Dan Nokes is the kind of guy one could find their self easily liking. Now whether that's some super power of his, I'm not entirely certain of. But if you aren't at least into comics like he is, wrestling may be what brings the two of you into buddyhood. And when he's not busy with 21st Century Sandshark Studios, asking a different fan person question each day, drawing sketches, or somehow appearing at every convention in the state he hails from. He'll be occasionally making an appearance here with his Observation of the Week! Now, let's rumble!
September 20th, 2011: The Date of a 2 Year Anniversary of When Things Got Real!
I started my little business experiment called 21st Century Sandshark Studios about 11 years ago in 2002. From that point until late 2011, it had been a supplemental income at best. Something that could never make me enough cash to quit my series of day jobs that I had held over the course of my adult life. I fit in the comics where I could, after work, over lunch and breaks, which made it, feel like a second job at times. I dreamed of being able to make art and sequential storytelling my full time, but in the end believed that was many years off.
Then September 20th 2011 hit, and my life spun off in a direction, that I only conceived of in a Fellini like surreal fever dream. In short, I got fired from my day job at the time. I won’t bother you with the sordid details; other then I many times, do not know when to keep my mouth shut. In a corporate environment like that, you should know when to bite your tongue, not take things personally, do your job and go home. But I didn’t, and got dismissed from my place of employment.
So I spent the next few days at home, worrying how I was going to snag another form of income. I dreaded filling out sordid, lengthy online applications, just to have most of them not even looked at by a human being. I was sunk in fear at the prospect of the few that do, and as consequence call me in for an interview; being asked a series of questions that in no way determined whether I was a hard or good worker or not.
Over that week or so, I came to the conclusion, that I did not want another dayjob. Yes they gave me things like a steady income, benefits, and health insurance. But they made me stressed, miserable, and filled with a complete lack of purpose and direction. I wanted to be happy and proud of what I did, even if I was only able to narrowly scrape by. I wanted to get the credit for hours of work and effort I sunk into a project or effort, instead of some hack corporate ladder climber in a tie and ugly pastel shirt, taking the glory at the end of the day, while spending their day, playing mahjong, and BS’ing in the office pool. I wanted to be a comic book creator since age 13. Anything else to me felt like a waste of time and effort.
I was also 35 years of age at the time. I had no wife or children, no dependents or obligations at that juncture. I figured if I crashed and burned that I would be the only person I took down. In the end I came to the conclusion that I had little to lose and more to gain. I decided to make comics my full time gig.
Now in retrospect, I with this decision gave myself a huge amount of freedom to do what I wanted. This is also where I learned that freedom, TRUE FREEDOM is incredibly frightening! Real freedom is vastly terrifying when coupled with certain realities, like where your next paycheck is going to come from, or how your bills are going to be paid, or the fact that you are going to have to live off hot dogs and Top Ramen for a week or two until a show or gig kicks in. Let’s not even get into when you get sick and have to weigh going to a doctor’s office and possibly going broke in the process.
But that freedom has also allowed me to wake up in the morning, and run my own business. To be a person that, a 13 year old version of myself can be somewhat proud he became. I’m a writer, storyteller, and artist. I help run a comic book convention. I have been a next door booth mate at a show to Larry Hama, Chris Claremont, and Michael Golden, as they BS back and forth about what it was like to work for Jim Shooter in the 80’s, like you and I would about our dayjobs. I have sold sketchcards to Chris Hardwick! I get to hang out in restaurants, car trips, bars and hotels with talented creators like Chris Flick, Bill Meiggs, Bill McKay, John Gallagher, Steve Conley and a host of others, just talking shop, or shooting the breeze! I get to have fans of my art and stories. I occasionally get to have spirited debates with those fans on something that I created!
In short, It has been the most fun, Gilliamesquely surreal, occasionally blood curdling scary, worthwhile uphill struggle I have ever spent my adult time and efforts in pursuing. No matter how the future of this experiment turns out, I can honestly say that I would not have traded it for the world. I still believe that some sort of major payoff is somewhere in the horizon. It may or may not happen, but the effort to get there is what’s important to me at this juncture. Everything else I think will fall into place at some sort of strange unforeseen happenstance for sure, for I am at the end, of the mindset that I am too determined and/or too stupid to take another direction at this point. Also as a storyteller, I am kind of curious and vested into how this particular tale hammers out!
