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December 29, 2005
Year In Review: October
I started off the month releasing my collection of short works, aptly named 'Rob Schamberger Makes Comix'. Branding, is what that's called. It didn't set any sales records or anything, but everyone who bought it liked it, so that's a plus.
At the dayjob, myself and my officemate Gary Rittermeyer (who's also the model for the lead character in Black Chamber) started up a gallery in our space:
This has become a great tradition at work and has really boosted morale here. We treat it seriously, changing it up every First Friday, offering snacks and beverages on opening day. We probably get around one hundred views the first day alone. It just changes the whole atmosphere here. If you have the ability to do this at your job, I'd highly recommend it.
Otherwise, the month was spent mostly on drawing The Black Chamber:
...teaching myself some coloring techniques:
...and teaching myself to ink with a brush:
This was really a "Break On Through" month for me, artistically.
Here's the big recap:
October was a very good month on the Rob front. Here's why:Exercise - 6 Green Marbles
I started a new resistance program this month and it has done WONDERS for my body. I look like a whole new person, or at least someone I haven't seen in quite some time. I really think I'm on task for getting within my target weight by the end of the year. That is so awesome.
Day Job - 1 Black Marble
So, you'll note I never really talk about the dayjob here. With good reasons, of course. But October was just fantastic there. See, a little over a year ago, I created a new product for the company, something that I saw the title agency moving towards in the next few years. They've given me the time to build it and work it into their line of services, and a couple weeks back we hit the point where that product had brought in half a million dollars (!) for the company. I had one person working for me, but now the company told me they're going to give us ALL of their orders to work with, which I see making my order count go up by a factor of ten or so, which means that I'm now going to be over six or seven people. That's kind of neat, too. Also, one of the owners of the company had lunch with someone from a competitor, a big corporate national chain, and found out that they have six people trying full time to build the database that I've created, and found out that theirs is, like, nothing compared to ours. As the owner told me, "You're on the cutting edge and they're on the bleeding edge." Wow. I know, I know, good times now mean bad times coming, but I won't let that take away from the joy I'm experiencing now.
[Note from future Rob: I'm still riding the same wave. It's great]
Finance - 2 Blue Marbles
I expect the blue marbles to begin to be positively influenced by the black marbles in the next couple of months.
Comix - 7 Red Marbles
Thirteen pages into Black Chamber, plus I put out a 48 page book, and had a gallery show. I'm also getting several comissions, and positive feedback from pro's in the industry. October was very good for my art, I can tell you that.
Personal - 6 Silver Marbles
Several happy surprises, due mostly to the dayjob. Also, I finished reading Umberto Eco's "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" this morning. Very, very good book. Insanely good, really. Took me way too long to read, though, to stay on my schedule of ten for the year. I believe it's my sixth novel read this year, so I need to read at least two each month in November and December. I'm up for it, though. Next up is Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood", then "The Man Who Fell to Earth", followed by "A Scanner Darkly". I'll find something else for number four, I'm sure.
I also realized this weekend that I have zero social life, but what really disturbed me was that I'm not sure if that bothers me or not. If I did have one, I'm sure my art would suffer the most. I'm at too critical of a stage right now to give that up, but damn, I'd sure like to have someone to go see movies and eat dinner with every now and then. That sounds pathetic, doesn't it? Here I had one of my best months ever, and I'm still wanting more.
Posted by Schamberger at December 29, 2005 06:37 AM