The passing of the torch...

 It's just occurred to me that with the loss of poor Ian Gibson, one of the cornerstones of 2000ad, we are fast approaching a point where all those who created the masterpieces we love, that inspired us to become creators, will leave us.

Ridley Scott, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese are all in their eighties, Philippe Druillet is seventy-nine, Posy Simmons is seventy-eight, Aphex Twin is fifty-two, Bill Sienkiewicz is sixty-five and this year we lost both Cormac McCarthy and Martin Amis.

The time will soon arrive where we will, hopefully/unfortunately elevated to the position of those whom we have been inspired by.
And I find myself seriously wanting.

I remember Warren Ellis telling me once that the most frightening thing for him was being spotted Euston station and almost being mobbed. This was around the time when The Authority was being published. That a thing that once existed entirely in his head once articulated prompted such a visceral reaction.

Now understand, it's not fame that frightens me because fame can be useful for motivating positive change, it's the fear that despite all my self-belief and confidence that in the long run when compared against my peers, I'll be a pail shadow in comparison.
*That's* what frightens me.

BUT.....unlike comics and illustration for which fear of looking crap have halted my ambitions dead since 2010, I can't *not* write.

I could not have conceived of The Authority, much less The Three Body Problem, Rosewater, Shogun, Lone Slone, or a Brief History of Seven Killings.
But what I can do it write (and draw) the best Joseph Elliott-Coleman stories on Earth.

All I can hope is that when I've shuffled off this mortal coil, that my work will be judged on its own merits. And that somewhere out there they'll be someone who is as inspired to create as I was when I digested Lensmen, Robotech, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Terminator, and 2001 all in the space of one summer holiday in the eighties.
Heaven help me if it had discovered 2000AD in the eighties. It would have broken my tiny little mind!!