Thank you to all who have supported and encouraged me in this venture! Without you, I don’t think I would have made it this far!
Take care and until next time, I won’t be here!
DAN NOKES
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
21st CENTURY SANDSHARK STUDIOS
9-16-13
Then September 20th 2011 hit, and my life spun off in a direction, that I only conceived of in a Fellini like surreal fever dream. In short, I got fired from my day job at the time. I won’t bother you with the sordid details; other then I many times, do not know when to keep my mouth shut. In a corporate environment like that, you should know when to bite your tongue, not take things personally, do your job and go home. But I didn’t, and got dismissed from my place of employment.
So I spent the next few days at home, worrying how I was going to snag another form of income. I dreaded filling out sordid, lengthy online applications, just to have most of them not even looked at by a human being. I was sunk in fear at the prospect of the few that do, and as consequence call me in for an interview; being asked a series of questions that in no way determined whether I was a hard or good worker or not.
Over that week or so, I came to the conclusion, that I did not want another dayjob. Yes they gave me things like a steady income, benefits, and health insurance. But they made me stressed, miserable, and filled with a complete lack of purpose and direction. I wanted to be happy and proud of what I did, even if I was only able to narrowly scrape by. I wanted to get the credit for hours of work and effort I sunk into a project or effort, instead of some hack corporate ladder climber in a tie and ugly pastel shirt, taking the glory at the end of the day, while spending their day, playing mahjong, and BS’ing in the office pool. I wanted to be a comic book creator since age 13. Anything else to me felt like a waste of time and effort.
I was also 35 years of age at the time. I had no wife or children, no dependents or obligations at that juncture. I figured if I crashed and burned that I would be the only person I took down. In the end I came to the conclusion that I had little to lose and more to gain. I decided to make comics my full time gig.
Now in retrospect, I with this decision gave myself a huge amount of freedom to do what I wanted. This is also where I learned that freedom, TRUE FREEDOM is incredibly frightening! Real freedom is vastly terrifying when coupled with certain realities, like where your next paycheck is going to come from, or how your bills are going to be paid, or the fact that you are going to have to live off hot dogs and Top Ramen for a week or two until a show or gig kicks in. Let’s not even get into when you get sick and have to weigh going to a doctor’s office and possibly going broke in the process.
But that freedom has also allowed me to wake up in the morning, and run my own business. To be a person that, a 13 year old version of myself can be somewhat proud he became. I’m a writer, storyteller, and artist. I help run a comic book convention. I have been a next door booth mate at a show to Larry Hama, Chris Claremont, and Michael Golden, as they BS back and forth about what it was like to work for Jim Shooter in the 80’s, like you and I would about our dayjobs. I have sold sketchcards to Chris Hardwick! I get to hang out in restaurants, car trips, bars and hotels with talented creators like Chris Flick, Bill Meiggs, Bill McKay, John Gallagher, Steve Conley and a host of others, just talking shop, or shooting the breeze! I get to have fans of my art and stories. I occasionally get to have spirited debates with those fans on something that I created!
In short, It has been the most fun, Gilliamesquely surreal, occasionally blood curdling scary, worthwhile uphill struggle I have ever spent my adult time and efforts in pursuing. No matter how the future of this experiment turns out, I can honestly say that I would not have traded it for the world. I still believe that some sort of major payoff is somewhere in the horizon. It may or may not happen, but the effort to get there is what’s important to me at this juncture. Everything else I think will fall into place at some sort of strange unforeseen happenstance for sure, for I am at the end, of the mindset that I am too determined and/or too stupid to take another direction at this point. Also as a storyteller, I am kind of curious and vested into how this particular tale hammers out!
Thank you to all who have supported and encouraged me in this venture! Without you, I don’t think I would have made it this far!
Take care and until next time, I won’t be here!
DAN NOKES
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
21st CENTURY SANDSHARK STUDIOS
9-16-13