I am learning to write with Super Zeroes. I don’t know if I ever really knew how to write before, or just thought I did, but was too naive to know the difference. When I first started out in comics, all I wanted to do was be a writer. Being a “comic book artist” wasn’t something I ever thought I was capable of doing. Those first few years of writing stories, back when I was in high school, and my early college years – ideas came so fast and abundantly that I could barely keep up with them. I had countless spirals, and little notebooks full of story ideas, dialogue snippets and interesting plot twists. But the more I wrote it seemed, the harder it was to find artists that could do the work. So I started drawing the stories myself. Which was quickly followed by an avalanche of criticism. No one thought I should draw. I would have been inclined to agree, if it didnt seem like the only way I’d ever get my work published.

This October, it will be exactly 15 years since I first started on that quest to become a comic book artist. I can hardly believe its been that long since I published my first book. Somewhere in the first couple years though, I got lost pursuing talent. I became obsessed with developing myself into a “professional artist”. So obsessed, that I stopped writing completely. There was a five year period that I drew stories that I never finished, and never published. Looking back, it feels like that was my biggest mistake. Always finish. Even if its terrible. Its the only way to improve.

Eventually, I did reach that goal of becoming a “professional artist”. Companies started hiring me. Freelance clients started giving me  work. Until now where its my full time job. Something I’m truly grateful for.  But all along, my heart has ached to do the thing that I started out to do. To write stories. More importantly, to write stories that matter. Thats one thing that freelance comics has taught me. If you don’t create with purpose, you’re only creating for a moment. Stories with purpose are the only ones that live on their own.

But accomplishing this is no easy task. It requires a lot more than talent and good ideas. It requires a lot more than I’ve been able to put forth until recently. This week I found the heart of Super Zeroes. Its not in a strip that you’ll see anytime soon. But it will be a feeling you’ll get after reading for months and months. Best of all though, I finally know where I’m going with this. I finally feel like I can write, without keeping my foot on the brakes all the time. I can add the little details in, that will build to the crescendoes that will make this story mean something more than just a handful of gags.

In the end though, this is still just comics. I try not to take things too seriously. But I feel like if I’m going to be doing this everyday, for free… I might as well create something that my heart desires. And that, hopefully, will mean something to you the reader. Thank you for being with me as I learn. It means more than you could ever know.

-Will