Spark Comic 20 - Old Drawings

August 18, 2011
Spark Comic # 20 - Old Drawings

Welcome to another edition of Spark Comics; Sparking it up so you don't have to. This comic is about 2 days late but only because I wanted to get a new web design online for Sparkcomic.com in honor of this 20 comic milestone, unfortunately my code broke on some pages of the site and it'll take me time to fix that so you'll see the new web design later, hopefully. Yes, I've made 20 comics so far. To think, before I started making comics this summer, I only made 6 over the course of 2 years. It all started when I made Spark Comic #7-9 for a final project and my professor, David Green, encouraged me to make one every week. I've had trouble following that regimen, but I'm still proud I've managed to get this far and people gradually seem to be seeing and enjoying Spark Comics in these past 4 months since I started this initiative and I've learned alot. If you're reading this, I'm glad you're reading. I hope you enjoy it and thank you for viewing.

Moving on from my sense of accomplishment, let's get back on topic shall we? I've been through this A LOT, either while looking all over my messy room for something or doing some cleaning/organizing things. I always seem to stumble upon old sketchbooks and are either curious as to what's in them or trying to look for a certain picture I did in the past (usually from old, but still relatively new sketchbooks). Inevitably, I always seem to open up the sketchbooks from like 4+ years ago and become horrified at the artistic atrocities I've commited. Looking at old work is painful and it makes it even more agonizing when you remember thinking it looked like the best drawing in the world when you originally made it.

This comic is something that I think everyone can relate to, even if you aren't an artist. I'm sure we all remember, however vaguely, how much of a sense accomplishment and happiness we got out of doing some things as a child. Back then, we all thought everything we did was the best thing ever, with our parents and teachers internally terrified and outwordly supportive of our work, for which I somewhat pity them. When you make something as a kid, it's always the best thing ever. Then you grow up and learn that you know absolutely nothing and it all goes downhill from there. Even when you're good, it's never good enough and when you improve you look at your work from a few years previous and feel extreme scorn for it, which will repeat itself the year after on your then recent work. I somewhat wish I had that childish innocence from back then, when everything I touched seemed like gold... Then I see stuff like this and thank god I don't... But I also realize that all of us need to suck at something if we ever want to get better at it. It's a necessary evil.

I'm sure a year or 2 from now, I'll look at this comic with similar scorn and disgust... Much how I view Spark Comic #1 now.

P.S. I'm going to be busy for the next little while doing things, packing, and going away soon, so there will be no Spark Comic next week. Sorry.