Behold, the final story page of Empowered vol. 1! Next up, the metatextual closing double-page spread, in which Meta Emp has a few final words for the reader before the volume wraps up. Howeva, today’s commentary will feature a bit of analysis of my peculiar and nap-intensive work schedule, as detailed in the previous page’s commentary.

First off, said work schedule is a 7-day-a-week affair. I know comic creators who can get by working only 5 or 6 days a week, but that’s a clear sign of a writer and/or artist with a much higher production speed than I’ve ever been able to manage. I should note that if you have anything approaching an actual life—if you have a family, say—you’re not likely to have enough time available to work a full 7 days a week, even if you wanted to. If you don’t have anything approaching an actual life, well, take advantage of your presently unfortunate situation and get some g-d work done, why don’t you? You’re able to work longer hours—potentially much longer hours—than comic creators with richer and more fulfilling lives, after all. 

That’s another scheduling aspect that needs emphasis: Efficiency of worktime can easily trump longer hours of inefficient time at the drawing table or keyboard or Cintiq. When you’re theoretically working on comics, make sure that you’re spending that time actually working on comics. I have friends who are able to post incessantly on Twitter and Instagram and other social media while maintaining impressively productive comics output, but you must understand that these folks are magical unicorns—and, through no fault of their own, poor role models—wholly unlike mere mortals such as you and I. Whatever the hell it is that distracts you while working—and, for me, social media and random websurfing are the most (work)time-killing of diversions—try to avoid it for as much of your work hours as you can manage. Creators who work only 5 or 6 days per week are, by necessity, ruthlessly efficient with the limited work hours they can manage; if you’re a 7-day-per-week worker, you still need to take some cues from their more methodical and systematic approach.

Believe me, I’ve known artists who blithely and conspicuously claim to be working upwards of 12-16 hours per day yet, upon closer inspection, aren’t working even remotely close to those potentially brutal hours. Turns out that many such folks are, in fact, futzing around on social media at length, going online for “reference” searches that mysteriously consume minutes or hours at a time, reading comics and watching videos also “for reference,” or blowing valuable table-time on pointless “warm-up” or “cool-down” sketches. Better to work fewer hours with greater intensity and efficiency than waste most of your g-d day on idle, distracted, low-intensity “half-work.”

Holy crap, I’ve sunk four paragraphs into this commentary and I’ve barely scratched the surface of my schedule-related blather—in fact, I still have more to talk about regarding worktime issues! Well, guess I’ll have to continue this goofiness tomorrow.

-Adam Warren