In Buddhism there’s desire and renunciation, renunciation giving up of things for a greater happiness. If we follow our desires around we only end up wanting more, how many comics do I have and how many more can I get? In drawing comics commercially the first desire was always for more work, financial success of big royalty checks, movie deals fame and fortune. These often conflict with the ideals and desires of a young revolutionary who thought I could promote world revolution with comics.
On top of this I had my own artistic interests that took me far outside what any publisher was interested in. When I went to art school I had all these mature, sophisticated cool teacher of 35 to 40 who taught the first year Illustration students, life drawing, composition and color and design. They sent us off to Soho (it had galleries once), The Met and the Modern. I went into art school thinking Barry Smiths’ Conan was the highest achievement of western civilization. Came out of art school wanting to do comics that integrated Kandinsky, Klee and Albers and life drawing into super heroes.
The mission statement was set and my destination was out in front of me. Everything since has been figuring out the path.