Reading Comic Books: My Cure for Workaholism as an Independent Artist – From The Mind of McFarland music blog.
I’ve never been good at taking breaks. Anyone who knew me in college, or really any point thereafter, can tell you that workaholism is a serious problem with me. I’ve always found it very difficult to give myself any time off, and being an independent artist in both the realms of music and graphic design makes it that much harder for me to avoid overworking myself. Even when I would try to relax and watch a movie or some good, mindless TV, within 5 minutes I’d find myself picking up my laptop and continuing to work on some project while only half-paying attention to whatever’s on – even though in truth, it was probably only worth half-paying attention to in the first place. I tried reading novels to pass the time, but I found that too large blocks of time were required for each reading session to be worthwhile. I had to spend at least 30 minutes with a novel to have myself fully situated in the world and immersed in the storyline. Less than that, and I’d be fumbling with character names, locations, and multi-threaded plots. Young adult fiction provided a little help in this regard, but a few months back I discovered my ideal daily relaxation habit: reading comic books.
Instead of joining workaholics anonymous, I decided to start giving myself forced downtime every day and reading graphic novels. Due to the active engagement in reading (which TV and movies do not have), it’s impossible for me to work while reading comic books. In contrast to conventional novels, however, the fact that graphic novels are a visual medium makes it very easy for me to immediately drop into the story. Finally, it’s easy to digest a significant chunk of plot in not too much time, so even taking a 15 minute break is enough to feel like the story has moved forward in a satisfying way.
Reading comic books has always been an occasional pastime of mine – for the longest time, from about ages eight to thirteen, I wanted to be a comic book artist. Somewhere along the lines I realized that I have neither the patience nor the manual dexterity to be the kind of comic book artist I would want to be.
I’ve always preferred to read graphic novels to ongoing comic book series. The draw for me is self-contained stories that don’t require an immense amount of prior knowledge about the comic book universe to understand the significance of events or characters.
As of late I’ve worked my way through Y: The Last Man, The Stand graphic novelization, Strange Girl, Watchmen (again), and am almost caught up on The Walking Dead, and am starting on Sandman. If anyone has any recommendations for what I should read next, please share!
-MMcF
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Unleaded rhythmic alt-pop fuels singer/songwriter and two-wheel troubadour Michael McFarland’s engine. Michael McFarland in the simplest summary? Writer, Rocker, Biker, Geek.
For Michael’s Music, Cd’s, Downloads, Merchandise, live show schedule, music blogs, music videos, and everything else you want to know about McFarland, visit the Michael McFarland Website at http://michaelmcfmusic.com/
