u/Mental-Statement2941

I'm 21 yrs old, living in Botswana (Southern Africa) and I'm going to school next year as my parent's have been saving up for my tuition.

I was given a choice to pick whatever course I'd like and honestly I've boiled it down to two options.

Radiography, Geology (with the intention of becoming a mining geologist) or Mining engineering. As mining is big in our country and we also lack Radiographer's (less than 100 in the entire country) so both have high demand. My mom's a Chief nursing officer at the best private hospital in the country and you can imagine what she's been pushing, I'm quite stuck because I love all 3 prospects.

Three things I value and are non negotiables:

Work/Life balance: this is primarily because I have this silly little dream of becoming a traditionally published sci fi/fantasy author to a publisher abroad in the US or UK to act as a side thing to my main job because I've always loved writing but I also recognize going full time is impractical and that's something I'm fine with really. This is a non negotiable.

Good pay (of course): I don't want to be a millionaire of course but I'd like to live comfortably enough to not have to worry about whether I can pay rent the next month. Just enough cash to be able to go on a nice holiday once a yr or be able to just go out to a nice restaurant once every month.

Freedom of travel: Even if it isn't the job itself, I'd like for it to allow me to at least travel outside of work. Though ideally i'd like the job to give me such an experience.

To anyone in the field or knows anyone in these fields, I'd like some insight into what's your experience and what you'd recommend. Of course, these three thing's are vague so maybe they differ from role to role in each. So i'd like some insight.

I'm 21 yrs old, living in Botswana (Southern Africa) and I'm going to school next year as my parent's have been saving up for my tuition.

I was given a choice to pick whatever course I'd like and honestly I've boiled it down to two options.

Radiography, Geology (with the intention of becoming a mining geologist) or Mining engineering. As mining is big in our country and we also lack Radiographer's (less than 100 in the entire country) so both have high demand. My mom's a Chief nursing officer at the best private hospital in the country and you can imagine what she's been pushing, I'm quite stuck because I love all 3 prospects.

Three things I value and are non negotiables:

Work/Life balance: this is primarily because I have this silly little dream of becoming a traditionally published sci fi/fantasy author to a publisher abroad in the US or UK to act as a side thing to my main job because I've always loved writing but I also recognize going full time is impractical and that's something I'm fine with really. This is a non negotiable.

Good pay (of course): I don't want to be a millionaire of course but I'd like to live comfortably enough to not have to worry about whether I can pay rent the next month. Just enough cash to be able to go on a nice holiday once a yr or be able to just go out to a nice restaurant once every month.

Freedom of travel: Even if it isn't the job itself, I'd like for it to allow me to at least travel outside of work. Though ideally i'd like the job to give me such an experience.

To anyone in the field or knows anyone in these fields, I'd like some insight into what's your experience and what you'd recommend. Of course, these three thing's are vague so maybe they differ from role to role in each. So i'd like some insight.

For context, I'm a Black African man living in Botswana, born and raised so I don't want to be accused of being someone who doesn't have connections to the cultures being displayed on screen.

As well as a spoiler disclaimer for for Black Panther 1, 2 and Eye's of Wakanda.

With that being said, I really HATE how Hollywood treat's displaying our culture, I was tolerant until I saw Black Panther. Everyone saw it as such a liberating, revolutionary step in the right direction in terms of representation. IT WAS TIRING TO SEE AS AN AFRICAN. It was a lazy attempt at putting together a fictional African country which is canonically located in East Africa.

They use SOTHO TSWANA BLANKETS as shields, displayed the culture of MY PEOPLE, the culture of MY NEIGHBOURS (our fellow Ndebele of which I am half on my dad's side), and various southern african culture's one to one, without considering where these culture's and groups reside.

They did didn't even bother to give some tribes actual names, (mining tribe, border tribe). Made them speak Xhosa, A SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGE even though wakanda is located in the East.

I love Chadwick Boseman Lord rest his tender soul, but they cast a non African as the black panther (which isn't an issue but they keep having these actors use the same generic African hollywood accent) and the two African's they cast, the talented John Kani (South Africa) and the even more talented Lupita Nyongo (her family is Kenyan) weren't even that important, sure John plays Tchalla's father so he's pretty important, ill concede that point but I feel Lupita's character as Tchalla's love interest just has fallen flat.

The animated show eye's of Wakanda, DIDN'T EVEN CENTRE THAT MUCH ON AFRICAN COUNTRIES, i know it's only 4 episodes but we got one episode set in Greece, another set inside a wakandan tower, the other was some time travel bullshit and only hinted at the Italo ethiopian war.

Tchalla at the end of the first black panther gave vibranium to the FUCKING UNITED NATIONS as well. An organization that admittedly has not only screwed over Africa or at least turned a blind eye to it but has failed the ENTIRE GLOBAL SOUTH.

