Detail from Sunday's "Ollie and Quentin." Entire strip here.My friend Piers Baker talks about year 3 of his syndicated comic strip "Ollie and Quentin." Aside from some fascinating shop talk (for instance, saving time by converting his pencils into linework using Adobe Illustrator), Piers writes about his own personal terrible event of 2010:
"Last summer my relationship of 27 years with the mother of my two children came to a very sudden end when she left the three of us. My world collapsed. Aside from the obvious emotional difficulties I was terrified that the career I had worked so hard for all my life was going to be pulled out from under me. Not because I was bad at it, not because it wasn't selling but because I couldn't see how I could be funny every day when my heart was broken. Of all the scenarios of failure I hadn't seen this one coming."
Piers specifically does not ask for sympathy, and goes on to write how he changed his process for producing "Ollie and Quentin" for the better during this very difficult, personal time. Go read.
Thanks Mike, for this very sensitive post and your lovely comment on my blog. Very much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteAll the best from a wet and soggy UK.
Piers
Happy birthday Mike....
ReplyDeleteI hope you're getting younger. I wish for that every yeaer and it never works.
Mike, do you have you copies of that RD book????
My spell check bounced.
ReplyDeletePiers, the odd thing is that the day before I saw your post, I was chatting with Dave Coverly about the subject of trying to be funny when bad real-life things happen. It's a tough road - but it sounds like you were up to the challenge!
ReplyDeleteDan, the book LAUGHTER REALLY IS THE BEST MEDICINE is out in bookstores now.