This was, in fact, something that used to IMPRESS the fans. That I was fast. That I "never" missed my deadlines. (No fill-ins on Byrne books -- at least, none that were my fault!)

But hitting your deadlines is a whole lot like WORK, isn't it? And a whole lot of fans, who dream some day of becoming pros, don't want to think of it as WORK. They want to think of it as the ultimate paying HOBBY. And hobbies don't have deadlines.

So, of course, when someone like Todd McFarlane tells them it's okay to (a) draw badly and (b) be late, and still makes a ton of money, they just LOVE that.

Professionalism? Who needs it!

The more you do something, the better and the faster you get at that thing (generally speaking). That makes sense, right? And yet you have fans who somehow believe that someone who has produced 600 pages in a year (two comics monthly and some covers, maybe a fill in or two) has become less of an artist then someone who only managed around 100 pages in that same time frame.

The more you do, the better you get, the better you get, the faster you are.

I'd take that to be self evident but explaining it to people seems difficult sometimes. The most common response is that artists do not make widgets, as in they're not a mere craftsman but an artist. Except I always thought art was a combination of craft and artistry so to denigrate one aspect by calling it unnecessarry, or in fact saying that the presence of that aspect (craft) is an indicator of a lack of the other aspect (artistry) is all kinds of strange to me.

I've been doing a webcomic for two and a half years, day in and day out I come home and draw (I'm not comparing the work load of a humor comic with the work involved in a comic page) and the strange things is producing about 500 of the suckers has made me better at it. Not where I want to be, not yet, but closer than I was. And if I had only done 200 in that time frame? Well, my 200th strip wasn't really all that well drawn and I would have missed out on the learning opportunities presented by the other 300 strips.

An artist came into Archie's office one day, saying he needed more time to finish a job that was due the next week.

"How much time do you need?" Archie asked, remembering this artist had been assigned the job in June, and it was now December.

"At least three months," said the artist.

"Okay," said Archie. "Let's say you started in March."

This is the most important detail that seems so often to be lost on so many current artists (and not a few in days gone by). Extra time is to be calculated into the scheduled AHEAD of the due date, not beyond it. If a project is due in July, and it's now April, and it will take you six months to complete the job, YOU CAN'T DO THAT JOB!

"Growing roses" is fine -- but calculate how long it will take you to grow them and work your schedule BACKWARDS based on that time.

(And for dog's sake, be REALISTIC! If you once drew the White Tiger, Iceman and the Invisible Woman fighting the White Queen and Xemnu in a blizzard, and you produced six pages in one day DON'T ASSUME THAT'S YOUR STANDARD SPEED!)

Well with the internet, and our ability to send pages as an e-mail, I see no excuse to miss deadlines. Once the page is penciled and approved it can go directly to colorist, and then on to the letterer. Even if the penciler only drew one page a day, the title would still be on time. That is if the colorist and the letterer work at a similar speed. Most of the people I know coloring and lettering are able to complete more than one page a day. What is the other problem here is the hiring practices at the publishers. They tend to not hire the people that can hit a monthly deadline.

•••

I have long maintained that "modern technology" has served to make us SLOWER.

Once upon a time, if you lived in, say California, and your publisher was in New York, a job that was due on Tuesday had to be in the mail by no later than the previous Tuesday, just to be on the safe side.

Then came "overnight couriers", so completion of a job that was due on Tuesday could be put off until Monday afternoon.

Then came the fax machine, and a job that was due on Tuesday could be put off until Tuesday!