Whew, what a month, fans! I was using my three-month old laptop, and it started acting SUPER sluggish. I finally decided, I’d better save and close everything that’s open, and as I got through about three quarters of it all (I had a lot of art open for my upcoming Brush with Peril project), it suddenly went blue and told me the computer had crashed unexpectedly, and then a timer began of when it would be done re-amassing info to send to the support team so that this hopefully doesn’t happen again. And then it never turned back on again.
As I slowly let this sink in, I began thinking about how much work I had done and not backed up. Good news – I had recently backed up the completed Doris Danger volume three. But then, upon finishing that, I realized I’d been working on a bunch of stuff for the upcoming Brush with Peril. I had spent a few days researching all the famous artwork that I had referenced in all my previously drawn pages, often six or ten images per page, and finding the dates completed and museums where you could find all these pieces. I had re-organized all these footnoted references so that there was a master list of all artists alphabetically referenced, and all museums alphabetically listed including websites. I had spent a few days finding new and not-yet used artwork, including dates and museums – in particular a dozen Monet lily pads, a few dozen of Degas’ ballerinas, and a couple dozen Daumier audiences. And I had constructed digital page lay-outs of maybe twenty pages of the penultimate battle between my spies and the Degas ballerinas. It came to me slowly all this work I had done, and I figured out that it was about a month of un-backed-up material.
Amazingly, I was able, as a Costco-purchased computer, to send it in to have it repaired free of charge! However, there was the issue of trying to get back all this data. I took it to the local shop, which said the hard drive was corrupted and all data was gone!
A couple years ago, I was in New York and my cell phone suddenly stopped, and I lost a day of photos and videos. Same situation – my data was gone. BUT I found a place that the FBI supposedly uses to pull data from devices, and they were able to recover my once-in-a-lifetime photos and videos of New York. It was EXPENSIVE. So I sent my computer to them, and it was EXPENSIVE, but they got my data. And I felt based on the amount of time I’d put in, and the amount of work I may not be able to remember or re-duplicate, it was worth it to me.
But meanwhile it was a week or two to get the data, then they sent the computer to the computer company, then a week or two to repair the computer, plus shipping, and next thing I knew, I was without my laptop for a month.
I had an old laptop that tends to freeze up and have to be re-booted if it’s working on too many things at once, in particular if I’m online. So I pulled that out, and it was working ok for about two weeks, and then one day as I plugged in the cable it just wouldn’t re-charge, and that was that. I have a desktop, but that’s just not the same as having the laptop on the table and listening to a dvd commentary while I’m drawing, or falling asleep with a movie on my lap to try and catch up on a little sleep before going off to my day job. I started putting old dvd’s onto the family room tv while I worked. I didn’t create any new work – I inked pages I had happened to have penciled, I did a few chores around that house that were WAY overdue, and I managed to keep busy for that month, without a laptop.
And now, as of yesterday, I have my laptop functional again, and I’m back at full capacity, working furiously on my comics for YOU!
You guys know by now how to find all the amazing video interviews for the Diary of a Struggling Comics Artist documentary: HERE for a list of EVERYTHING, or HERE for the most recently posted videos – many of them free, and some of them only for YOU kind $7 Patrons. I can’t believe next month we’ll be posting our 90th video!
I’ve also posted a fun treat: $1 Patrons can see my black-and-white version of the story that was published in J.H. William’s Where We Live Anthology, inked by Bill Sienkiewicz.
And YOU lucky $4 Patrons have access to a tediously thorough creator’s commentary about that story Where We Live Anthology – the pencils and edits. It contains over a dozen pages of my original script notes, my page layouts which consisted of photos I took of myself in my own house, my original pencils, pages I inked myself and why I inked them. I hope you’ll find it super-interesting to see my creative process. Here’s a TINY sample:
Thanks as always for YOUR kind, kind support, it is so appreciated, knowing YOU’RE out there, wanting to help me succeed with my art.
Sincerely,
Chris
Chris