They continued to do those GODAWFUL generic hollywood African accents, the only authentic one is John Kani because he is SOUTH AFRICAN, i have friends with that same accent.

The worst part is Ryan Coogler can do better, I've seen sinner's, the scene where Sammy is singing and the future and past are displayed is more of a tribute to us Africans and even better a scene that connects the continent and diaspora in a way that's so surreal. Ryan Coogler CAN DO BETTER and that hurts so much.

If you're African American and you enjoyed the film and felt seen, all power to you. I truly am glad that you have felt seen but genuinely, Black Panther is using our aesthetics, our traditions and our root's to appease to an audience that isn't us. They made a movie and painted it African but damn well it was intended at least for us at all.

I just wish it could have done better. Am I just being over the top?

For context, I'm a Black African man living in Botswana, born and raised so I don't want to be accused of being someone who doesn't have connections to the cultures being displayed on screen.

As well as a spoiler disclaimer for for Black Panther 1, 2 and Eye's of Wakanda.

With that being said, I really HATE how Hollywood treat's displaying our culture, I was tolerant until I saw Black Panther. Everyone saw it as such a liberating, revolutionary step in the right direction in terms of representation. IT WAS TIRING TO SEE AS AN AFRICAN. It was a lazy attempt at putting together a fictional African country which is canonically located in East Africa.

They use SOTHO TSWANA BLANKETS as shields, displayed the culture of MY PEOPLE, the culture of MY NEIGHBOURS (our fellow Ndebele of which I am half on my dad's side), and various southern african culture's mixed in with some Kenyan cultural aesthetics, didn't even bother to give the tribes actual names, (mining tribe, border tribe). Made them speak Xhosa, A SOUTH AFRICAN LANGUAGE even though wakanda is located in the East.

I love Chadwick Boseman Lord rest his tender soul, but they cast a non African as the black panther, and the two African's they cast, John Kani (South Africa) and Lupita Nyongo (her family is Kenyan) weren't even the center piece of the film.

The animated show eye's of Wakanda, DIDN'T EVEN CENTRE THAT MUCH ON AFRICAN COUNTRIES, i know it's only 4 episodes but we got one episode set in Greece, another set inside a wakandan tower, the other was some time travel bullshit and only hinted at the Italo ethiopian war.

Tchalla at the end of the first black panther gave vibranium to the FUCKING UNITED NATIONS as well. An organization that admittedly has not only screwed over Africa or at least turned a blind eye to it but has failed the ENTIRE GLOBAL SOUTH.

They continued to do those GODAWFUL generic hollywood African accents, the only authentic one is John Kani because he is SOUTH AFRICAN, i have friends with that same accent.

The worst part is Ryan Coogler can do better, I've seen sinner's, the scene where Sammy is singing and the future and past are displayed is more of a tribute to us Africans and even better a scene that connects the continent and diaspora in a way that's so surreal. Ryan Coogler CAN DO BETTER and that hurts so much.

If you're African American and you enjoyed the film and felt seen, all power to you. I truly am glad that you have felt seen but genuinely, Black Panther is using our aesthetics, our traditions and our root's to appease to an audience that isn't us. They made a movie and painted it African but damn well it was never meant for us.

I know this has probably been asked a million times but I really need some advice here so I do sincerely apologize first and foremost if some of you are tired of this question. I have always wanted to tell stories since I was 15 years old when I was taken to see Avenger's Endgame in theatres by my parents as a birthday gift. See, I come from Botswana, a small Southern African country and we have only two cinema's in our entire country located in the capital city (which I don't live in) so you can imagine for most of us going out to see a movie is somewhat of pipe dream.

My parent's though did take me to see Endgame, driving all the way to watch it with me and I knew from the audience reaction, to the emotions I felt in that theatre that I wanted to tell my own bombastic, colorful stories so I decided I was going to be a screenwriter in hollywood. As you can imagine, reality hit and in my late teen's I realized that it was a long shot so I shifted my dream to becoming a prose writer and throughout highschool i was writing alot, it wasn't good writing but none the less i was writing.

I though went to school for engineering and it was the worst three years of my life as my mental state declined, I stopped writing to keep up with my grades as well as the fact that my dreams of being a writer were drowned out by the realism that being a writer of any kind in our country was a lost cause as we only have one proper book store in the entire country (rendering books bloody expensive) as well as one functioning public library(in the capital city) and practically next to no market for books hence no proper publishers especially in the sci fi and fantasy space.

It's been 5 years since ive last written anything, I had to leave college for mental health reasons, and I'm at home, a 21 yr old seeking therapy not knowing what do with my life. So I picked up writing again, but I also picked up drawing and got into comics. I love both, but I can only make time for one, I'm not in the best mental state right now so I tend to overthink, and end up having severe panic attack's.

