It was the mid seventies, Cape Breton Island in Canada, and I was living with my family in a small neighborhood on Terrace Street in Sydney. My older brother had an interest in communications, which he never really lost. He wanted to make a newspaper for the neighborhood, and since he was only nine, he took pages of 8 1/2 x 11″ lined papers and made a newspaper with a header, lead stories, and the weather which he copped from the local newspaper. Because we couldn’t access any kind of copying machine, he just wrote out the same newspaper a dozen times, one to hand out to each of the houses in our new neighborhood.
I was only four or five but I loved to draw. I didn’t have any drawing paper but what I’d do is cut out the blank pages in books that we had in the house and draw on those. One of my characters was Krazy Kat, which was kind of a Tom & Jerry ripoff. I begged my brother to let me draw a comic strip in his newspaper, and he let me. So I drew the weekly comic strip in his paper, a dozen times for each handwritten copy my brother made.
Now it’s 2025. Obviously I’m not drawing Krazy Kat anymore but I am drawing a number of different comics and I still have that creative need. I’ve been though different jobs, relationships, even different countries, but if there’s one thing that has stayed consistent throughout everything is that need to draw.
In elementary school I was drawing little booklets of comics. One was a “choose your own adventure” comic called “The Secret of Time Hill”. Another one was a complete parody of “Star Wars”. In junior high school I was making parodies of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”. In high school I was making comics for the school newspaper, and started a zine with my friend Adam that we continued for years after. In university I did comics for the school newspaper which you can read on this site. After I graduated I was making even more comics, like “A Heart Made of Glass” and “Sexy Losers”. And here I am today still throwing comics out into the nether.
The wild thing is that, throughout it all, I could never make drawing comics my primary job, even though it has always been my dream to. That has always been my most major regret.
You see, the thing is, I’m a Gen Xer. My parents are boomers. For them, their life revolved having a stable job, then come home and reduce their stress by sitting in front of the TV waiting for something interesting to come on. Monday to Friday repeat. Saturday and Sunday, mow the lawn. Gen Xers who had a creative need just saw their parents say, “That’s nice, but you need to get a real job.”
I’m sure this happens across different generations, but I can only talk about my own experiences. I had friends who were just as creative. Adam who I did the zine with. Steve who I made several movies with. I had extremely creative friends but sadly we were all told that our creativity would never amount to anything so focus on some menial, safe job that we could all do, and sooner or later we could forget that creative spark and join everyone in front of the TV set, remote in one hand, bowl of Cheetos in the other.
That creative spark never died. And I could never let it become dormant either. It’s a part of who I am like the colour of my eyes or that I have ten fingers. It’s just who I am. I want to make people laugh, continue the story, or just learn something new.
I guess what I’m getting at is that if you’re blessed with some creative need just do it. If you want to create a story, a video, a comic, please go ahead and do it. Don’t listen to the people who tell you a creative spark is not necessary in life. Follow it, it will not let you down. And it may take you on some interesting journeys that you would never ever have experienced had you taken the safe route.
It’s never to late to follow your dream.
Happy 2025 everyone.
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