Maybe it’s not all a waste…
When I first moved to NYC in 1998 (on the advice of my college art teacher), I planned on being a comic artist I interviewed with DC and Marvel, both were going bankrupt at the time and only wanted tame work that highlighted their major characters.
I went on to do darker material for other publishers, but having done a few more mainstream comics, I feel I really dodged a bullet there. I get bored with that material so quickly, it’s hard to do my best work.