As the year winds down, I find myself growing increasingly reflective. I sit by the fire a little longer; flip through old photos a little more. I try to sum up the year via pithy, hashtag-able phrases like #imfreeof2023 and #thankGodwemadeit.
If my previous posts haven’t clued you in yet, it’s been a tough year. I feel like I’ve attacked the topic of “Coping with Adversity” from every angle my finite brain can concoct 500 words. But Christmas is only a couple of days away, and I would be remiss to not speak of “the reason for the season.”
He Was Enough Then
The wonder of Jesus’ birth over 2000 years ago is not just that the divine became earthly but that God Almighty became the least of all humans. To be frank, Jesus’ birth stunk—literally! Polished Christmas plays and immaculate live nativities have done a great injustice to the real noel. Without a doctor, nurse, or even a midwife, the Messiah splashed into a world filled with bleating animals and stinking feces. His first bed was a feeding trough where livestock had eaten, spat up, and reconsumed their last supper. His first visitors were dirty shepherds, who burst in on this already chaotic scene like garbagemen crashing a royal christening.
Jesus was born into the meagerest of circumstances (Luke 2:7), yet world leaders trembled at His arrival (Matthew 2:1-3). He was born at the worst of times (Luke 2:4-6) humanly speaking, yet He still arrived “at just the right time” (Romans 5:6) to save us from our sins. Before He’s recorded saying anything, Jesus had already dramatically altered the course of history. His mere presence changed everything.
He’s Enough Now
This is often how God chooses to operate today. With but a word, God can bring wars to a screeching halt (Psalm 46:8-10). He can still the tsunami outside of us with a mere whisper (Mark 4:39). But He’ll often walk with us through our storms rather than deliver us out of them. He will parachute down into our pain rather than airlift us out of it. He wants us to know that just as a little Jewish Baby was all that He needed to defeat the power of sin and death, His presence is all we need to make it through today.
Conclusion
As we celebrate Christmas and reflect on 2023, we’d do well to search for the telltale signs of God’s presence with us these past several months. Sickness may still linger in our bodies, our bank accounts may still be empty, and our relationships may look more ruptured than repaired. But God’s presence transforms every situation it enters, even if we can’t see it yet.
“Behold, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call Him Immanuel” (which means, “God with us”)”
After a year of writing, editing, (attempted) fundraising, and polishing, I’ve completed my first comic book. Some of my friends have asked me how it feels to have finished Let My People Ball #1, but I don’t have much to say. I’m hurriedly preparing for Los Angeles Comic Con next month, still trying to figure out this behemoth called “social media marketing”, and already iterating on Let My People Ball #2.
The Goalposts
If I’m honest with myself, one reason I’ve plowed ahead is that reflection can be painful. Looking back on this past year, seeing all the false starts, mistakes, and sacrifices, I have to ask myself, “Has it been worth it?” And I must answer this question with 20-20 hindsight and 0-0 foresight.
In this specific case, the goal is achievement. “You wrote a book? Heh, good for you,” mocks the derisory voice in my head. That milestone is worth celebrating when I’ve sold my thousandth book. Scratch that! We can pop champagne once I’m a New York Times Bestseller.
But the truth is that when we make our achievement contingent on outcomes that are largely out of our control, we deprive ourselves of the joy we need to eventually get there.
The True Story
There is another, more nefarious side to this dogged “achieve-ism”. When we neglect to acknowledge our accomplishments, we are also dismissing what God has accomplished through us. The Apostle Paul said to “Rejoice in the Lord always and give thanks to Him in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16, 17). But we often make our praise contingent on what God has done for us rather than who He is to us. We withhold our gratitude and thanksgiving because deep down, we must see God’s goodness to believe it. We doubt the story He’s writing in the ink of our sweat and tears truly has a happy ending.
Conclusion
So I say to you, fellow author, land that publishing deal. You, striving athlete, win that championship. Or if you’re Gen Z—like my little brother, “get that bag.” But remember that the most important things in life can’t be mounted on your mantle or summed up in your bank account.
