The Autonomous Creative

Cartoonist and publisher Spike Trotman publishes books she considers “strange and amazing.” Her company Iron Circus specializes in “underrepresented voices, underrepresented themes, stuff that has not got a big audience quite frankly or a lot of people catering to it right now.”

Sounds like a recipe for struggle.

Yet they’re KILLING it. “For the first time in my career, it feels limitless. It feels like I have so many possibilities.”

Spike is a Kickstarter All-Star champ, and Iron Circus has gone from self-publishing her webcomic collection to putting out up to 15 books a year, riding a wave of pandemic-fueled popularity into new ventures (animation) and big plans for more growth.

Spike does everything her own DIY way and is making it work (and then some), so give this fun episode a listen and find out why you’re better off better off making pineapple-anchovy pizza.

Top takeaways:

Despite reasonable competition for the hardest-working publisher and loving her work, Spike’s got hit with major burnout. feeling overwhelmed: "The answer isn't to work harder. The answer is to take a break."

The importance of delegating tasks and asking people for help. You don't have to (and shouldn't) do it all.

More from the episode...

• How the pandemic affected comics publishing (spoiler alert: 40% GROWTH.)
• Spike's struggle to shift her mindset from DIY indie comic to business owner: "I was still in that headspace where no one can do it correctly but me."
• The ins and outs of Kickstarter, including how the platform has evolved since Spike's first campaign in 2009.
• What is Spike's "cheese pizza" theory of mainstream media? And why are anchovies so awesome?
• "You do not have to be a New York Times best seller to make a living." — Why it only takes a thousand true fans.
• How sometimes, small indie creators can do better than mainstream authors. "There's still room for functioning independently."
• "We love our erotica and we love the people who make it." — How Iron Circus nurtures (one of) its niche audience(s).
• Spike describes her first vacation in over 10 years.
• The value of intentionally reserving some elements of life to be non-monetized in avoiding burnout.
• Balancing business and the need to be creative, Spike shares her low-stress method for making her own comics even while running an active publishing company.
• The value of NOT learning to do everything yourself...learning to accept help and delegating tasks within her small business: “I remember with crystal clarity the day I decided, oh wait, maybe it would be more efficient to hire someone who's been doing this for 20 years, than try and teach myself an entirely new system and do it myself.”

More from Spike Trotman

C. Spike Trotman is a cartoonist and publisher. She started an imprint called Iron Circus to self-publish her own webcomic Templar, AZ back in the late aughts, and then built that little publishing effort into the largest indie comics publisher in the Midwest!

Trotman is also known for the webcomics Lucas and Odessa (with Meg Gandy), Sparkneedle (with Matt Sherridan), and Blikada.

Iron Circus now publishes a slate of a dozen or more new books every year. They're even getting into the animation game with a short by Tracy J. Butler's Lackadaisy that Iron Circus just Kickstarted for $330,000.

Spike is also incredibly generous in helping younger and less-established creators figure out how to make this all work (check out her eBook, Let's Kickstart a Comic).

Connect with Spike Trotman

https://ironcircus.com

https://twitter.com/Iron_Spike

https://twitter.com/ironcircuscomix

https://facebook.com/ironcircuscomics

instagram @ironcircus

pillowfort @iron_spike

Additional Links

https://law-arts.org

https://mynoise.net

Cartoonist and graphic recorder Lisa Frühbeis has made bold moves that have led to an incredibly rapid career trajectory in the last few years, starting with pitching a comic strip to a newspaper straight out of school...and then parlaying the end of that strip into a book deal, and then much more.

But Lisa isn't bold because she's free from fear. Far from it. Although she long felt a strong pull to become a professional artist, she was held back by an intense fear of the financial instability that comes along with that path.

What helped her overcome that fear and do the thing?

Lisa learned to use some strategic tools, not to stuff down and ignore her feelings and needs, but rather to leverage them to make decisions in the full confidence that she's doing the right thing.

And those deeply-rooted decisions are what make it possible for Lisa to, for example, renegotiate a with an international cultural agency to support her dream personal project.

What are these amazing tools?

Negotiation, a weighted priority matrix (?! Hang tight: We explain all), and...

Envy?

Yep.

Lisa's story reveals that the secret to taking big leaps and inventing new paths to success isn't freezing your soul and becoming an art-making automaton, but on the contrary, using passion, inspiration, and even negative emotions as guides and anchors to what really matters, and what to do next.

More from the episode...

