The Life of a Comic Book Artist - by Cesar Lador, SCBWI NZ Illustrator Coordinator

 
October is always an exciting time of the year with lots of artistic initiatives taking place around us, awards submissions opening here and there and Halloween looming up on the horizon. So, coming mid-September, I was genuinely hopeful and since I had just delivered the full storyboard for Miles and Jones #4, I felt like I had plenty of time ahead to work on personal projects before starting the final pages. 


I looked at the SCBWI Artober Prompts and started to draft a story based on those. This quickly morphed into a storyboard and soon I had a ten to twelve pages of a short comic story based on these prompts. I was really excited and then I realized that there was a 2 weeks school holiday in October and that we booked a bach at the beach for a week. I had also promised family that we would visit them, time suddenly shrank.


I also discovered that a US literary agent specialising in comic books, was launching a 6 week-long marketing course on how to launch your graphic novel. I could not miss that as I am on the eve of launching Miles and Jones #3 but also launching the series overseas.


Needless to say my relaxed and laid back approach of October completely changed tack. The race was suddenly on. I signed up for the marketing course on graphic novels and pretty much straight away I received an email from my US publisher for significant changes on the book covers of the Miles & Jones US editions…


Time shrank further and the penny finally dropped - I was not going to achieve everything planned for October 2025. I had to prioritise and make some sacrifices. My short comic story was one of them, the illustrator hour for October was another one.


But the marketing course which is full of great advice gave me much-needed renewed energy. I updated my website, launched a newsletter on substack, sent comic pages to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair illustrator’s exhibition, made changes to the Miles & Jones US edition covers, spent a week at the beach in a very kiwi weather; rainy, sunny, windy, we loved it and were reminded of why we love New Zealand so much.


It is now the end of October and while writing these lines, I am appreciating the power of reflection, and the value of doing it. I am usually looking forward to what lies ahead, the projects coming up, the deadlines I have to meet but, I should be better at stopping and looking at all the deadlines I have actually met and what I achieved so far. 


I hope you are all keeping creative and taking the time to look back at your achievements, no matter how small they seem. I also hope that you haven’t been affected by some of the recent weather events down south. 


I'm looking forward to our next Illustrator Hour 😉 where I’ll share some of the marketing wisdom I am currently learning about.


Cesar

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