Not So 9 to 5: The Inaugural Year of an Independent Comic Artist

An Introduction to the Madness of Self Employment

This is an exercise intended to start on my 25^th birthday, i.e. Today, as a general guide, journal and meandering melange of thoughts about the madness of attempting to be an independent comic artist. For fair disclosure, I have made comics before. As I tell my young drawing students, I have been drawing as an interest for about 10 years and seriously for about 5. I have done years of life drawing and object study and I have completed my degree in Visual Arts. This will, however, be the first year that I dive head first into a chosen profession and truly define myself by such. I will not be attending University classes, and other than my part time job as a community instructor (which I need to eat), my professional time will be dedicated to comics.

So here we are. You and me, hopefully embarking on a successful journey of comics self employment. Since we will be doing it together, as in me writing about it and you hopefully reading and participating as much as you wish, I think it would only be apt to describe what this whole endeavour entails. I will be working towards making great comics for print and the internet, self published. I won’t be working on anything to submit to publishers, nor for submission to websites like Zuda. I will be submitting a blog entry every day with snippets of ideas, thoughts, sketches, and rough comic pages. Finished work will be put on Epidigm, most likely with Anatta or another comic.

The benefits for me are obvious, this will be an excellent document to watch my progress and push me to continue working for the sake of it. I’m hoping to direct this project to also be beneficial for readers; I want to discuss methods of comic make, printing, web hosting, communities and other practical issues, plus posting step by step lessons that I provide my students in my teaching job. As someone who firmly believes that process is far more valuable to study (as opposed to only final products), I hope that an intimate look into my developing process will help someone else, and perhaps convince people that becoming a comic artist is a viable option for them. I always hate to hear of individuals who give up on their artistic dreams because the perception of the discipline is that it’s unsustainable and one can’t support themselves on it. I hope that the journey of my risks, successes and failures will illuminate the decisions others will have to make for themselves.

Who is Anise Shaw?

I am. My real name is Vanessa Kelly. I chose Anise Shaw as a pseudonym because I fear ten year old children’s proficiency with Google. The last thing I want is for a student to google my name, find my violent and/or sexually themed comic that deals with gender/social/political issues and cost me my teaching job. I was sensitive to this early on because my name was dragged through the mud in University (student politics stuff, another story for another time), so Anise Shaw stuck. If you ever meet me at a convention feel free to call me either Vanessa or Anise, I respond to both.

I was born and currently live in Vancouver, Canada, and am thus Canadian. I think that I might be one of those polite ones, and I definitely love my public health care. I tend to be politically involved and take great interest in federal happenings in my country. My family has been Canadian for as many generations as I know now, everyone who emigrated from their home countries have long since passed away. I have three siblings, divorced parents, two cats and a heterosexual life partner. I’m frank, outgoing, and tend to over share. I have a blurred idea of the public and the private and will probably tell you more about myself and the things I do than you care to know.

Lastly, I am a little weird. My Mom likes to call me a ‘bleeding heart liberal’, but I don’t think that’s it. It’s more like everything is up for analysis and criticism, even myself. I’ll try not to be too arts and social science-y, but no promises on a complete ban of social critique. I see more value in living poor, creative and critical than rich, with a 9 to 5 job and unquestioning. I might be the perfect candidate for self employment, because I have grown to despise every office job I have ever held.

I like sweet foods, cheese, exotic teas, and drinking whiskey. I hate shopping, malls and anything associated with them.

I know how to drive, own a car, but I take the bus instead (even if it takes longer). Don’t be surprised if many entries are written on buses, being in transit is the best time to write.

Today’s Sketches, Comics and Ideas

Ideas

Something I immediately labelled Café Vancouver: a possible anthology idea. Stories by different artists that take place in a fictional café in Vancouver. Very slice of life, the characters, plot and time frame would be completely up to the contributing artists. I would even like to draw a floor plan and describe the type of café and menu that would be available. I would like to do a story of how the café would be used in a post apocalyptic situation, where the space has been co opted and re-purposed.

Sketches