• "I was scared to do art. My mother is a single mother and she always reminded me that it's very important, especially as woman, to be able to make money." - How Lisa found her artistic voice and overcame her scarcity mindset.
• Why does Lisa believe "envy is underrated" and what did paying attention to what she envied reveal about her career path?
• Instead of saying yes to unfulfilling work, Lisa explains how she uses a decision matrix to chose projects that honor her values.
• Lisa defines her criteria for accepting new projects, and explains how knowing your values can make you a more confident negotiator.
• "I was always feeling like I was playing chess, but not knowing what the rules were" — Why Lisa believes learning to negotiate is the best financial investment any artist can make.
• How did Lisa convince a powerful cultural institute to adopt her passion project?
• The prestigious award Lisa's project almost didn't qualify for and the importance of being persistent.
• Lisa shares an epiphany that transformed her career: "The only thing she has that you don't have is courage."

Lisa Frühbeis is a comic artist and author. Her first book, the feminist comic strip collection "Busengewunder", appeared at Carlsen Bonnier in 2020 and won several awards. Her current webcomic "a fraction of time", about a single mother who works in the creative field, is available on tapas. She also teaches illustration at university and works as a graphic recorder (live drawing of word-image protocols) for sustainable companies. Lisa has been a voluntary board member of many associations, including the German Illustrators' Association, which she also represented as the German representative in the European umbrella organization EIF.

Connect with Lisa Frühbeis

https://lisa-fruehbeis.squarespace.com

https://instagram.com/lisa.earlybite

https://facebook.com/lisa.fruhbeis

Additional Links

https://tapas.io/series/A-Fraction-of-Time/info

Martha Rich is commercial and fine artist who took a long and circuitous route through many day jobs (Workman's comp insurance. Hotel front desk clerk. Repo woman?) to pivot to an art career at the age of 37.

Now Martha makes a full-time living as an artist making work that brings her joy.

Her secret to building an absolutely custom autonomous creative life?

When bad things happened in her life (and they did, with regularity) instead of curling into a defensive crouch, she saw opportunities to rethink her assumptions about how her life "should" look, and instead take big leaps into new ways of living and working.

Over and over, Martha took a flyer on something untested. She took risks that others would find really scary.

Every time she landed on her feet in some new place, and it taught her to trust herself.

Successfully navigating so many life pivots, she came to trust that she can and will continue to land on her feet.

Acting with courage before confidence taught Martha that optimism is a good plan.

More from Martha Rich

Martha Rich lived the typical, suburban life - until she followed her husband to Los Angeles where, just short of a picket fence and 2.5 children her average American life unraveled. To cope with divorce, fate lead her to a class taught by painters and brothers Rob and Christian Clayton. They persuaded her to quit the pantyhose, corporate world, leave her human resources job at Universal Studios behind and become an artist full-time. She graduated with honors from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and got her MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Her commercial clients include Blue Q, Fringe Studio, Mincing Mockingbird, Chronicle Books, Green Thumb Industries, Penn Gazette, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Penguin UK, McSweeney’s, Portland Mercury, Village Voice, Bon Appetit, San Francisco Chronicle, Henry Holt Publishers, and Country Music TV to name just a few.

Her work is featured in the Beck video “Girl” and a book about her sketchbooks,

Sketchbook Expressionism, was published by Murphy Design. In 2019, Chronicle Books published her book, The Furious Notebook, Release Your Rage, Use Your Anger for Good and Chill the Heck Out.

Rich’s artwork has been shown in galleries throughout the U.S. and internationally.

She is currently living in her hometown of Philadelphia and teaches classes at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City.

Connect with Martha Rich

https://instagram.com/martharich63

https://instagram.com/martharichworld

Additional Links

www.mincingmockingbird.com/collections/martha-rich-word-bubbles

https://www.jenvaughnart.com/portfolio/martha-rich/

https://cargocollective.com/martharich

"What theories about myself and my creativity am I willing to test? Am I willing to fail?"

Sarah Firth is an awesome cartoonist and graphic recorder, among many other things.

Sarah takes a bit of a mad scientist approach to her creative life. She embraces experimentation and testing to try to discover new ways to organize her life around her creative interests, always looking to answer the question: "How much value can I bring to something? And then also how much time can I buy back?"

This openness to experimentation has helped Sarah build a more anti-fragile, flexible, stable, sustainable—and enjoyable!—creative life.

Sarah has followed her curiosity to make life-changing pivots in the face of adversity, including the surprisingly positive aftermath of a traumatic car accident that derailed her post-college professional plans, and learning to use her neurodivergence as a filter, and even a sort of superpower.

More from the episode...

