUNT OF SUBJECT MATTER. MY OPINIONS CHANGE AS I LEARN."

It's like when you've done a piece that takes months and you show it to someone and they say "Oh. that's neat it looks like so-and-so." That's a bullshit answer, it tell's you nothing except that what you are doing has been done before. If used at the correct point in a critique a comparison can be helpful but for godsake if you don't have anything good (intelligent) to say then shut the FUCK up.

Most people are like that out of jealousy, envy, or stupidity. I guess in the end, that's why, when people do overcome all this conditioning, it is so important. The older I get the smaller my circle of friends get, it's by choice. I'm already negative enough for myself. I DO NOT need people's negative reinforcement.

None of this really matters, all I’m saying is not to give up cause people say you suck or whatever, draw for yourself first and the audience second.

One last note: It's now about three or so months after I wrote all this. Today I got my second postcard from an artist named Alex Toth who I sent the first three issues of my comic "Horse" to. He is a genius and, in my insignificant opinion, one of two greatest living cartoonists/comic book artists in the world. In this postcard he says "Clean up your act-stop being a recycled 60's dropout rebel-it's stale in !94-write/illustrate and paint/ be your best/ yourself/ and speak softer w/ yr big stick!" He continues, "Make sense! Don't mumble! By word or pix! Or point! Speak up, but clearly-rage without rot!" Earlier in the letter he says I don't have the right to criticize my elder comic artists ... I don't know what to say this letter was like the first time I had my heart broken by the first love of my life ... it’s like I'm never going to get people to understand what I'm saying ... it's like ... well l thought I'd just give up being a comic artist. Then I thought about it and realized that the only thing I could do was take what he said (these points which are truly valuable/valid) and learn from it. How could I do anything else!!!!