Back at it...

Geez...it's been a while...sorry...I've been busy.

Right now, I am inking the fourth book of the newest series for Stone Arch Books. While doing these books, I've also been juggling prepping and doing thumbnails for the next four books which feature Nascar race cars. By Monday, I should have a little breathing room before the holidays but I'll still be doing the four covers for the Nascar books during my "time off".

Then, come the first of the year, I'll be doing back to back to back books until the start of March in order to finish up this contract. It'll be eight weeks of no time off but I think I can manage it.

Usually, in past years, once I get past the stretch of work I have during the winter, I usually get a few months off. This year, I had planned to take that time and do some more work on the OilCan Drive books. But, if all goes as planned, I'll be starting on some more work for books, this time with a different client on an inspirational book for boys. It's about three to four times the workload of a regular Stone Arch book and will keep me busy until June.

Around which time, I'm sure something else will pop up and keep me busy until who-knows-when.

Now, I know I shouldn't be complaining and I'm really not. I get to draw pictures and somehow make a good living at it. And, in these hard economic times I actually feel guilty for being so busy and griping about it.

But, I could use some time off. The one problem I've had with doing freelance work is that it never ends. I don't punch out at five o'clock and forget about the work of that day. I can't "leave this project for the next shift to finish it." If I don't do it, it doesn't get done. And, as much as people offer to help me out, I know they can't draw or ink the way I do. So, I keep doing it. All alone.

The one thing that's been heartbreaking is coming to terms with myself about the scope of the OilCan Drive project and just how much time it would take to get it done the way I want to do it. Based off the full length movie script I wrote, the OilCan Drive book would run at least two hundred pages long as a comic book. Probably more. With how much time it takes me to do an OilCan Drive page, it would take me over a year and a half, if I had no one offering me work, everyone leaving me alone, to get it done.

And, when is the last time I had more than a month off from someone offering me a job?

So, if I worked doing the pages between the paying gigs, I think I'd get the book done...oh...I don't know...by the time I'm fifty?

Originally, I envisioned doing mini-comics, ten pages long, of parts of the book as I finished it so I could put something out on a monthly basis. I had planned to have the first one out in October or November. It's mid December and I only have four of the ten pages done.

So, for now, I'm putting the OilCan Drive project to bed. Don't get me wrong, I love the characters and want to keep them alive somehow. I love drawing them, telling stories about them, and writing songs as them. I don't want to stop doing this. Doing the pages I finished was so fulfilling and fun. The art from above is the cover for the first issue of the mini-comic I hope to put out. I think it could have been a fun little project to do.

But, I don't have the time.

So, for now, I need to put them to bed and take the weight and stress I put on myself to do this project off my shoulders.

I'm sure at some point in the future Ill do something. I'd love to do more mini-stories but the last time I did one of those the comment I heard most was, "it's short". Which drove me to write a longer story that I'll probably never have the time to do. So, if anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

OilCan Drive will live somehow. Even if it's only in my own head. I'm sure when I have more than two days in a row off the first thing I'll think of doing is some kind of OilCan Drive piece. Even tomorrow I'll be playing a show again with Lou doing some more OilCan Drive material.

But, as for the art and story, if anyone has any ideas, let me know.