If you’ve finished composing the greatest sonnet the world will never hear, celebrate! You graduated from college without a job? You still made it! Sometimes we need to validate our hard work first and trust that the glory will follow later. And as we wait, we can rejoice in our God who works together all things for our good and His glory.
“Do no throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.”
Benjamin Franklin famously claimed there are only two certainties in life—death and taxes. But I’d like to posit one more: setbacks. And put simply, setbacks suck. They suck the joy out of our day, the wind out of our sails, and the life out of our bodies. When our company lays us off or our girlfriend suggests we “take a break” or our long-awaited callback never comes, we can be driven to despair. With tears streaming down our faces, we may ask, “God, where are you?”
Death
My most recent setback made me think of the story of Lazarus. This man was one of Jesus’ closest friends when He walked here on this earth. But when his sisters, Mary and Martha, told Him “the one whom He loved was sick” (John 11:3), He waited, He lingered, and He delayed. By the time He arrived on the scene, the man was already dead.
Martha confronted Jesus and cried, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” In response, Jesus said, “Your brother will rise again.” And Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day” (John 11:21-24). In other words, “Eventually, You will make this right.”
God tells us that He is in control. He was at the beginning, and He knows the ending. And Romans 8:28 says that “all things work together for the good of those who love Him.” But often it can be all too tempting to hedge this promise with the word “eventually”.
Taxes
It’s kind of like when the IRS takes too much money out of our paycheck so they make it up to us in our tax return the following year. Similarly, some of us might believe God has written us an eternal IOU–to be paid after we die. Maybe after this life, in the sum balance of things, we will appreciate this point of pain. But at this moment, it feels like God has forgotten that we’re still among the living.
But Jesus challenged Martha to enter into an even deeper level of faith by telling her “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Then He asked her to roll away the stone where Lazarus’s body was laid. In other words, He was asking her to have faith not just for the ending somewhere out there but also for the middle right here and now.
Life Beyond Setbacks
God is a God of detail. The Old Testament is full of chapter upon chapter detailing the minutia of God’s dwelling places here on earth, the garments of His earthly priests, and the hundreds of ceremonial laws God had in place for the Jewish people. And this detail extends to us. When Jesus said that “even the very hairs of our heads are all numbered,” (Matthew 10:30), He was not pointing out an OCD fixation of the godhead. He was demonstrating that God cares about the details even we tend to overlook.
The same applies to God’s plans for our lives. God told the prophet Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11). God knew about that bombed interview, accounted for that failed exam, and prepared for that missed flight long before we even existed. Our moments of misfortune cannot negate the unfailing promises God has in store for us, or else He’d cease to be God.
Remind, Rely, and Rejoice
So, what do we do in the midst of setbacks? We remind, rely, and rejoice.
First, we remind ourselves of God’s faithfulness in the past because we will forget. Our brains have a well-known tendency to deeply imprint negative experiences and neglect positive ones called negativity bias. Therefore, we must actively work to call to mind those moments in the past when God came through for us.
Secondly, we must rely on God to guide us past our setbacks. One of my favorite verses in all of Scripture comes from the book of 1 Kings. In the middle of a war between the Israelites and a fierce rival of theirs at that time called the Arameans, God said, “Because the Arameans think the Lord is a god of the hills and not of the valleys, I will deliver all this great army into your hand” (1 Kings 20:28). Sometimes we fall into this same fallacy. We claim God’s provision in our triumphs but we neglect His grace in our setbacks. God is with us both on the hills and in the valleys.
And lastly, but possibly most important of all, we must rejoice during our difficulties. The gospel singer Marvin Sapp has a song called “Praise Him in Advance” that begins with these words:
I’ve had my share of ups and downs,
Times when there was no one around,
God came and spoke these words to me,
Praise will confuse the enemy.
It confuses the enemy because most of us tend to base our happiness on our present circumstances. If times are good, we praise God, but when they’re bad, we doubt Him. But thanksgiving has the power to turn our focus from our problems and our pain to God’s power and God’s plan.
