It is so interesting and heartbreaking to hear your story, especially when you describe how nothing has changed in your 10+ years of experience. This is exactly why I researched and ultimately dipped out of pursuing art as a full time career. The simple matter is that the world is not willing to pay artists for what they're worth and the market is way to competitive and lacking in mental/physical health care. Truly one of the worst career paths right now; not even to mention the threat of Ai. You're an absolute trooper for how far you've come.
It's a little known thing that colleges in the 80's, 90's, and aughts were actively doing whatever they could to try and get disabled people off their campuses- the liability was considered way too high to have us on campus so admin and professors were actively pressured to discourage us. There was a book about this by a journalist with epilepsy who found out later that the college he attended was literally doing everything they could to try and get him to drop out or transfer during his time there, despite his achievements. It was eye-opening, but a lot of my own experiences suddenly made sense in that lens (did undergrad and grad at Emory - have Spina Bifida). My own experience included a minority professor (someone who had struggled himself with tremendous discrimination) telling me that there was no place for disabled people in museum jobs, which was bullshit. I listened, though, and changed my whole career path, and it was devastating. Kudos to you for following your dreams despite so many voices trying to push you off the path. It's insidious.
It occured in the 70's, too. I even noticed it when visiting college campuses (I chose the college that treated me normally and not like I had "cooties"). When I applied to a grad school program, my application conveniently "fell" behind a tall filing cabinet. But not everyone thinks that way. The head of the program admitted me anyway. Anyway, thanks for posting your comment. My friends always assumed I was exaggerating.
@@Sandy-yd6ot argh, I hate having to hear about people going through this. We were all just kids, you know? Trying to get out on our own and create a life for ourselves.
Watched the whole vid and loved your take on this. The comic book industry was similar- in college I took several illustration and comic classes. The comic courses were shockingly mostly women however the males in the class (literally 2 men in a class of 15) got the majority of the attention. It was frustrating to say the least. I also am not shocked by seeing confirmation of some publishers being bad news. Idk recently I was offered a comics job then started - then quickly the goalpost was moved nearly a month ahead and with less pay ( they went from 3k for a fully colored 24 page issue to 1k ) like??? 41$ per page?! Hell no. It’s devastating to know the efforts to make just books for yourself and know it will likely not reach critical success without major influence or infamy. -- also idk if you still print with (create space) KDP - but they offer hardcovers now! Idk I think thatd be super cool to look into.
A year later this still hits. In the US, it's basically illegal for gig/contract/freelancers to unionize, and since that's how most all comickers are classified, that's more the issue than a lack of solidarity. So yknow...it's not just us working against us.
Why do you think you've aged out of comics? I used to belong to a comics group that was composed mostly of older middle aged people trying to get into kids graphic novels. People were getting debut book deals and agent rep at 40+, 50+ years. I guess this struck a nerve because I'm an 80's kid still trying to get my comics into gear.
This is one of the reasons so many creators are doing an end run around the current industry with crowdfunding, indie and self-publishing, and even starting your own company. The system is broken and is breaking others. Comics do not get the respect of other media formats and it's long overdue to fix that. I'm sorry you've been through so much crap.
First, I want to say thank you for coming out and making this video about your experiences Second, I'm so incredibly sorry that any of that happened to you. No one deserves to go though any of what happened to you As someone who is neurodivergent and is making an effort to go from hobbyist to professional artists, reading and hearing everyone's stories has been rage inducing, heartbreaking, and absolutely terrifying. I'm honestly legitimately scared that I made the wrong choice in trying to pursue an art career just because I need to do something that I love. I have to keep hope that things will turn out ok for me and all of my fellow artists, but these industries need to be burned down and rebuilt
Just understand that it's not a nurturing industry, and that you will have to constantly advocate for yourself, and be ready for that. If you know it going in, it can be a different experience because you understand what you are up against, and why, and when it happens it won't knock you back quite as much. Stick to your ethics, believe in your art, and push forward.
