1

I’ve got a system to keep people from seeing what I’m drawing.

A thousand cartoons and TV shows and teen movies would lead you to believe that when you’re drawing something at your desk in school, a pretty girl is going to say “What are you drawing?” and you’ll tell her and she’ll go “That’s neat” and your artistry will reveal to her the secret sensitivity in your soul and she’ll leave her football-player boyfriend for you. These cartoons and TV shows and teen movies are wrong.

In my experience, a pretty girl never sees you drawing and goes “You’re an amazing artist.” In my experience a pretty girl sees you drawing and, if she says anything at all, she goes, “Wow, you’re a really good drawer.” Not drawer like where you put socks, but draw-er. Guys who are good at basketball are not described as excellent throwers, and dudes who are good at guitar are not called really good strummers, but somehow I’m a really good draw-er.

And the experience does not change based on what it is she catches you drawing in the margins of your math notebook or whatever. No matter how well you’re drawing it, there’s nothing good you can be drawing. You can’t win. If you’re drawing superheroes, that looks nerdy. If you’re drawing landscapes or things girls might actually like, like animals, that looks girly. If you’re drawing the female figure, you’re a pervert. If you’re drawing the male figure, you’re gay. If you’re drawing superheroes and you haven’t gotten around to drawing the masks or capes or whatever yet, you’re gay. Do yourself a favor: Don’t start with the muscles. Start with the rocketpack and work your way out. You’ll still be nerdy, but everybody knew that about you already. I mean, come on: you’re DRAWING.

And those “how-to-draw-comics” books? Fuck those books. Everybody saw those in their Scholastic book orders in second grade and now they assume I just ordered enough of those books, and that anyone could draw this well if they’d done the same. Well, they’re a little right. I did order like two of those books. And the first thing they teach you is this system of lines and shapes, to sketch out the bodies first before you fill in the details. Basically what you have before you start having anything that looks like anything is a page full of what looks like basketballs and potato sacks. The basketball-looking things are eventually gonna be heads and the potato sacks are eventually gonna be torsos, but when I was drawing based on those books, the guidelines would never really erase right and it always looked like all my characters’ limbs were built around a sack of potatoes with a superhero insignia printed on it, or like they’d just been nailed in the face with a superheated basketball. Anyway, the point is, fuck those books.

There’s this kid, Tony DiAvalo, who always makes a big show of being the kid who draws in class. He’ll use whatever time is left over at the end of the period and pull out his special pencils and his special pencil sharpener and this big fucking drawing pad and just start.

He’s good, I guess. Probably even good enough to justify all the supplies. But it’s just so goddamn showoff-y, and the things he picks to draw are just so inane. It’s all pop-culture stuff, never anything original. It’s always, like, one of those cartoon M&Ms except the M&M is wearing a doo-rag and smoking a joint and he’s written something underneath the M&M like “HUSTLIN’.” Kids think it’s hilarious. And I guess, if pressed, he would point to that joint and doo-rag as his “originality.” He’d probably have you believe he’s as original as someone who fills their noteb

---

Excerpted from The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To by D. C. Pierson
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.