Conclusion
Setbacks may be inevitable but so is the Lord’s provision. The Word says, “The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand” (Psalm 37:23-24). Our heavenly Father gives us permission to admit we may not be quite perfect yet. We can confidently trip our way through life because He’s holding us up. He’s been holding our hand from the day we were born, and He will continue to do so until the day we die.
“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:8)
I still remember a conversation I had with a comic book creator I’ll call Leo. The quality of his detailed frescoes, his sharp dialogue, and his imaginative world building drew me to his booth at Los Angeles Comic Con. And as an aspiring comic book creator myself, I asked him what his experience had been like.
With weariness in his voice, described how tough the journey had been. Looking at the swath of popular indie comic book series he and his team had created over the course of a decade, I’d imagined that he of all people would be happy with the empire his hands had built. But he told me, “Sometimes, when I compare my journey to that of the friends I went to college with, I see their success, their families, and their money, and I wonder if I made the right choice.”
He spread his arms out to encompass his fellow comic book creators and said, “There are many people who come into this space, stick around for a year or two, then fizzle out. But those who’ve stuck around for 3, 5, or even 10 years, they’re the veterans. The only metric that matters here is time.” Yeah, that was not the most encouraging welcome I’ve received!
The Road not Taken
In the past year I’ve entered a new artistic community, founded a company, and created my first comic book. But I also quit my job, moved across the country, and took on student loans. In one of my first classes as an MBA student, I learned about a concept known as economic cost. Economic cost doesn’t just include the cost of choosing a particular choice. It also includes the cost of not choosing the alternative. And my alternative was pretty tempting.
I was an engineer working for a good company with a good salary surrounded by a good community living in a good city. The path forward may not have been easy (engineering rarely is), but it was relatively straightforward. The potential for management in my company, leadership in my church, and stability for my family all lay before me. But I sacrificed that to pursue my God-given dream.
And the key question that presents itself to me nearly every day is: Was it worth it?
A Fork in the Road
Jesus Himself told a story about this dilemma: “‘Which of you, wishing to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost to see if he has the resources to complete it? Otherwise, if he lays the foundation and is unable to finish the work, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, “This man could not finish what he started to build.”’” This very question has consumed my thoughts in recent days: “Will we be able to finish what we started?”
Conclusion
I’ve had to ask myself whether or not we would let this Kickstarter mark the end of our journey or its beginning. We are nearly finished with the first issue in our three-part series. But years lay ahead to finish the other two. The path to completion is muddled and many questions lie ahead. But I’ve counted the cost, and Lord-willing, I want to see this through to the end.
Let My People Ball Kickstarter Progress as of September 7th, 2023.
A Kickstarter launch is like the start of a new relationship. The hot rush of anticipation and trepidation flooded my system as I embarked on this exciting adventure. Everyone I know and even some people I don’t took notice as we blasted off.
But like all glittery new things, my Kickstarter too has grown a little old. A couple weeks in, the initial adrenal rush of backers has puttered out; the money has dried up; and I’m left with a gap to fill both temporally and financially. When this moment arrived, I knew I’d hit the Long Middle of my campaign.
The Kickstarter Stages of Grief
To continue with the relationship metaphor, the Long Middle can be like a very painful, very visible breakup. The world watches as you flail about, trying to salvage the sinking ship of your grandiose ideals of instant fame and fortune. (Well, as much fame and fortune as 500 fans and $5,000 dollars can get you.) You’ll tailspin through the stages of grief:
Denial—“There’s no way this will fail. God won’t let this fail. I won’t let this fail. No matter what, we’ll find a way to make this work.”
Anger—“How could this be happening to me? I did everything right! I don’t deserve this!”
Bargaining—“If only I’d spent more time on this, tried a little harder, done a little more, we wouldn’t be here.”
Depression—“We’re never going to make it. It’s all over.”
I’m pretty sure I’d already hit all these major notes by Day 2.
Thrashing Explanation via Meme
While this might sound a little premature, I think that we all spend most of our lives navigating this nebulous gray region that is the Long Middle. Life is not so much full of beginnings and endings as it is middles. Our new job, new spouse, and new child will all eventually become just our job, spouse, and child. The newness will fade, and we will have to grapple with the choices we’ve made that led to where we are today.
