Table of Contents
This book is dedicated to my nephews and nieces
lots of love from Uncle Hugh!
Preface
WHEN I FIRST LIVED IN MANHATTAN IN DECEMBER 1997, I got into the habit of doodling on the backs of business cards, just to give me something to do while sitting at the bar. The habit stuck.
All I had when I first got to New York were two suitcases, a couple of cardboard boxes full of stuff, a reservation at the YMCA, and a ten-day freelance copywriting gig at a Midtown advertising agency.
My life for the next couple of weeks was going to work, walking around the city, and staggering back to the YMCA once the bars closed. Lots of alcohol and coffee shops. Lots of weird people. Being hit five times a day by this strange desire to laugh, sing, and cry simultaneously. At times like these, theres a lot to be said for an art form that fits easily inside your coat pocket.
The freelance gig turned into a permanent job, and I stayed in town for the next two years. The first month in New York for a newcomer has this certain amazing magic about it that is indescribable. Incandescent lucidity. However long you stay in New York, you pretty much spend the rest of your time there trying to recapture that feeling. Chasing the Manhattan Dragon. Somehow the little drawings on the backs of business cards managed to capture thisthe intensity, the fleeting nature, the everlasting song of New York.
This has been my predominant cartoon format for over ten years. The originals are drawn on either business cards, or bristol board cut to the same size, i.e. 3.5 inches by 2 inches. I use mostly a Rotring 0.3mm Rapidograph pen with jet-black India ink. Occasionally Ill use other thingspencil, watercolor, ballpoint, tablet PCbut not often.
In 2001, then living in the UK, I started a blog, gapingvoid .com, where I began publishing my business-card cartoons online. In 2004 I published a series of blog posts that collectively went on to become How to Be Creative, which formed the basis of the book youre reading now. In the meantime Ive had many adventures, as a cartoonist, a blogger, and a marketer. I now reside in far West Texas, miles away from any big city. To get the whole story of my trials, travels, and, well, life, go check out my blog and give it a read.
How to Be Creative, an earlier incarnation of Ignore Everybody, has so far been downloaded over a million times. For both creative and commercial reasons, Ive made some changes from the original online documentadding more chapters and cartoons to it, and replacing certain potty-mouth words with something more palatable. But part of the deal I made with the publisher going into this project was that I was totally unwilling to alter the spirit of the original blog posts just to see the book appear in print. Happily, they wanted it to remain pretty much as is, within reason. For that I remain very grateful to them.
1.Ignore everybody.
The more original your idea is, the less good advice other people will be able to give you. When I first started with the cartoon-on-back-of-bizcard format, people thought I was nuts. Why wasnt I trying to do something that was easier for markets to digest, like cutie-pie greeting cards or whatever?
YOU DONT KNOW IF YOUR IDEA IS ANY GOOD the moment its created. Neither does anyone else. The most you can hope for is a strong gut feeling that it is. And trusting your feelings is not as easy as the optimists say it is. Theres a reason why feelings scare usbecause what they tell us and what the rest of the world tells us are often two different things.
And asking close friends never works quite as well as you hope, either. Its not that they deliberately want to be unhelpful. Its just that they dont know your world one millionth as well as you know your world, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard you try to explain.
Plus a big idea will change you. Your friends may love you, but they may not want you to change. If you change, then their dynamic with you also changes. They might prefer things the way they are, thats how they love youthe way you are, not the way you may become.
Ergo, they might not have any incentive to see you change. If so, they will be resistant to anything that catalyzes it. Thats human nature. And you would do the same, if the shoe were on the other foot.
With business colleagues its even worse. Theyre used to dealing with you in a certain way. Theyre used to having a certain level of control over the relationship. And they want whatever makes them more prosperous. Sure, they might prefer it if you prosper as well, but thats not their top priority.
If your idea is so good that it changes your dynamic enough to where you need them less or, God forbid, the market needs them less, then theyre going to resist your idea every chance they can.
Again, thats human nature.
GOOD IDEAS ALTER THE POWER BALANCE IN RELATIONSHIPS. THAT IS WHY GOOD IDEAS ARE ALWAYS INITIALLY RESISTED.
Good ideas come with a heavy burden, which is why so few people execute them. So few people can handle it.
2. The idea doesnt have to be big. It just has to be yours.
The sovereignty you have over your work will inspire far more people than the actual content ever will.
WE ALL SPEND A LOT OF TIME BEING IMPRESSED by folks weve never met. Somebody featured in the media whos got a big company, a big product, a big movie, a big bestseller. Whatever.
And we spend even more time trying unsuccessfully to keep up with them. Trying to start up our own companies, our own products, our own film projects, books, and whatnot.
Im as guilty as anyone. I tried lots of different things over the years, trying desperately to pry my career out of the jaws of mediocrity. Some to do with business, some to do with art, etc.
One evening, after one false start too many, I just gave up. Sitting at a bar, feeling a bit burned out by work and by life in general, I just started drawing on the backs of business cards for no reason. I didnt really need a reason. I just did it because it was there, because it amused me in a kind of random, arbitrary way.
Of course it was stupid. Of course it was not commercial. Of course it wasnt going to go anywhere. Of course it was a complete and utter waste of time. But in retrospect, it was this built-in futility that gave it its edge. Because it was the exact opposite of all the Big Plans my peers and I were used to making. It was so liberating not to have to think about all that, for a change.
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