I was very fortunate to have supportive parents who didn?t have my future all planned out for me. They allowed and encouraged me the freedom to pursue a career in the arts. The fact that I ended up cartooning for a living cannot be blamed on them.
His critique of my earnest, fledgling poetry was no less incendiary. After reading one of my early poems involving a trash collector, rum, rabid babies, and the Virgin Mary, he gave me a short, weird sermon on passion. He told me to always keep the passion stoked. But he also said to be careful where I put that passion. His exact words were: ?Put the passion into your poems, Dian, or you will end up picketing churches.? So far, so good.
“In life you can usually always get yourself out of things, but you will always regret the opportunities you had but never took and now don?t have.? That was shared with me by afellow vet, Tom Place. It was in reference to me getting a car I had always wanted, and I was worried if I should spend the money or not. I was also worried about what people would think.
It was a friend, however, who reminded me that we have ?just one life.? That inspires me to fill my life with meaningful work and jam pack it with as many moments of joy as possible with those I love and learn from. How we choose to live each day matters.
I?m not the type of person who generally listens to advice, or else I would probably have a real job by now. But the best advice I ever got was from another cartoonist (a pretty good one, in fact). Charles Schulz once told me to never listen to the experts, but to listen to my inner voice, instead. That has served me well ? inside and outside my career.
I was working for my parents at the family printing company when I first came up with the idea to create a line of greeting cards which eventually led to my syndicated cartoon, ?Rubes.? I could work on my greeting cards as much as I wanted as long as I got all the work done for my parents first. I didn?t have to pay for office space, only the paper, postage, phone and any other materials I used. To say their advice, or lack thereof, played a significant role in my career would be an understatement.
