He Did It All for the Nyuki – Part 6

KO: When you look at Cow-Boy these days, how do you think of it?

JH: I still like it. It still makes me laugh.

KO: You don’t look at Cow-Boy now the same way you look at your older strips?

JH. No. Uh-uh. There are things I look at and say, “I’d change that. I could have stood to re-draw this, or paste that better,” but you invariably look at things and find things that you would fix or do differently. But so far, it’s one of those things that I’m really proud of.

KO: What kind of choice was self-publishing for you? Have you ever considered trying to go to a bigger publishing company? Would you do it full-time?

JH: There’s a part of me that would love to write books, and with comic books, I’m releasing a book in installments. So a collection isn’t an endpoint, it’s the goal. But I’d love to write books for the rest of my life, but I also love being in the classroom. So as far as full-time — No, I haven’t really entertained that seriously. And in self-publishing — and this is not a disparaging comment on those that do — I never wanted to write somebody else’s characters. I’ve been always very proprietary about the things I write and draw. And the other thing is, if I were at a big publisher, I’d have to make a decision, probably. I wouldn’t be famous enough to write and draw. The bottom line is, too, that I’m not a good enough artist to be at a place like that. I have to do my own thing and do my own style and not worry about the specifics of house style or whatever. So that never was a goal of mine. Self-publishing feels like the only avenue. And I feel compelled to place the caveat here that the money hasn’t been mine, the money has been Daryn’s. I’ve sort of just done the creative thing. And it’s been tremendously valuable for me because I’m not a businessman, nor do I have any interest in that. So we share the revenues from the work.

But I have a real problem being told what to do. It’s a good thing that I’m an academic, because the course is mine to make exactly the way I want to do it. I don’t take direction very well, except from Lisa and Max. And mom and dad, I can handle that as well. But I don’t, and I tend to feel like, when it comes to writing a story, I know what’s best for my story. And I’ve taken one piece of advice on structuring a story. It was from Lisa. And I only admit this because it was really good advice. It was the fourth issue of Clan Apis. And you know how that opening sequence ends with Nyuki saying “Isn’t this great?” and that sort of segues into her working on the comb? I was going to have that be the first page, and have the whole (foreign bees invading the hive) conflict thing happen later on. The way it works is that I would write out the stories and I would read them to Lisa. This is when we were living in Columbus. She would come in, and I’d say “I need you to listen to this, it doesn’t feel like it’s got the right oomph.” And she said I should put the whole fight thing at the beginning. And I sort of looked down, angry that I hadn’t thought of it myself. I was unwilling to admit that that was exactly what I was going to do, since I’ve developed a pretty firm reputation with her for not listening to what she tells me. And that made it a really good story, but for the most part I chafe a little bit at being told what to do. So self-publishing is the only option for someone who’s as fussy as me.

KO: As you went through this, did you feel you were sort of going it alone in terms of breaking into the industry?

JH: I know a lot of people in the industry now, and email and talk to a lot of people who I really like and look forward to seeing at shows. But before Clan Apis finished, it wasn’t until it finished did I consider myself a participant in the industry. When people read it, and thought it was good, that was sort of my ticket into the dance. Before that, people were really nice. But in all fairness, I was some unproven person. And it’s tough for me to ask for help. What that left us with was me trying to figure it out on my own. Daryn and I didn’t really become partners until we did the Clan Apis trade. I got the Xeric Award for the first issue, and I published all the other issues myself, although he did step in once when I didn’t get the invoice and covered my costs on the second issue. But it wasn’t until we were done with it that I started talking to people. I didn’t make too many horrible blunders. But not really, I didn’t really have guidance on the way. And that’s not me saying “oh, boo-hoo me,” because I really didn’t ask for it, and I really didn’t know anybody.

KO: Would you do it the same way if you could do it over again?

JH: Yeah. I applied for the Xeric Award, and it’s nice to have that award. A lot of great books have gotten a start, or have gotten attention, with the Xeric Award. Jim Ottavianit’s Two-Fisted Science, which I love — great book — is a Xeric work. There’s a whole long list of them, and of course I can’t remember anybody’s names right now. So that was nice. It was nice to have that recognition, because ultimately, that was a group of people who didn’t know me, a funding organization that was reviewing my first issue. I hadn’t really shown it to anybody, and I was pretty unsure. And to have someone like Peter Laird and his group say, “Hey, this is good. We’re gonna give this money.” I’d have to say that was the one sort of industry pat on the back that gave me the boost to have the confidence to do it. I’m at heart not a very confident person, and some would say borderline neurotic. I don’t know that that makes me much different from many other cartoonists. But I approach things with trepidation, and the assumption that it’s not all that great. So that was nice. That was the one big pat on the back. I met Jeff Smith for the first time at the Chicago Comicon, and shamelessly dropped my name as doing the Cow-Boy strip, which he apparently liked. And he was impressed, or acted impressed. So that was a nice boost too. It’s just little things like that, little nudges like that, that keep you going.