Miroir

Because I'm studying French

I'll try to keep this short and sweet, and if I do, that could be a first.

Some people in comics get knocked around a bit for being hired based on their "identity", their looks, their connections.

Now we all know connections don't hurt, and if you're good-looking you get attention from people.

People benefit from networking all the time, so it's kind of disingenuous to claim that having the right friends, or being married, or dating the right people doesn't give you an advantage. It does.

If I don't like someone's work and see who they're involved with, well, I admit I have some uncharitable thoughts in that direction about where that career would be going if they didn't have that spouse. But a professional would be wise to not put those thoughts into a public forum.

I haven’t always been wise.

Regardless, the connection that giveth can also taketh away.

If the break up comes, and it often does, the less able or less powerful partner almost always suffers. And that has no bearing on what I think of the work. Some people drop the connection and devalue the work when the person is devalued by their connection or reputation.

If the work was good before the connection or reputation damage, it’s good after. If the work was not good before the connection or reputation damage, it’s not good now.

That’s how I roll.

What works for you one minute can quickly be taken away. So there's no point in dwelling on it.

I know we all dwell on it, but some things just belong in the Here’s Some Zen folder.

Plenty of people take advantage of connections for work. That's the way it is.

Suck it up.

Same thing goes for identity or aspects of personal appearance. Branding has never been more important in comics. Major news and media companies sometimes push forward people who are photogenic or have a good narrative above and beyond people who have far more accomplishments.

I never thought I’d see the day when people comment on my videos about my nail care. I work with my hands, I’ve never been big into nail care, it seems like a waste of money. But I’m going to ask my accountant if I can make nail care a tax deductible expense from now on because I really love a gel French manicure.

Anyway, that's kind of the way the entertainment industry works. This business is shallow by nature.

A shy creator who is soft spoken and doesn't present well on camera isn't going to get the air time that someone who is sparkly and marketable will. It doesn't matter that they've been quietly working in the industry for decades, it only matters that someone has a good narrative that sells news and gets clicks.

Almost everyone I know in this business has a story about how someone put them down and told them that they only got ahead because they filled some kind of slot, and not because they produced viable, quality, marketable art. This goes for straight white men too. And some of the same straight white men who complain they are told they only get ahead because they are straight white men are often the same men who complain that person over there only got ahead for being a woman.

Or black. Or married to someone.

For most of my career, I was told I only got ahead because I was "f"able, and I heard that slur from women as much as from men - especially from women whose jealousy has dogged me for decades. Actually one of the women used to refer to me as the "virgin slut" because "She acts like a virgin but is really a slut".

But enough about women who are upset their husband was chasing after teenaged artists.

I draw way better than she does, but whatever.

I was denounced as a "Barbie" by a well-known industry feminist who flatly demanded I give up an arts grant to her because she felt I didn't deserve it. I've been told I only got ahead because I'm a mean bitch.

Well, OK.

I was flat out told this by a woman who used the word "f"able so many times I wonder that her mouth isn't frozen into a permanent pucker. That I was a "mediocrity", a "liar", used my evil feminine wiles to wrap men around my little finger, and also bought my followers on Twitter.

The last one was funny, I have to say.

Anything to deny the objective reality that while she and some of my other detractors drama'd most of their careers, I sat myself down, focused, and produced significantly more work of significantly more value than they did.

That's it. That's all there was to it.

I just produce what I produce, and regardless of whether or not it’s the Greatest Comics Ever, some people value my work more than they value the work of others. Some people don’t.

They get to do that. Purchasing a comic book is a choice. Not an obligation. A choice.

Look, we can all have our private thoughts about whose work is quality and whose isn't, who's got the best drinking buddies for getting gigs, who got the gigs because they took the editors to the best strip clubs, and whose romances paid off for them.
It doesn't really matter much.

In the end, the work will either succeed or it won't. If it isn't good, the market will figure it out after their famous or powerful friends stop pumping their stuff and we can get on with ignoring art we don't like by people we don't like.

It isn't fair, but life isn't fair.

I love basketball, but I’ll never be in the NBA. Boo hoo.

A lot of artists who are getting crap for their looks or identity really aren't making very much money or getting very many gigs. They worked on books that won awards. but they didn't actually get the awards themselves, no matter how much they bend the facts on their resumes. They don't even have an Eisner to cuddle when the power company turns off the lights because they can't pay the bill.

In the end, they're not your problem.

Looks fade, politics change, and relationships die. And everything that isn't the art and didn't go into the art won't matter.

The only thing that matters is the art.

If you're spending your precious time on this earth putting energy into envying that person over there because they get the art attention you don't think they deserve, well, you're stealing from your own art.

You're the problem.

And when you face the fact that you are the problem, you have full access to the solution.