The Comic Fan's Guide to Overcoming Exhaustion
|
Fun fact: I started typing this email nearly 2 weeks ago, back when I was still pretending I wasn’t dog tired and didn’t need a break after the whirlwind that was New York Comic Con. I crashed into a sleep coma the Tuesday after NYCC and left this message sitting in the drafts. In the week since, I’ve had a major auto repair, a surprise flat tire on my way to vote the next day, and had to put down my mom's family dog. And that was all AFTER the splitting headache that knocked me out last Wednesday. They say if you don’t carve out time to rest, your body will do it for you. Lesson learned. Exhaustion headache aside, I have to say the NYCC experience was well worth it. I’d tell you about it here, but why do that when you can just watch the video? Amid all my juggling, I did end up missing the release date for Episode 51 of The Podcast. Let's just call it a bye week. An Insane Development Right after NYCC, I got a surprise email from an agency claiming to represent DC Supporting The Pals Last week, I joined The Comics Pals to talk about Greg Capullo’s unfortunate series of tweets disparaging a former collaborator. Ultimately, it was a great conversation about the lengths we should expect creators to go through to deliver great product monthly. Even if we didn’t really solve anything, I had a great time as usual. In Case You Needed Permission As I'm finishing this e-mail, it's Election Day. Which makes it fitting that I opened the message talking about extreme fatigue. I'm sure that like me, you've gotten tons of junk mail and unsolicited text messages. You may have even seen one, two, or a dozen social media posts making you question the sanity of your friends and family. Elections seem to bring the worst out of us. Tensions are high, and things seem to get more vitriolic every 4 years. I'll give you the same advice my body gave me last week. It's okay to rest. Take a break. Unplug. Sure, you have responsibilities. If you haven't voted yet, I encourage you to exercise your right to do so. But once you're done, turn the tv off. Get away from Cable News. Get some sleep, or, you know... Read Something Dope Today. BJ KICKS |
Comics Are Dope
Celebrating everything Dope about comics. Curated by BJ KICKS.
When you do something for a long time, you tend to get good at it. Especially if you focus on making small improvements each time, your 50th attempt at something should look WAY better than your first. But if you’re not careful, you can fall into complacency along the way. So your 300th attempt looks a lot like your 75th. “Done is better than perfect” becomes the mantra, especially when finances are involved. It’s really easy to use the law of diminishing returns to justify laziness. Trust...
I remember the first time I heard "Livin' on a Prayer." I was couch surfing the summer before my senior year of college with two close friends -- one of whom was a theater major (is it theater or theatre? anyways...) Before the fall semester started, my friend decided to invite all her theater homies over for a kickback to start the school year. That was my first 'white' party. As a black kid in the suburbs, you don't really see white people in their natural habitat. You get to play outside,...
This week, we crossed the 20,000 subscriber mark on the Comics Are Dope YouTube channel. As I said on Threads, I don't think I've met 20 thousand people over my lifetime. The idea of that many people clicking the subscribe button after seeing me talk about fictional heroes in capes and tights is crazy to me. While I think every YouTuber (including me) dreams at least a tiny bit about having one of those 100,000 subscriber plaques; every subscriber on this journey feels like a gift I couldn't...