When the new inevitably grows old, we have a very important question to answer, will we thrash or will we trust?
Thrashing vs. Trusting
I, for one, have spent a lot of time thrashing. I think to myself, if I send out one more post or release one more TikTok video or email one more influencer, maybe that’ll unlock the key to reaching our funding goal. Many of my friends have been quick to correct me saying, “That’s not thrashing, that’s hustling. You got to do what you’ve got to do.” But when my project makes me have trouble falling asleep at night, and I find myself contemplating it as soon as I wake up in the morning, and I feel guilty stepping away from my computer during the day, I don’t think there’s a meaningful distinction between the two. It’s far less about what I do and far more about how I feel.
Conversely, trust is not a cessation of activity, but finding peace in the midst of it. In the words of an Old Testament prophet, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7-8). Or to put it in the slightly more modern terms of the Philadelphia 76ers, “Trust the process.”
Conclusion
With less than two weeks left to go in our Kickstarter campaign, I’m still holding out hope that we can make our dream a reality. And I’m continuing to work toward that goal every day. But I’m trying to strive toward it from a place of faith over fear and by trusting rather than thrashing.
Let My People Ball Kickstarter Progress as of August 24th, 2023.
If raising money in this day and age is tough, getting attention is excruciating. Having blogged for years to my small but mighty band of subscribers, I’ve been tempted to conclude that I’ve been shouting into the void. Or, as the late great Samuel Coleridge put it, there’s “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”
Start the Articles
The art of getting attention is alchemical in nature, a mixture of science and magic that boggles the brain, frustrates all formulas, and defies duplication. I’ve learned this is the hard way in the comic book space. There are only so many outlets that cover indie comics, and even those that do have only so much reach. The comic-book equivalent of The Rolling Stones and Vogue is hard to identify, and if found, they’re not going to be talking about your indie Kickstarter.
Our very first press response! Credit: The Pullbox
Start the Follows
The flip side of this is developing an organic following through the power of social media. I’ve heard so-called marketing gurus recommend, “Find your crowd and craft your message to match that audience.” But that guidance sniffs of the inauthentic. it feels like trying to snap off a piece of your soul and wrap it up in a pretty box so that other people will devour it. And with that kind of dubious outlook on Instagram and TikTok, you could imagine how that journey has gone for me.
But in the midst of this Kickstarter, I’ve had to remind myself why I leapt into the publishing industry in the first place: Because I love telling stories.
Don’t Stop the Stories
I was a Toy Story kid. I played with action figures and wind-up contraptions long after many of my classmates had grown out of them. I had narratives that needed to be expressed via mouthed sound effects and flying plastic playthings.
I scribbled down short stories, mixed together beats, and cobbled up dance videos long before that became vogue because I’ve always enjoyed sharing my creations with the world.
Conclusion
I have not figured out the best way to reach people yet. I might not go viral anytime soon or become the next overnight internet sensation. But I will continue striving to get my work out there. Because as much as I love creating art for myself and art “for art’s sake”, nothing quite compares to making other people feel deeply. And if I can have the privilege of making even one more person feel deeply, I will continue to wrestle with this inscrutable beast called the internet.
As a child, I never went door-to-door to “Save the Whales”. And for slightly more obvious reasons, you’d never find me selling Girl Scout cookies. Charity was something I gave (out of my $10 a month allowance), not something I received. But then I grew up, started a company, and realized that fundraising is probably my most important job of all. And the wellspring for any successful fundraiser begins with friends and family.
Let My People Ball Kickstarter Page on Launch
Hey Friend!
In the weeks leading up to our first Kickstarter, I made a comprehensive list of all the friends I’ve accumulated over the years. As the list ballooned into the hundreds, I realized that there was one profound benefit that had arisen from having moved every few years since childhood: I had come to know and be known by a lot of people. A few of these friends I’ve remained in contact with throughout the years. But most of my conversations began a bit like this:
Hello Mrs. Jackson! I was a student in your English class in middle school! I know it’s been a decade since we last spoke, but…
Hey Chris! I heard about the new job! It’s awesome to see that you’re finally pursuing your dream! You know I also recently made a career change…
Hi Marisol! Congrats on the new baby! Do you want to know what I’ve been working on for the past 9 months…
Alright, my words might not have been so tongue-in-cheek, but it felt pretty darn close sometimes.