I struggle to make a choice between becoming an indie comic book creator being a one man army (since I'm too broke to hire an artist so learn how to do everything) or becoming a prose author. I'm aware these two things aren't the best life paths, and there's a 1% chance I'll ever have these as jobs and I'm okay with doing these as my hobbies or something i do on the side whilst i try to get my life together. It's even harder by the fact that for either of these, again they will probably ever get serious because I live in a country where none of these have a market so these will primarily be for myself and I'm fine with that. (There are 0 comic book stores)

I'm just confused and just broken, and I'm sorry for the rambling.

In your honest opinions, what do you think I should pursue?

I genuinely do highly respect those that can both write and draw their own stuff. Of course in the industry and indie space, we have many examples such as Mike Mignola, Todd McFarlane, Jeff Lemire, Daniel Warren Johnson. I wanted to ask some questions though.

1: For those of you that truly do everything, write, pencil, ink, color, letter. How long does it take you to pump out a 22 page issue if you have a series. Especially for the fact that most people in the comics space have full time non related comic jobs.

2: How long did it take you to reach a point in which you can confidently do every part of the process in a manner and skill you're proud of?

3: How do you balance doing the whole process of comic creation, with marketing the book yourself (with your 9 to 5) and in the scenario that you don't drop an issue monthly, how do you maintain interest in your series in that more a month gap between issues?

4: Would you confidently advise your fellow writers, artists, pencillers, fellow comic book creators to try and be a one man army like you have?

5: Do you sometimes wish you'd hired a team and if you haven't, what's your favorite part of being a one man army?

I've seen so much advice as well from comic book writer's such as Gail Simone going along the lines of WRITE ANYTHING!!! Prose, scripts etc. I noticed another path for aspiring comic book writers is that they venture into prose or film. I mean Brian K Vaughan worked on Lost and is writing Dune part three. Scott Snyder worked on prose as well. Neil Gaiman was a journalist and Stephanie Williams from what I could find was also a journalist. Heck the greatest example is NK Jemisin, people love far sector and they love her broken earth trilogy. Even the likes of Brandon Sanderson have dabbled in graphic novels. Christopher Rouccio wrote a thor comic. Orson Scott Card wrote an Iron Man comic. Is it really that common for people particularly successful in prose to break into comics and how intricately are prose and comics interlinked cause HECK even Stan Lee wanted to be a prose writer. Leigh bardugo has written a graphic novel for her Grishaverse series. Marjorie Liu before Monstress was a prose writer. Can this be a third option for aspiring comic book writers who wouldn't mind mastering both the craft of prose and the craft of comic writing? More or less a thing of how many wrestler's become actors like John Cena or the Rock. Going through professional wrestling first due to circumstances. The same way for example Markiplier became a Youtuber first before making the acclaimed movie Iron Lung due to circumstance as well. Something more or less like that

Ever since we finally moved back to our home country, thing's haven't looked right for us. It's been 13 yrs and I still feel so SUFFOCATED by my home country to the point where I can't even imagine myself staying anywhere in the country outside the capital city. The Capital city which is filled to the brim with multiple cultures and is honestly the only place in this country where I feel at peace. I know though if I leave ill still feel like a foreigner but I have to try. I'd rather feel like a foreigner in a different country and feel like I can breathe rather than still feel like a foreigner in my own country and feel suffocated. Anyone else feel this way?

Writers feel undervalued and underappreciated because alot of artists keep saying "That anyone can write" and because of workload between the two "The writer isn't even that important".

With sweeping statements like "if the writer feels this way, they should just write a novel"

Artists feel undervalued and underappreciated because alot of writers seemingly underestimate how much time it takes to draw just a 22 page comic, alot of writers either scam the artist out of their fair pay or instead offer them so called "exposure". Overhyping themselves and their skills alot.

With that in mind, with all this toxicity wouldn't it just be best for the writer to learn how to draw and the artist to learn how to write, at least a bare bones criteria for entering comics since it seems y'all can't get along. Just have everyone be a Jeff Lemire or a Mike Mignola, both writing and drawing their own comics.

Do what the mangaka do??? (YES I KNOW THEY HAVE ASSISTANTS BUT AT THE END OF THE DAY THE MANGAKA CAN WRITE A GOOD STORY AND DRAW).

It's just so darn heated!!!

For context I'm from Botswana. A third world country which is very small (we're about 2 million). It has a non existent comic and art market and very few artists. (The few artists make more or less abstract art, the type you'd see in galleries).

So ofc for an aspiring comic book writer they'd have to hire an artist abroad.

How would that work though as I've seen that the standard page rate is in dollars. Now this is no problem but I have two questions.

1: Would said writer pay the same page rates as someone living in the US?

