Jayextee

Had this dream last night (are all my blog posts going to be about dreams in one way or another? I'll let you know after my next sleep!) where I was upset. Like, truly and utterly depressed about a few things.

Namely, spending three years at University (studying animation) only to be too ashamed of the experience to collect my degree certificate; the whole journey of identifying as an artist and all the pretentious horsewank that goes with that; and the following three years of joblessness in one form or another.

Not just doleful unemployment, as I've been prone to anxiety/depression for most of my adult life -- and my father getting ill from cancer and passing away exacerbated this no end. A year or so ago, the powers-that-be declared that I can't claim any sickness benefit/allowance for this (UK government looking to kick everybody off disability benefits eventually, it would seem), so I'm looking for work.

Now, a part of this 'looking for work' thing is looking for the actual work. But, where I live is pretty much a cultural and economic void; an ex-mining area with little-to-nothing to offer since the pits were shut down, so there's a few decades of stagnancy there. Jobs are thin on the ground, and a lot of other unemployed people in the area means that it ain't happening in a hurry. And so, I turned my eyes toward freelance illustration.

Now. I don't know how much anyone here knows about freelancing, but it's kinda like this. It's not a job. Unless a job involves standing in a desert trying to shoot down the occasional buzzard or vulture for food, and that's all you have to live on until you can shoot the next one. Now think about how many people actually want or need art in their lives.

Chasing up clients (or 'would-be' clients, since everyone seems to want artwork right up until they have to pay for it, but that's another rant) far outweighs the stress of any real job I've had. I've done a few things; mainly caricature portraits of clients' loved-ones, but I also (for a short while) drew a comic strip for a local radio station's website. None of which pays well. Right now, I haven't had a client for months. I'm not even sure I want to draw anymore, paid or not.

My dream last night was mainly me despairing that I've come to this, and I woke up feeling exactly the fucking same.

I'm trying to get back to my art. Hell, I've attempted to get back to a comic that I started before my three years of University.



Here's an unfinished page of Trashfield. In itself, I was working out a plot arc about some students who start University (hey, write what you know. Right?) in a crap town (again, write what you know) which is taken over by zombies (write what you-bollocks, I want some chaos :3 ). My love of independent and alternative comics shows through here, as I go for a raw grittiness that is so different to the sheen and polish of Big Two comics -- which is how I like it.

In the UK, the alternative comics scene is largely dead. I used to have this 'spark', this inclination that I had my niche right there; that I could be a voice in the silence or something.

I don't know now. I lost what inspired me to get the hell on with this (and to a lesser extent a webcomic I used to do for fun).

I may, however, finish that Trashfield page off. It is lying around after I dug it out to scan it. At least then, I'll have done something. For the first time in months.