Lost callings

It's a fairly well-known fact, in my estimation, anyway, that nearly every comic book writer wishes he or she was also a comic book artist, at least to the point where one could draw a book if that's what was necessary.  To this point, these feelings of inequity are only exacerbated when convention season springs up, as anyone who wanders over and peeks at your book will inevitably ask you the question: "did you draw this?"

The next few moments are filled with awkward apologies for lack of desirable skill with a pencil and brush.  After all, artists seem to become writers at a pretty standard clip, and even if their stories aren't necessarily all that great, hey - at least the art is nice.  Writers don't have such luck - comics are a visual medium and as such, the art is what first strikes the onlooker.  Comments that usually follow are of this variety: "uh, I'm sure the story is good, too"; "never mind, then"; or my favorite, "oh, I'm sorry."  It's just something that comic writers have had to deal with, and I'm happy to do so to get to work with individuals who are, after all, so talented at what they do.

I encountered a few good-natured folk while selling Teddy and the Yeti #1 at New Dimension Comics a week ago who asked the aformentioned question - was I the one who drew the book?  Naturally, I wasn't going to lie to them, as that would be a disservice to Duane and his many hours of hard work, but I made the shop-goers a deal: if they bought a copy of the issue, I'd try my damnedest and draw them a sketch of one of the characters on the backing board that came with the comic.  After a while, I stopped asking and just drew them something, and most of them seemed pleased.  The above is an example of what I churned out; I will mention that I was looking at a page of the book while drawing, and it wouldn't be too difficult to find the particular panel in question if curiosity really gets ya.

Overall, I'm happy with the result - I just scribbled some lines and what do you know?  It kind of looks like the Yeti.  What I really find funny is that I know some people will be more excited about something that took me two minutes to draw than they will be about my entire scripting process.  Such is life, my friends, such is life.