Will You Fund Me?
I was reaching out to people who I used to have a meaningful connection to long ago. But the sands of time had eroded our friendship over the years. Before each text, Facebook message, or email I wondered if many of these people would even remember me, or worse still I worried if my outreach would destroy any vestige of goodwill that might have lasted between us.
But instead of my deep-seated fears, the overwhelming response was deeply encouraging. From grad school, college, high school, and even touching back to elementary, friends of mine acknowledged my plea. They hadn’t forgotten me and further, they were happy to contribute to my vision.
Conclusion
One of the greatest highlights of this Kickstarter campaign has simply been the opportunity to reconnect. Some of my friends have changed drastically over the years. They’re living in new states with new careers and young families. But still much has remained the same. I had the opportunity to commiserate with a number of my rekindled compadres over our shared memories and made up a tiny bit for the lost time between us. And if nothing else arises from this venture, I’m eternally grateful for that.
Having found the illustrator I’d been so desperately searching for, I was back in action! I was setting milestones, approving drawings, and spending money—lots of it. As my bank account plunged toward zero, I knew my next order of business was finding a way to pay for this massive project I was undertaking. But few appealing options presented themselves.
The Road Not Taken
I could try to find a traditional publisher like Simon & Schuster. But the thought of trying to convince a literary agent to try to persuade a traditional publisher to potentially pay me a reasonable advance seemed both daunting and time consuming. Months would pass before I even had the opportunity to begin The Biballical Chronicles in earnest, and that’s assuming one of the few gatekeepers was willing to take a chance on a green comic book creator like me.
Or I could try to find a comic book publisher like Image. But that felt like a nightmare wrapped in a fool’s errand trapped inside a moonshot. Not only was it incredibly difficult, the number of horror stories I’d heard about comic book deals made my skin crawl. Somehow, I had to launch out on my own and find a way to convince people to pay me money to do so.
Kickstarter’s Well Known Logo. Source: Kickstarter; Credit: Kickstarter
However, in practice, Kickstarter seemed to be a place where many naive creators had their dreams crushed and many gullible consumers had their money stolen. I’d never really viewed Kickstarter as a viable business model until I attended a panel on it at Los Angeles Comic Con. I heard Brittany Chapman-Holman (“Mother of Frankenstein”), Sean Persaud (“Shipwrecked Comedy”), and Anjali Bhimani (“I am Fun Size, and So Are YOU!”) describe their own Kickstarter experiences. They had raised tens of thousands of dollars, delivered rewards to hundreds of paying customers, and somehow lived to tell the tale.
After taking a copious amount of notes from these seasoned veterans, my three main takeaways were: First, there are nearly infinite ways to ruin a Kickstarter. From unreachable goals to unrealistic timelines, you didn’t need to look far to find a graveyard littered with the carcasses of Kickstarters gone awry.
Second, even when executed correctly, a successful Kickstarter requires a tremendous amount of work and forethought. Planning one of these was not for the faint of heart.
Third, despite the risk and toil, it can be a win-win for both the creator who’s raising the money and the community that pays for it.
Conclusion
That last point shattered my preconceived notions like a bat to a fine china collection. The knowledge that a dedicated, passionate creator like me could form an audience of passionate, paying followers renewed my hope that I could transform my dream into a reality. Now all I had to do was convince hundreds of people that I was making something worth buying.
If insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, I was clinically diagnosable by March 1st of 2023. Out of options and out of time, I decided to give Upwork one final chance to help me find an illustrator before I went back to the drawing board. I created a new job listing, paid to have my post featured, and waited.
Within days, even more job applications began to flood in—dozens of them. I spent hours scrolling through portfolios and setting up Zoom interviews until an Upwork “Talent Specialist” connected me with one particular artist named Milo.
