hitting the wall

[johncomic]

Several times in my life I have attempted to create a comic strip which could be syndicated to newspapers. [There was a time where that was a viable career choice, although nowadays everyone says the newspaper strip is doomed.] In every case, I wrote up a few dozen strips, none of which were very good, and then I hit a wall, I just couldn't come up with another idea.

About ten years ago, I came up with a strip idea which was much more fruitful. For the first time, I was writing strips that were actually good -- other people thought so, I still think so years later, this material was much better than my previous attempts -- and I was able to write piles of them. I racked up close to two hundred strips, it looked very promising --

and then I hit a wall. Suddenly I had no more ideas for that strip. And it's stayed that way ever since.

Thing is, if you're doing a strip, you're contractually obligated to keep it going every day. For years (at least five, ideally twenty or more). Hitting the wall simply isn't done. If you aren't able to keep creating new viable ideas every day, you shouldn't be doing this.

This tells me that I am not cut out for a career in strips. At least, not with any of the ideas I've had so far.

But it's also got me thinking about: do we have innate limits on what we can come up with? That varies from one individual to another? I mean, I think about bands like Collective Soul or The Charlatans, who have been cranking out albums regularly for twenty years, all of which are worthwhile, and their most recent work is some of their best -- they aren't running out of ideas by any means. But then there's The Charlatans' original inspiration, The Stone Roses, who really only had one good album in them. I mean, my God what an album, but still: just the one.

I dunno, I just think it's funny how that works...