It's truly amazing the amount of strange looks I've received during my career thus far. I've never been much of a conformist nor do I particularly like following rules or structure. The only reason I follow the law is because they don't have Starbucks in the slammer.  So today I want to talk to you creative types, like myself, and let you know that when it comes to being looked upon like a comic book reading, action figure all over your office having, video game playing reject, you're not alone. Lol.

The truth of the matter is that you just have to get used to it.  Creative people live in another world. Suit and tie, no thanks. You have to embrace the fact that you do things in a way that society at large simply can't wrap their heads around...and use that to your advantage.
Like many of you I started drawing at a very early age. I did drawings of stuff like Godzilla (don't tell anyone this but I still love me some Godzilla and I'm in my forties now), space ships, G.I. Joe and other things. My toys were my world and then I started to create worlds of my own. I had hundreds and hundreds of character names written in a multitude of notebook and sketchpads. Some heroes had capes, some were robots, some were aliens – all were weird. But it was that slight weirdness that started my foray into publishing and comics.

The world of Hamster Vice was much like our own except that my detectives were animals and that the criminals were insects. When I wrote and illustrated the first issue of Hamster Vice, I was a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. I was determined to become a published comic book artist and even told my professor about it. Of course, no one but you will ever believe in you as much as you do (man that was fun to write) so he tried to discouraged me. He said,  “You shouldn't try to get into comics...there's too much competition.” That kind of thing only makes me stronger.  Six months later Hamster Vice issue one was published.  I guess the moral of this particular post is to remind you that you have to believe in your dreams and hold fast to them. People will try  to dissuade you because they don't think new ides will succeed. They will sometimes do it because they live their own lives in a way that tries to avoid failures by living in safe mode. If you want success, you have to learn to trust yourself and to live dangerously. Talk to you next time! Be sure to check out my website at www.diehardstudio.com