Well... I don't even want to get into what happened this weekend. Saturday was mega fun, but Sunday.... I pretty much paid $15 to go get verbally raped, stripped of my confidence, and have my will to ever attempt to draw manga again fossilized. The gist of the conversation that I got from the two editors from Tokyopop that reviewed my portfolio, was that I'd be better off drawing pinups and cover-art.
Apparently, I can't draw manga, and I'm a horrible storyteller. They hate the way I lay out my pages.
And that's only item #1 on a long list of verbal b-slaps that they kept throwing my way during the 10 longest minutes of my life.
In short? I probably won't be going back to them after I finish my Rising Stars entry. I'll probably have to self-publish, but it was the biggest slap in the face I've received in a long time. Perhaps I'm just over-reacting, perhaps I'm just being a stubborn, over-emotional artist who can't take criticism, but you can decide for yourself based on the fact that she straight up told me that I ".. should stop trying to attempt drawing backgrounds, because they just don't look good. You should try photo-manipulating or just buy screentones. It looks like you invested a lot of time into them just to have them look.. unappealing. The city *referring to the last panel of the first page of our bleach'd doujinshi* is boring, and the mountains don't look like that."
They cringed every time they flipped the page. I had to stop looking at them after they tore apart pages 8, 9, and 10 of my doujinshi, which I wasn't happy with in the first place. Those were the first three things they saw in my portfolio. Having them notice it right off the bat, and hearing it as the first words out of their mouths, did NOT help. I left Comic-Con with no control over my inner/outer dialog, and accidentally yelled at Steve, what I thought was in my head; I thought I was talking to myself, then proceeded to almost break down crying when I realized I had said it out loud. I also stopped, turned around and yelled at a bunch of cars as we were in the middle of a crosswalk because they didn't stop for an ambulance that was coming through. I don't think anyone would feel comfortable around me if they heard my inner dialog all day every day.
This weekend was very taxing on my sanity.. this is one of my only two productive pieces for the two days I was there for. A rush color job on an old picture. I still like it.. apparently, they only thing that impressed them about my portfolio was that my inking was so clean, and my coloring was so nice.
Oh yeah, they didn't like how I ink. They think I should use 'smaller lines'.
I'm finished ranting.. I have a headache now..