How to succeed?

All advice is autobiographical.

My degree is coming to an end, and I have quite literally 0 motivation to even look for a job in the profession. I just look forward to having time up my sleeve after graduating that I may draw, draw and draw some more.

The best advice, the advice that works for me actually has mostly come from Jerry Seinfeld. I'm not a particular fan of observational comedy, I was a big fan of the show, but mostly for George Costanza. Nevertheless Seinfeld has twice given the best advice I've heard in how to succeed.

A large part of what advice is right for you depends I guess on your definition of success. My definition of success is wanting to get out of bed in the morning and do your work and dreading the approach of retirement. If I could have that mindset on waking regularly I would call myself a success.

Money, fame etc don't really matter so much to me. The way I figure it, we are going to spend most of our waking hours in life at work, if you can enjoy most of your time in life (by enjoying what you do) then you don't really need much else.

Seinfeld first articulated this for me in his documentary 'Comedian' where he came into contact with Andy Orr the young aspiring comedian the documentary also followed. Andy was telling Jerry he was starting to question his career choice when he saw all his friends getting married and buying houses and stuff. Jerry couldn't believe it and told the story of some 'Big Band' group that were flying to a gig somewhere in winter and their plane was forced to land out of town in a snow covered field. The band dressed up in tuxedos had to tramp through the snow to the road and try and hitch a lift to their gig in the freezing cold. On the way soaking wet and freezing they passed this farmstead and looked in the window, there they saw a man with a beautiful wife in this Rockwellian scene cooking up a big family meal for their kids in their nice warm home and one of the band members commented 'man, how do people live like this?'

That's an anecdote I'll probably take to the grave. For me when I realised I want to draw, I also realised that to pursue any other path is moot. I cannot be happy, I could have a pleasant, comfortable life, but I can't be happy. Spreadsheets will never excite me the way drawing does. A nice home will not be enough consolation for having to leave it and go to a job I hate or worse find boring. Even if I love my children, I will never consider myself a proper role model if I hadn't pursued my dreams. They say 'don't have a plan B' this is generally good advice, I would only contend that you can't have a plan B.

I have described my failure in life as being a future where I have a high paying job in the finance industry. This isn't a plan b. This is failure for me. I'm not making a joke, I believe I can be well paid and a failure.

But can I be poorly compensated and a success? Here was Jerry's pearl of wisdom number two, on the HBO special 'Talking Funny' hosted by Ricky Gervais, Jerry was talking about his motivation for becoming a comedian. Specifically how after dying on stage the first time, how he got the motivation to go back. He said that he 'just wanted to be one of those guys.' He wanted to be a comedian, he wanted to associate with the group. He didn't care if he was a good or a bad one, he just wanted to identify himself as a comedian and that meant he had to perform stand up comedy.

When I look at Cheeks Galloway, Humberto Ramos, Francesco Herrara, Scottie Young, Takehiko Inoue, Eichiro Oda, Tim Sale, Bill Pressing, Matteo Scalera, Jake Parker, Alberto Ruiz, Alessandro Barbucci ... etc I just want to be one of those guys. I don't really care how good or bad I am, I just want to call myself a comic book artist. Or pin up artist, or even visual artist, illustrator.

You can make money being a 'bad' comic book artist. That is drawing one of Marvel or DC's lesser known titles and not blowing anyones mind with your artwork or style. That lifestyle would be success enough for me. Just to know I'm going to get up and draw a comic tomorrow, even if it is a contrived and poorly written 'Green Arrow' spin off series. Okay, maybe I misrepresent myself, what I mean is, so long as I'm drawing artwork to a standard I am proud of, and can live off that, that is success. I don't care if I'm not the greatest in the world, or most popular etc.

I just want to be one of those guys*.

*women can be comic artists too, they can even be phenomenal comic book artists, they just coincidently don't happen to populate the style of illustration I aspire to. I would like to be associated with women as well.