Purveyor of sheer awesomeness.
Joshua Hale Fialkov is the Harvey, Eisner, and Emmy Award nominated writer of graphic novels, animation, video games, film, and television, including:
THE LIFE AFTER, THE BUNKER, PUNKS, ELK'S RUN, TUMOR, ECHOES, KING, PACIFIC RIM, THE ULTIMATES, I, VAMPIRE, and JEFF STEINBERG CHAMPION OF EARTH. He's also written television including MAX’s YOUNG JUSTICE, NBC's CHICAGO MED and NETFLIX’s AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER.
People will say all sorts of things about you when you put art out into the world. Some nice, some not so. The approach I’ve always tried for is fingers in ears. Yes. I see it. Yes, I know it’s being said, But “LALALALALALA I’M NOT LISTENING TO YOU.”
I’ve lost almost a month of time to sickness. I am a good two weeks behind on most of my work. Most of the work that pays our bills. And because, well, life, all three of us have the flu right now.
But, despite the injuries and the illnesses, I’ve worked every day, gotten the emergency stuff finished, and, am finally getting caught up. You never stop grinding if you want to keep surviving.
Know the length of your rope and what the consequences are for reaching the end of it. Sometimes, you get to fly up in the air and out into a lake, other times you realize that you’re dangling by your throat a few inches off the ground.
I try to draft in my head before I ever sit down to write. So by the time I’m actually sitting down, it’s almost like automatic writing of a 2nd or 3rd draft. And then, y’know, I make sure it doesn’t totally suck by drafting it yet again.
The work is never as hard as it is right before you start it.
Doing what you love will always lead you to success. It just might take a forever and a half to get there.
What drives me is a need to be great. The understanding that I’ll never by great, and that I have never been great is what makes me do the work. The key is to understand your shortcomings and continue to keep on trying. No matter what.
Aspire to greatness, never accept that you’ve achieved it.
Surround yourself with great people, because if you don’t, you’ve surrounded yourself with shitty people.
When you find out that those great people are in fact shitty people in disguise, see first paragraph.
Don’t slag off your own work, even if it’s old, even if you don’t like it, even if it isn’t very good. That work is the foundation of who you’re going to become. Plus, no matter how obscure, there’s SOMEBODY out there who likes it, and talking shit about it is just going to bum them out.
All things work out for the best, even though sometimes it’s the worst, first.
The trick is to understand that they’re all just lessons we’re struggling to learn, and as long as you come away changed, even the worst situation has value.
The people you surround yourself with will help other people to determine who you are. If you’re friends with a huge asshole, people will think you’re a huge ass hole, too.
At least, make sure the asshole is super talented.