My Poison by Matt Holm
I don't know for sure how other writers and illustrators feel, but for me, finishing a book always feels like a battle. It's a long, bloody war of attrition, you against the pages you have to write or draw, and you do everything you can to find the motivation to keep pushing until the other guy (i.e., your book!) gives up, and you can ship off your finished work to your editors.
What's my poison, that keeps me going in this struggle? Well, one is copious quantities of Diet Dr Pepper. Caffeine fires me up in the morning and keeps me drawing long into the night, as I ink page after page of comics. (I make the Babymouse and Squish graphic novel series with my sister, Jenni.)
But the other, secret, poison that keeps me going is ... video games. You know, those things that are now the arch-enemy of books and reading? Well, just like my cartoon character, Squish, I fall victim to them sometimes, too.
I haven't kept up with modern video games systems like the Xbox or Wii. Instead, the game that I can't seem to give up is an iPad app called Civilization Revolution. It's one in a long series of versions of the original Civilization strategy game created back in the 1990s, which I used to play during late nights in college. The concept behind the game is simple: start as a famous world leader (Catherine the Great, Genghis Khan, Cleopatra) in 4000 BC, and make your civilization grow from a single city to a globe-straddling empire. In the process, you research new technologies, which are tied to sometimes comical gameplay advantages. For example, learning about Writing lets you create Spies, who can sabotage other cities or kidnap great thinkers who will come work for your civilization, instead. Researching Feudalism allows you to harvest game for food (what—no one hunted deer before there were knights and lords?). And in one of the greatest reasons to stay in school, learning about Mathematics lets you build Catapults! (Here's some Algebra ... in your FACE!)
The thing about Civilization Revolution that keeps me going is that, when struggling against the game's computer-generated opponents, everything is straightforward. The path I need to follow to victory is clear. Unlock the next technology. Allocate resources to create military units. Improve my civilization's culture to cause my enemies to defect to my side. Conquer cities one by one, until the game is through. When I'm facing the much messier and more uncertain real-life struggle of having to ink a 100-page book—sometimes, in a month or less—sneaking away from work to take breaks and play games like Civilization Revolution helps to re-energize me. After all, if I can beat that pesky Napoleon dude with his Notre Dame cathedral and his armies of cannons, surely I can come back and whip those unfinished pages that are sitting on my desk!
Anyway, I've got to go. I'm just about to polish off Pamplona. That Isabella chick won't know what hit her.
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