• "Identity is utility" - How to embrace your personal identity without pigeonholing yourself.
• We discuss the benefits of being multi-passionate: "Having range as a person is actually really powerful and makes you anti-fragile. It makes you flexible. It makes you come up with creative solutions, mix things in from different industries together to innovate."
• How can multi-passionate people make the most of their diverse skills on a resume and in the workforce? Hint: "You don't have to show all your cards."
• From driving trucks to graphic recorder, Sarah explains what she looks for in a career: "How much value can I bring to something? And then also how much time can I buy back?"
• After a traumatic car accident upended her life, Sarah embraced comics as "graphic medicine." What happens when life crashes into your intentions?
• Sarah shares her experience of neurodivergence and physical disability, including how she meets challenges in ways that are empowering.
• "People are like houseplants and we all have different needs." - Why discovering what works for you is so important.
• Why is Sarah cautious of the classic adage 'trust yourself'?
• Sarah offers tips for preventing social media burn out and dealing with hate online.

More about Sarah Firth

Sarah Firth is one of the foremost practitioners of the art of graphic recording, and that's not all (or even most): she's also an Eisner Award-winning nonfiction cartoonist who takes on many of the most important issues of the day, including climate change, Covid, #metoo, and art-making with a disability. Her work has been published by ABRAMS Books, ABC Arts, Frankie Magazine, kuš!, Graphic Mundi, Penn State University Press, Penguin Random House, Picador, Allen & Unwin, The Nib, Black Inc, and Routledge. She's currently working on her first full-length book of visual essays, supported by a Creators Fund program grant.

Connect with Sarah Firth

https://www.facebook.com/SarahTheFirthCreativeServices/

https://twitter.com/sarahthefirth

https://www.instagram.com/sarahthefirth/

http://www.sarahthefirth.com/

Additional Links

http://www.sarahthefirth.com/shopsarahthefirth/graphic-recording-quick-skills-a-free-mini-course

https://assemblepapers.com.au/2021/02/03/unexpectedly-thriving/

http://www.sarahthefirth.com/shopsarahthefirth/untangle-your-brain-and-think-on-the-page

Tom Hart is a cartoonist, and he’s the founder and executive director of a comics school, The Sequential Artists Workshop. His 2016 memoir, Rosalie Lightning, debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

Tom offers amazing, valuable insights about the path to creative career success—and that what “success” looks like must be self-defined, always. For Tom, that means freedom is number one. When he has creative autonomy, he’s happy.

Tom spoke about the invisible bargains we make to have a life lived in alignment with our ideals and creative goals. He asked: What are we willing to live with? How much fear? How much shame? How much financial precarity?

We talked about why “shame” comes into it, and how to get over it.

And we talked about why financial precarity isn’t a prerequisite for creative autonomy and freedom. To get that message out, we all need to be talking more openly and clearly about what’s happening behind closed doors, in creatives’ lives.

More from the episode…

• “Success is…can I make things that mean something to me and can I help people make things that mean something to them and that isn’t just feeding a commercial engine?” – Why Tom believes success is more than just churning out work.
• How has the desire to be seen impacted Tom’s creative process?
• We discuss Tom’s memoir, Rosalie Lightning, and how his unique creative practice gave him the tools to process grief.
• For years, Tom believed he needed multiple sources of income. Why has he decided to focus his revenue stream?
• Tom reflects on an encounter that helped him let go of financial shame: “If a lawyer is saying the same thing I’m saying, then I just might as well stay an artist.”
• “Nobody was happy and everybody worked all the time…and that’s the hole I’m always trying to plug.” – To what extend does scarcity fuel artistic ambition?
• Tom describes the awakening that inspired him to found the Sequential Artists Workshop: “Some people like my books, but they’re not going to pay the bills. There are other creative things I can do that can pay the bills.”
• Sometimes, pursing your creative vision is a matter of bargaining: “I didn’t realize that having a high-paying job in advertising doing work for Sony and McDonald’s was making a living from your art.”
• Why is money a taboo conversation, even between friends, and what’s the benefit of speaking up?
• Tom reminds us: “Nothing is scary about art.”

Tom Hart is a cartoonist and the Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a school and arts organization in Gainesville, Florida.

He was a core instructor at New York City’s School of Visual Arts for 10 years, teaching cartooning to undergraduates, working adults and teens alike.

His 2016 memoir, Rosalie Lightning debuted at #1 on the NY Times Bestseller List and has been featured on many end of year Best-Of lists.

He is the creator of the Hutch Owen series of graphic novels and books, and has been nominated for all the major industry awards.

He was an early recipient of a Xeric Grant for self-publishing cartoonists, and has been on many best-of lists in the Comics Journal and other comix publications. He has been called “One of the great underrated cartoonists of our time” by Eddie Campbell and “One of my favorite cartoonists of the decade” by Scott McCloud. His daily Hutch Owen comic strip ran for 2 years in newspapers in New York and Boston, and his strip “Ali’s House”, co-created with Margo Dabaie was picked up by King Features Syndicate.

