Blog
Articles on finishing self-generated work and building expertise-based creative businesses, with the Creative Engine, Ground Truth, and Capacity frameworks.
Podcast
The need to feel extraordinary, with Alison Bechdel
Listen to the episode: The thing that kind of has saved me is this awareness of my mortality. Something I’ve been really seeking out quite intentionally for most of my life. Like, I wanna really get it. I wanna really understand that I’m gonna die. And you’re only able to do that in different ways as you go through life. Like you can’t understand that as a child. You understand it a little differently as a young adult. It changes the closer you get to the time at which you might be expected to die. It’s always changing and shifting, but really facing it for me has felt freeing. I wanna really embrace the fact that I’m just a temporary…
Transitioning from (art) school to the working world, with Brendan Keen, Mariel Capanna, and Brittany Bennett
Listen to the episode: This episode is a bit of a departure for the Autonomous Creative; it’s a panel discussion I moderated with three dynamic young artists about navigating the difficult transition from school to the working world. Each of them is following a unique path, and it was so valuable to dig into the similarities and differences between their worlds. Brendan Keen, Mariel Capanna, and Brittany Bennett all graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where I teach and lead the Illustration Department, and it was such a blast to get to know them on this panel! About our guests Brendan Keen https://www.brendankeenstudio.com/ Brendan Keen is an artist and fabricator currently based in West Philadelphia. He was…
From coding to comics, and what it takes to reach the finish line, with Gene Luen Yang
Listen to the episode: When I was a kid, I had this habit of just starting up a project and leaving it usually halfway through or three fourths of the way through. I just did it over and over and over again. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I figured out how to finish something. And I do think there’s something spiritual about it. Gene Luen Yang Gene Luen Yang is a prolific cartoonist whose personal work is deeply rooted in the Chinese-American experience. He’s best known for his original graphic novel American Born Chinese, and his work with franchise stories such as Superman and Avatar: The Last Airbender. Hear how Gene went from being a computer…
Crazy artists making a living doing what they want to do, with Tomm Moore
Listen to the episode: The hard skills I have, whatever their worth…they were only a small part of it. I think building the company really was about soft skills—making connections and finding trustworthy partners and people. Tomm Moore Tomm Moore is an award-winning animator and director, and the co-founder of Cartoon Saloon animation studio in Kilkenny, Ireland. His notable work includes Wolfwalkers, Song of the Sea, and the Secret of Kells, a trilogy of films based on Irish folklore. Discover how Tomm and his partners built Cartoon Saloon from scratch, without any prior business knowledge, in the small city where they grew up. More from the episode Why learning to run a business meant graduating from the school of “mend…
Publishing the almost-impossible (and rethinking creative business) with Josh O’Neill of Beehive Books
Listen to the episode: Josh O’Neill is a comics writer and editor, and co-owner of the Philadelphia-based publishing company, Beehive Books. Using Kickstarter, Josh and his business partner Maëlle Doliveux, publish books and literary objects too risky for traditional publishers. Josh shares what inspired him to pursue publishing, and how crowdfunding allows Beehive to create art that’s for and by their community. More from the episode Josh explains how he went from working in a local video store to running a publishing company. The pros and cons of crowdfunding, and why traditional publishers are risk-averse. How a community of local artists inspires and sustains Beehive. Josh talks about starting over after shutting down his first business, Locust Moon Comics. The…
Running a creative business on your own terms, with Jenna Weiss-Berman
Listen to the episode: In 2016, Jenna Weiss-Berman quit her job and decided to launch her own podcast company a month before her first child was born. It was an almost immediate success, and Pineapple Street Studios never took an outside investment. Jenna explains what prompted her risky career leap, and how she taught herself to run a business—on her own terms. More from the episode… Jenna explains how she got her start in the podcasting industry (and how you can too). When does work become overwork, and is it always a bad thing? The pros and cons of refusing to accept outside investments. Jenna reveals the “startupy” mistake Pineapple Street made in the beginning. Can running a business be…
Boundaries, balance, and burnout, with Shannon Wright
Listen to the episode: I can understand when people are just like, “oh, I’m posting all the time cause I don’t want to be forgotten” and all those other things, but that is also going to lead to a type of high expectation that you’re putting on yourself—and burnout that you’ll have a hard time recovering from. Shannon Wright At only twenty-seven, our guest Shannon Wright has already had one helluva career. Shannon’s work has been featured by outlets like NPR, The Nib, and the New York Times. She’s illustrated several successful children’s books, and her debut graphic novel, Twins, a collaboration with Varian Johnson, was released in 2020. In this interview, Shannon breaks down how she got to where…