State of the Swamp

The swamp has become the metaphor for my life–I live in one, and my work is swamping me and my ideas are breeding with the lusty enthusiasm of mosquitos in Stagnant Water World.

But life is still pretty good. The money is also comin’ in quite well for such a haphazard profession as freelance art, Money Frog gets a smooch at least once a week, and we’re making pretty good inroads on the debt that piled up during the relatively disasterous stretch of unemployment and move-move-moving last year. The cycle of holding-even-and-not-getting-ahead appears to be broken for now, and god willing, will continue for awhile. Possibly I’ve finally hit some critical mass of existing work connections and new ones finding me–these things fluctuate, god knows, and I could suddenly be workless in two months–but for now, I’ve got as much as I can handle, and continue to add more on top out of cheerfully misguided enthusiasm. Fortunately, I’ve managed something of a carrot-and-stick approach, and can get my own stuff done around the edges.

And I’m very happy about my art at the moment. I’ve been doing some of the weirdest things I can think of–my current work in progress has a woman being followed by the Lurking Turnip, fer cryin’ out loud–and they seem to be well recieved anyhow, which either proves that I’m not as weird as I occasionally worry I am, or that people like weird. Sales of originals are definitely up in the last couple months. And of course…the clayboard, the glorious clayboard, about which I’ve said plenty already and will not rehash my sick clayboard lust here.

Today was productive. Finally finished the latest round with Mongoose–I’ve been doing interior illos for their Conan RPG books, which is fun and politically incorrect–and sent off a bunch of sketches for a third-grade reader featuring happy quasi-comic frogs. Set in a swamp, ironically. (Yes, I alternate pirate boobs and happy wholesome life-cycle-of-the-tadpole art. I have a neat job, damnit.) And I’ll hopefully get this Digger cover done tonight, and the Lurking Turnip may get done too. So life is good, and I am happy, and I feel that it’s important to record things like this in my journal so that if I am killed in a freak rain of narwhals tomorrow, I will not go down in history as one of those Depressed Artists. And it puts it all in perspective, so that I remember to be generally grateful for how well things are going and don’t get mopey over small shit like millipede incursions and t’occasional obnoxious bill.

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