Connect with Tom Hart

Tom Hart on Twitter

https://www.instagram.com/hutchowen/

https://www.facebook.com/hutchowen

http://www.tomhart.net/

Additional Links

The Sequential Artists Workshop on Twitter

https://www.sequentialartistsworkshop.org/

https://www.instagram.com/comicsworkshop/

https://www.facebook.com/sequentialartistsworkshop

The only thing more challenging than using frenetic DIY self-publishing to springboard a career in children's books might be running a commercial salmon fishery on the Alaskan tundra from a cabin with no electricity, no toilet, and four kids. That's why I was so excited to talk to Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson, the illustrator-author-married-with-4-kids duo.

Robbi illustrates, Matthew writes, and together they make picture books for kids and adults.

Robbi and Matthew are a whirlwind of creative action, and their story is just a crazy tale of inventing a creative life that allows them to make the work that's 100% most aligned with who they are and what they value.

They started on this path when Matthew got his "most withering rejection", which slammed the door on how they thought their lives would play out.

They turned even this painful setback into an opportunity, so it's no surprise that their approach to life has opened the door to amazing lucky breaks.

In this interview, we talk about the value of the right kind of day job, how to develop a unique and authentic brand, and why you should definitely NOT try to marry Robbi Behr.

More from the episode...

• Robbi and Matthew joke about the rejection that inspired their creative partnership: "I applied to six graduate schools and I got seven letter of rejection. The University of Minnesota rejected me twice on consecutive Mondays."
• The two ways you can respond to life's challenges, according to Matthew: "You can have power of conviction behind a story and try everything you can to make that version of the story come true. Or you can pick a thread and follow the thread and let the thread itself be the driving force and see what story materializes."
• "We live a perfectly comfortable life while being full-time creatives and I just have this other thing on top of it that pays the bills." — Why Matthew still has a day job, despite their success making books.
• The chance encounter that led to Robbi and Matthew's first commercially published book and what it takes to make your own luck.
• How "leaping at the first possibility" led to Robbi and Matthew's biggest mistake, and what they could have done differently.
• Robbi and Matthew discuss developing their unique brand and why authenticity is so important: "I think if you're very deliberate and purposeful upfront about what you will and will not create and you stick to it, then you're more likely at the end where it starts to become more of a business or a profession or a money-generating mechanism for you and others to still be doing what you love."
• What are the benefits of commercial publishing, and why are Robbi and Matthew excited about returning to self-publishing one day?
• Robbi and Matthew consider their creative differences an asset. What makes their partnership productive and how do they resolve conflict?
• Alaskan salmon fishing: the forty-year tradition begun by Robbi's father that Matthew describes as "indescribably unpleasant and yet it's magical."
• A question about fate reveals how Robbi and Matthew met.

Robbi is an illustrator/printmaker/commercial salmon fisherwoman with a BA from Williams College and an MFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Matthew is a writer/art director/blues harmonica player who has so far failed in every attempt to be swashbuckling.

Robbi illustrates. Matthew writes. Together they make picture books for kids and adults. They’re also married. And they do all this with four kids.

They’ve published books including Everywhere Wonder, The Real McCoys, Babies Ruin Everything, and more than 70+ self-published books before breaking into commercial press!

Next up for this duo? They're converting a 24 foot school bus into a tiny home that they'll be living in with their four kids (and a puppy!) while they travel for a year and give away 50,000 free books to high-poverty schools! They're currently fundraising for this project, and you can learn more about it here.

Plus, check out “The Daily Minute” — a series of daily videos exactly a minute long (there’s a timer and everything) that purport to be about their creative process, but often include marital antics, funny things that have happened to them, cameos by their kids, and lots of cheese balls on either Instagram or Facebook.

Connect with Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson

robbiandmatthew.com

instagram @robbi.and.matthew

twitter @drawingrobbi

twitter @writingmatthew

facebook.com/robbiandmatthew

https://ie.gofundme.com/f/robbi-matthews-busload-of-books-tour

Additional Links

idiotsbooks.com

bobbledybooks.com

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/acpod-robbi-and-matthew

In this interview, Alexander and I talk a lot about money, and specifically, about how asking for money and negotiating for what you want and need is a key piece of building a healthy relationship with your work and career.

More from the episode...

Alexander Chee is the author of the novels Edinburgh, The Queen of the Night, and the essay collection How To Write An Autobiographical Novel as well as many short stories and essays. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, an editor at large at VQR, and a critic-at-large for The Los Angeles Times. He currently teaches creative nonfiction and fiction at Dartmouth College.

Connect with Alexander Chee

alexanderchee.net

twitter @alexanderchee

instagram @cheemobile

facebook.com/alexanderchee

https://alexanderchee.medium.com/

querent.substack.com

Additional links

authorsguild.org

https://thesewaneereview.com/articles/the-autobiography-of-my-novel

https://alexanderchee.medium.com/your-questions-answered-how-have-you-overcome-writers-block-fc5525bab1cb

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/acpod-alexander-chee