My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 3 of 4)
Why on Earth do you want to write comic books?
Art by Cliff Robinson
In the previous two chapters of My Future Shock Hell! I recalled how I learned that there really is no such thing as ‘breaking in’, as well as how accepting the certainty of rejection can profoundly enable your creativity.
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 1 of 4) How I broke into comics and why there's no such thing
READ: My Future Shock Hell! (Chapter 2 of 4) How surviving submissions means rejection-proofing your soul
Those first Future Shock submissions to 2000 AD taught me how to cope with the eternal torture of the submissions process. But it also taught me two fundamental principles of approaching any creative market for the first time.
1.) ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS
2.) GET IN BY GETTING GOOD.
Let me break these two down, starting with the first one...