The whole blacklisting thing seems so messed up, like how can someone say a person isnt allowed to work in something because they didnt like em or cause they didnt do whatever they said o.o i dont wanna work somewhere that makes someone do something in order to not get blacklisted
OMG, I just remembered couple years ago there was a huge scandal in Russian art school. It is a sort of boarding school specificly for kids who is going to go into Art Collage and it starts at 11 or something like this. And there was a professor who sextually harrass and assalt underage girls. And one of his students said: well it is like a cult, we spend 16 hours in school drawing and only come home at 11 p.m to sleep. He wanted everybody to worship him. He build this cult of himself around this kids. And he prayed on girls who are weak or who lived in school not in home. I guess it is common and scary. You know what it reminds Esoteric Hollywood by Jay Dayer.
sadly even most fine and contemporary artists are not respected and their work is misunderstood or they are expected to work for exposure (whilst fronting all the costs of materials, which can be prohibitive if you work in fields that produce no easily sellable artefact at the end). I have two art-related degrees which like Becca I killed myself with work to obtain and most people misunderstand my field of art completely. This is all compounded by the fact I work in several disciplines (and also make music) and that is frowned upon, really, as it makes one less easy to "package". I cannot work in any other way so I have to have a part-time day job and like Becca have had to put life on hold for over a decade... and for what? The successful, respected ones you hear about are the one in 100 who make it mostly because they are better at shmoozing than their peers are. This doesn’t mean they are bad artists at all, to be clear, just that they are successful over equally good artists in large part because they are able to be social and market themselves (and might not suffer from the same anxieties some of us feel when asked to justify our work) on top of being good, which is a game not everyone is able to play and takes a toll on some of us more than others. Everyone else goes through very similar stuff to what Becca described. 😔 I wish there was more solidarity among artists of all stripes. I think the system keeps us all separate - divide and conquer.
I'm about to begin retraining as an art therapist from next month and am allowing myself to start getting excited about the future again, but it’s so hard to be hopeful about change when the world has valued your work so little for so long - one cannot help worrying that this might end up being more of the same...
It is so interesting and heartbreaking to hear your story, especially when you describe how nothing has changed in your 10+ years of experience. This is exactly why I researched and ultimately dipped out of pursuing art as a full time career. The simple matter is that the world is not willing to pay artists for what they're worth and the market is way to competitive and lacking in mental/physical health care. Truly one of the worst career paths right now; not even to mention the threat of Ai. You're an absolute trooper for how far you've come.
It's a little known thing that colleges in the 80's, 90's, and aughts were actively doing whatever they could to try and get disabled people off their campuses- the liability was considered way too high to have us on campus so admin and professors were actively pressured to discourage us. There was a book about this by a journalist with epilepsy who found out later that the college he attended was literally doing everything they could to try and get him to drop out or transfer during his time there, despite his achievements. It was eye-opening, but a lot of my own experiences suddenly made sense in that lens (did undergrad and grad at Emory - have Spina Bifida). My own experience included a minority professor (someone who had struggled himself with tremendous discrimination) telling me that there was no place for disabled people in museum jobs, which was bullshit. I listened, though, and changed my whole career path, and it was devastating. Kudos to you for following your dreams despite so many voices trying to push you off the path. It's insidious.
It occured in the 70's, too. I even noticed it when visiting college campuses (I chose the college that treated me normally and not like I had "cooties"). When I applied to a grad school program, my application conveniently "fell" behind a tall filing cabinet. But not everyone thinks that way. The head of the program admitted me anyway. Anyway, thanks for posting your comment. My friends always assumed I was exaggerating.
@@Sandy-yd6ot argh, I hate having to hear about people going through this. We were all just kids, you know? Trying to get out on our own and create a life for ourselves.
Watched the whole vid and loved your take on this. The comic book industry was similar- in college I took several illustration and comic classes. The comic courses were shockingly mostly women however the males in the class (literally 2 men in a class of 15) got the majority of the attention. It was frustrating to say the least. I also am not shocked by seeing confirmation of some publishers being bad news. Idk recently I was offered a comics job then started - then quickly the goalpost was moved nearly a month ahead and with less pay ( they went from 3k for a fully colored 24 page issue to 1k ) like??? 41$ per page?! Hell no. It’s devastating to know the efforts to make just books for yourself and know it will likely not reach critical success without major influence or infamy. -- also idk if you still print with (create space) KDP - but they offer hardcovers now! Idk I think thatd be super cool to look into.
While I am not into comic art, but I love your work, i identified with so many subjects you touched on.
