Why Creative Work Isn’t Always A Straight Line

Here's a fresh take on the Spawn Kills Every Spawn cover, cooked up with a wild splash of neon green and hot pink, slapping you in the face with Spawn decked out in full war gear.

(Cue the scratch of a pencil, the hum of a CRT monitor, Baxter the Schnauzer barking at a UPS truck)

Three weeks. That was my bet for resetting the studio and getting this website live. Fresh off the grind of Spawn Kills Every Spawn—a year-long saga—I thought, “A three-week breather? Easy.”

Fast-forward eight weeks, and it’s a whole different ball game.

This dance with deadlines isn’t new. I’ve been toe-to-toe with them for over two decades. Clients, collaborators, even fellow artists, they all get hung up on “How long will this take?” like there’s a stopwatch on creativity. But here’s the real deal—meaningful work isn’t fast food. It’s more like a slow-cooked feast: messy, iterative, and full of surprises.

Deadlines? More Like Dead Weights
Deadlines suit assembly lines, perfect for slapping a bumper sticker on a ride that’s already built. But crafting the chassis? Welding the frame? That’s pure alchemy. You think Moebius was clock-watching while sprinting through his Blueberry epics? Hell no. My rule? Make a wild guess, then double it. Triple if you’re keeping it real.

Back in the Spawn days, the goal was two pages a week. Some days I’d tear through four, others, I’d erase so hard I’d give myself a migraine. That “extra” time wasn’t wasted—it was spent planting Easter eggs, fine-tuning a smirk on a skull, or getting the blood splatter just right. Details only a nutjob—or an artist—would sweat over.

Code Breaks. Art Bends.
You hear those tech bros shouting, “Move fast, break things!” Great line for an app that peddles socks. But art? Art’s like a back-alley fight. For every hour of drawing, there’s three more lost to crumpled sketches, 3 AM freak-outs, and debates with Baxter over why the ball launcher’s gotta wait.

This website? Same circus, different clowns. “Three weeks on Squarespace,” I boasted, admiring the smooth setups of Brett Bean and Derek Laufman (mad props to these legends). But Squarespace isn’t a magic wand—it’s a rabbit hole. Diving into CSS tweaks, battling SEO demons, and optimizing images till your eyes water. The plan? It nosedived quicker than Launchpad McQuack in a tailspin.

Plan For That, But That’s Not The Plan.
You might plot out every panel, every line, every bubble. But once that ink flows, the storyboard starts throwing curveballs. “Nah, we’re zigzagging now,” it snaps. Picked up that gem in my Monstroids days: Sketch out a plan, but keep your grip loose.

Art’s jazz, baby. The structure’s just the baseline. (Heard Cobain’s riffs turned into sax solos? Ulysses Owens Jr.’s crew brings it—Nirvana goes Mingus, and it’s electric. Listen here.) Stiffness murders the magic. Let that artwork breathe, redraw that face six times if you must.

Resurrecting Ghosts (and Why It Matters)
I could’ve launched this site weeks back. But rushing meant skipping the details—reviving Death Jr. and The Cryogenic Storm sketches, Monstroids artwork, and the Crash Bandicoot bits that corporate buried. Magazines like Play and GameFan? They’re relics now, but my cover art and layouts are here to stay.

This site’s my DeLorean, a slick looking vehicle to sight seeing the past. A vault for ideas that resonated, even when the firms folded or projects derailed. Those “failed” concepts? They’re just seeds waiting for the next creative spring.

The Punchline
If it’s worth it, it’ll fight back. Quick jobs snag clicks; slow, thoughtful work builds legends. Yeah, I’m still grappling with SEO ghouls and keyword nonsense, but this site’s alive. It’s throbbing. It’s authentic.

To all you creators out there grinding away: Forget the clock. Double down on those deadlines. Let your creations evolve. And when some suit wonders, “How long’d this take?” give them that knowing smirk and say, “Longer than it should’ve—because I gave a damn.”

Be Bold, Keep Cartooning.

(Panel fades to a splatter of ink, a cassette tape unraveling, and the haunting wail of a jazz amp.)