I hate Dave Sim the comic artist.

If you're not familiar with his particular style it like taking Dungeons and Dragons circa 1975 and mashing it together with a rambling drunk telling long-winded fables. Rinse and repeat for 10,000 pages. And while I think he is a solid character designer, his art is nice but lacking to me. If I had to choose something it would be spirit and passion. Although the man drew nonstop each day for thirty years, does it matter if I don't care to read anything he has written?

But this is just one guy's opinion. This said, I do think Dave Sim is that special kind of genius though that stumbles into being a one-of-a-kind teacher. I love Dave Sim the teacher. His book "Cerebus guide to self-publishing" was my holy grail as a kid. I squeezed each and every once of my four dollars out of it until I could recite it backwards. And today I still can recite most from memory. I hear his voice (or a fictional one I'd created of him) chiming in when I don't connect lines, or try to be Lee Trevino. (Read the book!)

In this guide Dave Sim says that the most important thing for a comic artist is to be able to draw one page comfortably a day. This was his benchmark for barely existing. If you couldn't reach this limit you might as well stop right now.

I always felt this was harsh in that not many folks are built to be as obsessive as Mr. Sim, but I understood his point. And with a medium that takes so long to draw and so little time to consume he is essentially correct. A few months back I began this effort once again. It worked very well when creating Nothing Left to Lose so it might work to revive my latest graphic novel.

I'm now doing 2+ pages a day, and the art that I'm making here is just blowing my mind. Being a designer so much of my time now it so easy to sit back and just escape through drawing. This freedom is translating into the best story and art I've ever done by tenfold. "Welcome to Pixelton", the name of the new-new thing, is going to be an enjoyable unique experience that will be unlike anything I've heard of.

Today's point is that momentum is about forcing your weak monkey mind to do things it doesn't want to. It wants to be lazy and full and content, but it is your job as a human to find ways to force the weak flesh towards it's next goal. If you can lead the monkey one day it gets easier the next, until a few months in you have him scooting around wearing a tuxedo and serving cleverly named drinks.

-Josh