The 10 Things We Learned

Our first comic con of the year.  We’ve been busy with workshops and other events, but as we drove to the Peoria convention center I found myself excited to once more join the throngs of fans and artists that make a comic book convention special.  I was ESPECIALLY excited about this con because Jerry had been asked, not only to perform a comic book workshop, but to give a seminar to an audience.  We’d decided to talk about THE 10 THINGS WE LEARNED IN OUR FIRST YEAR OF PROMOTING OUR ART, with the idea of inspiring the budding artists at the convention, not only to make art but to SHARE IT WITH THE WORLD!

As we’d learned last year, this process of sharing your art, of promoting it, can be nerve-wracking and frustrating, but also deeply rewarding.  It also involves the kind of hard work, the relentless effort that only passion can inspire and keep going through exhaustion and obstacles.  The kind of passion that gets you up 3 hours before you normally would, and into a Toyota Corolla headed for Peoria.  The kind of passion that pushes you out of that car and into the world.

Scenes from Peoriacon 2024

We arrived at the convention and began to unload.  One of the con employees directing traffic told us about his job at the US Post Office, and proudly showed us the medals he earned walking the equivalent steps that Frodo and Sam took on their adventure to Mordor in Lord of the Rings.  We found our spot inside, and set up a few offerings of art and comics at the table while Jerry prepared for his first workshop.  We had fliers galore, and I passed out as many as I could to the crowd that lined up outside the convention center before the con began in earnest.  

Our efforts to get as many people in chairs for our first workshop were rewarded, and the workshop was a flurry of glorious and delightful activity.  Jerry provided dry erase boards for kids and parents alike to draw.  Kids came by, intrigued by the activity, and needed little coaxing to stay and draw with us.  Cosplayers provided some truly amazing drawings, and the workshop ended with a resounding chant of DO!  ART!  DO! ART!

After the workshop ended we went back to our booth, setting up an impromptu drawing booth for the con goers to make WACKY drawings and feel the excitement and inspiration that drawing can provide.  A dad and his two sons came by, the dad explaining that he’d been a graphic designer in college while his kids drew us as stick figures and monsters.  He himself provided an amazing caricature of me, delighted to shake the rust off his artistic skills and make some cool art with his kids in the process.

The Seminar: Sharing Our Art with the World

A few hours went by like this, and soon it was time for our Do Art Seminar.  We set up in much the same way, and Jerry began the seminar much like the workshops, with an affirmative chant that 

I AM AMAZING

I AM CREATIVE

I AM AN ARTIST

There were a few familiar faces from the workshop, as well as some new people intrigued by the topic of the seminar.  Jerry’s whole speech will be a post by itself, but the theme that we returned to again and again was the idea that PROMOTING YOUR ART IS AN ART, and that if you want people to enjoy and admire your art you have to share it deliberately, putting it in their hands as directly as possible, confident that if you think it’s good than they will too.

At the end of the seminar one girl stayed to chat.  She had amazing figure drawings in her sketchbook, but she said she’d been blocked recently as she tried to finish some commissions in an unfamiliar style.  Being artistically blocked is rough, as I well know, and it doesn’t help that the only good advice sounds utterly terrible: push through it.  Keep making art, even if you only go through the motions.  Keep feeding your brain things that you admire, and that inspire you.  Keep practicing, and inspiration will find you ready for action once more.

The Act of Sharing is an Artform: The End of the con, the Quest Only Beginning

Of course, my problem is that there’s so much to do!  We ended the convention with more wacky drawings.  A pair of friends, one dressed as Vageta from Dragon Ball Z, added a stick figure and an awesome caricature drawing of me.  We drove back to Jerry’s house, me exhausted after a day on my feet.  We were both excited about the prospects of the seminar, which we’re hoping to offer to art students and educators alike.  But it also reaffirmed for me the very things that Jerry had been saying.  The act of sharing your art IS AN ARTFORM, one that can bring out as much delight and inspiration as any other.  Like any artform, it can be challenging to learn–the art of controlled failure and persistence.  But the rewards are palpable: seeing the smile on people’s faces as something you made resonates with them.  

Maybe there’s a better feeling out there, but I haven’t met it yet.