An Ethical Delimma

[rva_jeremy]

I wish I could find a job in art...all I really want to do is make comic books for a living. If only that industry wasn't a total bust right now...

Yeah, but... who wants to be part of an "industry" these days? Have you ever seen the webcomics that are out there? Take a look at Diesel Sweeties, Cat & Girl, Toothpaste for Breakfast, Wayward Sons, etc.

Lots of artists especially in comics are embracing a totally different model than pimping themselves to publishers. You might have to learn a little bit about the web, but think of it as the equivalent of learning how to ink or do offset printing. They often give their comics away for free and support themselves with merchandise or advertising (I've given one web comics guy hundreds of dollars because his shirts kick ass). Some are even now publishing books they've become so popular.

I sometimes wish I hadn't gone to college. It's not all it's cracked up to be. They basically teach you how to take orders and participate in bureaucracies. You'd just feel even more pressure to do something boring. I have several friends in software development who make substantially more than I do because they focused on doing what they loved and grew it slowly, rather than getting University of College Debt to give them a piece of paper saying they were "educated" for a field that changes so quickly there's no point even buying textbooks for it.

Allow me to pontificate for a bit: the era of the job, where we go and work five days a week, 8 hours a day, and we get a steady check and maybe benefits in return, is fast coming to an end - not just for you but for everybody. The name of the game is finding a niche and/or diversifying, but most importantly, low overhead business. You can do with a $300 laptop what it used to take millions of dollars for a big publisher to do. This is where everything is going, and the great thing is that you can leverage your free time to build your own capital instead of needing a bunch of money up front. So you can grow slowly and gradually phase out employed life.