The Nature of the Beast.

What makes someone a cartoonist? I mean, more than just drawing comics. What is it about a person that leads them to consider themselves, out of all self-imposed labels - artist, draftsman, painter, storyteller - a cartoonist above all? I've been mulling this concept in my head over the last few days, trying to consider all the comics people I know and see if there is some thread of commonality to their personalities. Behaviors range all over, from hermit to, well, me, as do styles of dress, common levels of inebriation and dancing ability. But what lies under the surface that ties us together? What signifiers in a person's basic makeup drive them down this particular path?

I'll go out on a limb here and start listing traits I see more or less in myself and in the other dedicated comics people I've gotten to know more than superficially. Not everyone falls into these categories, of course, and this is completely generalizing and stereotyping, but here goes.

1.) At some point in life, you are, were, or will be a nerd - or very into something generally considered nerdy.

Comics aren't seen as dorky anymore. Most of the hot new titles coming out actually have a lot of social cachet (at least in my tiny scene). But in our undereducated country right now, even admitting you like to read frequently throws you out of the mainstream. The older you get, the more your weird obsessions and quirks become something admirable and definitive - studying spiders, for instance, might seem a charming and unusual hobby in a 55-year-old but a decisive social career-ender in a 16-year old. Comics themselves have now passed out of the basement-dweller's realm as Joe Magazine "wakes up" to the new trends and starts hearing about Persepolis and Ghost World, so they themselves aren't anyone's nerdly ball and chain to drag around. But almost anyone who makes them now has found themselves struggling to explain, at some point in their personal history, why they draw dragons instead of brides, or why they study Luxembourg when they "don't have to", or that they'd rather download a fan-made Star Trek movie instead of hitting the kegger. (Okay, Star Trek will always be dorky. Sorry!)

2.) Extremes of self-concept.

If you've read my blog before, you might have seen hints that I'm feeling very good or very bad about myself and my work at varying times. I have purposefully kept most deeper emotions out of this blog due to the permanence and pervasiveness of the internet. However, when I write "I'm not too happy with the work I'm doing and I want to do better," what I really mean is "I wouldn't even wipe my ass with the unbelievable stinking garbage that came out of my brush today. I should be shot and my body dragged behind a car." And when I say, "Things are going well! (Insert triumph here.)" I mean, "Can you fucking believe how awesome I am? I should be wearing a dress made of sunbeams on the top of Mount Olympus getting cunnilingus from the gods, this splash panel is so amazing. Behold and weep!" Everyone I know teeters between serious extremes of self-loving and self-loathing when it comes to their work. It's always easier to own up to failure than to success, and most people downplay their true feelings about their comics to everyone but their very closest friends. But I can say from experience that I can look at the same work on two separate days and see beauty once and failure the next.

3.) Long cycles of production and inactivity.

Cartoonists panic when they aren't making comics. Lots of them panic even when they are. There seems to be an unspoken agreement to oneself that if one isn't making comics, one cannot fairly call oneself a cartoonist. Deadlines work well to light fires under asses, but not everyone is doing a project for someone else. In my case, the only deadlines I work under to produce Ivy are my own. I'm not working with an editor or publisher or writer; no one is standing over me demanding this many pages by then. If I slip up or come in late, who cares? So occasionally I find myself almost completely unable to sit and work, and the meager scratchings I do manage to produce are so awful I usually have to redo them later anyway. Weeks later, I look over the three incredible pages I busted out in a single week and wonder what the problem was. I've "talked down" friends who fear they'll never draw another panel again, then seethed with jealousy when they hit a productive streak a month later and whip out a short story in minutes. I know there are a few freaks among us that are never at a loss for work and who are consistently professional and productive. The rest of us hate them.

4.) We're hi-laaarious!

Comics people have the best senses of humor out of all humans I have ever met on this planet. Never have I seen such a consistently funny group of folks. Comics, as a medium, often relies on humor to carry its story or message, but there are a ton of dour, somber or depressing works with no larfs whatsoever, so the funny is nice but not necessary. The creators, though - that's another story. Why do you think I so love the cons, the parties? Even the depressoes can laugh at themselves.

5.) We can handle solitude, in fact we need plenty of it.

I need people around to be productive, but only in the short term. I draw in coffee shops and with pals to break up the rest of the day, which is sitting in my studio alone contemplating the nuts and bolts of how to put the comics together. I can ink while drinking beer and guffawing at wild tales, but the hard work of editing dialogue and placing panels into smooth layouts must be done privately, without distraction. I freak out and lose my center when I don't get enough time alone. Nothing resets my internal barometer better than a walk around the city or a long, slow bike ride alone. When I read a comic, I'm studying - I'm trying to unravel the tricks, memorize the well-drawn and pick apart the missteps. I can't have a conversation going in the background. Out of all the cartoonists I know, I actually have the best tolerance for producing work in public. Most people I know can't do more than a half-hearted sketch when out at a bar or in a park.

6.) We love to gossip about our own.

It's still a tiny, tiny world in alternative comics. Put one toe in the pool and you'll be sucked in. Go to one show and you'll have a dozen new friends. I learned the hard way this year that there are no secrets amongst my peers. I've heard so much gossip and "news" and "don't tell, but"s - solicited and un-. I'm trying hard to be the last stop on the underground news wire - it'll come to me but it won't go anywhere. But god you guys make it hard. So much intrigue! So much have-you-heard! So much booze loosening tongues! Plus it doesn't help that cartoonists seem to love hooking up with one another - there are almost no female cartoonists without male cartoonist boyfriends, and when the proportion of male to female evens out in the coming years, I wonder if we'll start splitting off from the rest of the population and start breeding out a separate race of observant, ascerbic, brush-wielding trolls living in the ink-stained foothills.

God, there's so much more I could list... I'll think about this for a couple of days. Can you add any commonalities you've noticed amongst this strange and intriguing group of people?