Awkward Comparisons

In the past year and a half, while I was too busy getting glasses and shortening my hair to blog, I must've glossed over a dozen eerily similar internet articles condemning the practice of comparing yourself to your peers while you're still trying to settle into a career and what have you.  While most of them actually have a point, especially with all this social networking out there, now that I've been twenty-six for a while I've started...thinking.

In particular, I've been thinking about how I'm the same age as Sushi Man, who was a character that I drew a lot in middle school.  In an unprecedentedly cynical move I set the bar so low in describing the harsh and often awkward realities of J.C. Sushi's mid twenties that I figured comparing myself to him would probably just wind up making myself feel way, way, way better about where I stand in life right now.

So I did the only thing that seemed appropriate and pumped out some visuals:

...I swear, I was absolutely definitely in no way thinking about dressing up like Sushi Man and running out to a nerd convention when I bought that shirt.  Maybe if I slept upside down and paid someone to program a video game about him or something so more than three people know who he even is, I'd consider it, but I'd need money for that first and don't really like the convention atmosphere much anyway.

I also really ought to stop thinking too hard about the exact mechanics of that relationship with Mrs. Butterworth.

You know what?  Even though I am unquestionably more prepared to deal with the real world than Sushi Man would have been if he hadn't been conveniently swept up into an alternate dimension so he could actually live out his superhero fantasies, I am approximately 62% creeped out by the amount of similarities there are between the two of us.  With that in mind I can only hope that turning twenty-nine and a half is nowhere near the acid trip I expected that to be when I was thirteen...

Actually, I hear this is a pretty average reaction to realizing you're

about to hit 30.  If anyone's put up with my shenanigans long enough to know who this

crackpot is, you get somewhere in the realm of four million bonus points.

So yeah.  Final verdict, Zelda Vinciguerra officially beat Sushi Man at life, and I probably just slid down a few points on that scale for talking about myself in the third person.  I'm still beating Sushi Man, though, and that feels pretty awesome.

Now I know Why I needed an External Conscience...

This past Tuesday I experienced a sudden epiphany of epic proportions.

I conjured up a conscience. A real one that can yank on my ear, chastise me for being an idiot, and engage in highly productive think-conversations that last well into the night. It's really not pulling any punches, either, and told me that if I want to get out of this rut and out of this ghetto I am going to have to draw at least once a day, every day to get back in the animation world where I belong.

In the meantime, I've gained some cash working for my dad. If any of you have ever read a Berenstain Bears book called "The Bicycle Lesson," you may recall the phrase "Now son, this is what you should not do...now let this be a lesson to you!" If not, it's a really, really easy read. I suggest taking a minute to drop by your local library and read it cover-to-cover in under two minutes.

Anyway, my dad runs his business the way Papa Q. Bear rides a bike. Here are a few tips I picked up so far...

1) Don't hire someone just because you were friends with them in high school, because you thought their nationality was cool, or because they can't get a job elsewhere, especially if someone better qualified applies for a position at your company.

2) Keep your work area neat and tidy, especially in places where outsiders are going to be walking around often.

3) Going along with #1, when you're in charge of a bunch of people, take the time to evaluate the skills they do have and use those skills to your advantage. For instance, if you have an AutoCAD junkie hanging around and your company requires the use of AutoCAD, get them doing some of that, and not secretarial work. Same applies to having most animators do math. It doesn't work.

4) Never underestimate the value of a good morale-boost.

5) If you've been waiting ten years for your big break and you wind up getting it, do as much of the work as you can manage yourself. Especially if you've hired unqualified people and aren't at least maximizing the use of the skills they already have.

Here's today's picture. Excuse me while my new conscience harps on me about needing to get in some real observational drawing if my portfolio's going to be up to scratch at all.