Am I ready to start a comic?

I got an e-mail a while ago from someone saying, in brief:

I’ve been drawing for a long time, I want to start a comic, but I’m not sure if I’m good enough yet. What do you think?

Good question, and I was certainly flattered to think she sought my opinion on this (what, I’m the one who decides if you’re allowed to draw comics yet? O.o). We mailed back and forth a couple of times, and while she didn’t want to be put up on the blog as “an example” (fair enough) she did agree with me putting some of the stuff I wrote to her up here for the rest of you. Because you might be thinking the same thing. And the answer is pretty simple.

Yes, get started already.

When are you good enough to start drawing comics?

I think the question you’re really asking might not be “am I good enough?” but “will my comic be good enough?” Of course, that depends on what you want to be good enough for. Good enough to gain a bit of an audience on Smackjeeves? Good enough to self-publish? Good enough to publish with ITCH? Good enough to sell to Tokyopop? What?

Whatever your standard is, you have to keep in mind this is the first time you’re drawing a comic. There’s a lot to learn, including good drawing skills, but much besides. Was your first drawing “good enough”? Was the first time you walked “good enough”?

Probably not. Oh, I’m sure that the first time you walked people stood around cheering and clapping like it was some kind of bloody marvel, but listen, they were lying to you. You sucked at walking. You were useless. You could probably manage a few steps before falling over. I mean, really!

Of course, no one expected you to be good, because it was the first time you were doing it. And you probably didn’t sit on your hands and knees, wobbling back and forth thinking “am I good enough to stand up yet? Or should I do some more of this crawling thing first?” Right? Probably not. You just tried, and fell over. Yet, you’re walking now.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is, you’re over-thinking this. Are you good enough to start a comic? Sure you are! You can clearly draw some, so go for it! Yes, you’re still developing your style, and you’re not sure how to do tones (you can use plain grays, that works too) but you don’t have to be at some predetermined level of skill before you start drawing comics. Also, whether it’s about drawing pretty girls or drawing gritty comics, there’s really no such thing as “good enough”. You will never run out of room to improve. You may reach a point where you feel confident, or where other people are willing to accept you as “pro level”, but there will always be more to learn.

So don’t wait too long. You’ll have to learn how to draw comics by drawing comics, just as you learned how to draw characters by drawing characters. You can probably work on both these things in parallel, and arrive at a point where your comic is “good enough” faster than if you’d tried to learn one before the other. Probably.

There is no amount of crawling that will teach you how to walk. There is no amount of walking that will teach you how to swim. If you want to learn to draw comics, draw comics. Start now!

Of course, also read comics. Study comics. Get Making Comics by McCloud, and scour the net for those rare tutorials that tell you how to do this stuff (you know why there aren’t any tutorials on panelling and such? It’s because it’s bloody hard to make them! >_< ). But please, learn by doing, and don’t expect to be “good enough” according to some artificial standard on your first try. If you actually do it, you’ll have one up on a lot of folks sitting around wondering if they’re good enough yet. If you actually draw a comic, you already are good enough, if you see what I mean.

Really guys, get started already, there’s no need to wait. Don’t stop drawing figures and designing characters and working on your drawing skills, because that’s important too, but you can work on both. And should.

And seriously, stop expecting every single thing you do to be “good enough” by some ridiculous artificial standard your perfectionist side sets for you. It is harming your progress. For pete’s sake, allow yourself to suck!

But maybe that’s a rant for another time.