I met Robert Goodin and his wife Georgene at A.P.E this past November when he was promoting his sell-out comic from Top Shelf, "The Man Who Loved Breasts". Roberts work has appeared everywhere from a number of compilations from Top Shelf, to the New York Press, to McSweeneys, in addition to his self-published books. Robert had an amazing array of merchandise from the normal t-shirts and mini-comics to handsome wooden sketchbooks and wooden postcards.
Robert currently works as a storyboard revisionist for "American Dad" on top of his comics career. Robert described the struggle of finding time to work on comics when he wasn't working as an animator.
"I went into animation after school with the belief that I could easily get a job to pay the rent and then do comics on the side. However, it took a year and a half to finally get that first animation job and then I found that animation can burn up a lot of time and energy, leaving little for comics.
When I started doing comic work I think I did that ass backwards as well. I became a publisher which took up even more resources and I lost a lot of money publishing books that I was proud of, but not finding an audience. Storyboarding in animation was becoming more demanding as well. I dropped publishing and for a while dropped animation, living a very frugal existence and mostly off of my wife's income while I continued to draw comics. Now I have been lucky enough to become a storyboard revisionist on American Dad. This job is strictly 40 hours a week (no more), so I am able to finally make a comfortable living and have the time and energy for comics."
He had this advice for someone just starting out:
"As far as finding an audience in comics, I would do as I say and not as I did. I would begin my doing short stories and send them to anthologies. If they get published, great, if not, collect them in a mini comic and sell that at a local convention or comic stores. Continue this process and as hopefully one will get better, get more exposure, and meet more people. Over time and with more exposure some success can be found. The key is to keep doing the work and getting that work out there."
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