Sharing My Story

However by the 1979 and 1980 I sensed a need for a change.
During this time I had sent out resumes and even had some
job interviews that never went anywhere. On January 13, 1979
I wrote this as "Possibility Thinking" for the next ten years
1979-1989. It said "By 1990 to own and manage a company
that publishes and distributes Christian comic books. 1979-
Leave Campus Crusade. Work as a penciler for a comic book
company to gain credibility before Jan. 1, 1982. Work as a
pencil artist for two years - to learn the ropes 1982-1984.
Later on find financial support for the company. Work on
comics as part time--Have another job in commerical art
for full time. 1982-1987- Look for Christian editors, artists,
letterers, printers. Talk to comics people about Christ.
Problems: Comics industry may collapse in the early 1980s.
Find new format."

How do this actually work out in the years ahead? I actually
left Campus Crusade in July 1982 (not 1979). I never seriously
pursued the comic book penciling option. Here is another
report I wrote on May 16, 1979 ten days before my 31th birthday.
"Have been getting input on my career goals and aspirations
as far as going into comics as an artist is concerned. Most of
the input is negative but very realistic.
"Yesterday I received The Comics Reader #168 that contained
an interesting article by Mike Tiefenbacher in it. He describes
his attempt to break into the comics industry.
"His comments seem to be very much like my own efforts to
do comics. His main thrusts are these: (1) To go into comics
you have to live in New York City for at least some time. He
states that New York--"a very crowded, very alien environment
that I was glad to exit as soon as possible." (2) He states that
after a visit to the DC offices he found them to be "a closed shop."
(3) His greatest argument came from a letter by Dan Atkins, a
inker for DC and Marvel. Atkins stated he in 1975 did 217 pages
of new art and his gross pay was $4,575.50 and after expenses
it was $1.875.00. In 1976 he did 178 pages (at a higher page rate)
for a gross of $4850 and a net income of $2010. Inkers are not
paid as much as pencilers but still the pay is not that great. (4)
He sums up "in order to make living wages these days in the
comic book field, one has to be very very fast. Quality, beyond
competency, doesn't enter into it."
"This leads me to the conclusion that I should not try to enter
the comic book field as a full time artist."

As I entered into the 1980s thoughts of working for comics full
time pretty much died. However I did get a get a full-time job
in 1982 as a commerical artist (art director) with the Narramore
Christian Foundation that took me through the 1980s and 1990s.
From 1987 to 1991 I formed a Christian Comics company with
Ralph Miley and Charles Whitley called Valiant Comics and we
produced several issues of Valiant Efforts.

The comic book industry did not collapse in the early 1980s
but it did begin to change from its traditional distribution
centers —general stores, super markets, and drug stores to
comics specialty shops.