(I did this drawing the day I arrived in California for the first time - 10 years ago this month)
Boy, I hope you ingrates appreciate this (but then, I suppose if you're ingrates, there's no chance that you'll appreciate it)... I could be playing 'God of War 2' right now, but instead I'm taking this EXTREMELY rare moment of free time to actually DO something with my blog (besides use it as a dumping ground for doodles, that is).
As of this month, it's been ten whole years since I moved from Michigan to California, and I thought it would be interesting (for me, that is... it's going to be a snooze-fest for you) to dig up some of my journals and sketchbooks from that time and wallow in nostalgia for the events that surrounded my life at the time.
At the risk of this little retrospective taking forever and a day, I'll spare you the gory details of what prompted me to move out here, but here are some of the circumstances I was dealing with:
- lost my job in Ann Arbor... had searched all over Michigan for another one in ANY kind of art field with no success
- had nearly $80,000 in debt with student loans and other various shady deals
- had never driven outside of Michigan by myself before and never really wanted to
- knew only TWO people in the entire state of California
- was scared shitless
For those of you who don't know me very well, allow me to make one aspect of my personality abundantly clear: I DO NOT LIKE ADVENTURE!
I had always pictured myself living in Michigan forever while working at little commercial production studios until I 'made it' as a syndicated cartoonist or underground comic book artist (HA!). I had absolutely NO desire to leave the confines of my limited little world.
And yet, when the well of animation work in Michigan ran dry, I was faced with the notion of either becoming one of those dudes who lives with his parents his whole life, or taking a real risk for the first time in my sheltered midwestern life and actually leaving the proverbial nest.
I knew virtually nothing about the actual animation industry, but I figured that given half a chance I might be useful as a character designer. I figured it was a choice between New York or L.A., and even though I would have preferred NY, I had two friends in San Diego who offered to let me stay with them until I found a job (bless your hearts, Anne and Ed).
Thus, I sold everything of mine I could bear to part with (including a bunch of comics), put the rest in my parents basement, drove around Michigan to say goodbye to everyone and hit the open road.
As inexperienced as I was with travel and such things, I have always been something of an obsessive compulsive organizer... so, suffice it to say, I was not about to leave anything to chance on this trip, so I took detailed notes about what to take and where to go... here are some samples from my journals at the time:
(click on the images to enlarge them)
During week I actually left, Michigan got hit with one of its worst winters ever. I was driving around in an almost complete whiteout. It almost seemed as though the weather was testing my resolve. On top of that, I had a positively wretched sinus infection that made it painful to breathe. I was given these enormous horse-pills by my doctor to help clear the infection, but I am unable to swallow pills (that's a whole other story entirely), so I had to chew them... 3 times a day for about 2 weeks. They were awful.
Anyway, as I said, blizzards engulfed Michigan that month, so getting out of the state was taking WAY longer than I had expected... I was literally about 5 miles away from the border when I got pulled over by a state trooper for speeding (I'm certain I wasn't going more than 7 MPH over the limit, but because of the snow and ice he wasn't too forgiving). The roads were deserted, and I explained to him that I was leaving the state - probably forever - hoping that it would sway him to just give me a warning and let me go. No dice. So my last 'goodbye' from the state of Michigan was a $200 speeding ticket. Great. I was already broke and in debt up to my eyeballs... I really didn't need this.
It was one of those situations where it would have seemed very easy to just turn around, go back home, live with mom and dad until my debts were down a little and maybe try this another time when circumstances weren't so daunting... it was a crossroads and, for the first time in my life, I took the road less travelled.
And, as cliche'd as it sounds, that's made all the difference...
More later...
