Hey everybody! I missed you.

So now you know what to do.

Bad News About Otakon

I was hoping to be at Otakon this weekend. I bought a table and everything. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend due to some family issues. Have to put family first, gang. Sorry.

Good News About Small Press Expo

I have a table at SPX! See you there in September!

There is a magical point where having more to do makes you more productive. But there’s also a point where you just give up. This is also known as the “Tetris principle”.

Kickstarter Off To A Great Start

We are well on our way with the Kickstarter to support the printing of comics 1-200 of The System into a book, and have started to announce some great stretch goals to help keep things moving. The larger the amount we raise, the better the stretch goals!

You can check out all the stretch goals, all the rewards, and a hilarious outtakes video of me trying to record the “explanation video”, all right here.

Last night, as we were in our weekly Super Art Fight staff meeting, we struck gold. You see, for years Jamie Noguchi (also on wikipedia) has been giving the same advice to everyone. It’s the advice that helped me to start this comic, helped us to start Super Art Fight, and has generally helped a lot of people get things done. That advice, in it’s purest form, is this:

Fuckin’ do it.

So, armed with Adobe Illustrator and 5 minutes, I set out to do Jamie proud and created the Jamie Noguchi System (™). The outcry for a poster available was immediate, and who was I to say no? So, taking the JNS to heart, I submitted it to the HilariAwesome.com store. Now you too can get things done the Jamie Noguchi way.

I encourage all of you to stop what you’re doing now and start doing what you need to fucking do already. Then do it.*

“I wasn’t getting anything done. Now I am.”
—Ross from DC

“With the FUCKIN DO IT system, I’ve gained 30 pounds, incurred thousands of dollars of crippling debt, and my family refuses to look me in the eye, but I can finally say, without a doubt – I did it!“
 —Marty from Baltimore

“I used to just sit around thinking about if I should do it. I’d spend days thinking about it. It was damn near crippling. Then Jamie came along and gave me the strength I need. Thanks to the Jamie Noguchi System now I FUCKIN’ DO IT!”
—Brandon from Baltimore

“The Jamie Noguchi System™ helped me self publish my first print collection! thanks Hilariawesome!”
—Lee from Indianapolis 

“I met a girl once…”
—Greg from DC

Buy the poster here »

#fuckindoit

Today’s comic/poster/thing (which is available as an 11×17 print) is based on an experience yesterday I had after seeing the adorable wedding RSVP website of Jessica Hische and Russ Maschmeyer (jessandruss.us). Most of you will just look at that site and say “aww cute” or “that’s nice” or something. But every designer I showed it to had pretty much the same opinion, that I will now describe as The Creative Shitstorm. Here’s some highlights from what that swirl of emotion feels like, pulled from conversations in the last few days (and I swear only some of them are mine):

• Fuck, that’s really nice.
• Dammit, why am I not making awesome shit like that?
• I need to stop everything shitty I’m doing and only do awesome things.
• Crap, I’m incapable of that level of quality.
• That’s it, I either need to give up my career or the rest of my life.
• Why aren’t I dating a graphic-designer-creative-type that I can collaborate on awesome projects with like that?
• I want to get paid all the money in the world to do amazing projects that everyone loves.
• Shit, well back to the email I was writing to a client about why the color I chose isn’t “too new” and they still have to pay me.

That led to me tweeting “I need to work harder to be better at things.”

I think all artists feel this way sometimes, and it is probably the best example I can think of artists “toiling”. In my case it’s led to missing out on time with friends, gaining weight, losing sleep, failing in relationships, and hopefully getting a little better at what I do. There are days when it is the worst thing in the entire universe.

But at the same time, in some way it’s actually healthy. It’s a fire that makes you refocus and hopefully decide to improve for it. Double down on your goals. And that is important because it’s the only way to improve. Have goals and do lots of work, and decide that you want it to be good. If you want it to be good and you keep your eye on what you think is good and think about what makes it good, you can’t help but get better. At least, that’s my hope, and I’m trusting that process.

Who’s with me?