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Nothing is better and nothing is best, we are unhappy, we are unblessed (pt. 2, finale)
🕑 Added 2021-12-28 17:53:57 +0000 UTC(continued from here)
Long story short, we were only able to return to the comic in late Autumn of 2019. Remember, I still needed to actually complete 3 more issues of Protector before diving into a new graphic novel. Of course, I didn't REALLY needed to complete it to do the measly 10 pages of our potential pitch, but I thought: "when do I even get to continue the book, if the pitch gets approved?" (hold on to your butts, folks, this chapter is gonna have a lot of “me thinking” in it).
But November 2019 came, and I was finally working on it. First starting with a few character designs, then an opening page that wasn't really in the script, but which I needed to define the graphic "mood" of the book, to root it in my own aesthetics (basically by directly connecting it to Malice). It took me a couple of months, but relatively soon, the majority of the pitch was finished. But after that, it took me 3 more months to drew one more page. And then it took me one MORE month just to do the next page. All while I kept watching Chernobyl documentaries, kept saving photos and pictures into my reference and inspiration folders. Kept treating the project like it was a real thing. Yet something was slowing me down, and immensely so.
For the duration of the entire fucking pandemic, and up until this September, I've been actively and passively avoiding drawing just ONE MORE PAGE for the pitch. The LAST page the writer really needed from me! And of course, I can blame it on a lot of things; how Protector was poorly treated by the publisher, how much of a struggle getting even the tiniest crumb of promotion for it during the first Covid Summer was, or how the mentioned Summer almost killed the entire fucking comic industry, along with our book (or at least if felt like it back then). How a celebrity athlete and his gang of cronies forced us to change Protector into First Knife just a week before the book was going off to printers, and how much the shortest of exchanges between their lawyers and the lawyer working for Image cost our team.
Also, if you follow my twitter and read my comics industry soapbox posts there from time to time, you probably remember how more than once, while ruminating on the events of last year and the failures of the direct market, I couldn't shut up about superstar opportunists and nepotists of comics industry flooding things like Kickstarter and Comixology Originals with their content, only to then finally move to Substack, securing warm and cozy spaces for themselves and leaving smaller creators in the ditch. And of course, my thoughts and feeling about this constantly recalled my interaction with Matt Kindt (who, wouldn't you know it, was one of the creators colonizing comics Kickstarter for celebrities with his yet ANOTHER pastiche at John Wick!). More and more, my mind kept building weird and unfair connection from all THAT to the hapless Chernobyl project, too.
But really, it wasn't even all that.
Because on top of all that, I had the crippling anxiety about quality of my work, caused by the fact that... the writer was 100% sure that they'll be able to get it approved at Fantagraphics.
Me. A Fantagraphics guy?
The page I needed to draw was kinda important for the story: right after the pages you can see posted here, I was supposed to show the actual nuclear disaster incident - as a huge, scary, breathtaking splash page; and as the time went, I kept ruminating on it: "how would a prestige Fantagraphics guy draw this?" And I'm not the kind of artsy-fartsy person to really doubt myself, ever - I just hate most of the work I do 6 months later, like any normal person. But in this case, I think, I actually experiences what they call "the impostor syndrome". As the time passed, I started to question my own artistic choices from a few months ago. I kept thinking: "Is it going to be one of those nepotism things, too? Is this really a graphic novel-worthy materials we're talking about here?" And in my head, I constantly tried to edit the older pages so that they maybe fit in with 2021 me a little better, kept trying to rewrite the smaller parts of the story that we agreed to change in the future, kept looking to make the project more of an Artyom thing.
What I'm really saying here is, all the misadventures fucked with my head really bad - so much so that at least half of conversations with my therapist nowadays are about my views on work and my own professional image; and professionally speaking, for the longest time now, I wasn't even sure if I want to BE a part of this industry. And with Covid hitting harder and harder and the Life just Happening, it was safer for me to put the project, and that ONE remaining damn page, away... without properly talking to the writer, which is probably the shittiest thing I've done to anyone in my multiple years of working in the field.
Anyway, a year of shittiest radio silence of my life later, my conscience was torturing me. Even while staying at the Herzeg-Novi Strip Festival, I keep thinking back to that chain of events, and how bad of a professional I am for doing what I did.
So, I go back home, I rest, I heal a bit, and I e-mail the writer, saying: I know that this is very shitty, I know that the wait is ridiculous, but what if we drop our ambitions down just a little, and salvage the good material we already have by rewriting the script to be shorter? Maybe we go and we publishing it with TKO as one-shot, or something like that - a Comixology Original, maybe? This is the best way to get us paid, giving you back the money you've spent on those 10 pages. Because I now know, and I now admit, that I can't do this as a full-blown 100 pages OGN. But after a year of denial, I still have huge emotional attachment to the work we've done here, and I hate to see it just go to waste.
But the writer declines. Says they doesn't want to do any more extra work on rewriting it (to which I say that I could try to rewrite it myself, and only if it works for both of us, we would proceed), and they'd rather kill the thing completely or do it later with another artist as it is, than continue struggling as it is now.
We parted our ways at that. And now I wonder if a year or two from now, I'm gonna have another Crimson Flower out there, done by a much more talented and much more reliable artist, just weighing on my conscience.
