Last Tuesday, I finished the last day of my Independent Study, turning in all of the work I'd completed on my comics project and resigning myself to the fact that I had no time left for it. I'm pretty sure I did okay - my teacher said that he liked what he saw - but I didn't make my original goal, so I still worry. As of this entry, my final grade for the class hasn't yet been posted, so I don't know whether or not I've graduated.

This was my final class at MCAD. I am now officially an alumnus, an ex-student. I no longer have the excuse "I can't, I'm a student." I have to hit the virtual pavement and find myself a job. This is not only because it will keep my wife from asking me every day whether or not I've found a job, but also because the grace period for my student loan repayment will end next month, and we simply don't have the money to even begin making those payments. I'm filing for a deferment, which, if granted, would mean I wouldn't have to start paying right away, and hopefully that would buy me enough time to find a decent comics job. But one can never tell with this line of work.

Thus, while I'll be relieved to be finished with art school (it won't really feel real to me until I'm actually holding my bachelor's degree in my hands), I'm anxious to say the least about finding a comics job. The San Diego Comic-Con is coming up, but I can't afford to wait around for that; I need to start submitting my portfolio to companies now. I have one or two I'd really like to get work with because of the books they publish, but I don't really know who pays how much and who's more desirable to work for below the top tier companies (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse). Comics artists seem pretty reluctant to discuss how much they make because they're afraid that other artists might catch wind of it and find out that they're being paid less than so-and-so, and then all sorts of grumbling and trouble-stirring begins. The unintended consequence of this is that it's really hard to get anyone to give you a straight answer about how much you should realistically expect to be paid, and what kind of figures you should hold out for. I have a relatively recent edition of the Graphic Artists' Guild Pricing & Ethical Handbook, which hints at such things, but I've been told by instructors working in the industry that these figures aren't really accurate. This is a hole in my education which I continue to find frustrating.

Fortunately, Marilyn and I worked out how much I'd need to earn in order to begin paying off my student loans, and as long as she continues to work full-time, it shouldn't be too difficult, even if I ended up having to work at a bookstore or something (the last-ditch, act-of-desperation employment move, which would probably make me want to kill myself at this point - and my death would free us from having to pay the loans back!). So it's simply a matter of finding someone willing to pay me to draw for them on a regular basis.