James Rallison - The Odd 1s Out: How to Be Cool and Other Things I Definitely Learned from Growing Up

Everyone starts out as a bad artist. And some people stay that way. Fortunately, others improve. No one likes to hear this, but improvement is mostly the result of several hundreds of hours of practice. If adults told children how much work it takes to become an artist, they would all abandon their dreams and make other plans somewhere in the middle of kindergarten. This is why adults always tell little kids that theyre great artists, even if theyre actually terrible.

If you looked at my early drawings, you wouldnt think I would grow up to be an artist. My pictures were never the sort that ended up being proudly displayed on the fridge. Most of the fridge space went to my twin sister, Faith. She was such a natural at drawing that you could actually tell what her pictures were.

One time in an elementary school art class, I painted a beautiful portrait of a person. I dont have the exact copy anymore, but I will try to re-create it here:

If you cant tell, this is what I was going for:

For some reason, though, the teacher didnt understand my artistic vision. When it came time to hang everyones pictures on the wall, she hung mine upside down.

I dont know about you, but I think this picture makes absolutely no sense upside down.

Faith, on the other hand, showed so much artistic talent that when we were both in third grade, my mom enrolled her in after-school art programs. I wanted to come too, for whatever reason, so my mom signed me up as well. While Faith drew pictures of realistic-looking cats, dogs, and other animals, I drew pictures of Chicken Godzilla.

Look, Chicken Godzilla is as tall as an airplanes flight path and can shoot fire and eggs. Thats art.

After that class ended, I didnt draw very much. The fridge space still belonged to Faith. I dont remember if any of the art teachers at school encouraged me, but if they did, they were probably only being polite.

But then junior high happened, and I drew a comic to impress a girl. She was a fan of Twilight and so I made a comic strip about people watching the movie. It wasnt funny and it wasnt well drawn, but it was a milestone.

This isnt the original comic, by the way. I gave that to the girl. I dont know whether she appreciated or kept it, but since I had so much fun drawing the comic, I redrew it and showed it to my friends. I dont know if they appreciated it either, but I decided to keep doing comic strips.

I began drawing six strips a week and passing them around to my friends, who would read them while they were supposed to be listening to our teachers.

My friends loved this pastime. My teachers not so much. I once had a teacher crumple up a page full of my strips because he claimed they were distracting the class. I consider this my first positive review, since it proved that people would rather read my comics than listen to a teacher. (Of course, that contest isnt too hard to win... )

At any rate, I became known as the comic guy, which, relatively speaking, isnt the worst name you can be called in high school.

Eventually I wanted to take my comics to the next level. In fact, I wanted to make them my career. Theres never a prouder moment in parents lives than when their son tells them he wants to be a cartoonist.

They were completely supportive.

Five years later, my hard work is proof that talent is 90 percent determination, 10 percent dumb luck, and 3 percent not paying attention. I kept practicing. And now while Faith draws stunning nature landscapes, I draw pale, bald characters. Youd still probably prefer her art on your fridge, but my drawings are all over the internet. So I guess it all worked out.