Everything the writer said and did was understandable, and justified; they wanted to help me out, they spent money on me, they showed endless patience. Yet still, as the result, the whole experience proved some of the most depressing stereotypes about mercenary mindset writers have to employ when collaborating with artists, and the way they see art as disposable/secondary to their "IPs". So now I'm even MORE sour on the whole industry, because these writers/artists relationships are basically the cornerstone of the whole institution, you know? Sigh.
I felt sick to guts with myself for the kind of betrayal I did with the comic and writer's expectations, but I also felt crushed, because all the good work I did just went nowhere. The only thing to I could've done there, it seems, was to break myself into the mold that never felt comfortable. And if - or when - I do break myself and fit into the mold, for the 5th time in my life and my "career", I will need to sit, wait and HOPE that this time all the months and years of labour will be worth something to my name, not just my survival. Because I don't think I can watch another book of mine fail miserably, or be derailed and sabotaged. How do I find power to do all the excruciating promotional work again, or what is going to give me enough peace with myself to endure a corporate work, one where you don't really need to think about anything? And anecdotally speaking, who's going to protect me from the star athletes, their vanity projects, and their lawyers out for my throat? And is it even normal to feel exploited in the writer/artist relationships?
Fortunately, my feelings on First Knife have nothing to do with this struggle. I still want to do it, I still believe in it (not as a successful mainstream book, god forbid, but as a book that you're going to really enjoy), and hell, after years and years of partnership that has only caused us all grief and grey hair, you KNOW that no one exploits anyone in here, in the First Knife HQ!
Unfortunately, my productivity, and my actual physical will to work is greatly crippled by the last two years, and it doesn't really matter what caused most of the harm. The therapy helps, the support of this patreon and my parasocial friends on twitter dot com helps, but thinking about any feasible course of action for 2022 is so fucking scary that I immediately want to wrap up this post.
So thank you for bearing with me, and I'm really sorry for disappointing some of you with this story!
P.S. But hey, at least I still have this neat little sketchbook to keep.
Comments
I’m glad you’re in a better place. Oh what wonderful things you’re going to be cooking up!
Artyom Trakhanov
Thank you, man! I hope you'll succeed in everything you wanna make, truly. All this feels a bit silly now, in 2022, but I do remember hurting a ton when writing this. And creatively, I'm definitely in a way better place now than I was then!
Damn, brother. I feel you. I had to take years off from comics because of outside forces and massive imposter syndrome. Getting back on the horse after nearly ten years is a strange feeling- uneasiness and anxiety running amok. But through hardship we persevere.
Artyom Trakhanov
Thank you, brother! I already feel more powerful, so fingers crossed that it sticks to me XD
Guy Pradel
Hey, just a little message of support, you have shown us some amazing stuff this year. Great images I go back from time to time, just for the pleasure of looking at them, the simple satisfaction of looking at good art. And I wish you all the luck, all the inspiration, all the satisfaction, all the energy you will need for 2022.
Artyom Trakhanov
Cheers, and fingers crossed! <3
Owlincomics
Thank you for sharing, I feel a lot of the same frustrations you have about the industry. Hoping for a better year for all of us!
Artyom Trakhanov
Cheers, Ramon! We're getting there!
Artyom Trakhanov
Thank you, brother <3 I think my main problem with pursuing writing for "bigger" gigs is the language barrier - not only writing itself (with constant need for an editor to polish my weird and wonky English) , but also discussing the creative process is always a huge undertaking for me. Like, I am only _kinda_ co-writing First Knife now, and even it takes me AGES to get all my notes together, write down all ideas, explain them, and get it all across to the rest of the team. I know that most bilingual creators face the challenge, but paired up with my (to put it mildly) weird and idiosyncratic writing style and interests, it constantly makes me doubt if any of it is gonna be worth the time spent (and wasted on me by other people).
I feel a bit bad because I responded the previous post not realizing the whole scale of the situation; now it is all clear to me. As Zé has stated, I also think that working on something into which you cannot put your whole soul is not worth it. I'm sorry to learn the rest of the story. As someone who has admired you and your craft for some time now, it is unthinkable to imagine you not being more and more successful in comics every year. The Industry can be shit but man do I think we have to fight for comics and keep making them. Here's to your future in Sequentialism, I'm sure it will be splendid.
I can relate with a lot of this even if I've been staying away from collabs for a long while and certainly don't have as much experience in that department as you. I frankly think if your heart isn't in on a project it just isn't and that's totally fine. Art is weird because it's definitely a Job but also something beyond it. I've turned down a few opportunities that looking back could plataformed into a way bigger position than I find myself today but at the day I just hate doing stuff that doesn't fit my artistic sensibities exactly. Worrying if a script might become a huge success after you let go of it is beyond your control and therefor something you just can't dwell on. Or at least remind yourself to you'd probably would have felt miserable while working on it and how good it is that you avoided it. Maybe this is besides the point of your post but don't see how, besides maybe the occasional Roy (or whoever) collab, moving towards writing your own stuff wouldn't work for you in the long run :). Anyway, I'm rambling here. Those pages are absolutely beautiful, expecially that first one. Have a great 2022, dude!