The Sample
From the first time I laid eyes on his portfolio, I knew there was something promising there. We jumped on a phone call together and quickly hit it off. As I discussed my vision for telling “meaning-filled” stories, he said he’d especially resonated with that line because as an LGBTQ+ creator, diversity of representation was very important to him.
And so we hammered out a timeline, and I anxiously waited for the sample that would determine our future together, or apart.
We started working together early in the week and set the first milestone for Friday. But Friday came and went without an update. As I stewed over the weekend, I began to have second thoughts. Would this initial communication snafu be indicative of the rest of our relationship?
And secondly, I’d been hoping to work with someone who shared the same faith as I did on The Biballical Chronicles because of…well, the subject matter. But Milo possessed a wildly different way of looking at the world than I did.
When the following week rolled around, I was about ready to throw in the towel. But then I saw the preliminary colored sketch Milo had drawn, and I was blown away. I viscerally felt like I was seeing the visible manifestation of my idea even at that stage of development. To put it simply, he got it.
Milo’s First Colored Sketch for Let My People Ball
The “Break”
Conflicted, I called Milo up and told him that I’d need a couple of weeks to think about it. A few days later, I flew home for Spring Break from my graduate school program. Though, to call it a “break” might be a bit of a stretch. I spent many afternoons deep in prayer, wrestling with this decision. I phoned friends and family members as I weighed the pros and cons. Months, even years, of my future were contingent on this partnership and so were thousands of dollars in my bank account.
As endless doubts wrapped around me like choking tendrils, the drawing Milo had sent me was like a north star—a lighthouse in the middle of a sea of uncertainty. Somehow we’d bridged the chasm between our vastly different worldviews, and I saw the potential to make something beautiful together.
The Call
As my Spring “Break” wound down, I gave Milo a call. Hopeful yet tentative, I asked him if he was still willing and available to work on my project. And so, on March 27th, 2023, I finally found my illustrator for The Biballical Chronicles.
“That’s great and all,” he said, waving his hand in the air as if he was dispelling a bad odor. “But I’ve been in the comic book industry a long time, and there are three things people need.”
I was sitting across from a man I’ll call Ahmed who I’d been talking to about my vision of starting a company in the comic book industry. Fingering his palm with each idea he listed, Ahmed said, “One, they access to money because well…” And I nodded along, not needing him to explain why “starving artists” needed more cash.
“Two,” he continued, “they need access to publishers. Three, they need access to one another.” And he went on to describe how easy it was for him as an industry insider to find an illustrator for one of his projects but how difficult it was for everyone else. And something of that last idea remained with me as I struggled to find an illustrator for my own comic book project.
Working through Upwork
February had already rolled around, and I was beginning to grow discouraged. But I created an Upwork account, published a job post, and waited for the applications to start flowing in.
Within a few weeks, I’d received a number of proposals, and most of them were underwhelming. I ran into the same issues I’d encountered on Instagram, illustrators without the right style, the right experience, or the right attention to detail (you’d be amazed how many applicants apply to jobs without reading the job description!).
But there were two promising leads. The first was from a man I’ll call James. Talking to him felt like interacting with an alternate reality version of myself. He was a fellow engineer who’d quit his job to pursue his dream of telling “meaning-filled” stories. We even graduated from the same university within a couple years of each other!
The first sample I ever received for Let My People Ball. Source: Ife J. Ibitayo.
Our chemistry was palpable, and the process of obtaining a sample page from him was seamless. But when I saw the final result, I was underwhelmed. The page was beautifully colored, but it just did not fit my vision for my comic book. So with much regret, I asked if I could reach out to him as a potential colorist and kept on searching.
The second artist, who I’ll call Alejandro, was the opposite. The quality of his drawings were unmistakable, but his sample page was simply confusing. I held up my script, compared it to his drawing, and struggled to reconcile the two. So, with great disappointment, I let him go as well.
The second sample I received for Let My People Ball. Even today, I can’t quite make sense of everything going on in each of these scenes. Source: Ife J. Ibitayo.
Conclusion
So after burning a month of time and a molehill of cash, Upwork hadn’t worked for me. And I was beginning to doubt whether or not I’d be able to make this comic book vision of mine into a reality any time soon.