Would for example an artist in the US that charges 30 dollars per page charge the same for me and I'd have to cough up the equivalent of 30 dollars for a page in my currency?

1 dollars equals 14 pula (my countries currency)

In that case what would be in the thousands for you guys to make comics would be in the tens of thousands for just a 30 page comic.

Not complaining. Artists should ALWAYS ALWAYS be paid and it's unfortunate the circumstances but all we can do is suck it up and cough up cash if we want to make comics.

2: What if both the writer and artist live outside the US. Let's say the writer is from Kazakhstan and the artist is from Bangladesh. What's the usual arrangement there?

I'm sure there are cases of artists looking for writers but it seems rarer than writers looking for artists.

How does one even try to become a "freelance comic book writer" so to speak in the indie and creator owned space (outside of the big two)

Many writers want to bring their ideas to life and hire artists but I don't see alot of writers going "Hey, I want to bring other people's ideas to life, let me try and work FOR an artist". I'm sure they exist and I'm probably ignorant and ofc many writers strive to work for the big two?

How does one though become a freelance comic book writer?

What if you don't want to hire an artist but you want an artist to hire YOU!!! With that being your aim from the beginning?

Do you just build a script portfolio for artist's to look at....a portfolio of well tuned not drawn scripts?

What do artists look for in a script??

This is my first time on reddit btw, so I apologize if I come off as weird or if I'm not doing this right. Long story short I was born in Botswana (Southern Africa) and as soon as I was born our family moved to Northern Ireland where we lived there for 8 years. We came back to Botswana and i've been here for 13 years, been here ever since I was 8 yrs old. Im 21 years old now and any hint of irish (including the accent) has died off but I still dont belong or at least feel like I dont belong.

If anything because I grew up on the Internet, specifically a shit ton of geek culture like comics from the big two (Marvel and DC), Hollywood movies (especially blockbusters like star wars) and Science fiction and fantasy novels (like Brandon sanderson's, Game of thrones etc). All of which are appreciated here but not something available or are loved by the general public here.

and hung out with many well off kids in my country as well as foreigners (immigrants from Zimbabwe mostly) I haven't exactly assimilated well and Im more or less Americanized. I can't speak my own language as well as it makes me feel uncomfortable (I'm probably just a jackass and stuck up for even saying that). Even when just existing people can quickly point out that I'm not assimilated or that I'm foreign before I even open my mouth (or just assume I'm rich)

Alot of the people here even make fun of my accent with many assuming I lived in the United States, Australia or England. Though most chalk it up to "white accent" and make fun of it (from high schoolers to all my college classmates), many strangers can't even understand what I'm saying half of the time.

All this to say do I technically count or am i just stubborn at assimilation as most TCK's come back to their home country at around 15, 16, 20. Do I still count and if not is there a term for people like me???

This is my first time on reddit btw, so I apologize if I come off as weird or if I'm not doing this right. Long story short I was born in Botswana (Southern Africa) and as soon as I was born our family moved to Northern Ireland, where we lived for 8 years. We came back to Botswana and i've been here for 13 years, been here ever since I was 8 yrs old. Im 21 years old now and any hint of irish (including the accent) has died off but I still dont belong or at least feel like I dont belong.

If anything because I grew up on the Internet, specifically a shit ton of geek culture like comics from the big two (Marvel and DC), Hollywood movies (especially blockbusters like star wars and the MCU) and science fiction and fantasy novels (like Brandon sanderson's cosmere, George rr martin's a song of ice and fire, Leigh Bardugo's Grisha verse, Pierce Brown's Red rising etc). All of which are appreciated here but not something available to or loved by the general public here.

I hung out with many well off kids in my country as well as foreigners (immigrants from Zimbabwe mostly) I haven't exactly assimilated well and im more or less Americanized. I can't speak my own language as well as it makes me feel uncomfortable (I'm probably just a jackass and stuck up for even saying that). Even when just existing, people can quickly point out that I'm not assimilated or that I'm foreign before I even open my mouth (or just assume I'm from a very well off family because I speak English 100% of the time).

Alot of the people here even make fun of my accent with many assuming I lived in the United States, Australia or England. Though most chalk it up to "white accent", call me "whitewashed" or "British" or "Lekgoa" (white man in our language) and make fun of it (from random high schooler's in the bus to all my college classmates), many strangers can't even understand what I'm saying half of the time.

One time, an old lady on the bus of whom I wasn't even talking to ranted about how Gen Z dont appreciate their culture and are spoilt. All because she overheard me having a conversation in English with my friends, WE WERE SITTING AT THE FAR BACK OF THE BUS MIND YOU!!!!

All this to say do I technically count or am i just stubborn at assimilation, as most TCK's come back to their home country at around 15, 16, 20. Do I still count and if not is there a term for people like me???