99: Patrick Yurick & Adam Greenfield (ComicFuel 4) – MakingComics.com Gutter Talk Podcast

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“…it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” 

Rocky Balboa’s inspirational speech to his son in the 2006 installment into the Rocky franchise is definitely the inspiration for this show. There’re a lot of projects I work on right. Art, design, and educational experiences I am currently slaving away over. I spend a lot of time, and incur a good deal of mental anguish, trying to figure out what the “right” thing to do is as a day job. When Rocky talks about taking hits, in my context that is all about my own personal demons regarding my design process. My own shadow/devil on my shoulder telling me I’m wasting my time.

Last month, I’ll be honest, I almost considered #ComicFuel a waste of my time. Three episodes in and I was ready to give up.

I almost didn’t finish episode 3. Even during the process of doing it, I didn’t want to finish it. I did finish, barely, and then I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do another episode the same way again (if I did another episode). So I called Adam and asked him to record a quick episode where we powered through a ton of questions. It turned into a longer episode.

As I sat down with Adam Greenfield this week to record the fourth episode of #ComicFuel I was reminded why I do this. Sure, this episode is WAY too long ( cough-2hoursand14minutes-cough ), but who cares? I got to sit down with my friend and answer some student questions and talk about how to practice art. In my ideal retirement scenario I would spend every day doing this.

I was reminded that MakingComics.com is the purely “good” thing that I have in my life. For me this is the one sacred space in this whole universe where everything we do is just good. We aren’t always active, or on time with our products, and they aren’t always produced with the kind of quality I’d like – but at their core they are good. We’ve made decision after decision to not turn this into a project that will go anywhere (i.e we are staying here for good). It isn’t a startup business – it is a public service. That is what makes it “good”. It hasn’t been tainted by the threats of being economically unviable – because it isn’t.

I thought I was done after my 2 hour session with Adam. Then…

…I said to myself – I’m not going to do Audio Fuel this month. Monday I mixed the two hour long episode and then I saw a tweet to me that I missed:

@patrickyurick haven’t listened yet to #ComicFuel 3 but can I just say thank you in advance?

— Heavy Load Comic (@HeavyLoadStory) July 13, 2016

So I responded:

@HeavyLoadStory Did you listen to it? Ep4 drops Friday 🙂

— Patrick Yurick (@patrickyurick) August 9, 2016

@patrickyurick I did. Best so far! It was mostly useful and inspiring. I’d keep the intro a bit shorter! Looking forward to the new one

— Heavy Load Comic (@HeavyLoadStory) August 9, 2016

@patrickyurick that’s probably the best bit of the podcast. So many times we get lost into technicalities and forget about the why’s

— Heavy Load Comic (@HeavyLoadStory) August 9, 2016

So now I have a reason to get back up, despite the obstacles, fight Apollo for the champion belt, and follow through on making an awesome episode of #ComicFuel. So thanks for being my “Paulie” Marco (Adam is my “Mick”).

I got back up.

I did more work.

I may not feel like I took the belt – but I did get a reward. I did something good. Good for myself and, hopefully, good for some others as well.

This month’s episode features answers to questions on creating depth, writing, visual comic vocabulary, drawing for exposure, story vs art, and what to do when art isn’t fun anymore. AudioFuel this week comes from Sylvester Stallone, Martha Wainwright, and the late Joseph Campbell. As always, I encourage you to jump to the section in the show that you fancy the most (times indicated below) and be sure to check out the show notes at comicfuel.wikidot.com/wiki:episode-4.

Jump times to go to different parts of the podcast:

• (00:00:00) AudioFuel: Rocky Balboa Lead-in to Show
• (00:02:10) Show Opener
• (00:02:53) Introduction to Show
• (00:12:50) Question 1 – Creating Depth
• (00:35:00) AudioFuel: Joseph Campbell – Myth As A Mirror
• (00:39:17) Question 2 – Writing
• (00:55:59) Question 3 – Visual Comic Vocabulary Resources
• (01:00:00) Question 4 – Drawing for Exposure
• (01:16:00) Question 5 – Story vs Art
• (01:27:00) AudioFuel: Martha Wainwright (Employee of the Month)
• (01:30:36) Question 6 – When Art Isn’t Fun Anymore
• (02:13:00) Show Outro

• Let me know what you think of the show by tweeting @patrickyurick

• Please consider supporting us so that more episodes of the show can be released by donating at $1+ to the show on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/makingcomics

• Check out our Patreon explainer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4TBhT_m2RQ

• As always – the entire show notes catalog is on the Comic Fuel Wiki: http://comicfuel.wikidot.com/wiki:episode-3

Songs Used

• Patreon Info Segment:“Story To Fall Through” by Dr. Turtle, used under CC BY / Desaturated from original
• Intro & Outro Songs:“Unexpected Hoedown In Bagging Area” by Dr. Turtle, used under CC BY / Desaturated from original
• #Comic/Audio Fuel Segments
  • “The Kid In The Bins” by Dr. Turtle, used under CC BY / Desaturated from original

Audio Fuel Used

• “Rocky Balboa: Speech” – Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Sylvester Stallone / Desaturated from original
• “Myth As A Mirror For The Ego” – Jospeph Campbell / Desaturated from original
• Martha Wainwright Employee of the Month Interview – / Desaturated from original