07/08/08 ·
How to meet a girl
- First, watch your dad draw on placemats at a restaurant.
- Then you should start drawing on every piece of scrap paper that you can find.
- Start reading comic books. A good place to start is at a Meijer's Thrifty Acres store, with X-Men, preferably issue #192.
- Have a creative-type friend rope you into making a 'zine', even though you dont know what a 'zine' is yet.
- Stop reading superhero comics and start reading artsy comics from european artists like Moebius (A.K.A. Jean Giraud)
- Stop copying your drawings from the superhero comics also.
- Have a paper route to found your purchase of edgy North American comics like Eightball and Dirty Plotte.
- Stop reading comics and sell off your entire collection, because you're going to college and you'll need money.
- Stop drawing comics and focus on real art like painting and writing poetry.
- After college send your poetry to a bunch of publishers so they can reject it and you'll stop writing bad poetry so much.
- Live with your high school friend and save up a bunch of money.
- Go to a coffee house and draw a lot. Like every night. Well, almost every night. But, seriously, a lot.
- Befriend the staff of the coffee house (this is a good idea even when you're not trying to meet a girl)
- Go to the comic store and pick new issues of Acme Novelty Library and Eightball and get back into comics.
- Decide to move to Chicago (or the other city of your choice) to attend graduate school.
- Your roommate, who you had befriended at the coffee house, should also happen to be into comics.
- He should point out a really cool comic shop in your new neighborhood.
- Meet Chris Ware (no substitutions, please) at a book signing and show him some work to receive encouragement.
- Make a 'zine' of stuff from your sketchbooks and sell it at the cool comic book store.
- Meanwhile, at grad school, make bad paintings which the faculty hate.
- Disheartened by this awful critique, now is the perfect time for you to start drawing comics again!
- Send out your first full-length graphic novel to all the indie comics publishers!
- Get rejected by all of the indie comics publishers.
- Have Chris Ware encourage you to self-publish your graphic novel.
- Chris will introduce you to Paul Hornschemeier, who will totally help you put your book together (some restrictions apply)
- Print a couple thousands copies of your graphic novel and hope people will buy it.
- Have Paul include you in the Holy Consumption, a website to sell the comics of his friends and his own.
- Meet Anders Nilsen, one of the other artists on the Holy Consumption (see also 'How to meet Anders Nielsen' - ed.)
- Sell enough copies of your graphic novel to have them show up in used bookshops, where a girl will buy it.
- Have Anders put up a show of your art at the cafe where he works.
- The cool comic shop where you've been selling your graphic novel should have an anniversary party coming up around now which you agree to attend.
- Get an email form the girl who bought your book used after she sees your art on display on the cafe.
- In your reply email, mention to her the upcoming anniversary party for the cool comics shop.
- Go to the anniversary party where you will sit at a table and sell your books.
- When the girl shows up, introduce yourself - this is how you 'meet' her.
Little Things: A Memoir in Slices, Jeffrey Brown, Touchstone Books, 2008