A year later this still hits. In the US, it's basically illegal for gig/contract/freelancers to unionize, and since that's how most all comickers are classified, that's more the issue than a lack of solidarity. So yknow...it's not just us working against us.
All the other artist types--animatores, actors, etc--you mentioned who HAVE unionized, get a W2 at tax time, instead of a 1099.
Thanks for sharing your experience 😢
The convention big sister.....
... This hit me right in the "this was my experience too "
Why do you think you've aged out of comics? I used to belong to a comics group that was composed mostly of older middle aged people trying to get into kids graphic novels. People were getting debut book deals and agent rep at 40+, 50+ years. I guess this struck a nerve because I'm an 80's kid still trying to get my comics into gear.
Agreed, nobody's too old for comics. I think it's always great to have older people doing comics, it's not only for 20 year olds.
This is one of the reasons so many creators are doing an end run around the current industry with crowdfunding, indie and self-publishing, and even starting your own company. The system is broken and is breaking others. Comics do not get the respect of other media formats and it's long overdue to fix that. I'm sorry you've been through so much crap.
First, I want to say thank you for coming out and making this video about your experiences
Second, I'm so incredibly sorry that any of that happened to you. No one deserves to go though any of what happened to you
As someone who is neurodivergent and is making an effort to go from hobbyist to professional artists, reading and hearing everyone's stories has been rage inducing, heartbreaking, and absolutely terrifying. I'm honestly legitimately scared that I made the wrong choice in trying to pursue an art career just because I need to do something that I love. I have to keep hope that things will turn out ok for me and all of my fellow artists, but these industries need to be burned down and rebuilt
Just understand that it's not a nurturing industry, and that you will have to constantly advocate for yourself, and be ready for that. If you know it going in, it can be a different experience because you understand what you are up against, and why, and when it happens it won't knock you back quite as much. Stick to your ethics, believe in your art, and push forward.
"All you do is speak up against injustice! 😡"
🤨I fail to see the issue here...
Omg! Just today I was talking about how I was sad over never pursuing an
Art career with SCAD. omg I dodged a bullet!,D:
The whole blacklisting thing seems so messed up, like how can someone say a person isnt allowed to work in something because they didnt like em or cause they didnt do whatever they said o.o i dont wanna work somewhere that makes someone do something in order to not get blacklisted
OMG, I just remembered couple years ago there was a huge scandal in Russian art school. It is a sort of boarding school specificly for kids who is going to go into Art Collage and it starts at 11 or something like this. And there was a professor who sextually harrass and assalt underage girls. And one of his students said: well it is like a cult, we spend 16 hours in school drawing and only come home at 11 p.m to sleep. He wanted everybody to worship him. He build this cult of himself around this kids. And he prayed on girls who are weak or who lived in school not in home. I guess it is common and scary. You know what it reminds Esoteric Hollywood by Jay Dayer.
I swear that artists are not respected here if you don't do fine art. I'm so sorry all this happened to you.
sadly even most fine and contemporary artists are not respected and their work is misunderstood or they are expected to work for exposure (whilst fronting all the costs of materials, which can be prohibitive if you work in fields that produce no easily sellable artefact at the end). I have two art-related degrees which like Becca I killed myself with work to obtain and most people misunderstand my field of art completely. This is all compounded by the fact I work in several disciplines (and also make music) and that is frowned upon, really, as it makes one less easy to "package". I cannot work in any other way so I have to have a part-time day job and like Becca have had to put life on hold for over a decade... and for what?
The successful, respected ones you hear about are the one in 100 who make it mostly because they are better at shmoozing than their peers are. This doesn’t mean they are bad artists at all, to be clear, just that they are successful over equally good artists in large part because they are able to be social and market themselves (and might not suffer from the same anxieties some of us feel when asked to justify our work) on top of being good, which is a game not everyone is able to play and takes a toll on some of us more than others. Everyone else goes through very similar stuff to what Becca described. 😔
I wish there was more solidarity among artists of all stripes. I think the system keeps us all separate - divide and conquer.
I'm about to begin retraining as an art therapist from next month and am allowing myself to start getting excited about the future again, but it’s so hard to be hopeful about change when the world has valued your work so little for so long - one cannot help worrying that this might end up being more of the same...
❤
YOU ARE THE BEST ARTIST ❤