Jasmin Garcia-Verdin shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Jasmin, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
Thanks for having me back! I think many struggle with self-doubt. It’s really hard to start or finish because it creeps in. I give pep-talks to my friends to encourage working through that self-doubt with logic, of which I’m used to and still struggle once in a while. I’m currently working on my next writing project and sometime it’s really hard to sit at the desk to write when I’m feeling like it’s not worth it. But it is!
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Sure! My name is Jasmin and I’m an illustrator currently working on drawing a medieval comic that for almost five years I’ve researched, written, and designed this 3-book graphic novel project. It’s about a girl in 1414 France who must learn how to fight in order to compete at a tournament and free her imprisoned brother. That is the initial premise—much more happens: romance, fighting mercenaries, political dramas, and even a great battle.
As of last year, I acquired a literary agent for the project in order to sell it to a publishing company. In the meantime I draw pages and document the progress on my youtube channel.
Appreciate your sharing that. Let’s talk about your life, growing up and some of topics and learnings around that. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
Even though I dreamed about becoming one, I genuinely believed it would be impossible to be a published comic artist. It took me a long time to gather up the courage but with the help of others providing very helpful advice, I decided to make the plunge and pursue making this comic seriously.
Last year I decided to pitch it to literary agents. This meant I had to genuinely believe in my project and in myself—I now have a literary agent working with me to sell to publishing.
What fear has held you back the most in your life?
I didn’t go to art school and there were times when a non-creative day job took over my life and identity. These times heavily reinforced a belief that I wouldn’t be able to achieve any lofty creative endeavors. Eventually it really sunk in that I would never know if this fear was true or not if I didn’t try to reach for my dreams. It was such an easy switch, holding on to a fear is exhausting when you live every day with the ‘what if’ over your head. Failure is not the real problem here—it’s never trying.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
Definitely that making a living making art is easy. You can see it in social media and on youtube videos. But this is not true and it’s a dangerous misconception. Just because the internet has greatly facilitated artist visibility, it’s also highly saturated and offers few channels for serious income. Quitting your non-creative day job to pursue art full-time might seem feasible online, but it’s not. It’s extremely challenging and risky.
But although we do face unique challenges in our field, we shouldn’t let that deter us from creating. I firmly believe that we should just be aware of our options, assess the risks, and try to be reasonable about our decisions when it comes to income.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
I would stop posting to social media. I don’t post as often as the algorithms prefer already but making comics is a time-consuming process. Time and stamina are the two things we have to manage efficiently and, believe it or not, ten years is not a long time for making comics. I’m already breaking into a sweat thinking about this!!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jgvillustrations.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jgv
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JGVIllustrations
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/c/JGVillu
Image Credits
None
